"Rudra? Rudra !"
Rudra was vaguely aware of Nayan's frantic voice. He tried to open his eyes but his eyelids felt so heavy.
"Calm down, General," said another voice, a male voice, "The Saintess is on her way. Even if it is the deadliest poison, unfortunately he will still live."
"I know! Nothing can kill a Dragon except the mythical sword of Mamon!" Nayan was barking, "But he had never been like ...like this ! You think this is the first time he had been poisoned?? He had survived more poisoned attempts than he had survived arrow shots! And him, being a thick-brain who run into enemy lines, he has faced a lot of arrow shots ! But look at him now, he is lying still! Is he even breathing!"
"What are you suggesting?" Slowly but eventually Rudra became aware that it was Mamon with whom Nayan was arguing. Nayan was holding his right hand while Mamon was holding his left while they tried to keep his head above the water line.
"It wasn't any regular poison! What if it was sword of mamon !" Nayan shrieked.
"won't that be a miracle!" Mamon rejoiced.
"Little prince, I swear to the heavens-"
"Alright, alright !" Mamon sounded annoyed, "Let's just wait for Teresa to come. She may know what to do with this creature."
Rudra felt a hard poke just under his ribs on the left side, "He's not pretending, is he?" The Benevian Prince asked suspiciously.
A violent ripple started at the pit of Rudra's stomach and his eyes flew open.
Mamon jumped almost three feet away, sword fully drawn, "What ....what the hell was that."
Nayan now stood alone, doing her best to support Rudra's weight all by herself, "Rudra," she grunted, breaking a knee as she half-hugged him to keep him from going back under the water, ''....you are burning up!"
"Run," Rudra breathed out.
"What ?" Nayan asked, now alarmed.
"I can't control..," Rudra squeezed his eyes shut.
The sky was still covered in smoke. The dusk was knocking on the door. But the world wasn't dark to Rudra anymore. It was strangely brighter than it had been for last two days.
Rudra blinked. Not horizontal. But vertical.
"Run," he said again, "Tell everyone to get out of the water."
Nayan needed not to be told twice. She let him go and ran for solid ground screaming at the top of her lungs, "EVERYBODY RUN! GET THE HELL OUT OF WATER! RUNNNN!"
As Nayan let Rudra go, he fell back into the water. Vaguely, he was aware of the sounds of sirens echoing across the High and Low banks of Rā. He hoped it was enough.
The water didn't feel cool anymore. Rudra was aware of the bubbles frantically rising above as the flood water started heating up from his sheer body heat. He felt the acute sense of unease at the base of his spine.
And then he was changing. He felt his backbone lengthening tearing off his nerves, flesh and skin- the bones groaned and cracked- not like how knuckles crack- but like something deeper wetter - like it was breaking, which it was. The rest of the body fought back, vigorously modifying to cope with the growing bones. Water started turning red with his blood as his body fought with itself. Rudra screamed which got swallowed by the water, which turned them into large waves rushing towards the bank.
He couldn't breath. Couldn't die. Instinctively he stretched his hands, to break the surface of the water. He noticed the veins in his arms visibly darkening, the black lines travelled from his forearms up to his elbows and then his palms, fingers and ultimately the nails. The Nails became blood red, they grew and curled. Then he saw the scales rising, like tiny pieces of flesh that hardened and blackened. He squeezed his eyes shut, clenching his jaw.
Then he felt a shiver travelling from the base of his spine all the way to his head, making his gums ache. He tasted his own blood in his mouth as his teeth pushed outward and sharpened. He groaned, a raw animalistic sound that started in the hollow of his chest vibrating his vocal chord and his modifying jaw with a low resonance growl.
His jaw kept shifting forward, becoming longer and longer, the coat of obsidian scales covering his back and reptilian arms and legs and finally the skin around his jaw, chin, chest stomach hardening into a thick skin with vivid ember tone, wiping out the last of any evidence of his humanoid form.
But it wasn't the end of his transformation. It was only the beginning.
An acute pain started at his shoulder blades as two bones tore out through his flesh and skin, the height of them longer than even his enlarged reptilian form. The bones bloomed out membranes- the colours of them ghastly pink, something that looked wrong and unfinished. The memberanes filled in stretching between the emerged bone spurs, thin enough to be translucent initially but within blinks of eyes they hardened into something thick and leathery. The tail came out the last, pushing out of his spine making him gasp.
The growth didn't stop, it didn't even slow down. He kept growing in surges, several feet at a time until his head was out of the water without him even lifting his head.
The whole process must have taken hardly a minute, or half a minute - but Rudra felt like he had been through fifty years in hell.
The cool air of Rā's riverbed was the first sense of relief he felt after the transformation. He sighed, sending a gust of storm which sent the conoes floating away in spirals. People started to scream.
Thwack!
Rudra felt a tiny smack on his snout. It was Nayan, aggressively battering at the space between his massive nostrils screaming like a barbarian, "You big! Dumb! Lizard!"
Rudra blinked. It was unfair, so unfair. He had done his best to behave and someone had drugged him. Had this incident happened he would have never consciously transformed into his reptilian form.
How come he was being blamed when he had been the one who had been getting hit by bricks, insults and now petty assassination attempts ?!
Nayan picked up a broken paddle and threw it right inside Rudra's right nostril.
Rudra roared, shaking his head. And then he sneezed. Nayan flew back and crashed against a rescue centre- now empty.
"You stupid fucking lizard!" She spat out.
"Fuck you!" Rudra said but the words got modified into a garbeled roar, "Wrraaghh groowhh!"
Nayan clawed out of the broken rescue centre, ''Oh you want to throw hands?" She rolled her sleeves, "Let's throw hands!"
"Wreeghgrroowwa!" Rudra agreed, taking a stand.
"What are you doing?"
A small quiet voice froze Rudra on spot. He turned his head and spotted Tish, standing at the bank. She looked more tired than she has yesterday. And immensely more pissed.
Rudra couldn't answer. So Tish looked at Nayan, who stood with his fists balled. "General," her voice was awfully quiet, "What is he doing?"
"His best," Mamon had appeared out of thin air, his lips were curled into an ugly smile, "He is doing his best."