“Well, I just rescued the princess, now I have to defeat the dragon.” Jack muttered to himself as he rocketed up into the sky. “Hell, I’m basically a fairytale knight in shining armor now.”

Now if only this knight had bothered to take better care of his armor.

He could feel the blisteringly cold wind on his torso as he shot through the air. Specifically, he could feel it on his left pectoral, which was exposed to the elements by virtue of the fact that he hadn’t replaced the armor plating there. Nor had he replaced any that ran along the entirety of his left arm, or his right leg from the knee down.

Perhaps he should have spent less time playing with cannons and more time repairing his final line of defense against this world. Oh sure, he’d made some repairs. For one thing, the servos beneath the armor were all still functional. He’d replaced the synth-muscle too.

The armor though? That shit had some very precise requirements to fabricate. Specifically, it needed to be fabricated in zero-g, and given that he didn’t have any orbit-capable rockets or space stations on hand, it just hadn’t seemed worth the hassle.

Enchanting… while a promising facsimile, hadn’t been giving him the result he’d wanted fast enough.

So now he was flying off to fight a dragon in a suit that looked like it had been savaged by a goat woman, before being cannibalized by a chop shop, before then being hastily stitched back together… before being cannibalized again.

And then forgotten about.

Because that was exactly what had happened.

And he was about to fight a dragon in it. A dragon that had just wiped the floor with a small army of people who could easily have wiped the floor with him even if the suit was working at one hundred percent.

“Lin, please tell me you’re nearly here,” he grunted into his comms.

“I’m airborne and moving.” The mortal woman sounded distracted as she responded. Which was a good thing as far as Jack was concerned. He’d hate to think that she was devoting anything other than her complete focus to her current task. “Five minutes.”

“Another rises to challenge me.” The dragon roared as Jack finally drew level with the beast. “A warrior clad in the guise of a knight. How nostalgic.”

Rather than attacking though, the massive creature seemed content to talk. Or rather, engage in the time-honored tradition of smack-talking before a fight.

“That’s me,” Jack responded simply as he took in the sheer enormity of the creature before him. “A veritable knight in shining armor.”

“A pale facsimile.” The creature huffed, the sheer force being generated by its wings flapping in place forcing Jack to re-adjust his thrusters’ output to compensate. “No, you are no knight. You are the craftsman.”

“You know me?” Jack asked, content to buy more time.

“I do.” The beast’s chuckle was a bass baritone that vibrated across the gulf between them. “My spawn has complained of you. Of your strange tricks and trinkets.”

He cocked his head. “I had thought you to be one of the magisters of my home, truthfully. That would be their style. Hiding in the shadows while others fight their battles for them.”

“I can feel one. Hiding like a cockroach deep within that stone nest of yours. Yet you, I feel nothing from.” The creature’s face dipped forward, eyes squinting. “Are you a golem? A homunculus? A puppet of flesh and steel masquerading as a living thing to draw attention away from your mistress?”

Jack just shrugged. “I’m the Burpex. I speak for the bees.”

Of all the responses the dragon had been expecting to his query, that carefully concocted bit of bullshit wasn’t one of them. His eyes widened just a smidge in surprise – making them an ideal target for his first shot.

Yanking up the cannon strapped to his thigh and aiming it in one smooth motion, Jack fired.

“Gaaah!” The dragon roared, rearing back as his right eye popped like jelly.

Not that Jack stuck around to see the aftermath, as he unceremoniously dropped the swivel-gun and started gaining altitude.

“You shall die screaming for that, puppet!” The Red Death’s wings beat with the force of a small hurricane as it took off after him, massive sword like teeth bared in a rictus of fury. “I shall tear the spellwork aping your soul from your shattered fake body and untangle it piece by piece! I shall rebuild you. I shall improve you. I shall grant you a true soul just to teach you the meaning of pain. Of despair. You shall learn what it is to suffer – and then suffering is all you shall do.”

“I’m not a golem you overgrown shoe-rack in-waiting!” Jack shouted back, half-terrified, half-curious as to whether the thing would be able to hear him over the sound of his thrusters at full-burn.

“You insolent… thing! Light of Arthax!”

Oh shit, Jack hissed as a kaleidoscope of patterns seemed to form over the dragon’s right wing. He tried to dodge by dipping right, but the honest to god purple laser beam that issued forth from the pattern was unerring.

“Gah,” he cried out as it impacted him perfectly on his exposed arm. “Don’t do that, it tickles.”

He could honestly say that before today, he’d had no idea what a flabbergasted dragon looked like.

Now he did.

Of course, it didn’t take long for that astonishment to morph into rage. “Light of Arthax!”

“You just tried that you – Ack!”

He didn’t giggle this time as his lower thigh erupted with pain. The laser had burned a hole clean through the armor there, and while the beam itself didn’t hurt him, molten metal from the hit dripping onto him certainly did.

Sure, the speeds they were going at meant it cooled and hardened rapidly, but that still left him with flecks of metal bonded to his skin.

And unfortunately for him, the dragon noticed. “So your armor does not benefit from your innate protection? Or whatever spell you used to protect yourself has expended itself?”

The thing must have heard me shout or seen me flinch, Jack thought.

He grunted as another spell formed – ahead of him this time. An honest to god screaming skull formed out of thin air and chased after him. He tried to dodge, but it clipped his foot. His armored foot.

Sensors and alarms within his HUD screamed out as the metal started to smoke and peel away in flecks. Then the booster exploded and Jack had to resist the urge to scream as a decent portion of his foot went with it.

And of course, the auto-injector system was one of the things I took out to study, he thought as a grand total of zero painkillers were injected into his system.

“You bleed too? Perhaps you truly aren’t a golem?” The Dragon chortled, continuing to gain on him.

In fact, he was gaining even faster now that Jack was down to just his back-mounted thrusters. Before they’d been about even. Now the Dragon had the clear edge in speed.

“Bite me,” the man cursed back as he desperately searched for an opening to get away.

“Well, if you insist.”

The miner paled as he realized the foolishness of that particular suggestion. Not least of all because the dragon was now nearly close enough to act on his ill-thought-out request. He dipped to the side just in time to avoid a giant set of teeth that clamped down on where he’d been flying just moments before.

He barely managed to sigh in relief before a casual swipe from the thing’s wing sent him spinning. Hissing in frustration, he managed to right himself just as the Red Death swooped around for another pass.

“Pathetic. Are you truly this city’s last hope?” The dragon laughed as it swooped towards him. “You’re out of your league, man-thing. At least the fish-girl provided to be some small challenge.”

Jack boosted down, narrowly avoiding the dragon’s talons. “Oh, I think she was a little more than that. I heard you whining about the boo-boo on your chest from all the way on the ground.”

“Insect!” The monster belched a long stream of flame that he narrowly avoided.

Thus began a very deadly game of tag. One where Jack’s only real advantage was that his small size allowed him to be significantly more maneuverable over short distances. Which while useful, still left him vulnerable to spells.

He tried summoning a few clouds of dust in an attempt to obfuscate the thing’s vision, but they were rapidly blown away by both the wind and the beating of his foe’s wings.

As a result, he had to stifle yet another hiss of pain when a fourth spell hit him.

Synthmuscle, he thought grimly as a fifth shot clipped him, ignoring the sensation of metal fusing with his skin. I’m going to be relying on my actual muscles to move my right arm at this rate.

His body was covered in burns and he knew he would be swimming in antibiotics later if he wanted to avoid an infection.

You know, provided he survived.

“Alright, fuck this.” He finally hissed as he shot upwards into the sky, dragon following behind him. “On my mark, suit, jettison all exterior plating.”

Confirmation required. Jettison all exterior plating on ‘mark’?” Perhaps it was just the burns talking, but he couldn’t help but note that even his suit’s AI sounded incredulous at what he was requesting.

“Confirm.”

“Confirming,” the suit responded as he continued rocketing higher.

“You’re mine!” The dragon was right beneath him.

He waited until the last possible moment before shouting. “Mark!”

The exterior – and irreplaceable – armor of his suit fell away like the shell of an orbital launch vehicle.

“Ha, your shoddy armor fails you!” The red-scaled creature taunted, closing its mouth so as to avoid swallowing the unexpected debris.

Jack ignored him as he changed direction once more, using his superior turning speed to shoot back towards his target. The dragon’s eyes widened as he tried to snap at him, but the sudden speed the miner had gained from the loss of his armor threw off the creature’s aim by barely a meter.

That was enough though, as Jack rocketed towards his target.

The exposed flesh of the thing’s chest.

Tendrils were already forming on the human’s outstretched hand as he summoned his microbots into existence. The black twisting mass of octagons roiled with malicious intent as they impacted the bare and vulnerable flesh of the dragon’s chest.

“Eat this you son of a-”

Jack barely finished speaking before he was thrown back, his drill shattering on impact with bone shaking force as the microbots utterly failed to find purchase in the monster’s skin. The human’s eyes went wide as he was sent spinning once more – and in moments the opportunity was gone as the dragon flew past him gaining as much distance as he could.

The thing laughed as it came around. “Even unarmored by mine scales, my flesh is that of a dragon. It has been toughened by the ages. Did you truly expect such a flimsy implement to damage it?”

…Magic was so much bullshit, Jack thought as he righted himself, hovering in place. He’d used his microbots to lift concrete slabs the size of cars, yet the flesh of an overgrown reptile was apparently too tough for it!?

“Well, at least I’ve managed to gain some space,” he muttered as he engaged his boosters, shooting upwards and away from the monster.

Just as he’d theorized, the thing had been wary after being injured. It was feeling vulnerable. As a result his sudden attack – even if it had failed – had the thing desperately backpedaling until it could recognize that the threat… wasn’t.

Which gave Jack the distance he needed to start climbing once more – moving in a straight line as he rocketed towards the stratosphere.

“Lin?” Jack shouted as the Dragon took off after him.

“Two minutes.” Was the frantic response he got.

That seemed like an eternity to him.

Fortunately, with his armor jettisoned, Jack was now moving significantly faster.

Unfortunately, he also had no real protection beyond his bodysuit against both the friction and cold as he tore up into the atmosphere. He could only be thankful that the air was thinner up here and getting thinner. That didn’t help against the cold, but it would save him from the worst of the friction.

And as his entire body burned with pain, his foe was still gaining on him.

That changed though as more seconds ticked by.

The higher they climbed, the more the air thinned.

“Higher. Higher.” The words became a mantra, a desperate hope.

Eventually, as the sky turned from blue to something just a few shades darker Jack dared to look down -and found that his foe was no longer on his tail.

“What’s the matter,” he shouted, his loudspeakers reaching all the way down to the creature circling below. “You slowed down?”

“Blasted thing!” The monster roared across the gulf between them.

Jack sighed in relief, even as his suit warned him that his body temperature was now getting dangerously low.

“And to think, I was worried that your whole ‘flight thing’ was all magic,” he shouted down. “And I bet some of it is, but those wings play a role too right?”

Down below, the dragon just continued to glare, his wings beating almost frantically in an attempt to keep him airborne.

“What’s the matter?” Jack shouted. “Feeling out of breath?”

“You think I am ignorant of the deep black? I was born to fly. To rule the skies. You think my first thoughts as a spawn would not be to fly as high as I might?” The dragon snorted. “If your plan was to lure me up here so that I might suffocate and fall, you shall be disappointed. I am not some whelp that is about to run out of breath because the air is thin.”

Well, admittedly that was a little disappointing.

“So what now?” Jack struggled to keep the chatter from his voice as the cold seemed to seep into his bones. “You can’t catch me and it seems I can’t hurt you.”

The Red Death glared. “As much as it pains me to admit, you have evaded me for now. Well done, man-thing.”

“For now?”

“I was once faced with a similar conundrum involving a Harpy Queen some centuries ago.” The dragon cocked his head. “Do you know how I resolved it?”

Jack eyed his nearby chronometer. “Do tell.”

The dragon chuckled. “I burned her nest. And her children. And when she descended from the heavens, screaming her vengeance, I devoured her.”

The threat was clear. If he didn’t come down, the Red Death would return to the city – and gonnes or not, it wouldn’t be able to resist him.

Jack just laughed back though. “That’s actually pretty smart for a big lizard. Too bad you won’t get the chance.”

“And why, pray tell, is that?

“Because an object traveling at the speed of sound is effectively silent if you’re the target." Jack paused. “And that’s roughly one third the speed of a Company Certified Intercontinental Cargo Delivery Vehicle.”

“…What?”

The dragon had barely finished the last syllable when he was hit by roughly two hundred tons of fuel, gunpowder, steel, and various rare earth metals - traveling at three times the speed of sound on a rocket the size of a cargo-train and armored like a tank.