Mash hovered in the air with Luke and the others. In the distance, he could barely make out the island that was the home of the necromancer. It was a strange thing to see, even after getting Luke’s description of the place. The beaches were coated in black sand, trees covered nearly all the visible land. They had large wide leaves that shielded the terrain below from his gaze, and probably the sunlight too. A few rivers crisscrossed across the island dividing it like a slice of meat.

He stared at the island and searched for the dragon he was supposed to fight. Luke didn’t tell them much about The Necromancer, though he did give them some warning about what to expect. Naturally, Mash was supposed to fight the strongest ones. One of which should include an enormous undead dragon. Possibly an undead version of Luke himself, and several other people around that level of power. Mash had agreed to the plan almost immediately.

Was it dangerous? Yes, there was almost no situation where it wasn’t dangerous. Did the others tell him not to do it? Everyone but Luke had tried to convince him not to do it. Was there a chance that Luke would betray him and use the necromancer to try and kill him? Yeah. As much as he hated to distrust his friend, Mash couldn’t help but consider the possibility.

Even with all those reasons not to fight, Mash still accepted the role. There were three primary reasons why. The first was that he could probably escape any situation. Priscilla would be able to tell Jill to pull him out of any risky situation. The other reason was simple. He wanted to trust Luke, and getting someone like the Necromancer as an ally would be significant. He might not know a lot about her, but she had to be high-level and strong. The final reason was the fact that he would get to fight a dragon. Undead though it might be, it would be a serious fight, unlike the spar with Ythass. Plus, she was just supposed to be young, and he wanted to see what a dragon could actually do.

Those weren’t all the thoughts or reasons he had on the matter, but they had been enough to get him here. The island wasn’t that far now. Luke would give a signal at some point, and Mash was supposed to make a loud entrance. He had considered how he would do this. Any of his magical combinations could devastate an island if he really wanted to, although the island would probably have some kind of protection against magic like that. Otherwise, someone else would’ve done that by now. Mash had come up with another idea.

His body was even more changeable than it was before. He didn’t need to use wooden magic to craft a fake body for himself. His magic would let him change his body in truth to mimic another creature, and he could take it a step further. The transformation would take a few minutes, but he knew he had the time, and he would probably need to rest afterward.

Mash closed his eyes and formed an image in his head of the form he wanted to take. He didn’t have the knowledge to do it on his own. However, Priscilla did, and she helped him construct the body so that it would actually function as he wanted it to. His body grew rapidly, the new skin was not wood but neither was it flesh. It was an abomination of magic that really shouldn’t be part of a living being. His skin was some blend of bark and scale. At first, the semi-wooden scales were small, but his body grew, and they did too. Wings sprouted from his back, each one big enough to cast a shadow over a town. His limbs grew longer, as his neck bulged forward. His nose stretched into a snout and his teeth surpassed even daggers. A tail grew from his back as his legs became thicker than tree trunks. The tail ended at a sharp point that looked dangerous.

Even after all that was done, his body continued to grow beyond that. He used nearly all of his energy for the transformation, and let it grow to the limits of his power. Once the fight started, he would continue to grow bigger, but he stopped when the last bits of his energy ran out. Even without a lot of energy, he could keep himself in the air with the power of his new wings. Normally, dragons needed to use magic to fly, their bodies were simply too large otherwise. Priscilla had another solution, and she just made his wings big enough to handle the weight.

There was one other trick that let him fly as he did. He was not just a dragon. Mash had come up with the idea when sparring with Ythass, and he finally found the opportunity to test it. Mash managed to blend a dragon and a treant together into an abomination that would never be born naturally. It worked exactly as he envisioned too.

Mash had grown to surpass any castle. It had drained him thoroughly enough that he needed to take a break and recover his energy. Closing his eyes, he began recovering his energy while hovering in the air. Begin Anew was several times more effective than the previous iteration of the skill, and he recovered his energy relatively quickly. It took about five minutes for him to recover completely. Once done, he just waited for Luke to contact him. Mash could make his body even larger. Grow to the point where his landing alone would crush mountains, but that would take a lot longer. Plus, they didn’t want to destroy the island that much.

That was the hardest part of the whole thing. Mash wasn’t supposed to actually kill anything, and he was banned from using either of his aspects. They were all half convinced that the aspect of freedom would cause all the undead to go on a rampage, and change was too much of an unknown. He had to fight without them, but apparently, the undead wouldn’t have their equivalents either.

[Luke is ready.]

Mash was shaken from his thoughts as Priscilla told him the time had come. Mash let out a long breath which echoed as it passed through his mouth. He spread his wings as wide as he could, and he ascended into the air. There was little doubt in his mind that more than just the Necromancer was watching him. His size alone would probably pose a threat to many nations, and he could practically feel the numerous attempts to scry him. Mash chuckled. With his new body, it sounded more like the rumble of thunder.

Mash wasn’t slow for all that his body had grown. He soared into the air quickly, flying far over the island as he made his approach. A thin stream of air changed as it approached him at incredible speed. Mash turned, rolling out of the way. It took him a second to realize what it had been. Hot air. Well, air that was so hot that it would likely burn through anything it touched. It didn’t touch him though, and he began his descent. Mash tucked his wings in and curled his limbs and claws together tights. He turned from a kite that had blotched out the sun, to a falling asteroid in an instant.

Mash saw more beams of heat shoot out from the island like harpoons. Even without his wings, Mash could stop the beams. He focused his own magic, strengthening the aura of the end with his anti-magic. At this range, that was enough to destabilize magic and lessen the heat. He still felt it as hot air washed over his body in a much less concentrated manner. It was if he had stuck his head over the blazing oven. The heat crawled across his body, but he continued his fall unturned. Mash would cushion the impact himself, but he expected the Necromancer to have the tools to stop him.

He tucked his head in and turned into a literal ball as his domain managed to cover a part of the island. That alone would be enough to guide his landing. Mash watched as something burst forth from the trees. No, it was deeper than that. Something came from the ground rising into the air to meet him. A creature large enough to almost match his own size flew into the air. The ground it tore it up surged behind it following it to the skies. The broken trees sharpened into lances, and the stone and dirt turned into misshapen swords.

Mash opened his wings moments before colliding with the approaching dragon and stretched his body. His claws were spread out and had grown longer and more vicious. His wings spread to block the sun behind him, and he brought his claws down as he collided with the dragon. The copper scales of the thing flashed with light as he collided full body into Mash. The impact caused the clouds around them to disperse, leaving them an odd arena in the sky to fight in. The impact made Mash’s bones creak, and he felt some of the scales on his chest break. The copper dragon didn’t get away freely either.

In the moment of impact, Mash pushed his claws down at the dragon’s back. One arm tore through one of its coppery wings in the process. It crumpled like sheet metal as he pushed it into his back. The light seemed to ripple over his body from where Mash’s claws struck at the dragon’s back, and they failed to pierce any deeper. The shards of dirt and trees that chased the dragon, rammed into Mash’s enormous form and shattered like glass against his own scales. Mash’s claws didn’t manage to dig into the dragon’s hide, but they gave him a hold of the being.

The impact had been less than a thousand feet over the island. Mash began growing again as the copper drake opened his mouth. The creature’s head was against Mash’s chest. Mash could see the magic flow through the dragon’s body and he tried to push the thing's head to the side at the last moment. A bar of blackness poured out of the dragon’s mouth and split one of Mash’s enormous wings in two. Mash barely even felt it, although neither of them could fly with only one wing, and they spiraled downward. Mash didn’t hesitate and continued to strike at the other dragon as they fell. Mash’s form had long limbs, and he swung crude fists. Some of the copper scales cracked as Mash’s fist struck the dragon’s neck. The other dragon’s tail lashed forward, and Mash intercepted it with his own. The copper dragon’s tail was like a sword though and it clipped Mash’s tail as if it were a weed.

The copper dragon pushed Mash away with a surge of strength and light. Mash opened his mouth and filled the sky with blinding light. Lightning crashed into the copper drake in enormous wave power. Even it was not immune to the effect, and its body left a trail of smoke as they both crashed. Mash rose on unfamiliar limbs.

It felt awkward. His body wasn’t humanoid, and he didn’t really have much practice in it. His arms were a little too long, and it took him a second to realize how he was supposed to stand. Priscilla had designed the body to be effective on all terrain, and that involved giving him a slightly more humanoid shape. If they had gone more draconic then he probably wouldn’t be able to move properly at all.

Mash’s movements brushed aside trees and shook the earth. His one wing opened and buried some trees under the dirt that it moved. His head easily peaked over the trees, and he searched for the other dragon. It had already risen to its feet, though it didn’t attack immediately.

“What are you?”

The dragon’s voice was deep, and Mash felt as though he was talking to a mountain. Wasn’t this dragon supposed to be undead? How was it talking? The thought made him freeze up, and he hesitantly formulated a response.

“I’m a chimera, I guess. Who are you?”