The Dragonslayer (title is a w.i.p.)

Chapter 10

Armin felt himself falling before he had processed it in his head. Once he realised he was in freefall, he had about a tenth of a second to figure something out and do it, so he just did it. He reached up with force, getting him just high enough to lodge his sword in Muka-Unta's mouth. He then quickly swung himself up, but the sword remained. The point of the sword was touching the roof of Muka-Unta's mouth. Armin hoped for a second that this might be less tough than the rest of his skin, but was mistaken. As soon as Muka-Unta realised the sword was where it was, it began to bite down, crushing the sword like a hydraulic press. The sword withstood for a very long time, but Armin started to hear creaking. It was struggling; he would have no hope without a sword, so he tried to distract the dragon and put its effort somewhere else. He ran to the dragon's broken wing and began to rip the flesh, causing the dragon extreme pain. It let out a high-pitched yelp, allowing the sword to slip and fall further into Muka-Unta's throat. Muka-Unta blasted fire at the sword, attempting to melt through it. The sword, which had just been under extreme stress, was weakened and slowly started to liquify. Armin assumed he had no chance; if he damaged the wing too much, Muka-Unta would fall and bring him with it. Just when he thought he was dead, the world slowed down almost to a halt, and the world started to look different, like there was a purple filter somewhat obscuring his vision. He heard a familiar voice in the back of his head. 'You need to look after gifts a lot better, first the axes, now this. I'm taking it until you kill this beast'. Armin realised at that moment who his saviour was: Brownie, the possibly omnipotent creature that gave him that sword. Armin was annoyed, though. As the world returned to normal, he was still unarmed, and Brownie could have easily returned the sword to him now. Either way, he didn't have any weapons or equipment left, or a plan. Muka-Unta, however, had a plan. It turned around, its head doused. It's entire back in flames, but could only do this for a few seconds at a time, allowing Armin to just about jump over or evade on its wing. Then Muka-Unta slammed its tail at where it predicted Armin to move. Armin had to be unpredictable and sometimes was forced backwards, but after some masterful dodging, he made it to the dragon's neck with only a few singes. Now that he was here, fire attacks were useless and tail attacks were too risky. Unfortunately, all of Armin's attacks were useless and risky as well. Muka-Unta tried to shake Armin off, but due to its ripped-up wing, he wasn't able to apply advanced flying tactics. As Armin was trying very hard to stay on, Muka-Unta had sneakily put its tail on its head and was ready to hit Armin directly in the head, though it couldn't see him very well. Armin noticed this a little before it was too late, but Muka-Unta could easily do it again. Armin was forced to lie down.

As Armin dodged and weaved various clever attack attempts while trying to stay on top of the constantly shaking head, he remembered something: the spikes could be knocked off. Armin immediately lifted up one leg and kicked the horn he was nearest to. The unexpected nature of this caused the dragon to lurch forward slightly, almost making Armin slip straight away after one kick. He dodged, crouched, kicked, re-adjusted his seat, and then repeated it over and over again. He almost fell a few times, but eventually the horn was loosening. To ensure it didn't fall off, though, he could no longer kick at it, meaning he would have to crawl further along Muka-Unta's head. He shuffled along and slipped; he had to grab onto a spike further back on the neck, and just about crawled back on. Now that he was back on, he shuffled much more cautiously. He was now lying in his stomach halfway across Muka-Unta's head. He could now grab the spike and wobble it around; he pulled as hard as he could, but now Muka-Unta was able to shoot fire in front of itself, and, due to the strong winds, it flew a bit at Armin. He dodged to the side and almost fell again. He picked himself up and got back to pulling. It was almost loose; by now most of his body was covered in burns, but he powered on through the pain. He pulled, pushed, and moved the horn around as much as possible, until, CRACK!, it became loose and fell into his hands. Now he grabbed it in two hands and smashed it against the exposed flesh of the dragon. It screamed in pain and shot fire at Armin, but he no longer cared; he just kept on hitting at the dragon, and eventually its skull was revealed. The dragon was practically unconscious, but he kept on hitting from horn to head, the bone started to crack, and eventually, in one big hit, CRACK! Muka-Unta was dead and plummeting to the ground. Armin used the horn to cut a bit of the dead dragon's wing out, then, holding it like a parachute, he used it to slow down his descent. Knowing this still might kill him, he saw a mountain and tried landing in one of the trees to break his fall as much as possible, ducking at the last second.

When he woke up, he realised he had created a clearing of his own; judging by the fact he wasn't dead, he assumed he was only unconscious for a minute or so. He got up and limped towards the dead body of Muka-Unta. A small bit of blood trickled out, which he spooned in his hands and drank, like it was clean water, and he had been stuck in a desert for his whole life. He drank for two minutes straight and soon started to feel his body repair. He took off one of his boots, which, although very badly damaged, managed to hold enough for Brashik and Whek. He walked through to an open field and lay there; there wasn't much else he could do when he was this far from civilization. After many hours of boredom and fear that he would never be found, he heard a familiar noise and looked up. There was Brashik, swirling down towards him with a bandage on his missing foot. Armin greeted him with many cuddles and petting. Armin gave Brashik some of the dragon blood, then hopped on his back, and they both discussed what had happened to each of them on the way back to Dohl Gago.

After I landed on the ground, I dug my bleeding leg into the snow, and it stopped it from bleeding temporarily. After what felt like a very long time, a lumberjack encountered me, and this lumberjack was somewhat of an animal lover, with four pet deer and a squirrel on his shoulder, so he carried me back to his log cabin. Once I was there, he tried to talk to me, and we got a conversation going. With a few misunderstandings, he bandaged me up, fed me, and then released me into the air, as I couldn't take off with one foot. After following burn marks and wind patterns and a lot of lucky guesswork, I found Muka-Unta's body, then I found you.

Once Armin and Brashik were back in Dohl Gago, Armin thought it best to give himself a day to rest before giving Whek her dragon blood. He heard her in his head getting very angry, but he knew she couldn't do much of anything without causing chaos in Dohl Gago, so she let Armin rest. As soon as he walked into his hotel room, his sword was there in perfect condition, along with a mirror that had a strap on its backside. Armin had no idea why this was, so he asked the owner if he knew anything about it; he didn't. Armin then assumed it was something Brownie had done, so he remembered to take it with him the following day. For now, though, he just laid down and went to sleep.