The basement is not as it seems. Levels exist for overflow. For wide-open training spaces. Layers exist for storage. Underneath that, there are research labs. So, so many miles of labs. That is not all. There are hidden places -- realms one could say -- beneath even those. It was in these realms I discovered my secret. -90.9 Seconds Post-Integration.

  Clark couldn't stop shaking. "W-what was t-that?!" he stuttered.

  Theo and Hera looked at him then each other. No one had the answer.

  "Crap! We need to follow that thing!" Clark said belatedly, after he recovered from the shock of the creature.

  "It went in that direction," Theo pointed toward the store block's entryway, which was once again tattered as the beast plowed through the besiegers. Clark had the idea that this creature was likely the same beast which piledrove through the Containment Guards laying siege in the connecting zone earlier.

  He ran and ran with his friends in toe. Unfortunately, not only was it hard to keep up with the draconic creature, but monsters also assaulted them along the way. Hera spoke that the 'dragon' was likely ejecting the monsters from its body as a means of defense.

  True or not, they tracked the beast to an adjacent Store Block. They recognized its tracks because of the damage the store's front suffered once the dragon plowed through the glass and wood exterior.

  Inside the store block, though, they lost sight of the dragon. How such a large beast could remain hidden on the sales floor was a mystery. Once monsters started their assault, such a mystery had to stand on its own two feet while Clark and friends defended themselves from the onslaught.

  Once more, the battle they fought was largely a martial affair. Clark used his one-handed sword, Hera her stave, and Theo his daggers. Hera took point as the lead defense point, drawing enemies in, while Theo utilized his talents as a 'rogue' to strike from atop shelving units and from the shadows. Clark simply did clean up, occasionally using a Manipulation dandy to eliminate Airhearts using a well-placed weapon burst.

  "Take this and that, you slimy rats!" Clark cussed. The battle went well despite quickly gaining ground in the store block. Because he and the team were so focused, no matter the numbers of slimes before them, or the Airhearts, for that matter, they handled every (attempted) monster ambush before it became a problem, before the Slimes could congeal together to form more powerful variations. To give credit where it was due, the Containment Guard allies also helped in maintaining the peace despite the small horde of Slimes which came from the woodwork.

  "I think that's the bulk of them," Hera panted as she regained her composure post-battle.

  "Yeah... me too..." Clark scanned the area before them in an effort to place the dragon. All he glimpsed were Containment Guard groups fighting the good fight against Slimes and Airhearts. Their own battle done, for the moment, the fights which took place throughout the block reminded him that this was no jaunt through the Interior.

  This was a warzone.

  "Argh!" he grunted. "How could we lose sight of something like that?!"

  "I'll tell you how," a gruff voice said. "Because you don't understand what you're fighting."

  Clark spun on his feet to see who talked. It was an elderly man decked out in transparent armor bound with complex runes. Underneath his armor he wore a pristine and expensive-looking business suit.

  "Who are you?" Hera said for the group.

  "Call me Hermes if you must. I am a professional Hunter with the League. You three are the 'reinforcements' I haggled for, I take it? You, the boy with the daggers, are the one I talked with through the System Links, yeah?"

  Theo straightened up at being mentioned. "Yes, I am, sir! My friend here," Theo motioned at Clark. "Is who wants to buy your old multi-tool. That flying beast is what you've been hunting, then..."

  Hermes smiled. "It sure is. I've been having a heck of a time tracking it down. It's only a newborn so its physic resonance is not as powerful as a matured dragon--"

  "So, it is a dragon!" Clark blurted, not able to help himself.

  "Yes. It is," Hermes confirmed. "But not a dragon from outside the tower. The backstory for how this creature gained its form doesn't matter right now. What you do need to gleam is that the creature is an 'Assemblage Beast.' It is made from discrete parts which form a whole. That is why we are having trouble locating it. Because it can 'settle,'" Hermes's fingers bent for air-quotation emphasis. "When it settles, its individual parts collapse to the ground. In a place like this battlefield, its settling allows it to blend almost perfectly into the disrepair."

  Hera nodded along. "Natural camouflage. Its body is formed of product so when that product settles, it is hard to say if its body is 'monstrous' or if it is simply the items on the shelves."

  "Exactly. To penetrate its natural cloaking ability, we must employ enhanced tracking skills. Theo, there, assured me at least you, Clark, and the woman there, Hera, was it, have completed the minimum League-sponsored training. Since you know how to use Enhanced Tracking, you must be my eyes and ears. I'll admit, in my advanced age, I don't see or hear so well anymore, not even with this fancy suit augmenting my abilities."

  A light popped into existence in his mind. "I understand, now. You need our senses to replace your own -- no shame in that! I have Manipulation dandies on me. Hera, take one. Sir? What should we look for when hunting this dragon? This is the first time we've encountered something like that."

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  "Look for mimicry." Hermes bore their gaze into his eyes. "Pay attention to details. It forms only part of its body from whatever is around it. Most of its body is generated from an ectoplasm -like substance. That substance can morph into whatever environment's near to it. Obviously, a retail-forward environment is harder for it to replicate than an industrial one or some wasteland. Because it cannot mimic everything in an aisle, pay close attention to how an abnormality looks in relation to its surroundings. Enhance tracking, when filtered through the eyes, will help you in spotting differences if you will the mana in your mind to look for differences. See, kids?"

  Clark understood. He shook his head affirmingly. "Once we identify it, what then? How do we go about in attacking this monster?"

  "Good question. The technical name for this creature is a Slime Dragon. The slime-ectoplasm which monsters are born of, composes the majority of a Slime Dragon's lifeblood. Slime nodes -- usually at least four -- form the core joints of a Dragon's body. Destroy the joints and the ectoplasm disperses."

  "Where are the joints?" Hera asked. "Big glowing spheres nice and lump to take a blow, like in a video game?"

  "Pretty much. A dragon's body is either ectoplasm-gloop, a Slime Node, or environmental debris it uses as cover. Bless your weapons and lay the hurt on it to chip away its ectoplasm and defenses. Once you gut its cover, you'll find one of its Slime Nodes. Typically, a dragon's nodes are found within its head, wings, and legs. One or less node to each body part. I say 'less' because each dragon is different. One dragon might have five nodes; another could only have two. You'll spot a node because it is dense, spherical, and riddled with gloop."

  "Got it! I think we have everything we need. Shall we begin, Clark?" Hera was expecting.

  "Yeah." Clark's aura bloomed in response to a Stamina dandy. "Go round the other side of Center Store with Theo as Hermes and I take cover behind the meat cooler wall. Let's work our way down the meat and dairy wall using Enhanced Vision until we find the beast."

  No one had any objections. Not even Hermes, who he thought was going to have plenty of strong opinions, being a 'professional hunter' and all.

  Nope. Hermes nodded and together they retreated toward what had once been the meat wall. In cover, he directed his mana to his eyes and willed the mana to pick up on abnormalities: anything in the environment which looked different or out-of-place.

  Clark, with the help of his HUD, which had a magnifying feature, systematically scanned his way through the whole of everything in front of him. It was an exhausting process. He looked at everything from rotted packages of meat to masonry chunks, even spilled boxes of cereal.

  It didn't take him long to locate several oddities.

  First, there were shower curtains, which were not only out of place in the middle of a make-up display, but upon closer inspection quivered, as if skin underneath roiled in disgust.

  Then he found more of the eponymous can piles. Nonsense words and abstract patterns graced these cans like the previous piles. Clark also took note of how the can piles always came as a pile. Of all the fake cans the Slime Dragon generated, he never saw an individual tin.

  Thirdly, he located an entire freezer unit placed precariously next to another freezer unit. He knew this secondary freezer unit was a fake because of how it took up an entire section of the aisle normally reserved for customers. No competent Augustford floor plan resitter would sign-off on such a layout. Not if it worked against the customer.

  And on he went, finding more and more elements which -- at first -- appeared innocuous only to become jarring upon that closer inspection.

  Clark withdrew his blade and applied a hearty dose of a Blessing Dandy.

  He was about to charge in and start whacking at the identified Dragon bits when Hermes stopped him. "Never approach a dragon with ill-intent. They can sense hostility. To attack a dragon, you need to ambush it. The easiest way to ambush a dragon is to outpace it. Use Speed Enhancement."

  Clark nodded. He sipped on another Enhancement Dandy for good measure and began channeling mana toward his feet. Remember, he told himself. Don't unleash it all at once. Little amounts very carefully.

  He focused. He walked... then, as he coached himself, he released tiny sums of magical energy. One step, two step, three -- he arrived!

  Before he blinked, he had come in front of the first dragon bit, the shower curtains. He thrust his sword without hardly thinking and the attack landed.

  The beast shrieked and jerked but Clark paid no attention to its thrashing as he walked and found himself before the pile of cans -- hack! -- then some cereal boxes (slash!) before, finally, the redundant freezer unit that was clearly fake, which he stabbed repeatedly with his blade.

  His attacks had landed in such quick succession, the Slime Dragon could only roar in pain.

  To his back, Hermes yelled a warning. Yet it came too late.

  With a mighty jerk, the dragon shifted in the environment and whipped at Clark its tail made of lengths of watering hoses and rubber.

  The attack slammed into his chest. Pain rippled all throughout his body. Its effectiveness might have been limited, but he was happy for drinking down the Defense Dandies before engaging the beast. Otherwise, that assault might have broken his ribs. Or at least caused untold trouble.

  Winded and on the floor, Clark righted himself. Once he had scampered back on his feet, however, the dragon had vanished, but not before knocking over shelving units and debris as if it were a gaggle of street sweepers.

  He tried chasing after the beast, but it had knocked the wind out of him. He struggled for a moment to intake air before his body remembered how. He was about to give chase when Hermes grabbed his shoulders and told him to rest. "A dragon isn't something you chase after willy-nilly. It's not some wild hog, boy! Give your team a chance to prove their mettle while you recuperate."

  Not wanting to argue with a professional hunter, Clark leaned against a blown-out cooler and caught his breath.

  In the distance, on the other side of the store, he heard a ruckus. His earpiece chimed in with Hera and Theo assaulting the beast.

  "Did you... instruct... my team?" he gasped as he took a hearty sum of water into his gullet.

  "I did. While you were getting close and personal with the demon, I was informing your teammates on how to ambush the creature. That's the difference between Leaguers and Professional Hunters: Leaguers think everything is a blunt matter; Hunters understand there is an approach to each and every scenario," Hermes explained while keeping a tight hold of him.

  Clark nodded and listened to the radio chatter. Hera yelled to Theo to strike as she used her stave on the dragon; then, in a flurry of commands, the two of them used magic missile projectiles to bombard the creature, probably Hera more than Theo since his friend had not enrolled in League tutorials.

  "Can we join the fight now?" Clark asked, sounding more battle hungry than he meant to be.

  "I like your spunk, kid, but no. A dragon isn't a creature to rush into, remember! You observe the beast, let it come to you, then plan an ambush. Charging in blind is a recipe for disaster. Even if it's occupied with a battle, it can sense your hostility. Remember these basics!"

  "Okay... so what's the next step? We wait and see where it slithers off to?" Though he asked, all he could think about was if Hera and Theo were in trouble or needed help. It was a dragon after all.

  "Pretty much. It looks like the beast has retreated." Hermes took a second to speak into his earpiece, informing the team to stop their attack. "Now, the hard part. Clark, resume your Enhanced Vision -- we cannot let the dragon slip from our sight!"