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Kirias hissed as more Wyverns surrounded her, there were eight in total now. "I could use 'that' but I don't know where Bakher is and it might hit him" she thought to herself. She knew that Wyverns were resistant to most magicks, most dragons were. "This sucks" she moaned.

Kaishin and Raiden continued to trade blows, both physical and magikal. "This is going nowhere" Kaishin thought. In terms of both magick and strength, Kaishin and Raiden were equal.
"Well what shall we do?" Raiden said. "We can keep this up all day..."
Kaishin growled, he was right after all. Even if he beat Raiden there was still a powerful daemon do deal with.
The stench of the swamp was beginning to get to him and he was getting a headache from the constant spellcasting.
All of a sudden, a bark came from behind Raiden, had one of the Pack wolves followed Kai into the swamp?
Raiden turned to find the source of the noise... and that was the opening that Kaishin was waiting for. He looked towards the sky and howled, his body glowing with what looked like blue flames. A great lightning bolt then dropped from the sky and hit Raiden with tremendous force.
All was silent for a second then the spot where the bolt struck erupted with a great explosion.
Once it had passed, Kaishin slowly approached where Raiden had stood, his body now charred black.
"Guess I win..." he said softly. "Rest in peace...." and he too fell to the ground, exhausted from the fight. The last thing he saw was something approaching him.

Some time later...

Raiden opened one eye slowly and looked around. "It appears that I lost that one" he muttered. Kaishin was gone and the demonic energies had begun to heal him, but not fast enough. A shadow was then cast upon him and he looked up to see a great snake towering above him.
"Sssssuch a tassssty looking morsssel... Well done wolf... yummy". And with that, the giant anaconda opened it's great maw and dove upon him. Raiden's scream was loud... yet short.

Panting in pain and exhaustion, Bakher skidded to a stop above were he thought Kirias was, and warily peeked over the edge of the small bluff.

She was there, and she was pinned; the bodies of several Wyverns (and the pieces of several more) lay scattered around, but even a Dragon couldn't hope to fight off eight separate attackers at once, even if they couldn't really injure her with their talons and fangs.

All they'd have to do is nick her somewhere vulnerable, like the wings, the face, or the joints, and she'd go down from their venom, paralyzed and helpless. It took a lot to hack through a concious dragons scales, but a paralyzed one?

Even a Human with a knife could kill.


He fanned out his wings, and gasped as his wounds opened; He'd have one shot at this before he tore the tendons in his flight muscles completly out, and then he'd be grounded.

-Better make this work, then!-

He backed up a few paces, then ran towards the edge of the cliff, fanning out his wings.

-< Kirias! I'll get their attention!>- He called out mentally as he dove towards one of the Wyverns, and tilted his wings just enough to slow his fall.

He shrieked in pain as he felt the tendons in his wings go, but he didn't really need his wings to stop now.

The Wyvern he landed on top of sufficed to stop him.

It gave a cut off cry as his weight slammed it to the ground, the force of his fall severing its spine, leaving it alive but unable to move.

He painfully folded his wings before leaping at the unprotected back of another Wyvern, shrieking the gryphonic battle cry that all who'd truly fought a gryphon learned to fear; you could hunt a Gryphon, you could trap him, even kill him, but you never, ever defeated one.

Kiba watched as she moved around quickly. He waited for an opening and he jumped on her playfully pinning her. "You're quick." He said, jumping off her and waited for her to make a move.

Using the surprise attack that Bakher launched, Kirias began a n attack of her own. Turning to the confused Wyverns that ran about in confusion, she slammed her talons into to earth and inhaled deeply. Opening her maw, she unleashed her powerful fire breath and turned it on the smaller drakes.
Normally this wouldn't have much of an effect on draconic beings, but since these Wyverns were born and bred in the forest, they lacked the training given by volcanic surroundings to build up a resistance to heat.
Painful at first, the fire quickly ended their suffering and incinerated the creatures.
After the drakes were defeated, the dragoness turned to Bakher and smiled. "Thanks for the help" she said softly, glad that Bakjer had come when he did. "Now let's tend to those wounds shall we?"
Focusing her will upon him, she began to fill him with healing magicks, working on the gashes on his back and the torn tendons in his wings.
"How's that?" she asked him.

Meanwhile, s small tan-coloured wolf walked carefully into the Wolf's Den, carrying the unconscious form of the Alpha Male, Kaishin on her back. She was only a small wolf, so such a task wasn't easy.
"Hello!" she barked out. "Is anybody here? I need some help out there".

He arched his back and cautiously extended his wings after Kirias did her Magiks on his back, and cooed appreciatively; the skin tugged, but didn't hurt, and although he could feel a bit of tightness to the tendons of his wings, he was still able, upon trying, to lift off the ground.

"Good! Thank you, Kirrrrriassss."

He looked over at the smoldering remains of the Wyverns she'd toasted, and cawed in dismay; They were completely inedible, and any of the trophies he'd normally get off a kill like a Wyvern were ruined.

One of them still moved; the one he'd landed on. It cried out in agony, and he went over to it.

It was a fine example of a Mature Wyvern; Strong, scales glowing with health, and- he pressed a talon to its keelbone to feel- not starving. So why had it attacked him and Kirias? Wyverns normally fled from Dragons; Dragons ate Wyverns, and although Wyverns COULD kill Dragons, it took far more Wyverns than had attacked them to do any reasonably appreciable harm.

Ignoring its weak and powerless growls of threat, he grabbed one of the Wyverns wingarms, and, grunting with the effort (Wyverns were bigger in size and weighed quite a bit more than he did) flipped the paralyzed Wyvern over onto its back, then proceeded to poke and sniff closely at it, intending to see if he could figure out the reason for its bizarre behavior.

He started at the head. He carefully opened the Wyverns mouth and examined its impressive collection of steak knife sized, serrated teeth closely, noting in passing that none of them were broken, or anything but in the most perfect of condition.

So its not in pain from some problem with its fangs...there goes one theory...

He then moved on, checking the black ebony, backwards curving horns on its head as well as the reptilian crest that started on its head and ran down to end between its wings; nothing.

The next thing he checked, flipping the Wyvern over onto its stomach, was the wings themselves.

Nothing wrong there; aside from the gashes his talons had made in them, the leathery membranes of its wings were fine, and so was the rest of its wings.

Growing more confused, he flipped it back onto its back and began to examine its torso, and here was the first signs of something odd; Parrallel scars, too normal and defined to be something picked up from the wild, ran between two pairs of ribs on either side of its body. He sniffed closely; the scarring was old, well healed. He wondered what had put it there.

Perplexed, he worked his way down to the legs, and here he saw more signs that something was odd. Normal Wyverns didn't walk as much as Dragons did; it was difficult for them, as they had to essentially "wingwalk" on the ground, or awkwardly and slowly hop on their hind legs to move, and thus flew most everywhere.

This Wyvern showed extensive signs of having walked around, and something else made him pause; its feet were totally different in structure than what he remembered from previous hunts; it was possible that this was merely a local variation from the Desert dwelling Wyverns he'd hunted, but he didn't think so.

Wyverns normally had hindfeet like his forefeet; two or more toes with long talons on front and a toe on the back, perfect for grabbing onto prey.

THIS wyvern had feet closer to that of Kirias's; five long talons on front, and a massive dewclaw on the back.He wondered at the odds of this, then saw faint but noticable scarring. Puzzled, he grasped one of the talons to look clsoer, and heard his own talons clink off something metal. he peered closly; there WAS something metal around the base of the Wyverns talon, like a toering. he tugged on it, and wasn't surprised when it didn't budge; it had obviously been there a while. He bared a talon, and gingerly cut into the skin around it, ignoring the Wyverns cries as he cut it free. Once he was done, he pulled it free, and looked it over; some sigil, almost like a overly ornate snake with writing he didn't recognize, was stamped into the inside of it, with the cryptic words "TSCA-THREE" inscribed on the outside of the ring. He didn't recognize either of the things on the ring, and set it aside for now; someone had modified this creature. But why? and more importantly, Who?

the tail stinger wasn't changed at all; two feet long, coated in viscous venom, and jagged, it seemed like whoever had tinkered with this Wyvern hadn't found anything to improve on here.

His inspection done, he swiftly cut the Wyverns throat, then, fearing what he would find, went over to the rest of the dead Wyverns and checked their hind feet. Except for the ones Kirias had incinerated, they all bore the same bands around one of their foot talons, and the Wyverns Kirias had incinerated all showed the same unusual foot structure, so he could reasonably say all the Wyverns here, and likely the ones he'd killed a ways off, were all the same. He paced a moment, then looked at Kirias and clacked his beak.

"Thisssss wasss no rrrrrandom attack, and thessssse arrrre NOT yourrrr averrrrage rrrrun of the mill Wyverrrrrnssss eitherrrrr; Sssssomeone, and sssssomeone verrrrrry crrrrafty, hasssss alterrrrrred thessssse Wyverrrrns thrrrrough ssssome forrrrm of Sssssurgerrry. I found thisssss-"
He held up the band he'd found for her to see both the message and the sigil on it.
"- arrrround one of itsssss talonssssss. Have any idea what it issss, orrrr why it'ssss on all the Wyverrrrnssss that jussssst trrrried to kill ussss?"

Kiba chased after her, and was barely able to keep up. He was lucky last time, just because he timed her movement, she actually was faster than him. He noticed she started to slow down and jumped in front of her. "Boo!"