85 One Track Mind II

The second oldest prince of the royal family continued to fly upwards like a missile after receiving a direct blow from Kurt's metal dragon gauntlets.

Hugh continued to move without control until his body crashed against the platform where he and his friends had been sitting on ever since the start of the game.

"Guaaarghh!!" he shouted as the rubble from the impact started to fall piece by piece down into the pit of the dungeon.

"Damn, that felt good!" his younger brother commented, "Can't even begin to tell how much I waited to punch you in the face!"

Kurt took a deep breath in order to prepare for the fight he was about to face.

Gaby did her best to take two dragon girls at once, Saramin did her best to retrieve all of the hostages from their grasps.

It was now Kurt's turn to do his best and defeat the one responsible for all of this.

"Let's get this over with, Hugh! I'm ready for you!"

Hugh began to set himself on fire as he stood from the pile of rocks and began to close each of his wounds while sending a killing glare at his brother and sister.

"Park..." he whispered coldly, "Get your ass over here and retrieve me my hostages, now!"

The curly-haired boy twitched upon hearing Hugh using a cold tone he never used before and began to move in order to meet his demands, "As you wish, your majesty."

The dragon of teleportation was about to activate his ability, but before he could summon the usual golden light in order to move others to a location he desired, Trevor appeared from below by phasing through the ground and shoved his elbow on Park's stomach, causing the lad to roll on the floor while gasping for air.

"Saramin!!" Trevor shouted, "Get everyone out of here before Park recovers!! Take them somewhere safe!!"

Sarah nodded at him, "Unders- Bleerghh!"

Before she could finish her sentence, Saramin was forced to drop on her knees in order to throw up her lunch. The knockback from using her second form for the first time for so long was finally kicking in.

Her eyes were starting to see in double, her ears began to listen to some sort of whistle, and the mere act of differentiating up from down was proving to be a challenge for her.

"Oh... Hell..." she groaned while feeling like she hadn't had a good night of sleep in ages.

"Sarah!!" Trevor shouted again as Hugh flew over the destroyed platform and tried to grab the kids one more time.

However, Kurt reacted in time and bursted through the room in order to stop Hugh by smacking him with his shoulder.

"Not now, little dude!" Hugh muttered while blocking the attack with one of his hands that had turned into a dragon claw before raising Kurt's body and throwing the boy into one of the walls.

"Whoooooaaahh!!"

Kurt was about to crash, and this time, he didn't have his healing flames to fix any damage his body received.

He tried to maneuver himself in order to diminish the pain from the impact by placing his gauntlets in front of him, but that proved to not be needed as Nala jumped in the way and grabbed him before he crashed with the wall.

"Ah! You- You saved me!" he mentioned with shock.

"Your mother would kill us if something happened to you! Don't get hurt!" she replied with an angry-sounding voice.

The two landed on the arena and noticed Hugh getting even more furious by the second.

"Every single one of you... You are all ruining everything I planned!!" he shouted before starting to run like an out-of-control bull.

Kurt noticed that Saramin was still not feeling so good and placed himself in front of her to intercept Hugh's attack.

Hugh raised his red-scaled claws and Kurt responded with his silver metal claws.

The two sons of the emperor clashed their punches, causing an impact so powerful that ended up destroying even more of what was left of the arena, causing it to crumble.

"Princess!!" Nala yelled at Sarah, "You have Hugh's flames! Use it to recover and take everyone out of here!!"

"What about you guys?"

"We will handle these idiots! But you need to get out of the way first! The prince can't fight while having to protect you!"

"U- Understood!" Saramin replied while applying healing flames on herself and Gaby, Dorothy, Leon, and even the two girls while also focusing on using Park's teleportation ability, "I'll take care of them! Stay safe, all of you!"

An immense golden light covered all of them and before long, they had all disappeared, to a new location only Saramin knew of.

Nala sighed in relief and began to focus on the current threat.

Kurt was trading blows with Hugh while doing his best not to get hit, while Trevor was keeping Park busy by stopping him before he could teleport with a series of punches with increased density.

The short-haired girl noticed that her brother was handling himself well and decided to aid the prince instead, jumping to grab his shoulder in order to make him phase through one of Hugh's attacks and allowing him to deliver a jab with his metal gauntlets.

"Ughh!!!"

"Had enough, Hugh?" Kurt asked while stepping away in order to place some distance between them.

Hugh wiped a bit of blood from his mouth and began to squeeze it with a shaking fist.

"No... No, no, no... This isn't what I wanted! It wasn't meant to be like this!!"

"Just drop it, Hugh!! We aren't going to play your stupid games anymore!"

"Ah, little dude..." the large lad muttered with a sad smile, "If only you knew how much I'm trying to help you..."

"Help!?? You call kidnapping Leon, using people as hostages, putting us in cells, forcing us to fight in a dark dungeon against your group of psychotic friends, and watching us tear each other apart 'help!??'"

Hugh just rolled his eyes and sighed.

"You just don't get it... This is for your own good. The only way people can become stronger is by going through some personal hell. Some sort of moment of misery that almost makes them lose all desire to live! And by rising up from it, you come out better than ever before!!

Pain makes you grow!"

Kurt just stared at his brother as if he had spent the last twenty seconds saying over and over again that two plus two equals five.

"Okay, I have no idea what you are on about, but it's clear that you are crazier than I imagined... I'm just gonna take you down and be done with all this nonsense."

Kurt dashed towards Hugh with great speed and proceeded to launch another attack with his gauntlets. But just as his punch was about to connect, Hugh raised his red-scaled arm to block it and ended up locking Kurt in a tight grasp right after it.

"Take me down??"

"Oh, boy..."

Hugh wasted no time and delivered a powerful and fast punch aimed at Kurt's stomach that sent him flying in the opposite direction, crashing into a wall before Nala could save him again.

"Ggaaaaghh!"

""Kurt!!"" both Nala and Trevor gasped, breaking their focus and giving Park a chance to get one punch against Trevor.

"Ughh!!"

"Don't even think about ignoring me, you sellout!!"

"Damn it all! I don't have time for you, Park!"

"Then you better make some time!" Park replied before teleporting away and then repeating right on top of Trevor with one of the axes from the arena right above his head.

"Oh, God!!" Trevor gasped as he turned intangible right as the blade passed through him.

He hurried to move out of the way and returned his body back to normal.

He began to check if he was still in one piece before glaring daggers at his opponent, "Are you crazy?? That could have killed me!!"

"That's the idea, genius! Didn't you hear Hugh? This is also a ceremony to help me unlock my second form!! And your life will be my trigger!!"

Park vanished one more time and suddenly a series of massive boulders and weapons started to fall from above on top of Trevor.

"Oh, great..."

While the boy kept changing from being untouchable to being indestructible to avoid the rain of death, Nala finally had reached Kurt's position and helped him stand up from a pile of dust and debris.

"Are you okay?" she asked while searching for serious wounds.

The prince was bleeding in several parts of his body, but he still just waved at her and asked her to calm down, "I'm fine, don't worry!"

"You're not fine!!" Hugh shouted out of nowhere, "You're not fine at all!! None of this is fine!!"

Kurt and Nala stared at him as it seemed he was about to go on another crazy speech.

"I was trying to teach you an important lesson! That things don't always go as you want them to go! And that the struggles you face help you make character... But you just had to refuse to play along!!"

"People were getting hurt!!" Kurt shouted.

"That was the point!!!" Hugh shouted back while grabbing one of the fallen axes and swinging at him, "Their pain was meant to become your trigger!! I wanted you to become a real dragon like me!! To know what's like to have true power!!"

Kurt stopped the blade with his metal hands and approached his brother to headbutt his nose.

"Thanks! But I'm not interested!!"

Hugh pressed his palm over his face to fix his nose and began to swing his red claws at Kurt, but constantly failing to match his agility.

"You think people only improve by going through some kind of misery... But all this time the people on your side only looked completely pathetic and weak in my eyes!"

Hugh attempted to stomp the boy but Kurt simply dodged it again and joined his hands to deliver and double gauntlet blow that launched Hugh towards the jail cell he was keeping Kurt and his friends in this whole time.

"You guys are nothing but wild beasts. A threat to anyone around you and to yourself! A prison inside of a dark dungeon like this away from civilization is honestly just what you deserve! Imagine if someone died just because you felt like shoving this nonsensical mentality into our heads?"

"You still don't get it!!" Hugh screamed as he smacked his fist down on the ground.

"I DON'T want to get it!" Kurt replied, "You think I want to understand how you think? To sympathize with a gorilla like you that hurts people for fun? To be like you? All you managed to prove here today is that I don't ever want to be like you!!"

Hugh took another glance at his younger brother and realized that he was not going to listen to his words unless he forced them through his thick skull.

"You sure about that, little dude? You could be really strong if you were more like me..."

Kurt began to remember the words that Dorothy would always say to him, about how she never wanted to see her boy losing himself and becoming a bully.

When he first fought with Hugh, he nearly failed to keep his promise to her, as he was so lost in his own rage that he began to forget who he was as his only focus started to become to punish Hugh for what he did.

But not this time. The sight of Gaby, Saramin, Dorothy, Trevor, and even Nala, all managing to succeed while still being who they were, served as an inspiration for him to follow this path as well.

"I don't need this kind of strength..." Kurt finally replied, "You can have it!"

"You sure...?" Hugh mumbled while the scales on his arms started to multiply all over his body, "Maybe you should see it in action before you make your final decision..."

Nala and Kurt gave a few steps back. Hugh's appearance started to change, the same way Saramin did when she tapped into her second form.

But in his case, it looked like the transformation wasn't going to stop midway through it.

He began to grow taller, his muscles became bigger, his entire skin was now covered with red scales, golden horns started to appear around his head.

"Oh, this can't be good..." Nala complained.

An enormous tail appeared from behind him, and along with it, several dragon legs as if Hugh's lower half belonged to that of a centypide.

His eyes started to glow with the color of fire, and his size continued to increase until he reached the height of two trucks on top of each other.

"Is that..." Kurt asked Nala.

"His second form" she replied while covered in sweat.

Even Park and Trevor had to stop their fight to behold the sight of the beast.

This was Kurt's first time seeing a dragon transformation so big, the only one able to surpass it probably being his father himself.

But looking at it right now, the prince couldn't tell which dragon form was more horrifying.

"Little dude... If you really are so hellbent on not buying what I'm trying to sell, I'll be left with no choice but to give a demonstration!" the beast spoke. The voice was like that of a much older version of Hugh speaking.

"Now then..." he continued, "Let's see if your strength is better than mine!"

The towering figure raised its massive red arm and from it, a razor-sharp golden blade appeared, which was then used to slash the dungeon in half and causing everything to collapse.

"What are you doing!!?" Kurt screamed as the ceiling began to fall on top of them, rock by rock.

"Show me your true power little dude!! The real party is about to begin!!"