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Chapter 42: The last straw

"Is it curiosity or do you think it might be on our side?" Uriel made his revolver disappear to keep himself from shooting accidentally.

"Who do you take me for? I\'m not like that idiot, I know that cryptids aren\'t on our side." She pointed towards Sam who was still cowering in fear, trying to gather his thoughts. "But anything we find out could be useful to other people."

*Humph*

Uriel lifted the short girl in the air to let her have a clear sight. If she was embarrassed, no one would have known by the expression of her face. Or they wouldn\'t have, if not for the subtle change in the tone of her pale skin that became reddish.

"That\'s a... Huh... I don\'t recognize it, I mean... It\'s obviously a lizardman but, I don\'t know, it looks and moves weird like..." Luna was cut short when the creature that was engaged in a brawl against what looked like a giant centipede noticed their presence and Uriel let go of the tiny student to take out his gun. The reptileish creature made quick work of the centipede and jumped to the nearest wall, sinking its claws on the concrete and cracking it, crawling across the walls like, well, like a lizard.

"It\'s coming towards us, Luna protect Medusa." Uriel shouted, his revolver already cocked and ready to fire. A loud banging sound broke the silence, echoing in the long forsaken streets of the lost city. The bullet traversed from the chamber to the barrel after the short explosion, then it made its way at an incredible speed ending its journey after sonorlously hitting a wall.

"Why did you do that!?" Uriel scolded Luna after she bumped into him to make him miss the shot. There was little to no time until the creature reached their position and he didn\'t know if he would have another chance to take a shot.

"Because..." Luna stuttered showing how nervous she was. Uriel turned back to try again, but the creature was already poking its head over the wall. "That\'s miss Dragonfang!" Luna continued.

"Hello kidsss, I sssee you made it" The creature hissed, it\'s viperine tongue sticking out.

"Miss Dragonfang!?" Uriel couldn\'t believe his eyes as what stood in front of him wasn\'t the young woman he knew. There was nothing alluring about her and not a single drop of her charming personality leaked out of the unsightly lizard in front of him.

"Yesss, It\'sss me." The lizard shrugged.

"Uhm... I mean no offense but, can you turn back into a human please? You\'re kind of scary right now."

"Ah, Sssage, sssomehow I knew you would try sssomething perverted to sssee me naked, but I didn\'t know you\'d be ssso sstraighforward." Miss Dragonfang in her full lizard form replied amidst unsettling hisses.

"I don\'t mean it that way, but we already dealt with a shapeshifting creature today and one shapeshifting creature a day is my limit." Uriel insisted, but Luna glared at him as if saying \'you\'re scum\'.

"You\'re scum." She finally said, triggering the lizzardly figure of Miss Dragonfang\'s laughter. The raspy laugh was anything but human which gave the chills to the tired and scared students. Noticing the mental state of Sam and the physical condition of Medusa, Miss Dragonfang\'s vertical pupils widened for a split second. She didn\'t ask about Atomic, maybe because thanks to her enhanced senses that allowed her to figure out more or less what had happened to him despite the distance.

Without any meddling words, she darted inside the building and within a couple of minutes she came back dressed in old and dirty clothes she salvaged from the abandoned stores in the shopping mall. Her figure was now that of a human and, although her fashion sense demanded better clothes, she settled with denim pants and a hoodie much like Luna\'s. "You guys really made it, I\'m so glad." Her pearly white smile shone under the dim daylight. "This eclipse was particularly powerful, it was able to last way longer than I thought."

"Did you kill it?" Luna asked trying to hide her disappointment. A creature like that would have been an incredible study subject for her.

"Kill it!? Of course not you silly, those things are impossible to kill because they don\'t have a physical form. They feed on... I don\'t know what they feed on, all I know is they can withstand daylight only for a short duration."

"A short duration!? it was more than a day!" Uriel gasped.

"Well, most cryptids don\'t like the sun... but even though a whole day is nothing to scoff at, there are far more powerful creatures out there." Miss Dragonfang said, her words seemed more like a memory than a warning.

The group, now finally reunited with their leader, waited patiently for the sun to fully rise in the sky. Once the light became brighter, they walked down the stairs and out the building carrying as much loot as they could, except for Miss Dragonfang who took it upon herself to lift Medusa up and carry her in a princess carry. For a strong ascended like the former lieutenant, carrying a wounded person like that wasn\'t enough to make her break a sweat. Still, now that she looked human again it was an odd view watching her carry a person without trouble.

Hungry, starved and deprived of sleep, the students were eager to leave the city behind as soon as possible but there were still many small cryptids on their way out. They even found some Flux orbs lying around in the ground since during the eclipse Miss Dragonfang was unable to retrieve most of them.

The roaring engine of the armored transport vehicle made the hearts of everyone race in joy. They were also relieved to see that Phlox was doing fine and that the reason she didn\'t go to meet them along with Miss Dragonfang was because she was tasked to bring the vehicle as near as possible. Everyone ran inside the vehicle as if chased by a ghost and grabbed whatever drink and food they could find in their supplies. They still needed to go back to their camp to retrieve some of their belongings, but that was just a short stop and most of it was done in silence.

It was only when the last building was nothing but a small dot in the distance that Miss Dragonfang allowed her emotions to sink in. She too had a rough time, but unlike the students, she spent most of her time fighting for her life against an innumerable amount of enemies that were drawn to her strong energy signature. A silent tear ran down her cheek and she was shivering, but not in cold. The feeling of helplessness overwhelmed her and her mental state became almost as bad as Sam\'s.

"Why does this sort of thing always happen to me? I can\'t do anything right, and now it costed the life of a young man." Another tear trickled down her cheek threatening to break a dam of tears that would leave her dry. When she went downstairs to the shopping mall searching for clothes to wear she also took the chance to find Atomic\'s body and it pained her to see him all tore apart.

"It\'s not your fault Miss Dragonfang... Atomic, he..." Uriel wanted to say that his late companion made a poor decision by following the cryptid into the dark, but he didn\'t want to speak ill of the death. At least not after so little time had passed.

"What he wants to say is that, we survived, it was hard, painful and exhausting, but it was our call. You didn\'t force any of us to come." Medusa followed Uriel\'s lead and attempted to comfort Miss Dragonfang.

"That\'s not it... You guys were my responsibility, I think I\'m just not cut to be a leader. At least when I was in the army I could put the blame on my superiors, but now I know, I really know what it\'s like. What am I going to say to his family? They had all their hopes on that kid, he was from a poor family. They couldn\'t believe their luck when Atomic received his trait, he was so incredible and strong, he had all the future ahead of him and now..." Nothing any of them could do or say would have been enough to comfort the heartbroken team leader. Her sorrow was honest and she deeply regretted going out there with untrained students.

She didn\'t know, though, that those students had managed to kill a cryptid so strong, so vicious, not even the army had been able to deal with it. The skinwalker had been the bane of many soldiers and hunters alike, and in the end it was nothing but a bunch of kids with traits unsuited for battle the ones who finally killed it.