The next things that happened, happened very quickly. Not only was Ghost Rider knocked (somewhat literally) out of the fight just as it had begun, but additionally, the dragon had taken on an even more powerful form as suddenly Vash found himself being bombarded with concentrated heat waves and falling rock — projectiles coming down on him as relentlessly as a storm of bullets from a squad of bounty hunters. “Flame Skull!” he called out in concern, but he could barely make his way over to the being as he found he was using nearly all his concentration to nimbly dodge all the dangers that came at him. 

As his body threw itself every-which-way to escape the barrage, though, he was able to glance at all the fight’s participants behind him — and what a mess he’d made for them. Sure, he still didn’t want the dragon to [i]die[/i], but… just blocking everyone’s attacks was only putting everyone else in grave danger. And that was something Vash couldn’t allow. Besides, the dragon was so well-armored that just about any attack these guys could launch would hardly have any chance of hurting it at all, much less killing it! If they wanted to so much as injure the creature, they’d need to attack from a completely different angle. 

Dodging another falling stalactite, Vash came up with a new idea. 

“Hey everyone!” he called out, only hoping his voice could be heard through all the chaos. “Attacking the creature directly won’t work! He’s too well-armored!” he told them, his smiley but nervous hey-let’s-not-kill-the-dragon face totally gone. He was serious this time, now actively participating in the fight and trying to keep everyone alive, even if he did have somewhat of his own secret agenda. Quickly grabbing a pair of shades from his jacket pocket and flicking them onto his face to block the glare of the flames, he continued, “If we aim at the cavern ceiling above, we could get it to collapse onto him! The rock will hold him down!” he yelled to everyone, pointing his gun at the ceiling. He wasn’t too confident that his bullets by themselves could do enough damage to make the ceiling collapse, but if all the other fighters whittled the rock away for him, he figured he could probably deliver the final blow needed to bring the ceiling down. “I’ll get Skeleton-Flames out of the way!” he announced, hoping the being was still ‘alive’ (if that was even the right term?) as he made his way over to the crater he’d been pounded into.