Day Seven-Ninety-Five: Matchup of the season

Kierkegaard didn’t get pissed until one of the soldiers managed to blast him with a cannon. 

The cannonball caught the tip of Kierkegaard’s ivory beak with near-point-blank-range force. Moving as quickly as it likely ever would, the iron ball snapped Kierkegaard’s head to the side, the end of his bill snapping off with a loud crack that made even Kierkegaard cringe. He’d been hunched over a squadron leader, delicately ripping each of the man’s limbs off, and the attack had caught him completely by surprise.

The soldier, sprawled over a cannon that lay half-buried in debris, looked immediately regretful as Kierkegaard’s massive face swung in his direction. He tried to hide, but it was far too late.

Kierkegaard offered the man a grim smile, his Non body immediately repairing and reforming the nick in his beak. “Nice shot.”

The man fell out of a portal and into the gorge between the Indy Plains and the Imperium a few seconds later, joined by the bloody stump of his captain’s torso. The fall took exactly seven seconds.

Annoyed but triumphant, Kierkegaard began to stamp his massive, clawed feet. Bits of barricades and bodies flew up into the air as he thundered his displeasure, unleashing a battle roar that echoed across the plains and back to his army. The few remaining Imperium soldiers, regrouping quietly behind a large rock some fifty feet away, immediately broke off their plans for a counterattack and fled. Kierkegaard let them run, knowing they would spread word of his ferocity back to their masters.

A few seconds later, though, an answering roar floated back towards Kierkegaard. It cut his own bellow short, and, surprised, he turned to stare across the Imperium. He should have looked up instead.

The dragon rocketed down at Kierkegaard from above, parting a vast bank of clouds and descending onto the penguin’s head with incredible force. A Black-and-Crimson Widower with blazing white eyes, the dragon raked its talons across Kierkegaard’s bare skull as it pushed him to the ground, its sinewy tail wrapping around his torso. It squeezed, trying to force the breath from his lungs.

His head oozing green Non blood and wracked with pain, Kierkegaard unleashed a shrill cry - but it swiftly turned into an ecstatic, if choked, laugh. He flexed his stomach muscles, struggling against the dragon’s whiplike tail. “Y… you… ah, now… this… is… more… like it…”

The dragon responded with a vicious bite to Kierkegaard’s shoulder. It put its full weight on his back, crushing him into the dirt. The ground quaked under their combined fury, Kierkegaard trying to rise, the dragon allowing gravity to do most of the work.

“We will not permit this,” the dragon rumbled, though Kierkegaard knew its voice belonged to one or more rats secreted on its body. A gust of heat, promising flame, followed its words. “You are unnatural. Begone!”

The penguin sneered. “I’ll… show you… be… fuckin’… gone…”

Driving his arms into the ground, Kierkegaard focused his powers into his own skin, gritting his teeth and holding back a scream as a window to codespace ripped his back open, from his shoulderblades to the tip of his tail. He’d always struggled to open portals on or inside living things, let alone himself, and creating one that stretched his entire back caused more agony than even he could bear. But it was worth the effort, as half of the dragon’s body slipped into the portal, freeing Kierkegaard from its ponderous weight.

Normally he would have opened another portal elsewhere, and simply allowed the dragon to fall through. Instead, though, Kierkegaard closed the portal with the dragon half-in, half-out. The action was excruciating… but it ended the battle.

The dragon’s upper half lay twitching on the ground, a chunk of Kierkegaard’s flesh gripped tightly in its jaws. The light in the dragon’s eyes had almost faded. Staggering, struggling to maintain his true form, Kierkegaard regarded the dragon with great pride. He’d never killed one of the great reptiles before.

“Y… you…” the dragon rasped, the will of the regulators forcing it to speak through ruined vocal chords. “You will… not… succeed… there must… be… balance…”

“You assholes… take yourselves… too… fuckin’… seriously,” Kierkegaard replied, spitting out a glob of blood. “If life’s… just a game… then… ow, fuck me… then why… so…”

The dragon twitched its defiance. “You… will not - “

Rolling his eyes, Kierkegaard stomped on the dragon’s neck. Then, anticipating a horrid mess inside his codespace already, he opened a portal beneath the corpse and allowed it to slip inside. He hoped to find the little regulators trapped within later, helpless and alone, and make them squeal for mercy.

His fun would have to wait, though. In the distance, another dragon roared. And another, and another. A squadron appeared on the horizon, closing fast.

Kierkegaard raised his head, drips of blood seeping into the sockets of his bird’s skull face, and sighed. “Just… another day at the… office, I guess…”