Unconscious also now as Dusk roared – slamming a diamond dome up all around him.
Phase two complete!Rhennic roared through all their minds now as their allies rallied with a tremendous love in their hearts.King Mathii, Heathren, Adrian, Layla, Lightning-Strikers – phase three!
As battle engulfed the night, both sides fighting impossibly hard now, Hunter flooded a furious rage through his Royal Dragon Binds, making them fight even harder with their single-minded attacks. The Hotel’s allies fought back just as hard with their renewed heart, giving their all to take Hunter’s army down. At Rhennic’s command, King Lethou Mathii suddenly surged up into the air on an enormous wind-funnel as his turquoise and red spear-winged Dragon, along with his Black Spear Dragon retinue – the Ephilohim shooting into the air also as they snapped open their seven-layer wings. As King Mathii roared with his retinue, Adrian and Layla, Rachida and Emir and the rest of the Desert Dragons from Morocco joined him, as the Ephilohim shoved that magic hard into the ether. The air flooded with heat, gold-white fires in braziers throughout the grounds suddenly roaring up from their massive confines.
Into seething bonfires on all sides – boiling through the real world and the etheric realm both as they ripped through Hunter’s forces.
Heat blazed into Layla so deep she thought her eyeballs would explode, as the grounds and near side of the Red Letter Hotel Paris were charred away in a scalding white-hot rush of fire. But even as King Mathii’s forces and Adrian’s inundated the battle with flame, Rhennic and his Lightning-Strikers went ballistic, erupting the now-black sky with sheet-lightning and sending countless Binds of Hunter’s crashing to the ground as they tried to escape the fires. Below, Reginald, Fury, and their brothers flooded up a watery shield from the Hotel’s lake – protecting their allies from the flames as Dusk and his Crystal Dragon fighters from Egypt shielded others from lightning. The allies’ fierce organization held strong against Hunter’s attacks; hundreds more Royal Dragon Binds were falling, burned and struck as others collapsed to the ground. But even as Layla celebrated, she saw more Dragons pour in from those rifts in the sky, earth, and fountain.
As Hunter himself joined the battle now.
Roaring down from the sky as a Dragon so enormous he dwarfed the rift, Hunter was a titan of dawnfire terror as he came for Layla and her Bind. Layla hadn’t recalled him being so large when he’d tried to master her in his realm; even as she and the rest of the Bind roared around in unison to face him, Layla saw how Hunter towered even over Reginald, Dusk, and Fury now. He was a creature of the ages, larger than the entire Grand Ballroom as he flared his blazing dawn-spear wings, lashing a viciously-serrated spiked tail as he stared them down with his searing dawn-light eyes. Crushing the charred rose gardens and topiaries, his enormously muscled, rose and sky-blue plated body blazed like a star in the night as he snapped up a mantle of gold-rose spears.
Opening his fanged maw and roaring – flooding a wave of terror so hard into Layla and her drakes that Layla shrank back, despairing.
But even as she felt Hunter’s fear devour the Bind, halting them all in a terrible moment of anguish, a cadre of red and black geodesic-patterned Blood Dragons swooped in fast. As Hunter faced down the Bind, the Scandinavian Blood Dragons swarmed all over him with King Huttr Erdhelm, Prince Halfdir, and Rikyava screeching like harpies of war as they dove. Each held a Forbidden Spear in their talons and coiled in their long tails, plus a Vampire riding their backs from Quindici’s retinue – as Layla watched, Rikyava hurled the first Forbidden Spear, Quinn riding her back like a demon of the ages. Roaring a wealth of blood droplets the Blood Dragons created into a seething mass of blood-smoke lances, Quinn hurled them at Hunter in a tremendous strike. As countless Forbidden Spears were volleyed now with Vampire blood-lances right into Hunter’s dawn-scaled flesh, his concentration on the Bind broke.
And Rikyava’s roar hammered in on a wave of mind-magic from Quinn.
Fight, bitches!Layla heard Rikyava snarl all through the Bind now.Fight the brute and stop standing there with your thumbs up your asses!
Hunter roared as the Blood Dragon’s Forbidden Spears impaled him, along with the Vampire’s terrible drives. As caustic violet cancer bloomed through his serrated dawn-light scales, along with an even deadlier looking copper-black venom devouring him from the Vampire’s creations, Hunter roared in a sound so enormous that it shook the earth and sky, thundering all through the ether. As he roared, his shockwave was so massive it slammed the Blood Dragons, hurtling them out over the Paris Hotel’s forest. Flashing out from the Blood Dragon’s backs into writhing black smoke, Quinn and his Vampires shot to the ground now, surrounding Layla and her Bind in a fierce ring of seething darkness and half-formed wrath as they protected the group.
But even as Hunter roared, the battle pausing all around as his mind-commands to his forces were lost in his pain and fury, Layla saw their win was only temporary. The Blood Dragon’s Forbidden Spears had penetrated his flesh and the Vampire’s blood-lances had done even more damage, poisonous violet-black and copper light eating away scales now like acid. But Hunter’s dawn-bright scales were already repelling the lances, smoothing the damage with a terrible wave of etheric magic.
Healing him like nothing Layla had ever seen.
But Rikyava and Quinn’s drive had broken Hunter’s concentration on Layla’s Bind; not to mention the battle, stalled and fractured now without Hunter’s dominance controlling it. Freed from Hunter’s fear, Layla and her men surged up in a hurricane of all-magic power as they came for Hunter now, using their magics in a disastrous synergy to pummel him from all sides. Still injured, Hunter gave a deafening roar as he slammed up a thick every-power shield to defend himself. As he flooded it with etheric magic, making one of those half-in and half-out of the Realm bubbles he was infamous for, Layla felt Fury go entirely silver inside his mind, his Siren-drake knowing he could break that barrier. Layla felt a flood of Hunter’s mind-power wash out then, telling his Royal Dragon Binds to leave off fighting the Hotel’s allies.
And turn all their power upon Layla and her men.
It was devastating. Layla and her drakes were suddenly hurtling into a tight cocoon of every-magic as Hunter’s entire army of Bound Dragons came for them at once. Even as she and Adrian, Dusk, Reginald, Rhennic, and Fury were hit with wave after wave of disastrous Royal Dragon might, she could feel Hunter’s sways seethe through his army – making them come into accordance with each other and use their own Bind-powers to solidify their attacks. Within moments, he had his strongest warriors hurtling every-magic power at Layla and her men’s cocoon, blasting chunks out of it and searing everyone within. Layla’s body erupted into pain as strikes found her flesh, blasting away sales and blitzing deep. As yet another strike skewered her shoulder, she heard Rhennic roar a terrible command through her.
One they had hoped not to use today.
Retreat! Phase four! To the underground!
It was an all-out sprint for the Hotel as their allies rushed back into the damaged Grand Ballroom and the Hotel’s halls. As Reginald and Fury cast their mind-magics wide, slamming the route down to King DuVir’s crystal catacombs into all their allies’ thoughts, Dusk rumbled a hard pulse straight down to Norbu Gyatso – getting their forces below ready. Layla and her Bound men were fast as they hurtled into the ballroom, keeping an every-magic shield up to absorb strikes as they rushed inside its damaged vaults. As they got there, King Lethou Mathii’s Black Spear Dragons surged out, flooding across the opening of the Grand Ballroom and cutting off the Bind from Hunter’s pursuit. Snarling as his enormous sand, red, and turquoise Desert drake, King Lethou Mathii’s eyes flashed blue fire as his black spear wings snapped wide.
And his forces held the line.
Go, my Heir!King Mathii roared to Adrian.I’ll hold the Calamity off.
Layla’s heart screamed at the Desert King’s order, even as Adrian nodded fast. A combined wave of Hunter’s every-power magic hurled into King Mathii and his forces now – a terrible blast from hundreds of Binds at once. It exploded the entire ballroom as King Mathii’s brazier-flames leapt to fire back. Layla felt the Desert Dragon King’s power blaze through the ether as his Black Spear Dragons hurtled into the fray, spinning upon vortices of wind and flame, paralyzing Hunter’s Binds by the dozens with strikes from their naturally poisonous Forbidden Spears all over their bodies. As King Mathii flooded fire through the fabric of the ether itself, hundreds of Hunter’s Binds fell.
But Hunter kept coming – and with a terrible explosion in the night, the King and the Hunter crashed together in battle once more.
Layla, GO!!Rhennic roared all through her now as the halls of the Hotel were blasted away, everything sublimating to desert-glass as white fire erupted through the night. Somehow, the Bind’s shield held; with a rush, they were off through the Hotel even as halls thundered down all around, succumbing to the Desert King’s battle against his ancient foe. Fire was everywhere; everything was burning as Layla and her men dashed down the nearest Guard-tunnel into the underground, shifting down fast into human to fit through the tunnels as they ran.
As they hit the stairs down to King DuVir’s underground palace, Layla found an entire cadre of Red Giants literally holding up the walls and ceiling from caving in, waiting for them. Dozens of allies were rushing into the underground with them, but Layla’s heart fell as she saw how few were left. As the entire Hotel shook to its foundations from the Desert King and Hunter’s battle, Layla hurtled in through the diamond pillars and into King DuVir’s stronghold. Breathing hard and ignoring injuries, closing from her shift, she glanced around fast.
Seeing no more than five hundred allies left.
Nearly all of them were wounded. Even the Dragons and other shape-shifters who had taken wounds were all slow to heal from how exhausted they were. Blood pooled around a few who had fallen unconscious, and Dusk, Reginald, and Fury went to those quickly as they gasped from the fight, using what healing magics they had left to stabilize the fallen.
A terrible crash suddenly shook the underground, and out in the hall, the tunnel began to truly collapse. With a shout, Adrian roared at the Red Giants to let it go, now that the tide of allies had ceased; they did, rushing into the crystal cavern just as the hall behind them caved in. Moving fast to the diamond pillars, Dusk put his palm quickly to one, and Layla felt his rumble power them up in a rush. As they shone bright, their magic activated, Dusk stumbled back, heaving hard breaths as he braced his hands on his thighs and coughed.
“That’s it! We’re in. Anyone still left outside will have to fare as they will.”
