Yamamoto Jin
All the world became a nightmare. The road had become a blur. His eyelids widening when they should have closed. An invisible hand squeezed, juicing his lungs. It lasted a split second before the blur ignited. Cars exploded, gravel burst, launched high.
He should have been dead the second it happened.
Molten death charged with the force of a tidal wave.
He just stood there.
There was time to pray his death wouldn't be too painful. The wave crashed, the sound deafening. The heat unbearable.
Seconds passed.
He opened an eye… then the other.
Paula/Paige stared down the dragon, arms out. The flame split. They were a rock in the centre of a raging river. It lasted a minute before dissipating.
Paula/Paige clapped.
A gorilla rose out her chest like a ghost from hell. Any description was unjust. It wasn't white so much as an ashen pink with massive tufts of white on the joints and spine. It bent and Paula/Paige climbed its back hairs, reaching right into its flesh and pulled two cords made of a fine mist.
She wrapped the cloud around her left and pulled the other as far as she could, drawing it out until it faded out of the beast's back. She flicked it and it solidified into a whip. There was something fascinating and alarming about seeing her with a whip.
The gorilla turned to him, he recoiled, forcing himself to grow a spine. Paula/Paige saw him as if it were the first time. Her eyes the brightest green he'd ever seen. It wasn't that her eyes 'were'. Existence wasn't enough, were 'acted', a living verb that imposed upon reality.
Paige patted the gorilla's head, it picked him up, tossing him over its shoulder like a model in a shoot. Him the jacket.
"Hold tight. I'm technically the only rider allowed on my charge."
The Paula thing's over.
Her voice was different, it wasn't speaking, but telling. Also, her Japanese was fundamentally different, it had all the right words, but there was an American twang that suggest she should have been in a batman game, or was at least from whatever neighbourhood Harley Quin grew. It was borderline a whole new Japanese dialect. Very different, very solid. Not that his opinion mattered to her.
Nothing could tear her eyes away from the dragon.
He couldn't get over it, her determination and eagerness to face the unknown.
"Rider? Charge?" Jin screamed, stuck on words he thought he knew.
"It's getting ready to fire. I'm not strong enough to take another blast. So-"
Her voice disappeared behind the dragon's roar.
It flung its head back, showing pale gold scales. Its neck expanded. He could see air pulling in. Smouldering embers lit up around them, the head slung forwards.
"Shit! Aramas move!" Paige screamed.
Jin had to suppress a scream. The gorilla's muscles bulged and tightened, turning from clay to steel. It jumped onto a circular glass building opposite the hospital. The speed and accuracy stole Jin's orientation. Just then fire blanketed the street, climbing each floor. The street disappeared in an orange sea. Aramas jumped.
They were airborne.
His bearings held. Time slowed, them floating over the dragon's head. The fire burst glass planes, it prowled, ravenous, hunting, climbing, merciless. How many tens of thousands were dead? Time came back full force with them landing on the dragon's back.
Like a snake, it turned its head fully, twisting and belching death like a firehose on the loose. Jin hung on for dear life as Aramas dove from left to right, dodging a mouth the size of a swimming pool.
"This isn't working," Paige yelled.
The mouth was so close Jin choked on the smell of brimstone. Yet, when there was a clear shot, never once were its flames used. It sputtered off when ever it couldn't fire away from its massive flesh.
Wasn't it immune?
An idea started to form. They only needed to stick close, maybe-
"Jin! I need you to find the rider. We'll keep him busy." She yelled, thrusting and swaying perfectly.
She the majestic rodeo, him the clown.
"Rider? What's a rider?!!!!"
Aramas flicked him off.