Levels

The Battle

Dalys attention was not only caught by Allessa who was suddenly standing next to him, eyeing him like he was a bloody rookie.

Only ghastly sounds were coming out of his in astonishment dropped open mouth.

"Ah..Uh..behi...u..."

"You are not one of the brightest, are you?" Allessa said with a certain amount of amusement in her voice.

"BEHIND YOU!" he screamed and now, Dalys eyes were wider then an owl on ecstasy, while his heart was racing the same way.

Allessa turned around, her eyes now just as focused as Dayls, though she was able to catch her mind a few seconds later.

The decapitated body that was laying life less on the ground a few moments earlier, was now up to his feet again and instead of having no head at all, two contentious looking ones were growing at the spot where the previous head used to remain.

Allessas sword was drawn before Dayl could even blink an eye and she was rushing to the beast without any hesitation. As the tail of the monstrous dragon nearly smashed Allessa into pieces she dogged one of the huge mouths that was snapping at her.

"What in the seven worlds is that?" Dayl shouted, still rooted to the spot where he was standing a few minutes ago.

"That my anxious fella, is a Hydra and for every head you cut off, two other ones will replace them. So don't even try to go for its head." she answered while still dogging and jumping around, every time nearly getting burnt, smashed or sliced into pieces.

"Besides... I COULD NEED A LITTLE HELP HERE, OR ARE YOU GOING TO STAND AOROUND WATCHING ALL DAY?!"

Dayl finally jumped to his feet and started running to the sudden battle ground. Deep down in his mind, he wasn't sure what frightened him more, the dragon... or his new gained companion, Allessa. For the first time since she arrived, he came to look at her more closely, seeing her surprisingly straight and shiny hair that brandished in every direction and her flawless movements that almost made it seem like an act of dancing while she was fighting a two headed hydra...

Wait, WHAT?! How am I able to think of something like that, given the situation?!

"GET MOVING, YOU PUNK" Allessa screamed at him for the second time he was just standing around doing nothing.

It felt like a chain had finally snapped and was now lose. Dayl moved with the speed of tiger on blood rush, his hands dropped to the earth. He closed his eyes. A lump of earth, the size of a baseball was no floating between his hands as he moved them off the ground.

The wad hardened and turned to a shiny flawless metal globe. He stretched his fingers as hard as he could and the metal ball split into a thousand pin sized darts which were still levitating amid his palms.

While Allessa was still battling the gigantic hydra, dogging stomps, jumping and rolling off the burst of the hydras flames that came in masses and burned the whole grass around the area, Dayl flung his hands back over his head, just like a baseball player on his pitch, and blasted the tiny darts through the air directly at the hydra.

The metal pins fastened right at the eyes of one of the beasts heads. The hydra gave a defining roar and flung its tail around like a lose backhoe, smashing every tree close enough to get hit into little pieces.

Allessa spotted her chance. She rushed to the hydra, as its tail flew into her vision, she flung herself to the ground, and skittering on her knees she dogged the spiced tailpiece that flew a few inches over her face as she could feel the gust of wind snatching a streak of hair.

She heaved herself up ran to the opposed, scale covered belly of the hydra and rammed her glass sword with all her might into the hydras chest, hitting its beating heart.

The beast stumbled, and with a blaring clamour it tumbled to the ground. Dead.

Allessa sunk to the floor a few feet next to the dead body. She was exhausted, drained of all her power, leaving every muscle in her body sore.

Dayl ran to her body and leaned over her face.

"Are...Are you all right? "

A quiet moan escaped her mouth.

And now, as Dayl looked at her more closely, he could see her perfect curves, her shiny hear, pointy nose and her gorges figure.

He blushed. Embarrassed he turned his eyes away from her.

As he dared another glimpse, he realized that her clothes were torn off at some point and burned from the rough battle.

The outlines of one of the airships materialized above the battle grounds and landed right besides Allessa and Dayl.

He elevated Allessa and dragged her a few yards further to the ship. He stood there and waited.

The familiar dwell of air sucked him, with Allessa in his protective arms, right into the airship.

The mundane robotic voice appeared again and spoke:

"You have now completed Level 0. Time Left, 2 hours 40 minutes and 12 seconds. 

A second competitor entered at the same time as you, Attender.

From now on, so the rules of the Levels, you will be allies.

You are not allowed to have more than one ally at the same time.

If you want to break the bound of your companionship you have to terminate one another's life.

You will now share the same premises and have to complete every Level together.

If one of you dies from antoher as your partners hand, the other one will be disqualified from the Levels.

23 hours 11 minutes 20 seconds, until the start of Level 1.

Till then, get yourself ready. "