"Stubborn thing, ain't you?" John muttered, slitting his eyes at the dragon. He reviewed his count; around 16 shots left- call it 7 at current levels, since he'd been raising both the voltage and current with every shot.

At this point, John decided that it was fairly unlikely that he'd hit a stun or kill threshold even using all the power he had left in one shot- even if he could get the stunner to reach that threshold without burning it out halfway through the delivery. He stops walking and squares himself against the dragon, steadying his feet at a shoulder width apart, then reaches down into his supply of pills and pops back a tablet of chalky courage.

John could see better than most animals, even with one human eye weighing him down, and was certain he saw better than the dragon. Looking up at the beast on its perch he could see a spark of what could be called... well, [i]maybe[/i] not intelligence, but certainly cunning. An animal too smart to be scared away by punishing lightning, but not logical enough to move on to easier prey when it was harmed... and it could tell it was him that was the source of the pain- he could see it in the way it looked directly at him.

This, of course, changed things; though not as much as it would have if John hadn't spent the last few minutes shooting the damn thing. Normally, this would be the time to crack out the first contact protocols... However, seeing as he [i]had[/i] been shooting at it and probably pissing it right off, counting out prime numbers and drawing Pythagorean's theorem would probably not be the most helpful thing to do.

Therefore, John drew what he thought of was a healthy compromise, and shot it again. As the beast roared a long loud roar to follow up its three bursts of flame, lightning lashed out between the small weapon and the forked tongue of the creature, cutting its intimidating roar short with a pained yelp. Then, sure that he had gotten the creature's full attention, John proceeded to do what in nature is the equivalent of giving a predator the middle finger- that is to say, he whipped out his 'self' and proceeded to piss in the dragon's direction. The stream, and John's steady glare lasted for about half a minute, and then he put his trousers back in place, turned smartly about, and began a brisk pace towards the castle. A brisk pace which soon evolved into a run.