Title: Mother's rage
Summary: Word is advised to try a less direct approach.
Main character/s: Canon; Artha, Beau, Kitt, Wyldfyre, Lance, Fracshun, Parmon, Cyrano, Connor, Moordryd, Decepshun, Cain, Coershun, Word. Origional; Compashun, Tendyr, #0144, #8194, "Du'rath"
Rating: Mature.
Warnings: "Facts of life" about dragons, violence, blood.
No. of Chapters: 20 + epilogue
Complete: Complete
Concrit: Encouraged
Mary-Sue: one part no, one part a big maybe. No in that i don't think my OC dragons are, 'maybe' in that the 'voice' is quite possibly the biggest Anti-sue (if I'm using the term correctly) ever made... maybe.
Disclaimer: This is a Fanfiction I'm doing as a creative exercise, i take no monetary benefit from the production of this besides enjoyment and possible skill enhancement through the experiance of creating it and having it critiqued.
A/N: So, i was sitting down at my computer, staring at a word file i've been working on for years now. I'd hit another one of those snagging points, where the scene doesn't seem to want to flow very easialy, but you need to work it out soemhow to make the story continue properly? so i decided to do what allways worked to get my muse working again, look up dragon pictures, clips, anything to get him working again.

I surf Elfwood, Deviantart, Sheezyart, anything i can think of. then i go to youtube and type in 'dragon' in the search bar... and one of the dropdown quicklinks says 'booster' after the word 'dragon'. i say to myself 'that's an odd word pairing' so i click on it.

two days later I've watched every single episode, and cruised through this forum about a dozen times, and my muse starts beating me over the head with a spiked mace, telling me to write this story. i say "What about the book?" he says "It's not going anywhere, besides, i was stuck in a rut!"

so here i am with as much of the story as i could crank out in the span of a week. I really don't know what to think of it, but the scenes for it have been playing out in my brain day and night now, and i was hoping it'd make someone happy, but I'd dearly love constructive criticism, as well as general writing advice if anyone sees any flaws in my basic technique.

*Phew* Now that that's out of the way.... ON TO THE STORY!


Mother’s rage
A spur of the moment Dragon booster fanfic.

The citadel of Word Paynn loomed imposingly over a darkened, stormy night in dragon city. In his personal lab on the top level, the CEO and head developer of paynn industries, Word himself, sits with blast goggles over his eyes as he uses a very fine soddering tool to work on the circuitry in one of his new black draconium devices; yet another attempt at upgrading his remote mind control gear.

A faintly echoing voice suddenly seemed to permeate the air of the vast chamber. “My, my, yet another worthless trinket? Will you never learn?”

Word nearly jumped out of his skin. His senses had detected nothing, and the voice had no identifiable source. Standing in a rush he almost tears the goggles from his face, and looks around the room with darting eyes.

“Who said that?” he shouted. “Show yourself at once!”

“No need to be testy.” The voice says again… the voice was cool, calm, and collected, but not without a slight sneer in its inflection.

“Whoever you are, you’re beginning to try my patience.” Word said, almost growling as his hand started to move to the wraith remote in the console nearby.

“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you.” the voice continued, sounding tired. “Be a waste of your energy and that of your wraiths. I’m not anywhere near your citadel.”

Word reached out with his enhanced senses from his years as an elite class, and from the few years he’d spent in the priesthood. He felt nothing, nothing in any color of draconium whatsoever.

“Armeggadon?” Word said, suddenly trying to analyze the situation, this was within Armeggadon’s powers, to communicate long distances without technology… however, no matter the level of that power, he couldn’t alter his voice, and this one was not his. It sounded younger, not a deep voice like Armeggadon… he’d gone into hiding weeks before to rebuild his power after their confrontation during the last qualifying race before the Drag-ball tournament, but that voice left a lasting impression, and this was far from it. “No… your voice is wrong… who are you?” Word shouted the end of this back into the air.

“Finally, he starts to use his head.” The voice continued, sounding relieved. “I was beginning to despair of you.”

Word could practically feel a vessel in his forehead start to beat with his pulse… a sharp, elevated pulse. “If you don’t tell me who you are the next time you talk, I swear I’ll scour the planet until I find you, then personally-”

“I am someone who would benefit by there being more strife in the world… a lot more strife.” The voice said, evasively. “You, Word Paynn, are in the best position to bring that about, but I’m afraid you’re going about it all wrong.”

Word lifted his hand to point into the air and shout a retort, but suddenly stopped and looked down, his eyes darting blindly as he started to think… he grinned, then stepped back to lean against the table. “Alright. Would you explain to me then, ‘friend’, how I’ve been wrong?”

“I’ve watched your previous attempts fail, one by one, thanks to that ‘hero’ that’s been flaunting himself all across your city.” The voice said. “He is rather the direct type, is he not? Rushing in to save the day and all that from your special toys and little plots for control and power?”

Word snorted and rolled his eyes. “He is at that.” He said, then shook his head. “And I suppose you have a brilliant idea as to how to deal with him? I’ve tried numerous times and-”

“Yes, you have tried, very grandiose and flashy ways of besting him, in combat, through force, through technology…” the voice almost seemed to sneer at the end of this list.

“What are you, anti-tech?” Word growled, his patience was wearing awfully thin, and the last strands of that rope were starting to fray. “Yes, I’ve used gear on him many times, and several times they almost worked.”

“Yes, and they were all far too direct.” The voice said.

“Direct?” Word said, incredulously. “Direct is the only way to get him out of my way!” he said again.

“Wrong.” The voice said, flatly.

Word rolled his eyes, then sunk his head into his palm. “And I suppose you’ve a better way to wipe him out?”

“Hardly.” The voice said back.

“Well what then?” word said, now suddenly growing at once confused and curious.

“Present him with a problem that cannot be solved by force, or a simple little speech.” The voice said. “I have a great deal of experience in such matters. Wars started by large, powerful forces openly declaring their intentions are a thing of the past. You want dragons to fight humans? Well then, consider this…” The voice said, making Word raise one half of his monobrow. “I assure you, given the right… motivation, there are dragons here within your own city, that would gladly start a great deal of hostility towards humanity. They have already, through a lifetime of treatment by their human ‘masters’, been nearly perfectly conditioned to start an uprising.”

“There are?” Word said, suddenly extremely interested. “Where are they? Squire’s end? Where can I find them? I’ll have to call Moordryd… blast! He’s at the academy now…”

“Pull up on the reigns, there, Word. I said nothing about the disenfranchised dragons of the slums.” The voice said, chuckling, but the use of terms sent Word reeling mentally.

“What was that?” Word said, confused.

“What was what?” the voice said.

“You said… reigns?” Word ventured

“Oh, that just… an old term.” The voice sounded almost embarrassed. “I’ll just have to remember who I’m talking to in the future.”

Word tilted his head, still confused.

“You wished to know who to ‘recruit’, to your cause? Well… that’s what you might have some real trouble comprehending.” The voice said.

“What, then?” Word said, shaking his head.

“Rather than directly try to control what happens, why not just let a little chaos come into play… you’ll get plenty of aggression from dragons to humans, with what’s to come.”

Word practically growled. “Get to the point already!” he yelled.

“You keep tabs on your rival mega-corporations, correct?” the voice asked.

“Yes, what of it?” word said.

“Tap into the security Vid cameras of Scalesheen corporation’s number five Dragon stable building, level three, stall number Zero three eight nine.” The voice said, almost like delivering an order.

Word paused for a second, wondering if the voice had just gone mad. Then shook his head and went to the console, and tapped in a key sequence. Within moments he was looking at a vid feed from exactly that stall.

A quadrupedal female blue draconium dragon, with a primary body coloration of cobalt, its underbody, lower jaw, and the insides of all four legs sky blue, with a smooth, unbroken line of pale violet separating the two was the only thing inside the stall. Its head was smooth, with a small frill at the very back of the top of it’s skull, accentuating the almost matching protrusions at the back corners of it’s jaws. It’s muzzle had the smooth rounded shape seen in some other blues, most similarly to Connor Penn’s youngest son’s tiny young dragon, though darker, and the region around it’s eyes were colored in that delicate pale violet color. Notably, she was slightly enlarged in the mid section. Coming with the vid feed was a small sub box with text data on her condition. Her A.I. had been about a month and a half prior, and she was now apparently carrying six eggs, a particularly large clutch.

“What is this?” Word said, whirling around. “You go through all that and you show me a pregnant dragoness? What use could she possibly be?”

“Directly, to your personal cause, not much. You wouldn’t get much out of her if you put wraith gear on her and tried to use her as a soldier.”

“I know that you idiot!” he yelled.

“The fact you cannot see what is in front of your face is not my concern, Paynn.” The voice said.

Paynn was about to yell again, then forced himself to stop, gritted his teeth and huffed. “Ok then.” He said through clenched teeth. “Please. Tell. Me. Why. She. Is. So. Important!” he said, forcibly punctuating every word.

“I’m glad we’re understanding each other now.” The voice said, on the verge of a laugh. “On the surface, that dragoness is a placid creature, not useful for anything more than making eggs… below the surface, she is depressed, confused, agitated, starving for information. She has never been outside the pens in her life, the most contact she’s ever had with other dragons is between breeding when they let the dragonesses mingle in a general pen elsewhere on that level, and the lot of them don’t even know that the things that come out of them are even called eggs, much less what they really are.” The voice said, inflecting a great deal of meaning onto the last word.

Word tilted his head, then looked back at the dragoness on the screen. Tapping a few keys he made the camera readjust, sharpening the image. Suddenly, he saw how her head drooped and her honey colored eyes were unfocused, looking at the ground in front of her. The mag-ball that was the general ‘toy’ given to these dragons to keep them from going into self destructive habits from sheer boredom lay unused, and gathering dust in the corner, her food trough was almost completely full, only a few bites taken by the dragon.

After five minutes of silence, the voice spoke again. “She’s a powder keg, Word… all you need to do is apply a spark, in just the right way, and a whole lot of chaos is going to explode forth.”

“How do I do it?” Word said.

The voice actually sighed. “Very well, I suppose I’ll have to lead you by the hand the whole way this first time.” It said. “It’s very, very simple word. Give her what she wants… knowledge. Knowledge that they…” the voice said, just as a human keeper came into the dragoness’ stall on the screen. “Don’t want her to have.”

<<>>

-Five minutes prior-

Dragoness #0389 lay in her stall, dozing. She’d passed more of those strange objects out of her body over two months ago, something along the fifteenth, or maybe eighteenth time that had happened to her. She was twenty five years old… that’s what the doctor had said when looking over her chart when they’d… ‘poked’ her with that cold metal rod in that place between her hind legs. It was always uncomfortable, and she’d been in restraints during the event, so she couldn’t lash out at him when he did it. She always wanted to, that did not feel good. She didn’t know why they insisted on doing it to her.

“She put out another nice sized clutch last time, with these increased volume ones though, she’ll need more nutrition. Increase her feed ratio by thirty percent and make sure to add the right percentages of nutrient powder.” The doctor had said to one of the on hand techs, before patting her on the belly and walking away. She was then released from the restraints and led back to this stall.

She hadn’t wanted to go back to the stall at all… she hated it in here. She wanted to be in the nice, big, open pen with all the other dragoness’, where she could talk to, play with, and sleep next to others. Particularly since she didn’t feel very good… not sick, so much as sad. Empty… she always felt like that for a while after the pains hit her, and those things would come out of her, and then the humans took those things that had hurt coming out of her away. The first time she’d seen them she’d been so very confused. And every time after that she was still confused, she’d never seen them before, and didn’t know what they were.

She drifted off, and a very old memory came back to her, reminding her that it wasn’t entirely true. She had seen them once before… long, long before she’d first had the pains. She was in a very small, dark, tight place. She couldn’t breathe…. And she pushed and squirmed against the walls that threatened to crush her. She’d push and push and push, and eventually… something gave… a tiny opening that let a gust of air in… cooler than inside where she was, but still warm. She’d gulp in the air, relieved to finally get a breath, then she began pushing against those walls again, and the tiny opening began to widen. Eventually, the opening suddenly became the center of a huge rupture in the tiny universe she’d been entrapped in, before suddenly she spilled out of the tiny space into a strange universe of harsh lights, strange sights, and sounds she’d never heard before… and she was surrounded by larger versions of what came out of her. She took a full, deep breath, and let out a small cry, and suddenly, huge hands, big as she was plucked her from the ground, and held her in the air, where she found herself looking into the face of the first human she’d ever laid eyes on.

“I don’t know doc, she’s usually hungrier by now.” The face said, but it sounded strange… and suddenly, thinking about it, she jolted herself out of the half dream she was in. She found herself back in her stall; the voice had come from outside the door.

“Hmm… I read a report on the veterinary journal that a fertilization that takes advantage of the ovulation that comes on the heels of a dropped clutch can sometimes cause imbalances in hormone levels.” The voice paused for a second before continuing. “It makes them broody. Give her a few days, maybe a week, and if she hasn’t begun eating more by then, then I’d be concerned.”

“Right doc… I’ll keep an eye on her.” The voice said, sighing.

Two sets of footsteps began walking down the corridor between the stalls, one towards her, one away from her. After a moment, the door in front of her opened and she lifted her head slightly.

“Hey Compashun.” Said Banten, one of the keepers. She liked him, he always petted her a lot, and would sometimes come into her stall just to talk to her… talk about his life his ‘family’, whatever that meant… she’d gathered it was a group of other people he lived with… somewhere. There was a woman, and a younger male human, but she didn’t quite know why they were so important to him. Sometimes he talked about the younger male with a lot of pride, sometimes he sounded concerned. And sometimes he talked about other things entirely. Whenever he seemed sad or distressed, she’d always nuzzle him, or coil her body around him so he could sit, leaning against her shoulder.

Plus, he was the only one, who ever, ever called her Compashun. Everyone else called her Zero-three-eight-nine. She was rather special in that respect; a lot of the other dragonesses only had numbers. But a few, like her, had special names that their keepers would call them by.

“Sure you’re not hungry girl?” he said, coming in and stroking her snout.

“No… not really.” She grunted, shaking her head. She didn’t know why she even tried talking, none of the humans ever seemed to understand her, or any of the other dragonesses when they tried to talk. Still, she got her point across with gestures.

“Guess not huh.” Banten said, giving her a little scritch under her chin. “Well, maybe you should just get some rest.” He said, patting her gently on the cheek once. “I’ll be in tomorrow morning to check up on you. Maybe I’ll toss the mag ball around with you a little.” He said, smiling.

She actually smiled a little at that, and nudged him with the top of her head, and he laughed.

“Good night girl.” He said, before walking out of the stall and putting his hand on the pressure plate on the outside of the door to close it.


Chapter 2

Cain rode his grey and black patterned psi-class dragon Coershun through the streets of down city. The rain from the previous day had only let up a few hours ago, so the dragon’s paws were splashing through many puddles in the road as he ran on.

“Remind me again why I have to do this, Moordryd?” Cain said into his wrist com-unit.

“For the fifth time, Cain, my dad needed something done and I can’t risk getting caught doing anything shady outside the academy. The joint acceptance with the penn kid and his crew is shaky enough as it is.” The white haired teenager in the small vid window said. “Besides, my father is one of the professors here. If anything happens, he can cover for us. Besides, you’re not doing anything major, just planting a jakk box.”

Cain shook his head. “That’s what’s confusing me. Why just one jakk box? Your dad’s always done things a lot bigger scale than this, and he can tap into their security system whenever he wants anyway.”

“Would you shut up!” Moordryd said through gritted teeth to keep himself from yelling. “Look, it makes as little sense to me as it does you… which is surprising.” Moordryd said, rolling his eyes. “Just get it done, cover your tracks, and get back here. We all have to be up for the lecture tomorrow morning. Me, you, and our dragons!”

“Why our dragons again?” Cain asked. Coershun, below him, glanced up and nodded assent to this question. Why did he have to come too?

“What they teach in the academy is as much for our dragons as for us, Cain. You heard them that first day, they learn and grow with us. Besides, anything that they teach that could give that dragon of yours a backbone is worth learning in my book.”

“Hey! I resent that!” Coershun grunted while tossing his head in an offended manner, and nearly throwing his distracted rider.

“Whoah, Coershun! Watch it boy!” Cain said, grabbing the controls to keep himself from falling.

“Sorry…” Coershun whined.

“Problem?” Moordryd said.

“Sorry, Coershun just… went weird on me for a second.” Cain responded.

“Heh, sorry, he probably heard me talk about him. Ya hear me you spineless wimp?” Moordryd said, raising the volume of his voice.

“Yes, yes, I hear you…” Coershun growled while rolling his eyes.

“Actually…” Cain said, looking down at his dragon in slight surprise. “I think he does…”

Moordryd put his face in his palm for a second. “Dragons are smarter than you think, Cain. They can understand human language better than some people. Remember that.”

“Wait a minute… you mean they’re actually talking to our dragons too!?” Cain said, plain shock written across his face, while Coershun felt like slapping himself in the head with his tail. Now he felt like an idiot for snoozing through the last three lectures. He’d thought that he wasn’t part of the target audience.

“Didn’t I just say that?” Moordryd said, irritated. “Now just get the job done and get back here. Like I said, I need you, and him, fresh in the morning. The professor’s not going to be happy if you two sleep through class, again.”

“Man, what a slave driver.” Cain said under his breath, but close enough to his wrist unit for it to be perfectly clear to Moordryd.

“What was that?” Moordryd snapped.

“Not you, the professor!” Cain replied hastily, to cover himself.

“Oh, right…” Moordryd said. “Look, just cut the line and hurry up. I want to see you back here before 1:00 AM. That should give you enough rest afterwards. Oh… and if you need some extra cover coming back, go grab a burger or something from a ride-through, tell the guards you were hungry or something. Paynn out.” Mordryd said, then cut the connection.

“I don’t know why you put up with him.” Coershun grunted, eyes going forward again.

“So, uh… you can understand me, Coershun?” Cain said.

“Is this really the best time to start this?” Coershun growled, sharply, back up at his rider. “I’m tired enough as it is!”

“I’ll take that as a… yes then?” Cain said.

Coershun whined. “Why me?”

<<>>

Cain glanced around. They were at the spot. An out of view access truss on the back of a building overlooking the Scalesheen corporation’s number 5 breeding center’s south face. Cain urged Coershun to stand with his forepaws ontop the guardrail so his rapel pod was clear over the side of it. Cain activated the pot, opening it and activating a fine targeting reticle inside his helmet’s visor. A minute of searching and he found what he needed, the primary interlink box on the outside of the structure for all the com panels inside the building. Targeting a green colored pipe just next to it, he fired the grappling hook, and braced himself as the recoil pushed Coershun back about an inch.

The grappling head of the line flew out far and fast, then clamped on to the pipe some fourty meters out.

“Thanks Coershun, ya held good and steady for that one.” Cain said, patting the black dragon on the top of his head from his position. Coershun smiled at the praise, then tilted his head as Cain hopped off from the saddle nimbly, then removed the Jakk box from it’s weak maglock on the dragon’s side.

“Ok, you hold it steady here.” He said, clipping the box to his belt, then putting on some very heavy looking gloves with a charge cell in them, allowing them to make a form of mag lock to any draconium infused object, such as the line of cable in a rapell gear pod. These were actually Word’s prototypes, and had been supplied for the job tonight by Moordryd’s old man.

“Well, I hope this works.” Cain said, reaching up to take a grip on the line as it came out of the open pod on Coershun’s chest.

“So do I… I don’t want you to fall…” Coershun whined, putting his head down to nudge Cain.

“Hey, don’t worry, I’ve got my Ares pod on.” Cain said, almost as if he understood what the dragon had just said, then started going down the cable, hand over hand, his feet now dangling over nothing but the vast abyss below.

The progress was slow, but steady. Cain glanced down once halfway across, and regretted it, then doubled his pace across, until he was at the wall, and there was another pipe below him that he could rest his feet on. He breathed a sigh of relief, turned and gave a little wave to his dragon, who relaxed a little, seeing his rider at least somewhat safe.

“Ok, now then.” Cain said, still wearing the gloves, he reached into his pocket with one hand, still gripping the cable with one hand, he pulled out a small hand tool and began working on getting the switch box open, which wasn’t particularly easy, considering he was balancing his booted feet on one pipe, and his other hand was still holding onto the rapell line with the mag-glove.

“C’mon, c’mon, open already!” Cain said, growing frustrated with the seal on the box. Then yelped as one of his feet slid off the pipe and he had to really hang onto the rapell line… then looked down, putting his foot back on the pipe… where a patch of green had come off the pipe, revealing a ruddy brown colored metal instead.

“Aw great. Some kinda moss or something.” Cain said. Then he heard a distant whine, and looked back to see Coershun craning his head out, trying to see him better.

Cain waved back to him to show he was alright, then went back to work on the box. Thankfully, the thing finally clicked open and the panel swing out on its hinges.

“Finally!” Cain grumbled, then pulled the jakk box off his belt and held it over the open box, looking in for a second before placing it firmly ontop of the major connector interlink where a lot of important looking cables came together. The device maglocked itself into place automatically, and Cain swung the door closed, pulled out his tool again and quickly soddered the lock together so nobody’d notice anything. Then he turned around, very carefully, on top of the pipe, took a strong grip on the cable with one mag gloved hand, and spoke into his communicator, linking to the saddle on Coershun, figuring it was worth a shot.

“Coershun, if you can hear me, unlatch the grip on the rapell hook.” He said.

A second later, it did just that, and cain found himself falling… no, falling and swinging on the end of the cable. He let out a yelp as he went careening through the air… thankfully, under the truss which coershun was standing on, there was open space for him to swing into. After a minute of acting like a pendulum, the cord stopped swinging and he was just dangling at the end of it.

“Whew!” he said, then opened the link again. “Okay Coershun, pull me up now?”

The cable immediately started to retract upwards, pulling cain along with it.

“Good boy!” Cain said, then cut the connection and put his other hand back on the cable as he rose towards the guardrail where Coershun was standing.

“Thanks Coershun! We work well together!” Cain said as he pulled himself over the guardrail and hopped down next to his dragon. Coershun rapidly returned the grappling hook into the rapell pod and closed it up, then picked Cain up with a mag-stream and deposited him on the saddle locked to the back of his head.

“You know, I’m gonna take Moordryd’s advice and get something take out, all that work made me hungry. How about you, want a protein drink?” he asked the Psi class dragon.

“Might as well.” Coershun snorted, nodding his head.

“Ok then, let’s find the nearest burger place.” Cain said, pulling to the right on the controls of his saddle, making Coershun bend around in the tight space of the truss’ walkway, then bound down it to make the jump back into an alley and back onto a nearby dragway.

<<>>

Word was sitting, awake, particularly late that night in his personal lab. He didn’t actually have a direct line of sight to where Moordryd’s second would be doing the job -none of his wraith dragons could get in position- but he did have a direct link to the Jakk box. He watched the indicator, bored, as it said ‘inactive’, as it had for the past three quarters of an hour since Cain had picked it, and the gloves, up from where it had been stowed for him to find.

“This has to be the dullest plan I’ve ever tried.” Word said. “If this doesn’t work, I’m swearing off listening to strange voices.” He continued, then had to chuckle. “Maybe I’m just going mad.”

“I swear you have absolutely no patience Word.” The voice suddenly remanifested itself in the lab for the first time since it had gone silent the day before.

“I was wondering if I was going to hear from you again.” Word said, shaking his head. “Still don’t’ feel like showing your face I take it?”

“Oh, I’ll show up sooner or later, don’t you worry.” The voice said, amused. “I had my own business to take care of first, though. As do you.” it said, moments before the indicator on the console infront of word went from ‘inactive’ to ‘active’.

Word stared at it for about half a second. “How did you…?” he said, dumbfounded.

“You think you’re the only one with eyes everywhere?” the voice said. “How do you think I knew what you’ve been up to?”

“Point.” Word said.

“Now, shouldn’t you get to work?” the voice said. “I seem to remember you commenting how dull things were… And if you want to impress me, show me what you came up with.”

Word snorted, then went to his console and began typing in a series of commands. A full readout of the commlink setup in the entire building came up. Apparently, recessed into a panel inside each stall was a vidscreen, useful if the keepers needed to make an emergency call, as they weren’t allowed carry their personal vid units during work hours. They were, however, locked out of every kind of station, news, entertainment, and particularly educational. He noted their presence with a smile, they were what he needed, but first he had to cover his activity from scalesheen’s security. He tapped again into the security feed from that one dragoness’ stall, and observed for a moment. She was laying against another wall, curled up, her tailtip and paws twitching in some kind of a dream. He pulled up a secondary function of the jakk box and hit the red button on his console, making the device record the data from the security camera. He watched for a minute or so, then felt satisfied and hit the button again, cutting it off.

“Let’s see, a little cropping… find a beginning and end point that match up… and we have a nice little video loop.” Word said, grinning.

“Wonderful way to cover one’s activities.” The voice said.

“She could start bouncing off the walls in there and they’d never know from watching.” Word said, then activated the loop. Now all the security would see would be what he wanted them to see.

“And now for the real plan to go into motion.” Word said, pulling up the jakk box’s secondary command list, selecting one of a number of presets upon it, and hit that big red button a third time.

<<>>

Compashun was asleep. She’d ate a little more than she had the previous day only at the urging of Banten, though playing some with the mag ball had helped her build a little appetite after about an hour of him tossing it to her with his hands, and her catching it with a mag stream before tossing it back with a mag push, and so on.

As such, she was in the midst of her first relatively deep sleep in days when she was woken by a strange beeping noise coming from somewhere inside her stall. She twitched, tried to curl in closer on herself, then growled as she lifted her head, her eyes still closed, and growled, still half asleep, “Be quiet!”

The noise, however, did not stop, and eventually she rolled over, stretched her limbs to work the kinks out of them, and stood, shaking her head, and looking around.

“What… what is that?” she huffed, quietly, tilting her head quizzically, seeing a small red flashing light keeping time with the beeping. It was emanating from a tiny nub set into the wall, a few feet from the stall door. It was the only light in the stall, even the lights out in the aisle were off for the night. She padded over, slowly, each step sounding in the room as her eyes were fixated on the strange little light.

When she got to it, she sniffed at it… it didn’t smell any different from the other walls of her stall. She then lifted her right forepaw and gently prodded it with the tip of one of her large middleclaws.

Without warning, a panel in the wall right infront of her slid open with a hiss of compressed air, and underneath it was a green glow that was rather harsh in the dark of the stall. The suddenness of this strange event made her cry out in surprise, and she leapt backwards across her stall, her fright making her leap so fast she slammed her side into the opposite wall, and she moaned, stunned by the impact.

A strange sound had also began to fill the stall, and she looked up, growling wordlessly at the thing. She’d heard similar sounds to this before. Once in a rare while a keeper would bring some kind of device that made sounds that seemed… pleasing to them. Once in a while she found some of them pleasant herself. Slow sounds, like a dragon’s singing, only in other pitches and tones, rather than harsh pounding beats. This one was making a sound similar to what she’d always liked, only new and different.

And then Compashun stopped growling as a voice, a human female’s, began speaking, and an image began to form inside the darker central box in the green glow.

“And now, The lives of dragons, a nature documentary on Claw network’s ‘Discover the world’ series.”

A line of text faded in, and out. She couldn’t read much of it. She’d never learned how properly, and none of the humans had ever taught her, though she’d always looked closely over Banten’s shoulder as he wrote on his little clipboard.

Another line of text, smaller, faded in, then out, then a scene opened up. Green… things, whispy, came out of a floor that did not look metal. A strange archway the focus of the shot, made out of more ‘not metal’, it was brown, and rough, and irregularly shaped.

A red, bipedal dragon appeared, dragging the carcass of some kind of other creature towards the darkened archway, and the female human’s voice began speaking again.

“It’s evening in the forest of Chorrus, a wild male Magma class dragon brings home a fresh kill to its den, where its mate…” the voice pauses as the camera changes to another, inside the archway. The lighting is dimmer, but Compashun could see clearly enough, a female red, it’s head slimmer than the male, is lying on it’s side in the middle of a pile of tan colored versions of the whispy things that had been outside the chamber, arranged into a pile surrounded by some large rocks to keep the soft materials from moving about, it’s legs placed at odd angles due to a large bulge in it’s midsection. “-Is waiting. Not willing to move far from her nest due an abundance of new life forming within her.”

“New life?” Compashun grunted, greatly confused.

The female magma class nosed at the carcass a bit, nibbled at the edge of the wounds that the male apparently had made to kill the creature, then simply settled back into her nest. The male whined confused, and Compashun couldn’t really make out what he was saying as the human female voice began speaking again, overlaying him. “She doesn’t seem particularly interested in the offered meal, much to his distress.” The human said, and then the volume of the actual scene increased again, and compashun could just make out what the female red was saying to her mate now.

“They’re coming soon, love. Please, let me rest. I’ll eat after.” The red female crooned in a odd tone, before laying her head back down and closing her eyes.

“What’s coming?” Compashun whined, wanting to know. What was this female talking about?

The camera shifted back out to the view outside the small, dark place, where the strange archway was. Suddenly, things seemed to move, like someone had moved and dimmed the lights, as the shadows of the green whispy things moved and got longer, before everything got very dark. Then things seemed to stop changing, and she could hear strange noises… like tiny animal cries that carried no words, unlike dragon speech.

Suddenly, the female magma dragon’s voice became audible, wordless, she was grunting, in a way that Compashun suddenly realized she knew… she’d done it herself, numerous times, when the pains struck.

The camera changed again, and showed the red female, on an angle from the front… she was hunkered down low, her legs spread wide and her eyes screwed shut, she grunted, growled, moaned, and let out small cries. Suddenly, the view changed again, and all that was shown was the inner surface of the soft nest, where…

One of the objects that compashun was so confused about, seemed to drop from above the camera, bounce gently on the dry material, and roll a bit before stopping. A few moments later, it was joined by a second, and a third.

“What? Those… those things? They came out of her, yes? Hey, HEY! What are those?” Compashun said, trying to get something to explain it to her.

“Quiet down, some of us are trying to sleep!” One of her neighbors in the stable called out in a groggy voice, instantly silencing Compashun. Guiltily, she silently stared forward at the green glow and at the images there.

“Three healthy eggs. A hard night’s work, but this mother’s work isn’t done yet.” The human female’s voice said.

“Eggs?” Compashun thought silently. “They’re called… eggs? And what’s a mother?”

The human female continued, now showing the female outside the archway, in a view that showed… that she was somewhere extremely strange… there were no walls. None. And no roof… or… well, there seemed to be something above her… some strange, blue… mass, with grayish white things floating around in it. It seemed like it was there, yet things kept going up and never seemed to touch it.

“She and her mate take it in turns to hunt or brood with the eggs, respectively. The male’s technique on keeping the eggs properly incubated is, admittedly, not the best, but he manages.” Showing the male laying curled around the objects… Eggs, Compashun reminded herself. Those things were called eggs. One of them kept rolling down into a depression away from the others, and the male had to keep placing it with the other two until the female came, shooed him out of the nest, and took his place, expertly arranging the three eggs along her body and curling up around them.

“They do this for approximately two more months, before the awaited day arrives.” The voice said. and showed the female and the male both standing outside the nest as the eggs apparently shook by themselves. They did this for a few seconds before she saw a crack form on one, and Compashun felt her heart leap in her large, barrel chest. What was going on?

Suddenly, the crack popped open, and a tiny… oh so tiny dragon claw popped out, followed by the tip of a nose that seemed to be sized to go with the claw, and the mouth opened to let out a tiny, tiny cry.

Compashun felt her jaw drop wide open, but it was remote, as though not of her, her entire consciousness was focused on what was playing out infront of her.

The cry repeated, before the thing inside began struggling again. Behind that egg, the other two were making similar progress, though not as quick as the first.

After two minutes of work, and the adult male and female gently urging the tiny, encased little dragons on with words which seemed to blur together in Compashun’s mind, the first egg seemed to rupture completely, and the first tiny dragon spilled out.

It stood slowly on two small, wobbly legs, its smaller forelimbs tucked up against it’s chest. It looked up at the much, much larger adult and made a tiny cry. The adult female lowered her head down to the tiny thing -it’s whole body was smaller than the female’s head- and she licked the tiny one all over, making gentle crooning noises, which the tiny dragon returned… the expressions on both their faces were… the happiest that Compashun had ever seen.

“Mother dragons typically sequester themselves with their newborn hatchlings in their dens for a period of three to four weeks before allowing them to venture outside, though this is still under close watch.” The human female’s voice said, as the scene changed. Now the three tiny dragons… hatchlings it had called them, were now running around in a open place, the ground covered with those whispy green things coming out of the floor. They were romping and playing and bowling each other over, chasing each other around… and using tiny mag streams on small objects to toss them around. All the while the large red female kept them from becoming too rowdy, or going anywhere too far from the place where they seemed to sleep.

Then the scene changed completely, and Compashun now saw very large structures, clearly made by men, but she didn’t recognize any of them.

“Wild dragons are a rarity in the modern age. And more often than not, dragon breeding takes place in large, almost industrialized breeding stables and hatcheries.” The voice said, as it entered a building… and suddenly the environments became very familiar to Compashun.

They were where she lived, or very close to it.

The first scene was in a room identical to that place where she, and the others, always said they were restrained for when they got that horrid ‘poke’. A female purple pack class dragon was in restraints as the procedure was carried out, and she growled loudly as it happened.

“Conception is carried out clinically, negating the need to keep male dragons on hand to fertilize the females. They are kept in separate facilities, and in far fewer numbers, since a single sample can be stretched among several dozen fertile females.”

The scene changed to inside a stall that Compashun found extraordinarily familiar… then snorted in abrupt shock. She was looking at a scene she was familiar with. A turquoise sonic class dragon, lithe and slim, was standing there, looking around behind her, confused, as several eggs were being removed from her stall, a keeper trying to distract her.

“Carefully calibrated nutrient balances in the feed increase the size of eggs and the resulting offspring, and make them develop quicker. Once laid, eggs are taken to a hatchery. typically organized by draconium color and class. This particular one houses turquoise sonic-class Dragon eggs.” The voice said… and suddenly, she was looking at a strangely familiar place. There were eggs resting in holders, and a number of them were shaking and cracking.

The camera focused on one, and it cracked open almost sideways, spilling the tiny dragon inside out onto an almost gel-like pad.

“Once hatched, all the young dragons go to a holding pen where they are raised in groups, and fed from nursing tubes.” The scene changed again, and showed many dragons of all kinds and colors, all very small, in pens, the barred walls no higher than three feet and not nearly reaching the ceiling.

“After growing to approximately four to six feet in height at the shoulder for a quadruped, or six to eight feet for a bipedal dragon, these adolescent dragons are ready for sale on the open market. Here they are evaluated by potential buyers who range in interest widely.” The female voice said, showing a scene in a place that was definitely not part of her stable, outside the walls of a building in a large open lot, dragons standing with their feet in locking tethers, while humans examined them. It then focused on one particular human writing something onto a sheet of paper, shaking hands with another human, then mounting up on a dragon and riding it out of the place.

“Dragons sold in this fashion may end up in many working situations, such as Excavations, or industrial work.” The scenes showed brown dragons working in a strip mine shoveling raw red draconium ore out of the grey earth, then another one using a mag stream to melt down said ore before it was processed into a more useful shape. “Or in the race and battle circuits.” And the scene changed to one which simply horrified Compashun… a blue four legged dragon, a male, which had a familiar look to his bodylines to her and the others here in the stables, was running along some… long path, with a human riding on it, while the rider was attacking, and being attacked, by other such riders. The dragons were roaring in pain and frustration and lashing out at each other as well as blows were traded.

“Or, if the breeder decides, a selected number of the hatchlings from the previous generation are kept and brought into the breeding population of the stable.”

Right then, suddenly, it stopped, abruptly, and the green glow dissipated before the panel closed again.

Compashun sat there on her haunches, still staring at where the glow had been, her mind a confused jumble of thoughts.

(Continued in next post...)

Chapter 3:

Artha sat near the middle of the huge lecture hall, the place brimming with students, whole crews from many different cities, along with their dragons, separated slightly by the tiered amphitheater construction. Each level had plenty of room in it to allow the dragons to remain with their riders, as was the way here in the academy. Beau himself was curled up around the back of the chair Artha was sitting in as both of them tried to pay attention to the lecturer, an old veteran elite who was now teaching them tactical history from the original dragon human war, and how some of those tactics had developed into the modern day elite race and battle techniques. Important to know, since it helped build a foundation for knowing when to use it in reality.

Artha looked to his left. Kitt Wonn was sitting there, Wyldfyre crouched down next to her as both of them listened as well… but while Kitt’s eyes were focused and intense, wyldfyre yawned. The whole ‘tactical’ aspect didn’t seem to suit him. His style had always been more of the ‘reflexive action’ type.

Then he looked to his left. Sitting there, jotting down nearly everything that was being said, was Parmon sean. If it was information of any kind, you could bet Parmon wasn’t going to let it slip past him. He’d probably be up past midnight tonight memorizing everything said today.

Sadly, this was the limit of the Penn crew that had been allowed to come to academy. Artha’s younger brother, Lance, and his dragon Fracshun had been deemed both ‘too young’ to attend. When he asked why, Sentrus had obligingly explained to the young boy and his dragon that Fracshun, while being a blue energy class dragon of perhaps the finest breeding she’d ever seen, was simply too young to endure the transformation that would happen during the academy training, unlike Beau, Wyldfyre, and Cyrano, who were fully mature adults.

Still, nothing had really changed yet. It’d been nothing but lectures, lectures, and more lectures for the past month since they’d arrived here in the academy. They were still taking lessons in the top levels, and it was all theory, history, and tactics. Enough book learning to make a normal person’s head spin. Kitt, as usual, was doing better with this than Artha, but Parmon? Parmon was making this whole thing look like a walk though sun city park; that is, way too easy. Cyrano, meanwhile, merely slumped his chin on the table next to Parmon and watched the front board where the teacher was speaking with slightly glassy eyes… he was just as uninterested in this as Wyldfyre.

Beau, however, was paying attention with a strange light in his eyes… Artha’d been curious about that the first day of history classes, and had called his father, who explained that Beau was probably having a lot of stored memories from his predecessor coming to the surface, triggered by the knowledge the professor was passing along.

“Huh? What?” Parmon suddenly said, looking around, shrugged, and went back to copying down his notes. A second later, Artha noticed something small, and white, sail through the air, lightly impact Parmon in the back of the neck, and fall to the floor, but not before making the very tan young man nearly jump out of his skin.

“Eyyahh! What was that?” Parmon yelped, jumping out of his chair.

“Is something the matter, mister Sean?” the teacher said, turning around and looking at the class for perhaps the first time in over an hour.

“Uh… I just, felt something touch my neck…” Parmon said, embarrassed at suddenly being the center of attention.

Artha raised an eyebrow and looked at the floor, scanning for the object he’d just seen.

“Probably your dragon, Mr. Sean. Please, sit down and do keep quiet, I still have half an hour left, and I plan to make the most of every second. Now where was I…” he said, turning back to the board.

Parmon blushed, cringed, and sat back down, trying to make himself as small as possible.

Artha, meanwhile, located the object, and stretched his foot out to gently nudge it over closer to his chair. It was very light, and rolled very easily… Beau’s concentration broken, looked down at what his rider was doing, and raised one of his eye ridges.

Keeping his eyes on the professor in the front of the room, artha leaned over until his face was half under the table, his arm reaching until his fingers met the tiny object, and picked it up, he looked at it closely…

“A paper ball?” he whispered. It was a tiny scrap of paper when he unfolded it. It had no writing on it, but it had been compressed tightly into a small rumpled sphere. Suddenly another one landed on the table between Artha and Parmon… followed by another. Artha looked up and behind them, along with Beau, just in time to see a student from a red draconium oriented crew from outside the city, tiered above them in the lecture hall, flick another paper ball randomly out into the open space in front of him… this one went flying to the left of them… and ended up landing… directly on top of Moordryd Paynn.

It bounced off the top of his head, and onto the desk infront of him. He’d been paying almost as close attention to this lecture as Kitt… a real intense guy, that one. But suddenly, with the tiny impact on his head, and seeing the object land in front of him on the table, he suddenly got angry.

“Okay!” he said, standing and holding the paper ball up. “Who threw this at me!?”

The silence that followed that outburst was palpable, and the professor turned. “Mister Paynn?” He said slowly.

“Someone threw a piece of paper at me!” he said. “What is this, grade school!?” he shouted at the rest of the room.

Artha glanced briefly up at the person he’d seen flicking the paper balls out. The other teen was looking decidedly guilty and trying to make himself smaller.

“If someone has been throwing paper or blowing spitwads, I will handle it, young Mr. Paynn. Though I do admit, I’d prefer to see a modicum of maturity amongst my students.” The professor said gravely. “Now if everyone will please remain focused. I plan on delivering my full lecture, regardless of how long we have to take beyond scheduled class time.” He said, which elicited a groan from more than half the assembled class.

<<>>

“That really scrapes my scales! This is the academy, and someone in there was acting like a worse child than… than…” Parmon said, flustered. His penmanship the rest of the lecture had been below his usual caliber due to his frustration at the realization that someone had been flicking paper, at him, in an academy lecture class.

“Lance, right?” Artha ventured.

“Yes!” Parmon said, throwing his hands up in the air in disgust.

“Nah, Lance is more mature than that, at least.” Kitt said.

The group of six, three humans and three dragons, walked along one of the grand corridors in the academy, heading to the cafeteria, possibly one of the few modernized parts of the place. The riders saw their dragons to feed stations and walked over to the beginning of the line where they grabbed a tray each.

“I wonder what the little guy’s been up to.” Artha mused.

“Probably getting himself into trouble, as always.” Kitt said.

“Yeah, and I’m not there to bail him out if he gets in over his head.” Artha replied.

“Oh don’t worry Artha, your father’s a responsible one. I’m sure he can keep things together without us.”

<<>>

“Lance?” Connor said into the near silence of the newly rebuilt penthouse atop the Penn racing stables building, the corner structure of the very private stables of the Penn family and their closest friends. “Lance, where are you? If I find you playing battleground dragon with your homework not done…” he said, opening up the door to the young boy’s room, and was confronted by a strange sight. Lance’s backpack was lying lopsided on top of his bed where it had apparently been tossed, and on the dresser next to it was the vid-game unit. It was inactive, but had a small blinking light to indicate that there were stored messages. Curious, Connor picked it up and activated it. The holographic screen snapped into view, and on it was a window that said ‘56 unread messages’. That was highly unusual, considering how often Lance used this.

Sighing, Connor turned the thing off and replaced it where he’d found it, then walked downstairs and out the front door, where he saw that Fracshun’s stall door was open. Going to investigate, Connor saw also that the stall that held most of the stable’s gear was also open, and some of the white aero, red boost, and blue balance gear were out.

“Lance!?” Connor shouted, cupping his hands to his mouth. He didn’t receive an answer, but did hear something… the sudden sound of red booster pods activating somewhere out on the private track that Connor used in training his dragons. Turning and sprinting out, Connor saw his young son on the back of his dragon, racing around the track at top speed.

Connor grabbed a pair of binoculars and looked out… Lance’s face was set in intense focus as he sped along on Fracshun, the dragon in question looking somewhat worn out, but giving everything he could.

“Lance! Lance!” Connor shouted, then grabbed a megaphone. “LANCE!” he yelled into the thing, making the young boy suddenly pull his dragon up, the young creature coming to a screeching halt that left small claw marks in the blue metal of the track.

“What are you doing?” Connor said a minute later as Lance walked Fracshun over. The young dragon was panting, catching his breath after what had apparently been a hard workout.

“Training.” Lance said, evasively.

“By yourself?” Connor said. “Lance, if you wanted to work with Fracshun you should’ve told me.”

“You told me that blue dragons are good at working with their riders, that they learn together well.”

“I did, yes.” Connor said. “But that doesn’t mean it’s safe for you to be out here unsupervised.”

“Everyone thinks I’m too young to do anything!” Lance said, angrily.

“Lance, is this about what Sentrus said?” Connor asked, crossing his arms.

“No!” Lance said, then added a moment later under his breath. “Maybe.”

Connor looked over the pair. Lance was young, and Sentrus couldn’t allow him into the academy along with the rest of the crew for very obvious reasons, but that didn’t make it any easier for the boy to accept. Not least of which Fracshun felt just as abandoned by the rest of the Penn racing team as his rider apparently did. Lance had been stoic following the departure of Artha, Parmon and Kitt, along with their dragons, but Beau in particular had treated Fracshun almost the same way Artha treated Lance, like a beloved little brother. Suddenly finding himself alone in the empty stable had driven Fracshun into a depression, and he’d been despondent for days.

“Look, Lance… Fracshun, I know you two feel left out, but wearing yourself out on the practice track like this isn’t going to reunite you with them any faster.”

“This isn’t about that!” lance said. “If Artha and Beau are training, then I’m going to train too, and so is Fracshun!”

Connor nodded. “I suppose it is time then.” He said.

“Time for what?” Lance asked, confused.

“We’ll discuss this later… just give Fracshun a rest and see to your homework for now, ok?”

“Fine…” Lance said, urging Fracshun on gently with the controls. While still breathing heavily, Fracshun walked past Connor and back to his stall.

Connor watched the young dragon walk past. Fracshun was the result of one of the lines of dragons he’d bred in the creation of Beau, and was a fine specimen, if a little young. Aside from the unusually large amount of bright orangey yellow color over most of his body, he showed champion lines for his breed; he had a thick, barrel chest that sometimes looked to be too big for the rest of him, which meant he had a great deal of lung capacity. His long, slim legs gave him a very long stride and powerful spring in his step, and those heavy fused middleclaws gave him great grip for cornering. When he grew to full maturity, he might be faster than Beau… well, by that time, hopefully, Beau would have undergone the transformation into a full sized elite class dragon, and would be a towering force, and very fast considering his stride. Still, Fracshun had some of the finest lines of a running dragon for a quadruped he’d seen since Beau himself.

Later that evening, after Lance had done his homework, shared a rather silent dinner with his father, and helped his father load the dishes into the washer, Conner turned to Lance, drying his hands on a paper towel.

“Ok Lance, follow me.” He said.

“Uh… ok.” The boy said, confused again.

Connor led Lance out to Fracshun’s stall, opened it, and went inside. Fracshun was asleep, but woke almost as soon as the door opened. He lifted his head, then stood, shook himself a little, and trotted over.

“Lance, Fracshun.” Connor said, sitting down and crossing his legs on the stall’s floor. “I know it’s been hard for you, not being able to go to the academy with Artha, Beau and the others.”

“It’s not fair! I wanna learn that stuff too! We’re being left behind while Artha, Kitt and even Parmon go off to become big heroes. We were with them through everything, we should be there too!” Lance said. Fracshun nodded his head emphatically in agreement.

“You earned your place alongside them before, I know.” Connor said, knowing full well how several times lance had been the savior, through direct action or otherwise. “But that was different, what your brother and the others are going through now is a totally different league… one you’re just not ready for.”

“And how will I ever be ready for it? It feels like I’m going to be stuck like this forever!” Lance said, tears welling up in his eyes.

“And you want to train to change that then?” Connor asked.

“Yes!” Lance blurted out.

Connor smiled. “I’ve known other youngsters, some smaller than you, who felt like that. Worked with them too. And you’ve got a fire in you as bright as any I’ve seen.” Connor said, watching both the young boy and his dragon’s heads raise at his words.

“You mean…?” Lance said.

“I’ll work with you, both of you, if you’re really set on this.” Connor said.

“Yeah!” Lance cried out, throwing his arms around his dad’s neck and hugging him, Fracshun even came over and started licking Connor’s face on the other side of lance’s head.

“Hey! Give an old man some space to breathe!” Connor said laughing. A moment later the two youths backed off.

“So, you’ll teach me like you taught Artha? With the obstacle course and all?” Lance asked.

“Well, I think it’s a little early for that level.” Connor said, and saw the two of them frown again. “But we can definitely work towards it.” He continued, and watched the smiles return instantly.

“Thanks dad!” Lance said emphatically. Fracshun made a happy purring noise.

<<>>

Compashun sat, leaning right up against the door of her stall. The stylized grate in the door was uniform on all the stall doors here, which allowed the dragonesses to talk to each other sometimes, even though they couldn’t see each other unless they were across from each other.

“I’m telling you, something happened in my stall last night, and it showed me things!” she said in a series of growls and ‘barks’. The dragonesses on either side of her and across the aisle were listening to her.

“And you say it just ‘came out of the wall?” another dragoness replied, skeptically. “I’ve never seen anything like that happen.”

“I have.” Said a voice across the aisle and down a few stalls. “Once, one of the keepers pressed something and made it appear, then he put something into the hole in the wall and it started making noises and moving images. The keeper said it was… what did he say? A ‘recording’?”

“What was on this… recording?” yet another dragoness, another one with an actual name, Tendyr, asked.

“Well…” said the other one who had just confirmed some of Compashun’s story. “When the keeper did it, it was a lot of humans talking and doing things in places I’ve never seen before. He said something about… ‘missing it’ the night before, so he wanted to ‘watch’ it here. He sat with me while doing it.”

“So, it’s real then. Are you telling us that’s why you snapped at Banten earlier?” The skeptical dragoness asked.

“Yeah, that wasn’t nice. He came with a bag full of Draconie-yum bars and you went and snarled at him!” said yet another dragoness.

“I’m not taking any more ‘treats’ from that human!” Compashun said in a low roar.

“Look, a little broken sleep is a bit much to get your tail bent out of shape over Compashun.” Said the skeptic. “Aren’t you blowing this whole thing out of proportion?”

“You wouldn’t think that if you saw what I saw.” Compashun growled.

“Yes, yes, what did you see anyway?” Tendyr asked, sounding very curious.

“That… ‘recording’… it showed me what those things that come out of us are.” Compashun said, slowly, and quietly.

Silence fell for almost a full minute, before every single dragon within earshot was speaking, demanding to know more.

“Shutup in there!” A human shouted down into the aisle, banging a bucket against the wall several times till the dragonesses quieted down again. “Bloody dragons. Guy can’t even get a nap in...”

After a few minutes of silence, one of the dragonesses whispered, barely audible, over to Compashun. “What did it say?” she asked.

“Yes, please tell us… we’ll try to stay quiet, but we really want to know.” The formerly skeptical dragoness implored, her voice a low, urgent grunt.

Compashun was silent for a minute, looking at the ground. She closed her eyes and breathed a deep sigh. “They’re called ‘eggs’. And they’re very, very important, to the humans, yes, but they should be very important to us, too.”

“Important?” Tendyr said confused. “Why?”

“They don’t look particularly useful. What do they do?” the skeptic asked.

“They hold… tiny dragons.” Compashun said, very quietly.

“W… What was that?” Tendyr asked.

“You know how you sniff them, and they smell like you, but different? It’s because they’re a part of you. Made from our flesh…” Compashun said. “New life. Young dragons come from eggs… and eggs come from us.”

Despite their claims at being able to keep quiet, this revelation, delivered so bluntly, instantly had all the dragonesses in earshot in a complete uproar. It lasted for several minutes, and the keepers had to come into the aisle and try to calm the dragonesses down personally. One of the keepers, Banten, found it odd that Compashun, who was acting oddly aggressive that morning, was the only dragoness not working herself into a near frenzy in her stall, though she did growl low at him when he tried to come over near her, so he backpedaled and left her alone.

It took nearly an hour for everything to quiet down again. Even then, the keepers were very wary about not watching the dragonesses, so they kept patrolling, up and down the aisle, for the rest of the day, precluding any further discussion amongst the females of that corridor.

Sometime after the lights went out, and the keepers mostly left for the day, Compashun heard a gentle hiss coming from outside her stall door, so she walked over.

“Please… tell us more?” a new, very timid female voice said, quietly, across the aisle, and several stalls down, but she heard her.

“Very well.” Compashun said, sighing.

Chapter 4:

Moordryd was in his shared dorm room in the academy, reclining on one of the ubiquitous, spring mattress beds that was supplied in every room. This was perhaps the one place that he was not expected to keep Decepshun close by. She was down in the stables along with Coershun.

Cain walked in with a paper bag in one hand, and a drink in the other. “Brought you dinner.” He said.

“Thanks.” Moordryd said flatly, and took the offered food. He didn’t enjoy eating in public places, not that he didn’t enjoy being around people if a chance to impress them should present itself, he was all about building up his image, however, there were always too many chances for confrontations while he was just trying to eat, plus Artha Penn would probably be there too. Friggin social butter-drag.

“Well, at least you didn’t forget half my order.” Moordryd said, finding his deli style sandwich, chips, and white meat nuggets with honey mustard sauce container, and an apple all in the bag.

Cain put the soda down on the nightstand between the two beds, and sat down on his own, before swinging his still booted feet up and over, bringing the heels of them to rest on the still unpacked suitcase he’d left at the end, which was a few inches higher than the level of the bed.

Cain sighed. “Y’know, I’ve been thinking about that little job I did for your old man, Moordryd, and I still can’t figure it out. Sure, it went well enough, but what did he want anyway?”

“Honestly Cain, I doubt he’d tell me even if I asked him as shadowbooster at this point. He’s shut himself up in the citadel tighter than a dragon’s jaws on a draconie-yum bar.”

“Isn’t he supposed to be a professor here at the academy?” Cain asked.

Moordryd shrugged. “He is, but he doesn’t seem to be bound to the place as strictly as most of the other staff around here. Or students.”

Cain shuddered. “Yeah, talk about strict. I’ve seen more Draghound in the past few weeks than I’ve seen in my life. By the way, thanks for the advice, the guard bought the line about me getting hungry hook line and sinker. Shrugged it off and gave me a ‘verbal warning’ to see it doesn’t happen again.”

Moordryd laughed a bit. “too easy huh?”

“Yeah. I hope something interesting happens soon.”

<<>>

Three days had passed since Cain had planted the Jakk box on the Scalesheen breeding stable building. Word kept himself busy by fiddling around with that control gear he’d been working on when his new ‘ally’ had started speaking to him, but his interest in that was shallow, something to occupy his spare time. Mostly, he kept his monitors tuned to spy in on the dragoness he’d sent that delightful little cut of the documentary to.

He’d watched her behavior change drastically, from depressed, submissive brood female, to an angry, aggressive creature with very anti-human tendencies. And judging by the behavior of the other dragonesses in that level of the stable, she was spreading her ideas and intentions around… whatever they were… and it was catching on with them.

The results of that ‘tiny nudge’ was having more of an effect than he’d hoped for.

Still, things seemed to have hit a plateau. Nothing really had changed, though he saw her sitting at the ‘window’ in the stall door ‘talking’ to the other dragonesses on a daily basis. He could understand some of the communication of dragons if he was up close and personal with one, but he couldn’t make out anything at all over a security cam feed.

Several times already that day he’d gone and walked over to his control console and reached for the wraith remote… restrained himself, and gone back to his worktable to continue work on the gear, telling himself that things would start to develop again of their own accord.

Suddenly, he accidentally missed when he went to sodder a contact in on the gear, ruining a piece of circuitry.

That was the last straw.

“That’s it!” he almost roared, slamming the soddering tool down on the table, standing, and walking straight over to his consoles. He started looking through all the cameras mounted on the gear of his wraiths… they were positioned in their usual locales, overlooking most of the important sites in dragon city.

A potential plan of action had been formulating in his mind all day, despite his attempts at distracting himself. Any attempt to interfere with Scalesheen by his wraiths, or even an attempted break by the dragonesses themselves might bring the Dragon booster down upon them. He was sure of one thing, whoever the voice was, he couldn’t intend for the dragons to become angry at their keepers just to let the dragon booster foil them the first time they tried anything.

A camera angle from a wraith’s viewpoint somewhere in mid city showed a sight. Running along a dragway was a single dragon with rider. Quadrupedal blue in its conformation, but lanky, with a lot of yellowy orange across it, with a almost childish emblem across it’s flanks and the base of it’s tail. And the rider he recognized very well.

“Well, well, young Lance Penn! Out for an evening ride are we?” he said, making the wraith follow him, staying fully cloaked the whole time.

Eventually, Lance turned off the main dragway and into a market street, still well lit up and full of people. Once there he headed for a gear shop. He hopped down off his dragon and pulled what looked to be a list out of his pocket.

“Oh, running errands then? I believe you could help me with something while you’re there…” he said, opening up a sub menu on the console and highlighting a list of his wraiths, some fourty of them, scattered across the city. He bulk highlighted all but two of them, and then entered an auto command, to converge on the position of that gear shop. The other two, he directed to move to the outside of the Scalesheen breeding stables.

<<>>

Lance sat inside the shop while the owner, a longtime supplier of gear for his father’s stable, searched the back room for gear in the right level, and size ratios for Fracshun. Along with his promise to train lance and Fracshun together, he’d decided that young dragon needed custom tailored gear, to suit him properly. The list included all the specs for everything on it, and Lance had told him to put it on the Penn tab, as per his father’s instructions. Still, the store owner was taking his time about it.

After nearly an hour, The owner walked out with a mag-rack, a blue balance, a white aero, and a green ramming pod mounted upon it. “Well, this is everything I have on hand. Unfortunately the red thrust gear will have to be a custom order, and those usually take a few weeks.”

“Oh.” Lance said, more than a little disappointed. “We’ll just keep training with my dad’s gear then.” He said, taking the mag rack from the man.

The owner nodded. “Well, you just take care out there, it’s getting dark.”

Lance nodded and wheeled the mag-rack out to where Fracshun was waiting. The young blue draconium dragon stood and chirped in his young voice, elated to see the gear.

“Hey Fracshun, look! Your first Green ramming gear!” Lance said excitedly. Sure it was only level one, and since it was for a smaller than average dragon the firing ball was smaller than normal, but it was still ramming gear.

Fracshun let out a gleeful trill, and immediately magged it on. He sat upright and admired the pod as it sat over his breastbone and pectoral muscles. He thought it looked quite good sitting there, almost like a breastplate.

“Ok Fracshun,” Lance said, giggling at the dragon as he looked himself over. “Mag the rest of it on and let’s go home.”

Fracshun powered up for another mag stream to pull on the other pieces of gear, but stopped before extending any streams, suddenly looking down the market row as he heard something.

“What’s wrong boy?” Lance asked. Fracshun growled in answer, staring down the market when suddenly an outdoor stall suddenly got smashed from out of nowhere, the person manning it getting pinned under a pile of debris and goods, while the people who had been perusing it shrieked in terror.

Moments later, a wraith dragon appeared as it let down its cloaking field… followed by several others… and then more… and…

“That’s… a lot of wraith dragons…” Lance said, dumbfounded as three dozen or more of the bipedal enslaved dragons appeared from thin air.

<<>>

Artha and the other members of the Penn crew had settled into their dorm room, Kitt was actually staying in the same room with the two boys, as she’d done the same for months now since joining the ‘dragon booster’ team. They were just settling down for the evening, Artha playing a multiplayer match on the racing vidgame with Parmon and several other people, presumably other academy students (as that’s what they’d titled the game in the online game listing, ‘academy only’), when suddenly Artha received a beeping vidmail message in the corner of the screen. Flicking the ‘answer’ button on the handset with his left pinky finger, a small minibox popped up in the corner.

It was Sentrus.

“Sentrus, hi!” Artha said, sitting up suddenly and immediately cutting out of the race game. “What can I do for you?” he said, forcing himself to sound very upbeat.

“Mr. Penn, we had a call for you. It was your father, and he said it’s very urgent.” The hooded image of the woman said.

“Uh, can I talk to him?” Artha said, the other two in the room suddenly focusing all their attention on him.

“He’s already gone offline. He’s begged me to let you and your group leave the academy for a day or so, some kind of family emergency.” She said. “I have discussed the matter with your professors, and they tell me you may be excused from attending classes for the next 48 hours, but that you will be expected to make up the work before your next examinations. Your dragons are being roused from the stables for you, and will meet you at the entrance, that is all.” She said, then closed the connection.

“Family emergency?” Parmon said, hopping down from his bed. “I hope it’s not serious.”

“More likely something Artha’s father needs him to use the amulet for.” Kitt said, quickly ducking behind the standing barrier where she could change.

Parmon and Artha exchanged glances, and rapidly began changing out of their nightclothes as well, grabbing for their riding outfits.

<<>>

Now wearing their street racing uniforms and helmets, The three sprinted down to the entrance where Beau, Wyldfyre and Cyrano were standing waiting for them. They only had their saddles magged on, but all their other gear were back at Connor’s stables.

“Beau!” Artha called, getting the (currently) red and blue dragon’s attention. Without another word needing to be spoken, the star dragon sent out a magstream to pick his rider up off the ground, pull him through the air, and place him on the saddle. Behind him Wyldfyre and Cyrano were doing the same for their riders.

“C’mon boy!” Artha shouted, pressing the controls forward. Beau was off like a shot, Qyldfire heading after him, and Cyrano trailing behind somewhat, moving in his cumbersome gallop.

Barely two blocks from the academy, Artha opened his vid-link to his father’s wrist unit.

“Dad, what’s wrong?” he said at the image of his father.

“I sent lance out to pick up some gear, and a horde of wraith dragons suddenly appeared in his area! He’s trapped, and Dragon city security have their hands full!” Connor said.

“Where’s Lance now?” Artha asked, eyes narrowing.

“Mid city market row, you know the place, I used to send you out to pick up gear from there a lot.” Connor elaborated.

“I know exactly where that is. C’mon Beau!” Artha shouted.

Beau gritted his teeth and snorted, pressing on faster.

<<>>

Lance took stock of his situation. After realizing the wraiths were there, Fracshun had magged on the rest of his new gear, and Lance, then charged forward at the nearest wraith dragon in a reckless show of what lance was trying to decide was either bravery, or stupidity. Fracshun had managed to stun that one only because Lance had activated the ramming gear in the midst of Fracshun’s leap at the things head.

The collision had sent a jarring reverberation running through lance’s body. It hadn’t felt particularly pleasant, but it didn’t feel nearly as bad as slamming into the wraith without it would have.

Fracshun had been very pleased at the result, but then suddenly had to turn tail and run when over 30 other wraiths turned their attentions on them.

Now the two of them were hiding in a opened ventilation shaft, which fracshun barely managed to squeeze into with lance not on the saddle. The roars of the wraiths outside were terrifying, and they were only a few meters from the seeking claws, the shaft they were in getting too narrow for Fracshun to continue in, and Lance refusing to leave his dragon’s side.

So they sat there, huddled and frightened, Lance hugging Fracshun around the neck as they waited for help to come.

<<>>

“Release the dragon!” Artha shouted as he stood atop a building, out of the line of sight of the locals, before placing the pendant’s star sigil in the gauntlet on his right wrist, and with a bright golden flash, he was in the gold armor, and beau was in his natural coloration, and adorned by several ornamental frills, one under his jaw, one on top of his tail, and four on the backs of his legs, just above his paws.

“What’s the plan stableboy?” Kitt asked, looking down from over the top of Wyldfyre’s head. D-C Security was barely managing to keep the line of defense at either end of market row. Meanwhile, the wraiths were smashing everything inbetween.

“Simple. Distract the wraiths from the civilians, then pummel them till they give up and leave.” Artha said, charging himself up with mag energy.

“What about us?” Parmon asked. “We have no gear! You rushed down here so fast we didn’t have any time to collect anything from your father’s stables!”

Artha turned to the other two teens. “You guys keep an eye out for Lance, as soon as you find him, tell me where he is. I’ll get him to the edge of the fighting. Once he’s safe, you guys take him back home, and I’ll finish the cleanup operation. C’mon Beau, let’s get down there!”

Beau leapt up to the edge of the building’s roof and let out a challenging roar which gained the attention of all the wraiths, and the beleaguered security force members, who looked up and let out a ragged cheer as beau leapt down amongst the thickest group of wraiths and immediately started mag blasting, paw swiping, and head butting the ‘cannon fodder’ dragons, while Artha mag blasted with his hands, and swung around on the saddle, feet flying around to land mag energy enhanced kicks on the dragons that threatened to catch Beau from behind, at least those that didn’t get beau’s own attentions.

<<>>

Word sneered in his citadel. “There he is, my Wraiths. Attack! Keep his attention focused squarely on you …” he said, pressing a button which made all of that unit of wraiths go into an ‘automatic’ mode, making them just continuously attack the dragon booster and his dragon, while he turned his attention to somewhere half the city away.

The scene on his monitors changed to the power exchange that fed several square blocks, for a dozen levels up and down, in the vicinity of the scalesheen corp’s number 5 breeding stables.

“Now then…” Word said, smirking as he gave the two wraiths there the order to send a massive mag discharge at one of the transformers.

<<>>

For the past several days, once the dragonesses had gotten past the initial shock of the overwhelming revelation that they were producing young dragons within their bodies, and that those young were being taken from them, the attitudes of almost all the dragons had changed to barely checked aggression towards their keepers.

The talk had gone from demands for knowledge on why humans wanted dragons so much, which Compashun explained was apparently that while dragons were some sort of importance in society, digging, making things, moving things, and in some kind of forced combat, humans used them with no more thought than one would give for a tool.

With this knowledge, almost all the dragons became downright nasty to their handlers, and at the very least the meeker dragonesses became shy and anti-social where once they’d been willing to come to the humans.

After the second day with this knowledge, however, Compashun broached a thought that nearly set the others alight with a mixture of focused anger and apprehension.

“We need to get out of here.” She’d growled. “We need to get out of this place, and find our young.”

“But… what about all the other dragonesses that are stuck like this?” Tendyr had asked.

“Other dragons?” the once skeptical dragoness, #0144, had said

“I saw a lot of kinds of dragons in that… ‘recording’.” Compashun had reminded them. “Some looked very, very different from us.”

“Wait… you mean like when those dark dragons broke in and ran around with us a long time ago?” The timid dragoness’s voice broke in.

Compashun had known exactly what she’d been talking about. When she was much younger, and had only had a few eggs herself, somehow a group of strange male dragons had been let loose in their general pen. The human keepers had been in an uproar, unable to do anything but still very panicked… she herself had met one of them and had had… a very memorable interlude with him. The next batch of eggs she’d laid had been an unusual one as the humans had seemed disappointed with them as they removed them.

“The females of that kind of dragon probably don’t even know this is happening! We certainly didn’t before Compashun saw that recording. I couldn’t bear knowing they were still having eggs taken from them.”

“Well we can’t do anything about it until we’re out of these stalls! How many know this now?” Compashun asked.

“If you mean what eggs are, and what they’re doing with them, we’ve told everyone in this corridor. And the word’s spreading in the open pen too.” #0144 had said.

After that, the discussions had began on how they were to manage a breakout. No-one knew how the doors worked. Nor did anyone really know what to expect if they maged to get out of their general area… the stalls and the open pen.

Now they were stalemated by their surroundings. Their feelings and intentions clear, but a lack of knowledge forestalling any action.

A day or so of half hearted discussions on possible methods later, with many ideas being shot down by others, Compashun lay in the middle of the floor of her stall, dozing with one eye open. She personally thought her plan was the best, once they managed to get out of the stall doors. She’d seen on the recording, in the industrial clip, how powerful their mag streams could be. Enough of them working together and anything the humans tried to do to stop them would probably be easily knocked out of their way. This plan was one of the more favored ones. But, again, the problem remained. How to get out of the stalls.

That was when it happened. A loud bang seemed to rock the building, followed by all the lights going out… this was far darker than normal for when the humans turned the lights out, the complete utter darkness was so implacable that even with her keen night eyes, Compashun couldn’t see anything.

The talking of the other dragonesses went silent… it had only been more circular reasoning for escape plans which ended up with ‘how to get out of the stalls’ anyway.

“What’s going on?” one of the other dragonesses whined in confusion, before the lights came back on… sort of. They were dim, red, and only lit the hallway outside the stalls.

Then, the most miraculous thing happened… Compashun’s stall door popped open. It was only a couple of inches that the door slid open from the side, but it opened.

Standing quickly, Compashun walked over to the door, and looked at the gap. She extended her head and nudged at the edge of the door with her head. It moved fairly easily, and the opening widened.

Seizing the opportunity instantly, she shoved it over as hard as she could with her head, slamming it open, before she leapt out into the hallway. In the dim light, she could see most of the other stall doors were slightly open.

“The doors are open! Quickly, before they close again!” she snarled.

Perhaps they were stunned by the sudden turn of events, because they didn’t instantly leap into action. After a span of five heartbeats, Compashun roared again.

“NOW!” she roared.

Startled into action, other stall doors were thrust open and the other dragonesses leapt out into the corridor. Before long she was in the company of over twenty dragonesses.

“Now what?” Said one of them.

“We find a way out, and mag blast anything that gets in our way.” Compashun said, before turning and galloping towards the entrance to the aisle. The keepers, their eyes still adjusting to the dim light, only heard the thundering paws coming towards them barely before they were knocked aside by the charging dragonesses.

What followed was pure chaos. Compashun and her group from her particular corridor soon found several other such corridors with other blue female dragons connecting off the central pen. Thankfully, the message had spread that far, and they were only too happy to join with her. The promise of wider spaces than the inside of the stall and their pen more than enough, alone, even when not coupled with the knowledge of the eggs.

Then, with all the other corridors known to them, they turned their attention to the heaviest door in the pen, which had still been closed to them.

“It won’t open!” Tendyr said, clawing at it, then butted it with her head, which she then moaned after.

“Don’t claw at it!” Compashun said, thinking back to the scene of a dragon using it’s mag stream to melt metal. “Blast It, hard, like this!” she said, building up an intense mag pulse and firing it at the door.

The pulse seared away at the heavy metal gate, making it glow with heat. After nearly a minute of blasting it, Compashun broke off panting.

“Don’t just stand there,” She growled back at her pack of more than eighty other blue dragonesses. “Help me!”

This time when she started streaming concentrated mag energy at the door, first one, then another, then several, then dozens of other mag streams started blasting the door. Within moments the metal was reduced to molten slag, and a gaping hole yawned infront of them.

One of the dragonesses crept up to the puddle of red hot metal at the base of where the door had been, sniffed it, and got a seared nostril for her trouble. “It hurts!”

“No one touch that stuff, just jump it, let’s go!” Compashun growl-barked back at her pack, before doing just that herself. She cleared the hole and the hot metal lump at the bottom in one easy leap.

Most of the other females made it easily too, but some of them had trouble with it, and one particularly heavily pregnant dragoness nearly fell directly into the stuff when she tried. Compashun had not taken into account that some of them would be too heavy to move very well.

“Keep together, make sure no-one gets left behind!” she roared before she ran down the corridor headlong.

As she rounded a corner, suddenly something hit her and sent her flying back into a wall, where she was pinned. She heard a number of the other dragonesses screech to a halt behind her. She was tied to a wall by a strange, round, green metallic device with cords extending from it and imbedding themselves into the wall.

“That’s as far as you go, rogue dragon!” said a human voice. Se looked down the hall ahead of her and saw several humans pointing their arms at her, with green devices mounted above their wrists. They were wearing different suits than she’d ever seen the keepers wearing.

“Help me!” Compashun cried out in a shrill screech. Suddenly several of the other dragonesses leapt out infront of her, already charging for mag bursts. The humans hadn’t been expecting a number of dragons to appear, and fired more of the restraining devices. A crossfire of restraints and mag bursts filled the air. Several of the brave defending dragonesses were pinned to the wall, but with all the dragons that kept leaping into the fray, the humans were quickly outnumbered, and pummeled down the corridor.

Once the way as clear, Compashun found 0144, the former cynic, grip the pod on her with her teeth and pull harshly, until the cords snapped and she was released to drop to the ground.

“Th… thank you?” she grunted in slight confusion. She’d never really liked the other female, she’d always been the most pessimistic one she talked to.

“Save it for when we’re out of here.” The other female said practically, then turned as the other dragonesses were being released from those restraint pods.

“Ok, so we need to watch out for humans with those things on their wrists.” Compashun said as she took the lead of the huge pack of females.

“Yeah, and blast them before they blast us.” One of the females from another corridor replied as they went down a curving corridor that seemed to descend to a lower level.

“Compashun, isn’t that the door that lead to our pens?” Tendyr asked.

“What?” Compashun said confused, screeching to a halt, along with all the other females behind her. She was acting in a very alpha aspect, and had naturally become the leader, at least during this crisis moment.

“Over there!” Tendyr said, pointing to a very familiar looking set of blast doors, though these were still whole.

“But, but we just melted that thing!” said another female.

“Would you shut up!” 0144 roared. “That can’t be it, we just ran down, we must be at a different one!”

“A different one?” yet another made a confused noise.

“A different pen! There has to be more dragonesses on the other side. Blast it!” Compashun said, pulling out even more of her depleting mag energy and firing it at the door. She’d used more concentrated mag energy in the last ten minutes than she’d ever used in her life. Thankfully, with so many dragons alongside her, it wasn’t long before this one was open wide as well.

Roars and draconic cries of fear greeted them… lupine featured, bipedal purple dragonesses cowered on the other side of the gate, staring out at the blue quadrupeds with wide eyes.

“Who are you?” Compashun asked, when one of them ventured close to the gaping hole.

“I’m a pack class… number 8194.” the other dragon whimpered, scared and unsure. “Who are you?”

“My name is Compashun. I’m an energy class. And we’re getting out of here.” She said.

“Getting out?” the purple female said, confused, and a murmuring came from the other pack class females behind her. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s about eggs, and young dragons, and humans doing things to us without our consent!” said one of the blue females behind Compashun.

“What?” the pack class female said, clearly lost.

“We’re getting out of here.” Compashun repeated, growling. “You have to come with us, there’s no time to explain right now! Just get all the females out of the stalls, jump through the hole and follow us, or sit here and let them continue stealing young dragons from your bodies.”

A surprised roar went up amongst the pack females. Before any of them could start demanding answers Compashun drew her deepest breath and roared at them again, silencing them.

“Are there any females still in the stalls?” she asked, grunt-barking rapidly.

“No…” the foremost pack female replied, whining submissively.

“Are they all here?” she growled..

“Yes, we’re all here.” Another pack female with a rather heavy looking abdomen said.

“Then follow us or stay here, it’s your choice, but I’ll explain what we mean when we’re safe. The humans won’t explain, ever, even if you obey them.” She said, then turned and charged down the next hallway, towards the next level down. Behind her following her host of blues… and shortly, the sound of a lot more dragon paws hitting the metal flooring in the corridors.

They descended the tight turning ramp down to the next level, and the sight that greeted Compashun’s eyes was at once heartening, and frightening. She saw brighter light… a rich purple glow than the red one that had suffused the building since the brighter lights had gone out, through panels of some transparent material, and outside were a pathway like she’d seen dragons running on in the recording. However, between them and those panels, were a group of forty humans, all with those restraint launchers on their wrists. She screeched to a stop, frightened.

“Open fire!” one of the humans said, and numerous of the things went sailing through the air towards her.

This time she managed to dodge to the side before it impacted her, though that left the female behind her to become entangled in it and get sent tumbling to the ground, now trussed up. Several others also got entangled. But now the blue females were automatically firing their mag bursts, a far more intense crossfire than the small one in the narrow corridor earlier.

“What are you doing?” One of the pack females whined in shock.

“Fighting the humans!” Compashun snarled, before blasting a mag-pulse at one of them, knocking him backwards.

“WHY are you fighting the humans!?” another pack female’s voice rang out.

“Either help us or shut up!” Compashun roared back, before getting hit in the shoulder. Her moment of distraction costing her.

The event had it’s benefit though… suddenly purplish streams of mag-energy joined in with the blue ones from her energy class females, and suddenly the tide of the battle turned decidedly in the dragons favor.

This time managing to get her head around to pull off the pod by herself, because of the bad aim that had put it within range of her jaws, Compashun was able to rejoin the firing line as the battle was ending. The humans routed, they pulled their friends free of the restraints, then without waiting Compashun ran forward and rammed the doors, shattering them, before leaping out into the open air.

It smelled… very different out here. A breeze blew over her scaled hide, chilling her after the perfectly climate controlled environment inside the building. She was joined quickly by all the other females, of both classes.

“What do we do now?” One of the pack females asked.

“We need to find a safe place, far away from here.” Compashun said.

“Which way?” 0144 said, looking up and down the quiet street.

“I honestly don’t care.” Compashun said, exhaustion starting to set into her muscles, but her mind alight with a rush of both victory, and fear at being in this strange place. “But any direction is better than just sitting still… come on!” she chirped in a high voice before starting to run down the drag-way that led into the deeper levels to the west of where they were, her number of blue energy and purple pack dragons following.

Chapter 5:

“Amazing work Artha! You really pummeled those Wraiths back there, and did I notice you using some of those maneuvers that we’ve been learning in the academy?” Parmon said, gushing over the performance Artha had given against the wraith dragons. The battle had lasted over an hour, but finally, with the wraiths, Beau and Artha all nearly exhausted and all parties battered, the mind controlled dragons had finally given up and run off.

“Yeah Parm… ya did…” Artha said, now in his street racing clothes again, and Beau back to his un-frilled, red and blue coloration, both looking really, really tired.

Lance and Kitt were waiting down the road a ways. Lance rode up on Fracshun, both of them looking really relieved to see them.

“Artha!” Lance called.

“Lance! You allright?” Artha asked, concerned.

“We’re ok. Fracshun and I would’ve ran, but ‘mr hero’ here…” Lance nudged fracshun with one of his feet. “Decided to try out his new Ramming gear on one of those wraiths. Then we couldn’t run fast enough and had to hide.”

Artha looked up, startled. “Fracshun… has ramming gear? Oh I’ve gotta see this!”

Lance grinned, then pressed the green button on the center console of his saddle’s controls to prime it, then the trigger button on the handle. A much smaller version of the ramming ‘helmet’ that covered most dragons heads when they activated such gear snapped into place around fracshun’s muzzle, and he held his head up with a big smile so all the other dragons could see.

Beau started chuckling in that grunting manner of his. “That’s cute!” he said, though only the dragons could understand him.

“Hey! This is real!” Fracshun chirped indignantly.

Cyrano and Wyldfyre both laughed at this.

<<>>

Some time later, the group came back to Connor’s stables. Artha, Parmon and Kitt paused to look over the place. Most of the damage had been repaired, though the newly rebuilt house looked different than it used to, somehow.

Connor came out of the house. “Lance, are you alright?” he called, running over.

“I’m ok dad… Artha and Beau saved us, like always.” Lance said, smiling back at Artha, though not one of his usual huge, goofy ones.

“Well, that’s good to hear. Though, unfortunately, something else happened while you were out.”

“What’s that?” Artha asked.

“Details are still sketchy, but one of the Scalesheen stables just got cleaned out. Every single dragon gone.” Connor explained.

“Scales! I’ll bet that wraith attack was a distraction!” Kitt shot in.

“Well, it’s done now, and I doubt there’s any way we can track them down.” Parmon mused.

“Scales… Word’s probably got himself a whole slew of new wraiths now.” Artha shook his head.

Connor shook his head. “Never mind about that now, you need to continue your academy training. Once it’s complete, it won’t matter how many wraiths he has. None of them will be any match for you. Now come on, it’s late. Why don’t you all just get some sleep here for the night and you can head back to the academy tomorrow.”

“Aw, do you guys have to go?” he said, then looked to his dad. “I was hoping I could train with Artha a bit tomorrow.”

“Train?” Artha asked, confused.

“Does this have anything to do with fracshun having shiny new Ramming gear, of all things?” Kitt asked.

“Actually, it does.” Connor said, chuckling.

“You little scamp! Training for the races then?” Wyldfire snorted said, at which beau gave a short chuckle.

“Yes! I’m gonna be the fastest energy class ever!” Fracshun chirped in his young voice.

All the assembled dragons chuckled at that.

<<>>

Compashun didn’t know how they’d ended up where they did… only that it seemed deserted. An old rain outflow pipe, an old mainline one at that, that opened out onto the lowest sections of the industrial areas of Dragon city. The light here was dim, the dragways above had no activity, and the scents here were all old… save for the ever present smell of mold coming from the bottom of the pipe.

Her following of blue energy and purple pack class dragonesses explored their new surroundings with timid curiosity. This was their first time outside their breeding pens, and some of them were so scared they huddled under the legs of other dragonesses, peering out at everything with wide eyes.

Compashun watched over them for a time… She didn’t need to inform the pack dragon females what the eggs were now… they were getting the answer from some of the other Energy class dragonesses.

“So… they were having us make small dragons, so they could make them do things for them when they grew?” One was asking one of her kind within earshot.

“Yes. And apparently we’re supposed to care for them ourselves, but they took them and did it themselves so we wouldn’t know.” The blue female replied.

“But… why would they do such a thing?” another pack female asked.

“Humans apparently need us to do many things for them… pull materials out of the ground, make them into useful things, move them and their things around… and fight for them.” Compashun suddenly said, breaking into the conversation, though she was, and sounded, very tired. “I don’t know the why or when of how it got started. But I refuse to let it go on any longer.”

“Compashun?” another voice whined, quietly.

“What?” she sighed, looking. It was Tendyr.

“This place scares me,” she continued in that whine. “It smells bad, the ground is slimy, the air is cold…”

Compashun snorted. “I don’t like it either. We’ll rest here for a while then try to find somewhere more secure.” She replied with a trill. “Once we’re safe somewhere, we’ll figure out what to do.” She finished, then laid her head down and closed her eyes. Within minutes she was deeply asleep.

<<>>

Word watched the newscast the next morning, describing what was called a ‘massive dragon rustling’ operation, which had cleared out One of Scalesheen’s stables. A spokesman for the company was speaking to one the reporter.

“We currently have no leads on possible suspects, but we have been assured that Dragon city security is looking into it with all available manpower.” The well dressed businessman said into the microphone.

Cutting scene to the reporter as she was standing infront of the yellow tape that blocked off the ruined front of the building, Security officers covering every inch of the scene, taking samples, photos, every kind of forensic piece of evidence they could find.

“The attack comes at a bad time for Chairman of the board Farren Morris. Sales of Scalesheen dragons have been sliding ever since Connor Penn’s return to the public forum, and continued his outcry against ‘unsound breeding practices’. News of last night’s raid caused stock prices to plummet even further, casting the futures of this company into doubt.”

“Well, this is an interesting development.” Word said, then sneered. “Are you getting all this?” he said into the air.

“Am I that obvious?” the voice said for the first time in days.

“You have a habit of popping in just in time to gloat.” Word said, turning around. “Well, she’s free, and she caused quite a bit of havoc as she left. Cleaned out the whole stable too, even I was impressed.”

“Yes. I told you she’d be an explosive force, did I not?” the voice said.

“For a bunch of over-bred, gravid females who never so much as saw a battle, or a race amongst the lot of them, they did quite well. But, then, when you have that many angry dragons in one place at one time, things are bound to get interesting.” Word said, stroking his beard. “But now what will she do, I wonder?” word said.

“That is up to her to decide, is it not?” the voice said, laughing. “But if I read these dragons right, they’re none too happy with humanity, and that was your intent, no?”

“True, true.” Word said. “In any case, I’m getting tired of talking to someone I can’t see, and since you’ve proven to be a valuable partner, I was hoping we might meet… face to face.”

“As I said before, I have… obligations, to take care of first. I will be in your city soon enough.” The voice said, then faded.

“I wonder what his primary draconium color is…” word said, then shrugged, and went back to his mind gear. Now that the pressing concern of that female was, at present, dealt with, he found himself able to focus properly on technical work again.

<<>>

“Ok Lance, this time, when you jump, I want you to open up the aero gear and see if you can land Fracshun in the marked circle, ok?” Connor said into the communicator.

Lance nodded, his eyes set down the track ahead. Past the gap in the course, a clear jump, but one which fracshun could make easily without gear. Beyond it, the metal pulsing yellow, was a segment about ten times as long as fracshun was from nose to tailtip. No problem to land in, Lance thought…

Untill he actually tried to land. The control in the air was shakier than he realized, and trying to set down in the area was a lot harder. He missed the far end of the marked zone by about six feet… which was where fracshun’s hindlegs landed.

“Aw…” Lance said, looking back at the glowing panels of the track.

“I should’ve made that…” Fracshun whined.

“Point of advice lance, don’t try to land completely with the aero gear open. Wait until you’re above the track again where you want to be, then close it. Fracshun’s got the reflexes he needs to land properly, and besides, once you do land, you don’t want to leave the wings out, they’re fragile when confronted with kinetic force.” Parmon interjected. The three temporarily liberated members of the Penn crew were hanging around late that morning, having enjoyed a home cooked breakfast, and were watching Lance practice on the track with Fracshun and their new gear.

“Uh… what?” Lance said.

“Remember my first race?” Artha said, making a hand gesture, one of his hands held out flat, then a fist coming towards it and curling the extended fingers in as the fist approached.

“Oh! Right.” Lance said, remembering how easily Artha’s aero gear had been snapped to pieces because it had been left open.

“Yeah. A lot of new racers make that mistake.”

“Just watching from the sidelines isn’t enough to learn everything there is to know about racing. You gotta get out there and really feel it, and then it takes practice.” Kitt piped in.

“Yeah, yeah. I know.” Lance replied, rolling his eyes.

Fracshun whined wordlessly.

Cool! This story is good! You should check mine out. But thats besides the point, keep it up!

Welcome to the blissful insanity that is the Dragon Booster fandom, Skulderian!

Hehe, I love Coershun's "why me?" attitude about Cain finally realizing Coershun understands him. ^_^

Very well-written, well thought-out, and very, very readable. I love it! You're one of the few people who really develop the dragons as characters, beside just Beau and whatever OCs they add. The only thing I can think of to pick on is that "sodder" is actually spell "solder". Doesn't really match the pronunciation does it? ;) I'll certainly be keeping my eyes open for more chapters!

Thank you for the wonderful constructive criticism renesh! And at the very least the nice warm praise from deathshallcome, Now that i've got at least two people interested, i feel invigorated to continue writing this thing! *Hears his muse slap the mace into an open palm for emphasis* Uh... not that i'd dare leave this thing unfinished, anyway, mind you... :eep:

LOL well, you should check out my stories too ya know. Their pretty good. It may give ya some ideas.

Err... for 'M' rated fan fictions, you're supposed to put on fanfiction.net, then link here.

So far, this hardly seems like Rated M, though. But my God, I'm drawn in. :wub: This story really caught my eye - everybody seems believable and IC (although Word seems rather...can't hit the right word, but I blame it on insanity and desperation on his part), and the tiny moments like Parmon being so absorbed into the class to the point where one thing will throw him off, and how Moordryd reacted at the paper ball. ^_^ It also gives a fresh insight on the dragons. It's like what Season 1 or 2 of DB:A could be. ^^

I'm also in love with how Compashun and the other dragonesses reacted to this "conspiracy". She's quite the character/dragon to latch onto and follow around wondering "omg what is she gonna do". :P The shock of how innocence can lead to corruption is quite intriguing, at the same time ironic.

Some grammar errors, but it's quite the story. One thing I would strongly comment on is distinguishing the dragons' speech from the humans. It confused me at first wondering if Coershun could actually talk to Cain at the beginning, however I caught on with some difficulty. I would suggest trying to add a different fontstyle or such, such as italicizing the dragons' speech.

CW, I'm pretty sure he rated it "M" for safety because of the whole "facts of life" thing going on. It doesn't seem like it needs the "M" rating though.

Also, DSC, he'll look at your fanfics if he wants to, don't push him. (Another hint: praising your own stories can make you sound conceited. I know you're proud of them, but it's generally best to let other people praise them for you. Just a heads-up for the future. ;))

thanks for the praise everyone, and yeah, i was mostly concerned with the 'facts of life'

As for italics... I HAD those in the MS word file, but when i pasted it into the message here, it all went back to being normal text... i think i'm gonna have to go back through the whole darned thing. <_<

Scratch that. it won't even work from my end.

Help?

If the reason it won't work is because it puts the bracket-code-things at the end of the post, you can just type them in by hand. All they are is [ i ] and [ /i ], without the spaces of course. If it's something else, I don't think I can help you. The only word programs I have on my computer are Notepad and Wordpad.

it works! Hallelujah! :dance:

^_^ Glad I could help! It took me a while to figure that one out too. ;)

I welcome you with open arms into the insanity of Dragon Booster fandom. C:

Lovely fanfiction: well developed in plot and a beautiful writing style that's not too florid and not in the least weak - just punchy enough to keep us reading. Talking dragons have not been explored enough. This is the most welcome read I've had in weeks.

A new chapter! As you can see, my muse is still on my case, though he's downgraded from Spiked mace to a night stick...

Anyway, new OCs presented here, along with several canon characters popping in for the first time in this story, and you'll be seeing them all again in the future. should i edit my first post to reflect the new Characters used or should i denote them here?

Well... to be safe i guess...

Canon: Khata, Shoc-rah.
OC's: Slyder, Skreet, Payshence.


Chapter 6:

Deeply asleep, Compashun’s mind wandered, the massive upheaval in her life still troubling her.

A scene played out before her dreaming mind’s eye. It was straight out of that recording… the race. A blue energy class dragon was running… riding in the saddle was a human shape… but that was shadowy and unclear. Behind the blue dragon was a great mass of other dragons al being ridden, the objects all across their bodies moving, and doing what she’d seen them do in the recording… but now… all the other dragons and riders seemed intent on attacking the lone blue.

Whips crack, staves and hammers swing, claws rake, ramming balls and mag bursts fly, all aiming for that one blue, and it cried out with each strike, trying to run, its master driving it on, paying no mind to the dragon’s plight.

They came to a turn, and a huge bipedal dragon came up and slammed the blue… it was a male, she was sure of it, the blue. The blue male was smashed sideways against the wall harshly, letting out a cry of pain, before its legs collapsed underneath it. The rider leapt off its saddle before he went into a tumble, allowing the huge mass of other ridden dragons to trample the blue male as they passed, leaving the rider unmarked… but the dragon was laying, broken, covered in burn marks, bruises, and cuts, moaning in pain. Only then did she find herself an active part of the dream. She walked up to the blue male who lifted his head laboriously, to look up at her… with her own honey colored eyes.

Compashun woke abruptly, feeling an odd sensation in her throat, and noise in her ears… before she realized she’d let out a hoarse cry in her sleep. She was still panting, her heart racing.

She shook her head, trying to clear it, and rousing a dragoness that had laid next to her… one of several. Suddenly she realized that all the dragonesses had huddled together into one huge mass, seeking warmth and the comforting reassurance of each other in this strange place.

“Compashun?” The one she’d woken said, her voice a groggy whine. It was Tendyr… she’d always been one to stick close to her whenever they were out in the pen at the same time, which was rare.

“Yes...?” Compashun said, the dream memory still filling her mind.

Tendyr blinked her eyes for a moment, then lifted her head and looked around. “So… it wasn’t a dream…” she crooned in wonder.

Compashun blinked before she realized what Tendyr had meant. She nodded silently, looking out the front of the tunnel, before she laid her head on Tendyr’s shoulder, letting out a shuddering sigh.

“C… Compashun?” Tendyr whined, confused.

“I’m sorry…” Compashun sighed. “I just…” She grunted, then shook her head. “It’s nothing, really. I’m fine.”

Tendyr looked at her for a second, then nuzzled her under the chin briefly, reassuring. Funny that she needed that at this point, she was the one who needed to be strong…

Compashun looked around… sitting at the very mouth of the cave was one of the pack females, looking out into the slightly brightening light of the outside.

“Hey!” She growled, standing and jostling several other females awake. “What’re you doing?”

The pack female nearly jumped at being called out suddenly. “I was… I was watching, so I could wake everyone if something came…”

Compashun picked her way amongst the mass of dragonesses, who were all by now waking up from the commotion. To be honest, she didn’t find anything wrong with what the female was doing, she just wanted anything to occupy herself so she could forget that dream… the male’s eyes, more than anything, burned into her mind.

She stopped next to the female and looked out. “I didn’t even think about someone finding us…” she trilled as she thought out loud, then smiled and nudged the pack female. “Good thinking.”

The pack female’s face lit up at the praise. “Thank you leader!” she said.

“Leader?” Compashun said, confused.

“Yes, you lead us, you’re the Leader, obviously!” The pack female said.

Compashun shook her head. “My name is Compashun. Just call me that, please.”

“Oh? My number was 8843, but some of the keepers called me Payshance.” The pack female said.

“Payshance…” Compashun trilled, nodding. “I rather like that name.” she said, then looked behind her, all the other females were standing, shaking themselves and stretching to work out the kinks in their bones.

0144 came walking up to Compashun’s side. “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.” She growled, irritably, staring out of the tunnel.

Compashun was about to reply to that, when suddenly her stomach grumbled. It was about mealtime, and those had always been provided like clockwork back in the pens… now they were out here… and she hadn’t the faintest idea how to get food.

“Any ideas?” 0144 asked, looking at her expectantly.

“Um…” Compashun whined, looking around, then back into the tunnel. All the dragonesses were looking at her… and she felt suddenly very strange.

Tendyr nudged her gently. “Come on Compashun…” she whined, quietly.

Compashun looked at the female, her mind finally starting to work again. “I…” she whined briefly, then shook her head. “Do any of you feel secure staying here?” she said, suddenly, making all the assembled females look confused.

“The way I see it, we can do two things. One, we all leave here, together, and go look for food as a group, or two, we leave most of our number here, and groups of us go out and look.” Compashun said.

“I don’t want to stay here!” one of the pack females said in a alarmed roar.

“Neither do I!” Echoed one of the energy class females. Shortly the whole tunnel was filled with similar thoughts. Nobody wanted to split up the group. The group was all they had.

“Ok. But, assuming we manage to find enough food for everyone, what do we do then?” Compashun spoke, grunt-barking and trilling. “Do we come back here? Do we find another place to hide?”

The collected group started murmuring amongst themselves as they tried to figure the problem out. Compashun felt mildly relieved. She might be the Leader, but at least she could ask for opinions from her large following if she found herself stumped.

Eventually, one of the pack females came forward. “This place is safe enough for now… We find food, then come back, then look for a better place?” the biped ventured, speaking straight to Compashun.

Compashun nodded. “I agree.” She trilled.

<<>>

“Aw man…” The rider said, walking his dragon into a feed station. The last race hadn’t gone so well, The first set of races right after the academy finals were never very pretty, disgruntled young men and women, most of them having been candidates the previous year, took their frustrations out on the track… particularly if there was a new racer in the field. He just happened to be one of those racers.

“Sideswiped in the first turn, the FIRST TURN!” The young man, Slyder Ronus by name, exclaimed, then hung his head. His dragon, a blue energy class he’d named Skreet, wasn’t looking particularly hot either. He’d taken an energy drain whip hit, twice in fact, the whip snaking out to his flank after Slyder had pried it off the dragon with his blocking staff when it hit the energy class dragon’s shoulder the first time. The sideswipe from Hyve, the dragoness ridden by the leader of the army of the dragon crew, Wulph, then sent the inexperienced young dragon tumbling, and he’d had to scramble backwards out of the way before he almost got trampled by a really mean looking green bull class, none other than Brutaris, ridden by Fistus.

He wasn’t the only rookie out in the field that morning to take a beating, but for the love of gold draconium couldn’t they go easy on the newbies?

Slyder directed Skreet into a feed station. The dragon was limping, his left foreleg wrapped in a bandage applied by the medics after the race. They told him to keep the dragon from running too hard for a few days, which put them out of the next race entirely.

Skreet huffed a deep sigh… He’d been so psyched to actually race, after being little more than a transport dragon for his rider ever since he’d been bought out of that lot by the boy’s parents five years prior. He’d been involved in a few small competitions between Slyder and his friends and their dragons, running through the surface streets, and he’d always done rather well. But the all city circuit was just something else entirely.

“Hey! Hey kid! Wait!” a voice called from behind slyder, not one he was familiar with, and with a odd accent to. He turned to see another rider wearing a dual shaded blue outfit and helmet, and riding a older, larger energy class dragon with some rather unusual looking gear mounted on the creature’s shoulders. From the look of the pair, definitely professional street racers.

“What do you want, to pummel us some more?” Slyder said angrily, to which Skreet whined anxiously, shrinking away from the larger energy class.

“Nothing like that.” The other young man said. “I just wanted to offer you some advice.”

“Love to hear this…” Slyder muttered under his breath.

“Where did you get that dragon?” The other racer asked.

“Off of one of Scalesheen’s dealership lots, what’s it matter?” Slyder retorted.

“I thought so.” The other rider said. “That company isn’t very good at producing racing dragons. Would you like to try joining my crew? The best way to race is to find a dragon you really connect with, just buying one off a lot isn’t a good way to get started. You could see if you do better with one of the young dragons from the inner order stables.”

Skreet suddenly started whining and looked up at his rider. Slyder felt his blood rush to his face and nearly growled himself.

“No, thanks.” He said, when he’d finally mastered himself. “What kind of friend would I be to Skreet here if I dumped him the first time he lost a race?”

The other racer smiled knowingly. “Indeed, you show honor. When offered an easier way with another dragon, you persist and stand by your own.” The other racer said, sitting up straighter in his saddle.”

“What?” Slyder asked, confused.

“I am sorry for deceiving you, but I do not allow new riders to enter my crew so easily.” The other racer explained. “You passed my first test quite well. And to tell the truth, our stable doesn’t have any extra dragons right now. However, if you would be willing, you could train with us, and we would see if you’re good enough to join, both of you.” the other racer said.

“And who’re you to be offering me all this? Slyder asked.

The other racer smiled again, pulling his helmet off. “My name is Khata, head of the inner order.”

Slyder’s eyes went wide. “Khata!? Scales man, that’s not fair! I thought I recognized you… why’d you…” Slyder said, confused and shocked, one of the biggest names in the all city circuit was scoping HIM out?

Kahta opened his mouth to speak again, when suddenly there came a loud, angry roar from the loading area behind the Feed station, both riders and dragons turned their heads to look, and the clerk came running, shouting, “Rogue dragons! HELP!”

“Rogue dragons!?” Khata said, then clenched his teeth and grabbed his combat baton. “You! Go hide, I’ll drive them away!” the inner order leader shouted, before his dragon dashed towards the commotion on the other side of the building.

<<>>

Compashun roared as the humans and their slaved red magma-class dragons ran, abandoning the rolling object they’d been hauling. They had been unloading a number of barrels of feed from the rolling structure the two captive dragons had dragged up to the back of this place that reeked of food. Those barrels all the dragonesses recognized very well; they’d seen the humans carry them into the pen numerous times to add feed to their feeding troughs, There were roughly a dozen or so barrels in this load, she observed, and went forward to try and see if she couldn’t figure out how to get the thing open.

Suddenly, from behind and above her, she heard a roar, the dragon’s voice clearly male. She whirled and looked for the source, and then saw the dragon, a blue energy class male with strange protrusions from his shoulders and a rider atop him, come into view. The dragon came to a sudden stop at the edge of the roof of the small building.

From behind her, dozens of other blue energy and purple pack dragonesses leapt out to put themselves between her and this aggressor.

Khata paused, suddenly seeing the challenge that faced him… he’d expected a couple of aggressive dragons looking for a free meal. He hadn’t expected a small army to suddenly offer battle. Then, confusing him further beyond the shock of the assembled mass of dragons… he couldn’t even count them all, Shoc-rah suddenly froze up on him, the dragon refusing to move… or more like frozen with fear, looking down, he saw the dragon’s eyes wide, jaw open, and the dragon’s legs were rooted and stiff.

“Shoc-rah!” Khata shouted, shaking the controls on his saddle, before the dragon that had first roared at him charged at the building, through the rapidly parting mass of the others, and leapt up to the top of the building, forcing Shoc-rah to backpedal.

“You will not take us!” The dark blue colored female roared in Shoc-rah’s face.

“Wh… what?” Shoc-rah grunted, confused. The scent coming off these dragonesses were all wrong, and confused him greatly. “Please, I don’t want to fight…” he trilled in a high pitched, nervous way, it was only the truth, now at least. He was always willing to tangle with any dragon, but for some reason he couldn’t bring himself to become aggressive towards this female… or any of the others with her. And considering that she didn’t seem to have the same inhibition, he was feeling more than a bit nervous.

“If that’s the case…” Came another growl just before another energy class female leapt up onto the roof, taller at the shoulder and longer from nose to tail than the first one who’d faced him. “Leave, and take your ‘human’ with you!” she said, inflecting the word ‘human’ in a way that made it sound like a curse.

“Shoc-rah… what are you doing…?” Khata said, low, through gritted teeth. A moment later several of the pack females leapt up onto the roof and snapped at shoc-rah, with their teeth. The attack had at least one benefit, it snapped the racing dragon out of his stunned state, and suddenly Khata found that Shoc-rah had leapt through the air… escaping rapidly from the angry mob of dragons, retreating before even landing one blow, something which he thought he’d never see.

<<>>

Slyder and Skreet had managed to make it some distance away, a few blocks at least, what with Skreet’s injury slowing them, but when suddenly Shoc-rah streaked by going at an alarming pace, Slyder knew something was very, very wrong.

“Uh, Skreet, I think we’d better vacate the area…” Slyder said. Skreet nodded his head, then forced himself into an awkward, three legged run, as fast as he could manage.

It's interesting to see how well yet easily confused, young dragons would work together so well. Payshance's name interests me too - I'm wondering if that human did name her or just said it as "patience!". :P

It is scary how Khatah would do that as a test to see who's worthy of being in his crew, yet, oddly, it sounds very IC. It's also interesting to see how Shock-ra reacted. Never knew he could be the chivalrious type, but it makes sense. :D Anyway, nice work again. Keep going!

You like that name? Well, let's just say there'll be more to like coming up. :P

Well, here's the next chapter.

As before, Newly appearing Canon characters include: Captain Faier
New OC's include: Wydgett (light green draconium dragon)

Mother’s rage, chapter 7

“Captain Faier!” one of the younger officers said, running up to the commander.

“Yes, what is it?”

“Strange report filed sir, a Feed station down at the worktown border was raided.”

“Another convenience store robbery?” Faier said. “Hardly anything unusual, those things are like giant targets to desperate men and women.” He continued, moving to enter his office.

“Sir, the report said that Dragons attacked this one!” the young officer said, causing Faier to freeze, the intelligence working through his mind.

“Dragons, you say?” Faier said, turning to look at the younger man.

“Yes! Riderless, rogue dragons! We’re not sure what to make of this, sir.” The officer said.

“This week keeps getting stranger and stranger…” Faier said, putting his head in the palm of one hand and sighing, rubbing his temples, exhausted after a full night of dealing with wraith dragons and a raid on a dragon stable.

<<>>

“Hey moordryd, did you happen to see the news this morning?” Cain said as they sat down at lunch.

“No, Cain, I was studying as I had breakfast, as you should have. If your grades slip any further you’re going to be on probation.” He said, before biting off a piece of the apple he was eating. “Why, something interesting?” he continued, curious dispite himself.

“Remember how your old man had me plant something on one of Scalesheen’s buildings?” Cain said.

“Yeah, what of it?” Moordryd said, already irritated, his dislike of Guessing games famous.

“Something BIG happened there last night. I mean HUGE, something about ‘the biggest dragon heist of the decade’ they were sayin.” Cain said.

“Seriously? Bigger than our… uh… well, you know.” He said, suddenly feeling self conscious about discussing illicit acts anywhere within the walls of the academy.

“Yeah, the whole place cleaned out, and Dragon City security can’t figure out how they did it. They couldn’t find any sign of a culprit having even been there in the first place.”

Moordryd and Cain looked at each other for a minute, then Moordryd looked out the window. “What in the magna draconis was that jakk box for anyway?” he wondered aloud.

“I dunno man. WAY beyond me.” Cain said.

<<>>

Compashun led her group back to their temporary ‘home’, the outflow tunnels. They couldn’t figure out how to transport the barrels of feed, so they had to bust the things open on the spot, then hastily eat as much as they could.

There hadn’t been enough to feed everyone satisfactorily, and some of the dragonesses were still hungry. Worse still, they’d not quite finished eating when suddenly they heard a lot of noise… strange high pitched wailings approaching them. It was not a dragon’s call, of any kind, and terrified them, forcing them to flee. Now they returned to their cold, wet, uncomfortable ‘home’ still hungry.

“Well… that could’ve gone better.” Compashun trilled in a downcast tone as they entered the tunnel system.

Behind her, Payshance’s ears pricked up, and she growled something almost inaudibly to two other pack females beside her. Suddenly Compashun looked up and saw them sailing though the air overhead, to land infront of her and go dashing into the darkness of the tunnel.

“Hey!” she yelped, in total shock. “Hey, wait! What’re you doing!?” she called after them, the other dragonesses behind her picking up speed to keep up.

Ahead, in the pitch dark, Compashun heard a scuffle… claws scraping and draconic bodies slamming into each other, and cries being let out. Most of them aggressive cries from the pack females, but there was also a distressed, frightened voice she didn’t recognize at all, it didn’t even sound like any of the kinds of dragons she’d met or seen yet. It was very high pitched, though it had somewhat of a male inflection.

Finally catching up, along with some of the braver energy and pack class females, Compashun came to a halt where Payshance and the other two Pack females were… holding down a very small bipedal male dragon, not a speck of gear on him anywhere. He was a pale greenish color, and seemed very thin… wiry almost. He looked as though he’d known a fair deal of hunger in his life, for his face was narrow and very angular, and his ribs showed through his hide, though not as much as if he was emaciated. Compashun had once seen a sickly female in the breeding pen, she’d hardly had any meat left on her when the keepers took her away… she’d never seen her after that.

“What is this?” Compashun demanded, growling.

“Leader, I heard him nosing around, so we caught him.” Payshance growl-barked.

Compashun looked down at the very frightened little male. “I see that.” She trilled, then turned to look at Payshance again. “I wish you’d acted like your name and told me instead of just rushing off.” She continued, making the other female hunch her shoulders.

“Nonsense Compashun.” 0144 chuckled, stepping up. “If she’d taken the time to tell you, he-” she trilled in her deeper tone, indicating the young captive male with a claw. “Would’ve heard us coming and got away.”

Compashun’s eyes widened as she realized the other female was right. “I… see… sorry Payshance, you did the right thing.” She trilled to the pack female, who nodded.

“Now, though…” Compashun sighed, turning her attention to the light green colored, male bipedal dragon. “Who are you?”

“Me Wydgett…” The male whined.

“Well, Wydgett…” Compashun trilled, bringing her head down to look him square in the eye, making the much smaller dragon look like he wanted a hole to open up below him. “What are you doing here?”

“Wydgett look for… look for things… yes, things fall down from upper city, end up certain places, Keeper’s crew need many things, Wydgett know good places to find things…” He whined in that queerly high pitched voice.

“KEEPERS!?” Compashun roared, while all the other dragonesses growled. “You’re working for humans!?” she continued, growling ferociously.

Wydgett looked at once very frightened and greatly confused. “Stewardd and other keepers build things… We help them…” He started, before Compashun roared again, silencing him.

“Compashun, please stop…” Tendyr whined, coming forward. “You’re terrifying him…”

“And someone’s going to hear you if you keep roaring like that.” 0144 said, shaking her head.

Compashun glared back at the other female for a second, before mastering herself. “Fine then, but if he knew about this place, we can’t stay here any longer.”

“Where are we supposed to go?” Payshance whined. “We didn’t find anywhere else big enough for all of us, especially someplace safe…”

“Wydgett knows safe place!” The male suddenly yapped, garnering the attention of every one of the females.

“Probably where your humans keep you.” 0144 rumbled derisively, before Compashun rounded on her with a sharp snort, silencing her.

“Wydgett…” She rumbled slowly. “My friends and I need a place to stay… somewhere humans don’t go, someplace safe… and we need to be able to find food… do you know of such a place?” she asked the small male.

The little pale green dragon nodded, even as he was still being restrained bodily by Payshance the pack females. Compashun nodded, then looked at the females restraining him, and they slowly let him stand.

“You can’t be serious!” 0144 snorted. “We don’t even know him!”

“We don’t know anything out here!” Compashun growled back at her, then checked her tone apologetically. “We nearly got lost coming back here. He at least seems to know this place.” She said, inclining her head in Wydgett’s direction.

The older female shook her head. “Something’s telling me we’re going to regret this.”

“You’d rather stay here?” Compashun trilled, looking around the dank, moldy tunnel.

“Of course not!” 0144 growled sharply.

“Then come on.” Compashun said. “Wydgett, you’ll lead, but Payshance and I will be keeping an eye on you, so don’t try to run off.”

“Yes, yes!” The small pale green dragon said, nodding his head vigorously. “Wydgett lead big dragons to safe place, Wydgett promise!” he yapped and trilled in a very excited and earnest sounding manner, before he started trotting… deeper into the tunnel.

“We’re going… that way!?” Tendyr yelped, alarmed.

“Just come on!” Compashun growled.

<<>>

“Do you really have to leave so soon?” Lance said, standing next to Fracshun as the three teenagers mounted up.

“Sorry lance, we’ve got classes to attend, important ones, and every one of them counts. There might be one thing taught today that could make all the difference in the rest of our time in the academy!” Parmon said.

“Probably not that earth shattering, professor, but the last thing we want is to let our instructor think we’re slacking.” Kitt said.

“I missed you guys…” Fracshun whined, coming closer to the three larger dragons. “I really did… will you come back soon?” he finished, almost pleading.

“We’ll see.” Cyrano rumbled.

“Yeah, I’m sure if there’s any real trouble we’ll get called in.” Wyldfyre said.

“And knowing Word and his type, that can’t be too long.” Beau laughed in his way, then lowered his head and nudged Fracshun in the shoulder with the tip of his nose. “Just keep safe. I was really worried about you this time.”

“And if there is next time, don’t go trying to play hero with gear you don’t know how to use.” Cyrano added, which set all three adult dragons to laughing, and Fracshun to an embarrassed blush.

Artha smiled as he watched the dragons ‘talk’ to each other. “Ok, you two…” he said, looking at Lance and Fracshun. “Try to stay out of trouble for a while. Dad… I’d say ‘leave it to security next time’ but I know that’s not going to happen.” He chuckled, to which Conner smirked and rolled his eyes. Artha then looked at the dragon below him. “Now if we’re all done with good byes, we really need to get back to the academy.”

Beau looked back at his rider, nodded in assent, gave Fracshun and Lance each a parting nudge, and turned and trotted out to the dragway, Wyldfyre and Cyrano turning to follow him.

“Bye!” Lance called out, waving after them.

“Bye!” Fracshun let out a high pitched call as the three adults left.

<<>>

The tunnels that the young male led them through were becoming progressively smaller. Wydgett had left the main tunnel long behind them and it was now becoming so constricted that Payshance could barely manage to stay alongside him… particularly with her swollen middle. She wasn’t so heavy that it slowed her in normal conditions, but in the tunnel she was now feeling it.

“Wydgett, how much further is it to this place?” Compashun grunt barked anxiously.

“Is not far.” The little male said. Normally, something like that would’ve made Compashun feel better, but considering this was the fifth time he’d said that so far, it was starting to become irritating.

“This better be one nice place he’s taking us to, after leading us through this muck.” One of the blues behind her, for once not the sarcastic 0144, rumbled under her breath.

After another three turns, Wydgett suddenly stopped.

“Here we are!” he yipped, triumphantly.

A confused murmur ran down the tunnel after that. “What do you mean, ‘here we are?” Compashun growled, angrily. “We’re in an even less comfortable tunnel than when we started!”

Wydgett suddenly powered up for a mag stream, which instantly had Payshance growling and snapping at him, causing the small male to yelp, then hunker down apologetically.

“Wydgett not lie, Safe place up.” He said, looking at the ceiling above where he and Payshance were standing. There was a large rectangular grate that was almost large enough to let four Energy or pack class dragons through it at once.

“So… this place.. is through there?” Compashun said, coming forward, then rising up on her hind legs, bracing herself against one of the slimy walls to get her head just under the grate so she could look out… She saw the purplish colored air of the lower levels of the city, same as when they’d come into the tunnels over an hour earlier. Looking around she saw several buildings around them… but they all looked very dirty, and the doors all looked broken.

“Yes, yes! Move grate, jump through, is safe place!” Wydgett confirmed.

“Open it then.” Compashun trilled to the small male.

Payshance backed off from the small male this time, but Wydgett still looked nervous as he used a mag stream to gently lift the grate out of the way, sliding it off to the side. He then hunkered down, then sprang up through the hole a meter above his head. A moment later he poked his head back down the hole. “Come, come! Is safe!” he said.

Payshance looked at Compashun. “If you’re sure, Leader.” She rumbled, unsure of the situation.

“I don’t think we have any choice.” Compashun trilled, then turned to face down the tunnel… the line of dragonesses extended down past where she could see.

“Payshance and I are going first to make sure it’s safe. Once we’re sure we’ll be back.” She grunt-barked authoritatively.

Payshance insisted on leaping out of the tunnel first, to check it out before she’d let her ‘leader’ come through. After a moment the pack female looked down into the open hole and nodded, So Compashun jumped up as well.

She found herself in a walled in place with numerous large, darkened structures around. The area was quiet… there was the sound of machines from above… and music some levels above, but the immediate area didn’t seem to have any real activity.

“Wydgett… what is this place?” Compashun asked, her voice a low rumble of uncertainty.

“This old Stock yard.” Wydgett said. “Humans used to store lots of interesting things here, but they no longer do. Sometimes useful things drop down here, so we come to see, but not much. Is good place to rest though!” Wydgett said, then trotted over to one of the large structures and easily nosed the door open, and slipped inside.

Compashun and Payshance looked at each other, then followed the green male inside the structure. Once inside the doors, they found their eyes readjust to the gloom inside fairly quickly. The interior was one huge chamber, slowly rotating fans in the walls near the ceiling at either end kept the air from becoming stale. The floor was dusty, but there wasn’t any large debris, and there was plenty of space for all the recently freed dragonesses here.

Suddenly, a bright light nearly blinded both of them. Compashun and patience yelped in shock and whirled around, going back to back with each other, growling in all directions as spots peppered their vision.

“Is ok, is ok!” Wydgett was whining apologetically, yet sounding alarmed. “I just turn lights on!”

“Turned… on?” Compashun growled, but only half heartedly, she was just plain confused. She shook her head a few ties and blinked repeatedly until she became accustomed to the brighter light. As her vision returned, she saw the small green male standing a few meters away looking at her with a concerned expression on his face.

“Not even know that?” Wydgett said. “Wydgett no understand…”

“We just escaped from a breeding pen last night.” Payshance said, shaking her head. “We… didn’t do much for ourselves there.”

“Really? Wydgett been to many breeding pens… they all closed up tight, can no find interesting things there, they not let any fall…” he said.

Both females looked at each other, then fixed Wydgett with a hard stare.

“Payshance…” Compashun said.

“Yes leader?” The pack female replied.

“Go tell the others it’s safe and bring them in. I need to have a little talk with our new friend here.” She rumbled.

Uh, oh, Wydgett's in trouble! ^_^ Can't wait to see how he gets himself out! And I see you gave him the same sort of speech patters as Stewardd, nice touch there, keeps you reminded that's he a Light Green.

yes, another new chapter. It's only a night stick, but my muse can do some pretty crazy moves with one of those things...

Anyway, NEw OC's: Empathya, Affecshun. Ronn saddler, Rokkur

Mother’s rage Chapter 8.

“Sir, is all this really necessary?” A brown haired man in a green draconium armor suit by the name of Ronn Saddler said into a vidlink, on the other end was one of the managers of Scalesheen corp.

“Reports from the last raid said there was a lot of mag energy discharging going off, that means dragons. The CEO want all our breeding facilities locked down tight, we couldn’t afford losses like that in the first place. Now get to work.”

“Yes sir.” The man replied even as the other end cut off the connection. He put the green full helmet on his head and went over to his bull class dragon. He was part of Scalesheen’s independent security force, and he’d been called in along with his squad to reinforce the defences of this, one of several of the company’s other breeding stables.

<<>>

Compashun, along with Payshance and Wydgett, crept forward to look out over the edge of the roof of the building they were on, to overlook the Scalesheen breeding building, the number 1, apparently, from what their guide was telling them. The rest of the group was hiding in the alleyways behind them.

“We here now, other breeding pen. That big place, lots of dragons inside, but lots of people too.” Wydget whined. “Oh, too many people, they see! They see us if we go…”

“Calm down Wydgett…” Compashun crooned, nudging him with her snout. “You don’t have to go anywhere near there, but I do need your help still.”

Wydgett had agreed to help them almost instantly once Compashun told him their story. The thought of being locked up for a lifetime alone incensed him, even if she hadn’t told him about the egg stealing.

“What Wydgett do to help?” he chittered.

“When we escaped, all the lights went out, then dimmer ones came on, and our stall doors opened. We’re not sure how it happened.” Compashun explained to the light green male.

“Oh! Power go out.” He snorted.

“Power?” Compashun trilled quietly.

“Everything work on power, it like when we mag. Things no get power, things no work."

“Then why did the other lights come on?” Payshance said, even though she was still keeping an eye on the street ahead of them.

“Emergency power.” Wydgett elaborated. “It useful, help when main power go out, so can see where walk, get to safer place, but can’t do much.” He continued chittering.

“So how do we get the power to go out again?” Compashun asked in a low rumble, her mind working overtime.

“Stop power from getting to breeding pen.” Wydgett snorted, as though it should’ve been obvious.

“Wydgett…” Compashun trilled, prodding.

“Power come from generators, generators push power through wires, wires meet at ‘transformers’, branch to other wires, go to buildings.” He explained, sounding haughty at his superior knowledge. Payshance nodded slowly, taking it in as best she could.

“Alright, now where’s… whatever it is that supplies this place with power?” Compashun asked in a low rumble.

“Um…” widget grunted thoughtfully. “Nearby, am sure. There many power transformers for each sector.” He continued.

“Good… Payshance, get together some of your best pack females, say five or so..” Compashun said to her second in command. “Wydgett, I want you to lead her and her group to whatever is supplying this place with power. The rest of us are going to attack that place the moment the lights go out.” She said, looking out over the force of bull class dragons that were guarding the entrances to the building.

Payshance nodded to Wydgett, who turned and followed the larger pack female. Compashun looked out over the opposition they’d be facing for another minute, and then turned to go rejoin the group down below.

<<>>

Ronn rode his dragon around the building’s periphery in an easy circuit., his bull class dragon, Rokkur, snorting every so often. The dragon was bored, he knew how large and powerful he was, and backed by two dozen other such bull class males, there wasn’t much likelihood that anything would try this place. Still, he was outfitted in some of the best gear dragon city had to offer; green ramming gear, a pair of red thrusters if he really had to move, and a fair allotment of brown battle armor.

They were making a round past the front entrance when a loud bang was heard a few blocks away, followed almost immediately by the lights flickering out and casting the area into near pitch darkness.

“Blast it, Lights!” Ronn shouted, even as he and the others were turning on the ‘headlights’ mounted on the front of their saddles. In a moment they were searching the darkness for anything moving, hoping to catch whatever crafty culprit had done the first heist, and was now trying this tactic a second time.

A moment later, a blue energy class dragon walked out of the shadows… shortly followed by several more… then by a number of pack class dragons…

The entirety of the shadows beyond their spotlights seemed to be moving towards them… and growling.

“Commander…?”

Ronn gritted his teeth. “Don’t let them through!” he shouted, before clicking on the Ramming gear, firing a warning shot from his ramming gear in the general direction of the advancing mass of dragons. The ones in the front leapt out of the way, but the ball apparently hit one of the ones in the back, because it squealed as the thing sent it flying backwards.

With one of their number hit, the rest of them became at ocne alarmed, and enraged. The low level growl that had been coming towards them turned almost into a general roar.

With the Ramming gear still active, Ronn hit the boost thrusters, and sent his dragon careening into the mass, hoping to scatter the mass of dragons. While it was slower than it would have been normally, due to the sheer weight of the brown armor on the bull class dragon, Rokkur found himself bowling over dragons in no time. The smell of fear and aggression in the air was nothing new to him, but there was something there that was… very, very out of place. After the finished their first charge, he turned, the light on his saddle illuminating nearly a dozen of the dragons he’d knocked over, picking themselves up… mostly, some of them were having trouble standing.

And then the dragon saw something that, when connected to the strange smell he’d inhaled during the charge, made him go practically light green with horror. These females had a telltale bulge in their middle… most of them were small, but coupled with that peculiar scent told him everything he needed to know.

They were gravid, carrying eggs. And he’d just blasted through their ranks like a bowling ball through a set of pins.

Suddenly, Rokkur was hoping desperately he hadn’t hurt any of them, the first time in his life he thought he might’ve been too harsh. He nearly felt like he was about to faint when he noticed one of the energy class females was actually limping.

Suddenly, he realized that he was getting orders from the saddle to charge again, and apparently had been for several seconds already, as Ronn was getting angry with him, shouting “Move you idiot!” at him, as the dragonesses were rounding on him, bearing their teeth and flexing their claws.

“I can’t….” Rokkur whined, right before a round dozen angry female dragons leapt at him.

<<>>

“Calling all units, calling all units, reports of a massive disturbance in Mid city east 22nd district. All available units please respond.” came the dispatch on Captain Faier’s communicator.

“Isn’t that where another of Scalesheen’s breeding centers is?” Said one of the officers with him.

“This is quickly turning into a crime spree. C’mon Cuffs!” Faier said, the blue bipedal dragon below him roaring in response before setting out in a sprint.

<<>>

“Oh no…” Connor said. He’d overheard the dispatch on his scanner, but considering up here it was still bright out, Artha and the others were probably in a class in the academy. Being called out twice in the span of a week, for any reason, would be too much of a strain on their already tentative enrollment in the academy.

“What’s that dad?” Lance said through the vid link. The boy was out on the track with Fracshun again, and Connor was supposed to be coaching them.

“Uh… nothing Lance.” Connor said, shaking his head. “Take Fracshun through the obstacles again.”

<<>>

Compashun stood, panting, outside the building. The human defenders had been routed, though their dragons had offered up some resistance, and a few of her companions had been hit. She worried for the ones who seemed in pain, but she couldn’t take the time to slow down, and instead told a few of their number to take the injured aside, back to where they’d been hiding before the attack had been launched. Among them had been 0144, the older female having been hit hard by the projectile ball in the first moments of their attack. Thankfully, though she limped, she was able to keep up with the few escorts that were handling the ‘injured’ females.

Taking point, Compashun broke in through the front doors, blasting them with a mag stream and sending them flying open before she charged in, but the defense she’d expected inside wasn’t there.

“No humans?” She growled, confused. She was sure this was some kind of a trick, but shook her head and turned to look behind her. “Everyone with me. There’s two levels with breeding pens directly above, let’s go!” She called out in a high trill before sprinting up a very familiar looking ramp.

They arrived at the first blast doors without seeing any humans at all. The lights here were, again, the dull red oens that had filled their breeding stable when they’d escaped a few days ago, and now some of the dragonesses, herself included, were feeling very uneasy, even as they kept in mind their mission, to remove other dragonesses from the fates they’d managed to slip free from.

This time, compashun organized three dozen of her followers into a line behind her as she took the point with the concentrated mag-streams, half of the streams deep blue, half a pale purple. The metal heated up in no time, and slowly melted into a puddle, which the dragonesses backed away from. On the other side, there was no cry of fear, however. And Compashun began to become very worried. Her eyes were still readjusting to the light, now that the mag-streams were no longer illuminating the darkness and nearly blinding her… until she saw a quadrupedal dragoness walking up to the still glowing metal, looking at her with a mixture of confusion and interest… This dragoness had shorter, more heavily muscled legs and a longer more sinuous body than hers, and a very long neck, with a wide, square jawed head with long ears coming off the back corners, giving her a rather dramatic appearance. She was very, very dark in color, and while Compashun couldn’t really make out the specifics of her coloration in the red lighting, she could see the jagged delineation of color running down the female’s side.

“Who are you? Did you just break the door? What’s going on here?” The female suddenly demanded. Behind her, Compashun began to be able to make out the reflections of light faintly in the eyes of a large number of other dragonesses of a similar type to this one.

“In order, Compashun, yes, and we’re breaking you out of here.” Compashun said.

The female on the other side of the hole in the door snorted a single, short draconic laugh. “What are you, crazy? The humans will be very upset if we just leave.”

“And what have the humans done to earn your trust?” Compashun asked her.

“They feed us, care for us when we’re sick, and help us when we hurt in the middle.” The other female trilled.

“Those ‘pains’ you describe, they make some strange objects come out of your bodies, don’t they?” Compashun trilled, the other dragonesses behind her sitting down.

“Yes, what of it?” the other dragoness growled.

“I don’t have time to dance around it, but they’re called eggs. And they carry young dragons. Think about that.” Compashun trilled in a even tone.

The Other female opened her mouth as though to say something, then suddenly what she’d said hit her and she stopped. “Young dragons?”

“Yes.” Compashun replied. “Young dragons which they force us to make, then take from us, when we are supposed to be their caretakers, their guardians. To the humans we are nothing but machines to make more of ourselves, from our flesh.”

“Wh… what!?” the female before her snorted, shocked, along with numerous other confused sounds coming from her kind behind her. “Why?”

Compashun shook her head. “I can say no more on the matter now, there are more dragonesses in this place that we need to release. You may either come with us, or stay here.”

“Hey! You can’t drop that on top of us and expect us to just follow you, HEY!” the dark colored female roared after her as Compashun took off and lead her group up the sloping corridor to the third level breeding pen, the second of two here in this breeding center.

<<>>

Word Paynn maneuvered several of his wraith dragons into position around the Scalesheen breeding stables. He’d also picked up the call dragon city security had put out, and now his wraiths were watching what was happening there intently, though augmenting everything in infrared, since the light level was too low to transmit in a normal frequency back to him.

“This female’s proving to be very resourceful… I didn’t expect her to assault another stable, but if she’s building an army, it’s not a bad place to start…” he mused.

<<>>

Compashun arrived shortly thereafter at the second set of blast doors, without a sound, all the other dragoneses lined up and began mag pulsing at the door, concentrating everything on one point in order to heat the metal. Almost before they managed to do any real damage to this one, they heard dragons on the other side, screeching and roaring. Once the hole in the door was open widely enough, Compashun made to go closer and see if she could see what kind of dragons were on the other side… but before she even got there, a large quadrupede dragoness, it’s primary body color a brilliantly bright one even in the dull red light leapt clean through the hole, looked around, and moved towards the ones who had released her.

“Hello.” The female chirred. “Did you do that?” she continued, looking Compashun over. The other quadrupede female was by no means anything like a bull class, but she had a fair deal of bulk on her, and she had these odd horns, one on top of her head, and one on her chin, which she could raise and lower. At the moment, they were shifting somewhere around middling, a 45 degree angle to her skull as she inspected her ‘rescuers’.

Compashun grinned, then trilled. “Yes, we’re getting you and all the other dragonesses in your pen out, and I’m running short of time to explain why. Please, make sure none of them are still in their stalls."

“Oh, we’re all here.” She snorted in laughter, then turned and looked at the other females on the other side. “We’re going OUT!” she almost screeched back into the pen, and a loud, emphatic roar came from the other side, before a wave of pale colored, oddly horned dragonesses came pouring out from the hole, and dashing down the corridor back the way Compashun and her mixed group had come from.

“Hey! Wait up!” Compashun called, stunned by the odd reaction from these dragonesses, before she took off after them, her group following immediately on her heels.

Ahead of them, Compashun heard the sound of pounding dragon paws as the pale females raced on, then, suddenly, a lot of screeching of claws on metal as they tried to abruptly stop, and a lot of roars of shock and alarm… before the thuds of a lot of bodies colliding. Compashun felt a surge of horror, had they just been attacked?

Then, rounding a corner, she found a large number of the pale dragonesses standing back from a pile of moaning, stunned bodies… mixed between the pale and dark dragonesses, while on the other side of the pile a bunch of the dark females were backing away, stunned by what had just happened.

“Watch where you’re going!” one of the dark dragons snapped before pulling herself out of the pile.

“If you weren’t blocking our path we wouldn’t have hit you like that!” one of the white females retorted with an annoyed growl.

“Well… this is different…” One of the pack females chuckled.

Compashun groaned. “What this is, is ridiculous…” she shook her head. “You!” she barked at the white female who’d spoken first. “Do you have a name?”

“Funny you should ask.” The other female grunted with a wry grin on her face. “It’s Affecshun, and you are?”

“Compashun.” She replied with a trill. “Affecshun, could you please sit still for two seconds? You can’t just run off like that. We need to stick together or the humans are probably going to recapture us and stick us back in those pens.”

“My tail they are!” the female said, growling. “I’ve hated being stuck in that place every moment of my life. I want to RUN!”

“Well at least you’re willing to get out of here.” Compashun said, before looking at the dark dragoness, amongst the group that had just pulled themselves out of the pileup.

“I’m not going anywhere until I have more information, plus I’m none too pleased with being slammed into like that!” the dark female growled, first at Compashun, then at Affecshun.

“And you would be…?” Affecshun grunted.

“Empathya.” The female snapped at her. “Now what the blazes was that you were saying about little dragons coming out of those things we push out?” she demanded in a growl. The collected mass of pale dragons suddenly gasped in shock.

“What!?” Affecshun roared.

“I was going to tell you that before you ran off like a mad dragon.” Compashun snorted back at the pale female, who immediately flattened her horn along her neck in apology.

“Can you explain it now?” Affecshun whimpered, trying to sound apologetic even as she was trying to ask for the information.

“Yes, I’d love to hear this.” Empathya purred, smiling, amused at the pale female’s behavior.

Compashun opened her mouth to speak, when suddenly she heard a pair of paws come sprinting up the ramp from beyond the other side of the mass of dark dragonesses… it was Payshance.

“Leader! Leader!” she cried out in a hoarse voice, she’d just sprinted very, very hard, apparently.

“Payshance, what is it?” Compashun trilled.

“More armored dragons coming… ridden by humans… we have to GO!” she panted, coming to a rest next to her.

“Ridden by humans?” Empathya said, confused.

“One of those things I need to tell you about, but only after we get you all out of here, unless you want to just be locked back up inside?” Compashun growled at the dark female.

Empathya looked Compashun hard in the eye. “You don’t seem like you’re lying…” she said after a moment. “Fine, I’ll trust you, for now. Girls!” she called into her kind’s pen, and the rest of the dark colored females came out over the now cooled metal ‘puddle’ on the floor. “We’re going with them.”

“Finally!” Compashun groaned, then took the lead again, running down towards the exit.

<<>>

Captain Faier pulled his dragon to a stop outside the stable building. The front door was wide open, and the contracted green security force was nowhere to be seen. The red and blue flashing lights mounted on his and the other officers dragons exposed dark splotches on the ground in the area, and concidering the smell, it wasn’t difficult for the experienced officer to figure out what they probably were.

“Men, cordon off this area, we got here quickly this time, so the culprit might still be in around.” He said, as Cuffs used a mag stream to pick his rider off his back and deposit him on the ground.

He flicked out a baton and activated a wrist light as he approached the front door of the breeding stable. The interior was filled with the dark red color of the emergency lighting, the only light in the area, and he wanted to see the details as best he could. He heard the men immediately going to secure the rest of the area, already pulling out the yellow tape.

As he crossed the threshold of the breeding stable’s lobby, suddenly he felt the floor start to reverberate. Was the power coming back on? No, the lights hadn’t gone back yet… a back up generator? No, same problem.

“What in the…?” he said, then suddenly realized that most of the rumbling was coming from one level above him, infact, directly above his head… though it seemed to also at the same time be coming from a ramp at the other end of the main level.

He raised his wrist light to look at that ramp, and saw nothing, just a wall at the back of the ramp where it turned. He was about to start moving towards it, when suddenly, time seemed to slow around him, as a large blue dragon came careening around the bend in that ramp, it’s limbs flying as they carried it at full speed… immediately following it were… too many other dragons for him to count, and they, too were all coming at him, looking very intently through him at the door.

It’s odd how moments like that give you such clarity. He was able to pick out several other individual energy class dragons, a number of almost identical looking pack class, and a number of black Psi-class and white Aero-class dragons.

He whirled around on his heels, and ran as fast as he could, though it didn’t feel nearly fast enough.

“STAMPEDE!” he yelled, gaining him the attention of every one of his men, before he dived sideways as the huge mass of charging dragons burst out of the door of the stable, and went spilling out past him, his men, and their dragons, and away into the night before they had a chance to react.

*manages to restrain self* Why did you have to post a new chapter when I'm supposed to be working?! *tear* I'll make reading this my reward for finishing...yeeeeessss.... :plot: *rushes off to finish so she can read*

Du'rath(My dark muse): *Chuckles* and you thought nobody would like this, you've got fans willing to rush through work just to read it.

Me: Oh, well... i, um... *blushes*

*noms chapter* Moar! ^_^ Wonder when all the stupid little humans are going to finally notice the bulges? ^_^ Impulsive, free-spirited whites...calculating, intellectual blacks...You're fitting personalities with draconium colors very well.

Magna Draconis, I haven't been this completely hooked on a fanfic since I first discovered Kasan Soulblade's Tales of Symphonia fics! I literally sat for hours on end, glued to the computer screen, devouring chapter after chapter...satiating my hunger for more until the demands of life wouldn't let me sit any longer. And then I spent the entire day looking forward to the next chance I would get to read some more. XD Ah, good days, good days. Of course, I can't do that with Mother's Rage since you don't have chapter after chapter written, but if you did, that's what I'd be doing! Though, I feel I should inform you that I tend to be a lurker. Don't be surprised if I stop commenting, I'll still be nomming every chapter as soon as you post it. On ff.net, I've never once commented on any of my favorite author's stories. Why? Well, I'll just say that the day someone has to tell me to lurk moar will be the day the world comes to an end! ^_^

Nicely done. I may get some ideas from here. Useful tips.

lurk as much as you want renesh... but i have to warn you, it's the comments that make me want to keep writing. :)

Interesting story. Keep it up.

I loved how Affecshun reacted when Compashun told her about getting out of the stables. It was like.

Compashun: Look, we gotta go -
Affecshun: DRAC! HAY GIRLS WE'RE GOING OUT :dance:
*Mass White Dragoness Runoff*
Compashun: ...

And how the black and white dragonesses ended up crashing into each other. Poetic if not ironic. :) It's interesting to note how dragonesses give off a certain "scent" of being pregnant; explains Shock-Ra and Rokkur's recoil-in-horror actions very nicely. I wonder if the dragons being pregnant has to do with Compashun and her fellow penmates' confusion. :P

Skylii, thanks, i'm very glad you like affecshun's personality, she's very fun to write. Plus I liked your spelling of the green security dragon's name so much i just had to change it. ;)

Edit: Also, it's not exactly 'confusion', but... well, I'll be elaborating on that later. :plot:

A NEW CHAPTER!

Canon chars introduced here; Zann (Inner order master, name not mentioned yet), Sarjo (And his dragon Shuko), Shurykyn (and her dragon Qywkstryke), Stewardd and Gunny, Prophesi (Mentioned), Reepyr, and Sentrus (in person)
OC's Dr. Havvas, Orderly Tavis. Gyzzmo (Male Scavenger class light green[mentioned]), Apyrattyss (Female scavenger class light green[mentioned]).

Mother's rage chapter 9

“Captain Faier!” the main desk clerk at Dragon city Central hospital said, seeing the officer walk in. “What can I do for you today?”

“Is there a man named Ronn Saddler here? I need to ask him a few questions, and it’s urgent.” Faier said, walking up. His dragon was waiting outside, keeping out of the way of dragons pulling ambulance trailers around.

“Excuse me a moment.” She said, immediately opening up an intercom.

“Doctor Havvas to the front desk please.” She said, then closed the connection and looked back up at Faier. “He’ll be just a moment Captain.” She said, then went back to what she’d been doing, some amount of paperwork.

Faier raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

A minute later the doctor himself showed up, Older, grey haired, and a bit portly. “Well, captain Faier, what can I do for you?” he asked.

“I need to speak to a patient of yours, he was involved in an incident last night and might have some answers I could use.” Faier said.

“The name of this patient?” the doctor asked.

“Ronn Saddler.” Faier said, putting his hands together behind his back.

“Ah, yes, the head of the security firm. Them and their dragons all came in last night suffering from claw and bite wounds, and a few of them had concussions. I believe Mr. Saddler is awake now though. Mr. Tavis!” The doctor said, gaining the attention of an orderly. “Show the officer here to Mr. Saddler’s room… uh, where was he put again?” The doctor asked the desk worker.

“B wing, level 14, room 037.” She rattled off in a rather bored sounding tone.

“Right, take him there, I’ve got ten more patients to see to.” He said to the orderly in a gruff tone. “And good to see you again Captain!” he added in a much more upbeat tone before he turned and left in a hurry.

Faier shortly found himself in an elevator, rising quickly. At least it was one with a view, so it made the trip a little less boring than being stuck inside a moving metal coffin.

Once the elevator stopped the orderly led him down the hallway. This was one of the joint levels. If both the human and dragon of a pair were in for injuries, the proximity of each other seemed to help in the healing process, and at the very least calmed the dragon to be near its master.

“Mr. Saddler, you have a visitor.” The orderly said at the door to the room, briefly, before leaving Faier on his own.

“Captain Faier!” the man said in surprise, trying to sit more upright in his hospital bed. He was bandaged across his torso and his right arm was in a sling. The bull class green dragon laying on the circular cushioned pad that dominated the rest of the room looked even worse off, but raised it’s head to look at him as he entered.

“Please, don’t trouble yourself.” Faier said, sitting down on a chair put there for visitors. “You probably know why I’m here.”

“Yeah. We screwed up.” Ronn said, looking at the bull class dragon, who averted his eyes guiltily.

“I need some more details. Did you see anyone shady about before it happened, and what exactly did happen?” Faier asked.

“We didn’t see anyone sir.” Ronn replied. “All of a sudden the power blacks out all around us, and then there’s this huge pack of dragons coming out of the dark at us, and none of them had a single piece of gear, saddle, or rider.”

“Not one had a rider?” Faier asked, incredulous.

“No sir. If they had… well, they probably wouldn’t have used their claws and teeth on us nearly as much.” He said, looking at the bull class dragon, who just whimpered. “Rokkur there usually isn’t one to freeze up… but there were a lot of them sir… he’s strong, and he knows it, but when you face numbers like that…”

“I understand.” Faier said. “Were you able to make out what class they were?” HE continued.

“Blue energy and Purple Pack class, sir.” Ronn answered.

“Wait… there was more than one kind?” Faier said, suddenly looking surprised.

“Yes sir. They looked to be about half purple bipeds, half blue quadrupeds.” Ronn said, seeing the confusion on the security chief’s face. “Is something wrong?”

“When I went to investigate the building, I nearly got trampled by a stampede of Blue energy, Purple pack, Black Psi, and White Sky class dragons. I thought that someone’d just let all of them loose.” Faier said.

“Well, after they thrashed us, the energy and pack dragons ran into the building… that’s when I called you and the medics.”

“So… a pack of riderless dragons attacked you, then, without a human guiding them, they ran into the building… and came out with the dragons that were inside?” Faier said, his mind turning.

“I can’t say that much sir, I was on route here with Rokkur by then… sorry to say.” Ronn said.

“Uh… thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Saddler.” Faier said, then immediately stood and left without another word.

<<>>

Wydgett had been waiting back at the stockyard when Compashun and the now very large group arrived back. His escorts, two pack females, along with the few dragonesses that had been knocked around during the initial attack looked on with him as the pack and energy dragonesses came in, followed by black psi and white sky class females.

“Hmm… not very pretty… or clean.” One of the black females snorted, looking around the abandoned warehouse.

“Hey, at least the door isn’t locked on us here.” One of the whites chirred.

“You bring many big dragons back, yes!” Wydgett said, coming up to Compashun as she entered.

“Yes, thanks to you.” She trilled, before nuzzling the little green. Wydgett blushed.

“Oh, and who is this?” one of the black psi class females rumbled, coming over.

“Empathya, Affecshun, meet Wydgett, our little light green guide. We wouldn’t have found you if he hadn’t shown up.” Compashun trilled.

“Oh really?” Affecshun chirred. “Well, thanks little guy!” she purred at him, which made the little light green smile and blush.

“Indeed.” Empathya purred, looking the little light green over. “Thank you for helping them take us out of there, I guess.” She rumbled, then looked at Compashun. “However, you still owe us an explanation.”

“I do at that, don’t I.” Compashun sighed.

<<>>

Down in the wastelands on the planet’s surface, deep below Dragon city, a diminutive figure, absolutely covered in knickknacks and protruding tools and accessories, cobbled together from junked parts was riding a rather lanky looking pale green dragon, very similar to Wydgett. The pair was making slow progress amongst the crumbling ancient rock walls and piles of dumped garbage strewn all about. Over a rise ahead of them was a large, red stone temple in the rough shape of an ankh, though parts of it had collapsed from many years of weathering.

“Be calm Gunny, Prophets are friends now, yes.” the rider said, stroking his dragon’s cheek reassuringly from his position on the saddle, the mature light green still whimpered at the imposing structure, long before the dragon had ever been hatched the prophets had been seen as very dangerous. The recent turn of goodwill with the imprisonment of their despotic former leader, the orange dragon Prophesi alone still hadn’t changed the mindset of the very, very skittish light green scavenger dragons.

“Come, we go, we ask, and maybe they have found Wydgett, yes?” Stewardd continued, making the dragon look up at him with a hopeful expression.

“Yes, we go, yes?” Stewardd said, pressing forward on the controls on his saddle, and this time the dragon underneath him didn’t resist and went jogging forward.

Despite the brave face that Stewardd had put on, he couldn’t help but glance around nervously as they crossed the threshold into the darkness of the prophet’s temple. Nor did Gunny’s courage last very long either, and he was glancing around all over skittishly, and they only progressed a dozen meters after several minutes.

“Who dares enter the temple of the prophets?” a voice called out, and several orange dragons came tromping out of the shadows, one of them with a rider, though he didn’t wear the forcing gear.

“YIEE!” Steward yelped, Gunny shrieked and went flat on his face, covering his head with his arms as he quaked in fear.

Suddenly, the dragon with rider stopped. “Wait a second… Stewardd? Stewardd of the Keepers?” the rider said, lifting up a mask revealing a thin, pale face with disorderly pink hair. “Stewardd, it is you!” he said, then looked at the other dragons. “Be at peace, this is an ally, the leader of the keepers clan.”

“Reepyr?” Stewardd said, looking at the tall man. “Reepyr! Oh, Stewardd and Gunny were very scared, yes.” Steward said, sounding very relieved. Gunny parted the digits on one of his paws and peeked out. The once menacing orange dragons were now sitting on their haunches looking at him curiously, which slowly convinced the light green that he wasn’t in any immediate danger, and picked himself up off the floor.

“Stewardd, we haven’t seen you since you left with the Dragon booster. What brings you to our temple?” Reepyr asked, the dragon he was on mag lifting him off and depositing him on the ground next to the keeper and his dragon. Reepyr was almost surprised to find himself just about tall enough to look Gunny in the eye.

“We look for Wydgett, yes, Wydgett go missing.”

“You lost a… tool?” Reepyr asked, sounding slightly confused.

“No, Wydgett is not tool, Wydgett is young keeper scavenger dragon.” Stewardd said, patting Gunny. “Gunny worried, Gunny like Wydgett, Wydgett son of Gyzzmo and Appyratyss, they cousins to Gunny. Wydgett go out, look for things to work on days ago and not come back, parents worry, yes? Wydgett only six years old.”

“A young scavenger class dragon? Hmm…” Reepyr said, while the orange control class dragons looked at each other and started murmuring amongst themselves. “I take it he’s never been away for very long before?”

“No, always back before night, Appyratyss always tell him, he listen. Keepers worry, he just young dragon, too young for rider.” Stewardd said, the concern evident in his voice. The orange dragons started nodding to each other.

“I’m sorry to tell you we haven’t seen any young light green draconium dragons, Stewardd, or any at all, infact, till you and Gunny showed up.” Reepyr said, sighing. “We’ll keep our eyes open when we patrol our borders, but as for now, we can’t help you.”

Gunny whimpered, and Stewardd sighed. “Stewardd understands, yes. Many thanks, we go now.” He said, then turned Gunny and the pair trotted off together.

Reepyr’s dragon partner looked at him and gave a worried whine.

“I know, I know.” He said, not needing forcing gear to know what the dragon had said. “I’d feel just as bad if it was one of our own young gone missing, but there’s nothing we can do.”


<<>>

“So… they were just taking young from us… so they could benefit from our kinds powers.” Empathya moaned in a very low, quiet tone. “It’s hard to comprehend, even for me.”

“I feel awful.” Affecshun whined. “Thinking of all the little dragons I must’ve put out… I remember what it was like as a little one, there was nobody to protect me, I had to fight against all the others because they were bigger than me and pushed me around. Now you tell me its part of a ‘mother’s’ job to protect her young.” She looked at the ground. “I feel horrible, thinking about what my own must have gone through… and my last group especially.”

Compashun nodded silently. She knew exactly what Affecshun felt like. All those emotions and more had ran through her after seeing that recording. That, more than anything, was what was driving her now. If she was being brutally honest with herself, she just wanted to run, and scour every inch of this city, looking for any dragon that smelled of her, who might be one of hers. But before she could think about the young, she had to make sure the humans couldn’t continue to take any new eggs. She couldn’t bear to think of this situation continuing.

“So…” Empathya sighed, looking at Compashun. “What do we do now?”

“There are still more dragonesses that are trapped in those pens, with eggs being taken from them as fast as they can put them out.” She growled. “I for one refuse to leave them there.”

“I agree. Bad enough they steal your… uh…” Affecshun rumbled, then ground to a halt as she forgot the name of what came out of them. “Well, your young, anyway, but I can’t stand the thought of any dragon locked up in a pen like that. I’m with you, and I’m sure the rest of us sky class agree.”

“Empathya?” Compashun trilled, looking at the psi class dragon.

Empathya snorted and shook her blue and black colored head as if to clear it. “Well, I can’t say no, now can I?” she said, standing and stretching, showing off her black lower limbs and her blue dorsal color, and the weaving, almost flame shaped pattern that separated the two along her sides. “But first things first, we all need to eat, then rest, and I don’t exactly see any feeding troughs here.”

“Feed factory not far, no.” Wydgett chirred in his high tone, breaking into the conversation. “We go there, get food, yes?”

“Wydgett, I swear, we wouldn’t get anything done without you.” Compashun crooned, giving the little light green male a caressing nuzzle, making the male blush.

“Ok then. Why don’t we get dinner, then discuss what our next move is once our bellies are full?” Affecshun said.

“That’s the most sensible thing I’ve heard come out of your mouth since I’ve met you.” Empathya said, raising an eye ridge as she smirked at the sky class.

Affecshun just grinned at the other female.

<<>>

The next morning, Slyder rode through Squire’s end, glancing over his shoulder every so often. He’d been given directions to the Inner order crew’s stables by one of the local punks, as he’d had no other way to find the place. Skreet’s paw was doing a lot better, and he figured rather than simply go out on the track again and get trounced, he might at least cash in on Khata’s offer. Even if it was only one trial run, they might point out something that could help him. This was the logic that made him ride Skreet out that morning, despite the reports of dragon oriented disturbances throughout the city.

An audio only entertainment channel was playing through his saddle vidlink, detailing the two attacks. The reporter’s voice, a woman’s repeated the story for only the third time since he’d mounted Skreet that morning.

“Scalesheen suffered another hit as a second raid claimed their breeding stock of Black Psi and White sky class dragons here in dragon city. A spokesman for security did not give any details as to the methodology or potential suspects in the case yet, but an eyewitness on the second attack says they seemed to be using the dragons they stole from the first location to overwhelm security at the second facility. When asked, Security chief Faier declined to comment.”

“Scary stuff, isn’t it boy?” Slyder said to his dragon. The blue energy class male looked up at him and nodded his head slightly.

At length, they came to the training center for the inner order crew. IT was rather impressive for a down city crew’s headquarters. The structure had that far eastern look that was popular in certain parts of the city, but on a far grander scale, as it housed living quarters for the humans, stalls for the dragons, gear storage and a workshop, and last but most definitely not least, an enclosed training ‘field’, some 200 meters long, 40 meters wide, and almost 5 stories high to the ceiling. Plus they could configure obstacles into any sort of challenge they could imagine.

Slyder had read all this on the crew roster listings the night before, while looking for directions, but he still needed a local’s advice on how to reach there, considering how nervous he was.

Walking up to the entrance, he found the door locked. A small camera port opened and a voice that shared a similar accent to Khata’s came through a small speaker. “Who’s there?”

“Uh, hi… my name’s Slyder… Khata invited me to swing by the other day after a race… if he remembers, you can ask him, maybe?” Slyder said, smiling nervously the whole time.

The comlink went silent for a minute, then crackled back to life. “Our leader has verified you, enter.” The voice said, before the door infront of him unlocked and slid open.

Slyder swallowed, looking into the entry hall… it was rather blank and empty looking, but he urged Skreet in anyway, the young dragon going somewhat slower than he’d asked him to, but Slyder didn’t reprimand him for it.

As they progressed down the hall, Skreet became aware of sounds of mag bursts and dragon grunts and human voices yelling. A moment later, as skreet hunkered down and almost began to crawl fearfully through the hall Slyder became aware of it too.

A large door opened at the other end of the hallway, directly onto the indoor training ring. A pair of dragons were, at the same time, running a circuit around the periphery of the room, while their riders were attacking each other. Neither rider seemed to be able to get a hit through the other’s defences, as every moves was deftly blocked or parried, and then the defender immediately retaliated, and this continued.

“Do not be worried, they merely practice.” came a voice from behind Slyder and Skreet, which made the both rider and mount jump. Behind them stood a very old man, his hair almost completely white, but peppered with darker grey hairs, and a short bit of a beard with the same color. He wore a blue outfit like most of the inner order, but his was very old, and faded.

“You are the young rider that Khata took pity on, then?” the old man said, looking the pair over.

“Uh… yeah, I guess that’s us. I’m Slyder… Slyder Ronus. And this is Skreet.” Slyder said, nervous at the entire situation, though the look the old man was giving him was unnerving, as though he was being appraised.

“Hi…” Skreet whimpered pathetically.

The old man nodded, then turned and cupped one hand around his mouth and called out across the huge training ring, his voice carrying in the harmonics of the enclosed, metal chamber as he yelled, “SARJO, SHURYKYN, COME HERE!”

The two riders stopped even as their blocking staves were still grinding against each other, then pulled back, and turned their dragons and rode over to the edge of the ring. The two older dragons extended their heads to sniff at Skreet, who looked rather intimidated by the other, obviously well trained, and well geared dragons.

“Sarjo, Shurykyn, this is the boy Khata met the other day. Please show him through one of our easier obstacle courses.” The old man said. The two young members of the crew nodded, and one of them, Sarjo, went to the control panel for the track, to set up a course.

“If you’ll excuse my asking, sir… where’s Khata?” Slyder asked.

“Khata is… disciplining his dragon.” The old man said, evasively.

Slyder, wisely, held his tongue, and simply followed Sarjo out onto the track.

<<>>

Sentrus received a call somewhere around noon that day, an unusual one as she hadn’t been expecting one, she usually didn’t get random people trying to contact her, anyone who did was usually on her schedule, and she typically went to speak to them personally, face to face, unless it was an emergency.

Nonplussed, she activated the comlink and found herself looking at the strong features of captain Faier of dragon city security.

“Captain Faier, to what do I owe this call?” she asked, trying to sound at least somewhat pleasant.

“I’m sorry to have to bother you, Sentrus, but we have a… situation brewing, and we need help.” Faier said, looking distinctly uncomfortable.

Sentrus sighed. “Dragon city security needs to focus on doing its job, Captain Faier. The academy is not a peacekeeping force. If you’re having trouble with the wraith dragons-”

“This is not about the wraith dragons, Sentrus. The dragons I’m worried about show no sign of any human controlling them.” Faier said, which gave sentrus pause.

“I want details.” Sentrus said.

“Over a comlink? This is hardly secure…” Faier said.

“You’re right… where are you now?” she asked.

“In my office down at central.” Faier answered.

“Stay there.” Sentrus said, then immediately closed the connection, and headed to the academy staff stables.

Omnomnom, so Captain Faier is starting to figure it out...hmmm... >:3 Mwahahaha!

Poor Shock-Ra though. Shame Khatah doesn't get it.




And congrats on your thread reaching its second page! :)

Well done. I am happy for you. :)

And to top it off, now that i have a second page on my topic, here's the first CHAPTER of that page! :dance:

New characters: Canon: Fistus, Pyrrah, Wulph, Voicipherus, Marianas, Prankk, Rancydd, Kykyr, the Vysox spirit (see if you can spot her!)



Mother’s rage chapter 10



Fistus had to smile, for the first time in months things around the council table seemed to be going back to the way they’d been before the beginning of the wraith dragon troubles, and all the other related upheavals. Moordryd Paynn was off at the Academy with Artha Penn, and didn’t have the time to bother anyone anymore, the wraith dragon attacks were the lowest they’d been in a good long time. Sure, he’d not managed to get into the academy himself, but he wasn’t that concerned with it, unlike some people. Getting in would’ve been a testament to his and Brutaris’ strength and skill, but he’d been very glad to see that the son of Connor Penn had managed to make it in, particularly with that show of resolve at the end of the drag ball tournament. And Moordryd’s behavior afterwards, as he’d seen personally, had been… uncharacteristically civil, almost… warm, or as warm as a Paynn could ever be.

The discussions around the table this meeting was sounding very familiar, small disputes about the borders of crew ‘territory’ which were resolved with words rather than weapons, the way things were supposed to be handled here in this chamber. Too often in the recent past had things gotten completely out of hand.

Khata had mentioned something about a bunch of rogue dragons that had somehow managed to intimidate his dragon Shoc-rah in the beginning of the meeting, which had gotten him a mixture of odd stares, and derisive laughter from some of the other crews. He’d spent the next hour trying to tell them all that he was trying to warn them of the danger before he gave up, amidst people giving him advice on how to train his dragon properly, most of it delivered with laughter.

The hour was getting particularly late and he was about to call the meeting to an end when the door to the hall opened and Captain Faier walked in, flanked by two other officers.

“Dragon city security!?” Wulph said, stunned.

“Oh for cryin out loud!” Fistus yelled. “If someone’s accused me of something I didn’t do, AGAIN, I’m REALLY going to go on a rampage!”

Faier actually laughed at that. “Don’t worry Fistus. I’m not here to arrest anyone. I’m here to talk…” he paused, looking around the room. “To everyone.” He said, with great emphasis on the final word.

“What about then, officer?” Fistus said, crossing his arms.

“No doubt you’ve all heard of the recent spree of ‘dragon thefts’ that have been hitting the scalesheen corporation.” Fistus said, placing down a holo emitter which then put up a two dimensional holographic map of the city, showing the two struck installations in red, and the ones not yet hit, three others, in green. “We have reason to believe that these aren’t thefts, but breakouts.”

“Breakouts?” Voiciferous, head of the voice of the dragon crew said with a sharp laugh. “You make it sound like the dragons were escaping on their own.”

Faier waited for the round of laughter to settle. “I wish this was a joke, unfortunately, all the evidence we’ve managed to collect points in that direction.”

“You’re talking like there’s some kind of… dragon rebellion in the works here, captain.” Marianas, the leader of the dragon fish crew ventured.

“Your words, Marianas, not mine.” Faier said. “However, we’re bracing for the worst. Their sheer numbers at this moment are enough to swamp any of the normal security forces we have available. The last one, two days ago, a group of three dozen bull class dragons were swamped by so many pack and energy class dragons that they froze in terror, and were then mauled viciously.”

“Pack and energy dragons!?” Khata said. “That’s the same kind of group that I faced with shoc-rah at the feed station!” he said, eyes going wide. Suddenly, all those who’d laughed at his story earlier were becoming very concerned.

“Well, they’ve added a host of White sky class, and black Psi class dragons to their number since they struck here.” Faier said, pointing to one of the red dots on the map with his baton. “The pack and energy class dragons went in, without any human riders, and about fifteen minutes later came charging out with the black and white dragons following them. They proved impossible to trace afterwards.”

“How many dragons are we talking here, captain?” Wulph, head of the army of the dragon crew asked.

“Smart question.” Faier said, nodding at the young man. “Each of the facilities affected so far bred two colors of dragons, one breed pen located on the second level, and the other on the third. Above that they manufactured gear in the corresponding colors to those breeds. Each pen level consisted of a main pen, with three corridors, each one with 22 single dragon stalls, for 66 dragons there, plus I’m told that while all the stalls were always filled, there were always roughly another 20 dragons kept out in the general pens.”

“Eighty dragons in each pen level!” Pyrrah, leader of the dragon flares exclaimed. “Magna draconis, that’s over three hundred rogue dragons roaming loose out there!”

Every single person at the meeting let out a gasp of shock as this registered in their brains. Even the largest of the street crews didn’t amount to more than thirty members these days.

“My point exactly.” Faier said. “And if they continue their behavior, and assault the other scalesheen stables, before long they’ll have somewhere in the neighborhood of eight hundred dragons, and all the colors of draconium seen on the street today.” Faier said.

“Uh, if you don’t mind my asking, what colors do they deal in?” Voiciferous asked.

“Everything but gold, grey, orange, and light green. And, miss Pyrrah, you’re going to love this, they keep a double sized stable for red magma-class dragons. Apparently they’re their best seller.” Faier said with a wry mirthless grin at the fiery haired woman.

“ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?” Fistus yelled. “Forget the wraith dragons, if these things manage to break out all of scalesheen’s dragons in the city, we really will have a dragon human war on our hands!”

“Which is the reason I’m here.” Faier said, crossing his arms. “In a time of crisis such as this, We will not look down upon any ‘citizen’ offering aid. We’re expecting an assault to come to any one of the corporation’s installations, but with only three sites remaining, we’ve managed to pool our resources. Plus…” he said, pressing another button on the holo emitter, bringing up a recording of several security force officers investigating a power station. “We believe that the dragons are working in a coordinated fashion, as they managed to force a power overload in this station by channeling their mag energy into a transformer, blowing it out before they launched their attack. Something similar occourred at the first location, but we haven’t been able to verify the method.”

“They’re using tactics too?” Wulph said, suddenly sounding very, very interested.

“Indeed. And that’s the most worrying part of the whole equation.” Faier said, then put his hands on the table. “I cannot stress how vital it is that these rogue dragons be prevented from growing any more powerful. The amount of damage they could deal would be catastrophic, and… as you said fistus, it could lead to the start of another war. If any of you wish to help, please, just report to any of the scalesheen facilities that haven’t been hit yet. We’ve already set up command posts at each of them.”

“So that’s your plan, setting up a militia from civilians and their dragons?” Wulph asked.

“Partially.” Faier aid, standing again, then began to walk out. “The Academy has also decided to let its students help as well.”

“The academy!?” Everyone assembled shouted.

“Yes, the academy.” Faier said, still walking. “Men, we’re done here.” He said to his subordinates as the decibel level in the meeting room suddenly jumped.

<<>>

Artha was sitting though yet another lecture, one detailing another ancient battle strategy from the ancient wars and it’s conversion to modern use in the elite battlegrounds. He had to stifle a yawn… he was forcing himself to listen to all of this, again, he knew that he needed to complete the entire academy training regimen, asap, so he could better stave off a potential dragon-human war.

Wyldfyre was unusually vocal today, the magma class male usually dozing through the lectures, but today he seemed to be restless.

Beau looked over at the red bipedal dragon and snorted. “Would you please be quiet? Some of us are actually trying to listen.” He rumbled, trying to be quiet.

“It’s just more of these pointless tactics. We’ve gone over hundreds of these already, and every one’s just as useless as the last!” Wyldfyre trilled back.

“They are not useless, they make perfect sense!” Beau shot back with an offended growl.

“Maybe to you, Mr. Legend, but not to me. I don’t know why we’re wasting our time here, shouldn’t we be training? We’ve been here for almost two months and I haven’t felt any different at all… infact I think I’m starting to lose my edge.” Wyldfyre growled low.

“First comes the knowledge, then comes the physical training.” Beau hissed. “I’m sorry if you feel we aren’t getting enough exercise, but-” he started, then suddenly a loud tone sounded throughout the room, and all speaking ceased as a large holo-screen appeared above the professor. The old man giving the lecture immediately ceased talking and looked up at it as the face of Sentrus appeared.

“Greetings, students.” She said, the huge image glancing left and right briefly as though scanning over the class. “As you may have heard, there has been a series of incidents here in dragon city in the past week, affecting the Scalesheen corporation’s stables. Normally this would not concern the academy, however, certain details about these incidents have come to light that caused city security to come to us.”

“Incidents?” Parmon said quietly, adding to the low hum of voices, human and dragon, that began to murmur throughout the room.

“Four days ago, a power disruption in mid city blacked out Scalesheen corporation’s number 5 stable building. After that, on site security said that the blue energy class and purple pack class dragons kept there suddenly rampaged and stampeded out of the facility. At the time, security believed a human masterminded the escape in order to steal the dragons. This, however, changed with the following attack two days ago. There was another power outage, yes, but this time, the company’s security forces found themselves being attacked, from outside the facility, by the dragons that had escaped from the first location, without any humans riding them.”

“What!?” Artha said, stunned.

“Huh!?” Beau grunted in shock.

Similar reactions from the humans and dragons echoed throughout the lecture hall.

“The reports continue that while energy and pack class dragons were the only ones to attack, and then enter the facility, they left with the full compliment of Psi and Sky class dragons added to their number, and again, there was no sign of so much as a single piece of gear on them, let alone a saddle, or rider. This leads us to only one possible conclusion, that the dragons themselves were the ones to attacked the facility, without human guidance, to release the ones inside and ‘recruit’ them. In short, the academy staff, along with dragon city security believe we are seeing the beginning of a potential dragon revolt.”

The room absolutely exploded after that.

Eventually, the instructor managed to silence the class through heavy use of the gesturing baton as he smacked it against his desk, almost hard enough to bend the metal. Sentrus had stopped talking during the mass outburst, so her connection was probably somewhat two way.

With quiet restored, she continued. “As this is potentially the first incident of its kind in the last 3000 years, security decided to call upon us for aid. And we have decided to give it, in whatever fashion we can. As follows, all first year students, and second year students who posess an adequate street legal dragon, you have been given leave until this crisis is resolved. All classes are also suspended until such a time as well. Dragon city security has created operations bases outside the remaining scalesheen facilities, if you wish to assist in this matter, please report there.” She said, and it almost seemed she was finished, when she added- “And to the racing teams who came from dragon city itself this year, you are strongly urged to see to securing your homes and families during this crisis. We hope this incident will be resolved shortly, but this is a dangerous situation.” She then closed the line.

“Very well then. Class is dismissed… early.” The professor said, grudgingly.

<<>>

“A dragon revolt, can you believe it?” Parmon said, incredulously.

“Unfortunately, I can.” Artha said. “I knew the dragons were getting hard to control, I didn’t think things would go this far this fast.”

The group was racing down the dragways, dodging through the traffic on their way back to penn stables.

“Finally, something exciting to do!” Wyldfyre let out a short cry.

“Don’t sound so happy, this is serious, and slow down, I can’t keep this up for long!” Cyrano grunted as he ran along behind, doing a good clip for a bull class.

“You need to loose some weight anyway!” Wyldfyre trilled back.

“Hey!” Cyrano barked back.

“Oh would you two quit it already!?” Beau roared back at them. “Besides, we’re almost home.”

The branch off the dragway that led up to the entrance to Connor’s stables was empty, as usual. Only residents or those with business ever used this road. The group rode up and looked around.

“Dad? Lance? We’re home!” Artha called out.

“Connor? Lance?” Kitt called out then.

“Lance? Mr. Penn?” Parmon ventured.

The sound of boosters out on the training track got the attention of all six of them, human and dragon. They immediately went over and found connor standing on the lookout platform watching Lance and Fracshun ride through an obstacle course. There were no moving objects set up, just immobile blockages to make the course more challenging.

“Hey, dad!” Artha said, loudly.

Connor finally turned to look and nearly jumped in surprise.

“Artha!?” he said, rubbing his eyes. “Artha, what’re you doing here? Shouldn’t you be in class?”

“Classes were cancelled, something about a… dragon revolt?” parmon said.

“A revolt!?” Connor said, then immediately grabbed his communicator. “Lance, bring fracshun in, then come down to the temple.”

“What?” Lance’s voice said. “What’s goin on?”

“Big trouble Lance.” Artha said.

“Was that Artha?” Lance said. “Drac! We’ll be right there.”

<<>>

“Moordryd, Cain, Swayy! Good to see you guys back!” Rancydd said, seeing the three members of the group return through the gates of the dragon eyes crew compound. Swayy had been staying in a separate room from Cain and Moordryd while she attended the academy with them, the white haired teen wanting to at least have a semblance of decency in that respect for the highest ranking female member of his crew, and also so he could discuss underhanded dealings concerning shadow booster with Cain alone.

“It’s good to be back.” Cain said, dismounting alongside Moordryd and Swayy.

Decepshun took a deep breath. “Ah, the scents of home.” She purred.

“Nothing better.” Coershun rumbled at her.

Decepshun’s eyes flashed red for an instant as she growled in a somewhat… different tone; “I could think of a few things.” Before they shifted back to blue and Decepshun blinked, then shook her head. “Oh shut up…” she continued, snorting in her usual voice.

Kykyr whined. “I hate it when she does that.”

“Sometimes I wonder if Beau has to deal with the Furox like this.” Decepshun growled.

“So boss, how long you back for?” Prankk asked.

“As long as this whole ‘dragon revolt’ lasts. Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll be gone in a few days, tops.” Moordryd replied grinning.

<<>>

“Two whole stables cleared out, and no human culprit, and they think the dragons are organizing the whole thing?” Lance said, then shook his head. “Whoa, weird.”

“Oh, this isn’t good… I was hoping nothing this big would happen till after you managed to complete the academy training.” Connor said.

“Well, unless we deal with this, there’s little hope of us ever completing the academy.” Artha said.

“Well, they sound serious.” Cyrano said.

“Of course they’re serious, a huge army of dragons is forming out there.” Beau said.

“Nothing we can’t handle, right?” Wyldfyre chuckled.

Beau grunted without saying anything specific.

“I still can’t believe they called in the academy students for this… things could get out of hand very quickly.” Connor said, rubbing the top of his bald head in thought.

“Yeah, the city’s not really used to that many overpowered combatants going at it inside the city.” Kitt said. “Not that it’d be worse than the alternative, but I’d be willing to bet there’ll be a lot of property damage before this is over.”

“My thoughts exactly, I know we won’t be doing anything too out of the ordinary, besides tactical differences, we haven’t been taught anything truly groundbreaking, like mag claw… though you’re already ahead of us on that, Artha.” Parmon said, looking at the white garbed teen.

“So, you have any ideas dad?” Artha asked, looking at Connor.

“Well, the details are pretty concrete. I think we need to see if we can locate the alpha. If this is a group of rogue dragons, they’re going to follow one particular dragon, one who gives the orders to the rest of the group. It’s how most of the dragon armies ran things during the ancient human war, save for where a human took command of dragons, like Armeggadon did. He rode the dragon that became the Vysox, and that dragon was the alpha dragon that commanded the league of eight, and below them were the rest of the black dragon empire’s dragon army. When the ancient Beau defeated Armeggadon and sealed him inside the track of fear, and then turned Armeggadon’s dragon into a bonemark, the league of eight and the rest of the army quickly crumbled.” Connor suddenly paused, realizing he was going into a history lesson, smiled, then sighed. “The point is, hopefully, if you can subdue the alpha dragon, the rest should fall in line and become docile again.” Connor said.

“Uh… should?” Artha asked, sounding worried.

“No tactic is 100% effective Artha. You’ve got to be ready for a plan if it fails even if you execute one perfectly.” Parmon pointed out.

“Yeah, nothing’s certain.” Kitt added.

“Thanks for the optimism guys…” Artha said, rolling his eyes.

Beau chuckled.

<<>>

Compashun walked through the second warehouse they’d forced open, Empathya and Payshance at her sides. The interior of this warehouse had been filled with debris, old empty crates, rubble, metal scraps, all kinds of mess. They’d worked hard to empty it, then half filled the place with large barrels of feed they’d stolen from out of the feed factory that Wydgett had shown them how to sneak into. There was enough here to feed three times their current number for a month, and none of the humans in the factory knew where the barrels were going.

“This turned out well.” Empathya rumbled, looking around the interior. The barrels were stacked two high, each neatly maneuvered into location by mag stream.

“We do have plenty of food now for all the other dragonesses we’re going to be freeing.” Payshance agreed.

“That we do.” Compashun trilled, nodding. “I think we’re ready to assault another stable, don’t you think?” she continued, looking at Empathya. Payshance was an able officer, but Empathya had quickly established herself as a very keen mind, not nearly as dulled by the years of being in the stable as some of the others. In fact, the idea of gathering a ready supply of food for themselves and those they planned to rescue had been hers, and Compashun praised her for the foresight. Still, Empathya seemed more than willing to allow Compashun to lead the group.

“Oh, definitely.” Empathya purred.

“Glad you think so.” Compashun trilled. “Because we’re moving out tonight. Empathya, Payshance, go get all of your classes ready, I’ll go alert mine and get Affecshun to get all of hers together, then find Wydgett.”

The other two dragons nodded then turned and went to go see to organizing their followings. Compashun immediately went to th first Warehouse where she woke Tendyr and told her to go alert the rest of the energy class, then she immediately went to wake Affecshun. The sky class dragoness was sound asleep, and took some prodding to awaken.

Affecshun yawned hugely, and stretched out luxuriously as she lay on her side, then finally opened an eye to look up at her.

“Oh, mornin’ Compashun.” She purred, rolling slightly onto her back where she shimmied before rolling back onto her side again.

“Actually, it’s getting close to evening.” Compashun purred, chuckling.

“Aw, dang… I’ve been sleeping all day?” Affecshun grunted, rolling so she was propped up on her forelegs, then shook her head, raising her horns slightly. “Oh well… what’s up?” she chirred.

“We’re going to raid another stable, tonight. Can you get your girls together?” Compashun trilled.

“Sure, sure. Just give me a few minutes.” She stood, shook herself vigorously, and went trotting off.

Compashun chuckled as she watched the sky class go off. Then looked around. “Wydgett?” she called in a high pitched cry.

Normally, the little light green came running to her side whenever she called his name. this time, he didn’t appear, and suddenly Compashun got worried. She called his name several more times before she started going around, checking the corners of the warehouse.

She covered the entire floorspace of the warehouse and still hadn’t found him, then finally went over by the dragonesses that had been bruised up in the previous raid. 0144 was there, still nursing a pained carpus (that’s the technical term for a quadruped’s wrist) on her forepaw. She was laying curled up with her back facing Compashun as she approached, but looked up as she heard the approaching pawfalls.

“Starting another raid?” the older energy class female trilled in her deeper tone.

“We would be if I could find our guide.” Compashun replied with a small whine. “Have you seen him?”

0144 smiled. “He’s right here.” She laughed, then turned and leaned her head in to inside her curled up body. “Wake up little one.”

Compashun blinked, then stepped forward, and looked over 0144’s shoulder. Nestled against the bump of 0144’s egg filled middle was the little scavenger class, sound asleep. He only woke with some difficulty, blinking owlishly.

“Uh…” He sniffed, then yawned hugely. “Wydgett awake…” he chittered, standing and rubbing his eyes with his little forepaws.

“How’re you feeling?” 0144 asked the light green male.

“Hungry…” he said.

“Can the raid wait a few minutes?” 0144 said, looking up at compashun.

Compashun looked slightly surprised. “Uh… yeah, I guess, what’s a few minutes matter?” She snorted in a forced laugh to cover her confusion. 0144 was acting… rather odd. she’d never seen her like this before.

“Go get something to eat Wydgett.” 0144 purred, nudging him and watching the little light green go trotting off to a freshly opened barrel.

“And I thought you didn’t trust him.” Compashun snorted at the older female.

“I didn’t, at first… then he started spending time with me since my paw was hurt… he’s really very sweet… and I just… started to feel protective of him.” she chirred.

“So he’s been staying with you?” Compashun grunt-barked.

0144 nodded. “He said I made him think of his mother, that I was a lot like her.”

“Funny, you don’t look much like a scavenger class.” Compashun chuckled.

0144 snorted. “He meant I make him feel safe like he does, and that I’m warm to him like she is. I knew you said being a mother means protecting young, but… I never thought it could possibly make me feel like this.”

“You feel different?” Compashun trilled, sitting down on her haunches.

“I feel… well… you know how you feel empty inside after they took our eggs from us? For the first time, I feel… complete. I know he’s not mine, but if I feel half this good with my own…” 0144 trilled.

Compashun nodded. “I understand.” she rumbled.

Without another word being said, but her mind spinning, Compashun went to go to Wydgett’s side as the little male ate his fill from the barrel of moist feed.

“We go… to another… stable, yes?” Wydgett chittered between mouthfuls.

“Yes Wydgett, when you’re ready.” Compashun said, as behind her the four groups of dragonesses assembled inside the vast space.

Keep up the good work.

Thanks Arthapenn, Though, This next chapter... may shock you. Infact, i'm probably going to generate some hate mail from this one.

Muse: Oh shut up, they need to have their perfect little world knocked around a bit.

Me: I'm still not entirely sure about this.

Muse: Not my problem. now post it allready. (Slaps the nightstick into his palm)

Ooooh kay.... New characters include: Elashun, Innosense.
Edit: few minor things... ^^'



Mother’s rage chapter 11

It was thanks only to Wydgett’s intricate knowledge of the hidden tunnels and passageways of the city that Compashun’s band went unseen. With their numbers, if they’d tried to go around topside, even if they’d done their best to hide, they would’ve been spotted long before now.

They’d first gone to the number two breeding center, as wydgett had told them, but they found the defences there… staggering. Almost three times the number of humans on dragons were blocking the entrances as there had been the last time. Compashun didn’t want to, but after a quick council meeting with the other leaders of the group she had Wydgett lead them to another location, which took the better part of two hours. This one, stable three, was no less defended. Compashun growled as she looked out over the building’s entrance.

“Well, they’re wising up. It’s not like you could’ve expected them to just roll over and let you wreck the place, if we’re that important to them.” Empathya rumbled.

“Should we try for this one anyway?” Affecshun chirred quietly. “I’m getting tired of this sneaking around.”

Compashun sighed. “I suppose… at least this place isn’t any more heavily guarded than the last one. Payshance,” Compashun trilled at the pack class female. “Take Wydgett and some of your girls and go see about knocking out the power. We’ll wait here, like the last time.”

<<>>

Conner sat awake that night at his desk, resting his chin on his knuckles as he stared off in thought.

“A dragon revolt… I never expected things to take this turn. I knew the dragons were getting restless. I thought that was only one of the symptoms. I always thought it’d be one of word’s plots that started the war… or maybe Armeggadon… but I only knew he was around since a couple of months ago.” He mused. “Maybe I was looking at this the wrong way the whole time.” He said, then immediately shook his head. “The prophesy said that we needed beau to prevent another war… I need to remember that.”

He stood and walked out of the house. Artha, Kitt, Parmon and Lance, along with their dragons, were all out on patrol like they had before Artha had started at the academy, and the stables were silent. He took a moment in the silence to look around the stables, thankfully, the shadow booster had not shown up to ruin things the second time they’d tried to rebuild… or maybe it was the fact that some of his best friends in the dragon breeding business had made it a point to see that his home, the headquarters of his famous dragon breeding centers was restored properly, and sent a small army of workers, and guards, to see to it that things were returned to normal. Reconstruction had taken about half a month, though no corners had been cut to make that deadline.

“If Beau and Artha can’t handle this uprising… this’ll all be for nothing.” A little voice said inside his head. Connor then shook his head to clear it of that little negative voice.

“Have faith in them, Connor. They can do this.” Connor said, forcing himself to believe it. They wouldn’t succeed against the forces of Word Paynn and Armeggadon all those times to simply lose to a bunch of rogue dragons. But then… maybe that’s why he was so nervous, it wasn’t one of those two.

Connor sighed, and walked out into the rebuilt garden. He’d insisted it be rebuilt in exactly the same way it had been originally… because it had been his wife’s favorite place to come and sit and think. She was a fiery red personality, but she had her calmer moments. And the garden always was a place where he could find peace of mind, if even for a moment.

<<>>

Stewardd walked through the keepers main hideout, deep in the wastelands under dragon city. Apyrattyss was very, very upset. Her only child still hadn’t come home, and it was nearing a week since he left to go forage for things. Some nights she cried herself to sleep next to her mate, Gyzzmo. Other nights she was out in the wastes roaming about, checking every conceivable hiding spot, and every stretch of gathering ground where he might have been, searching for his scent, but all the trails were cold. Gyzzmo did the best he could to help her search for the young dragon, but he kept losing track of her out in the wastes, getting lost. Sometimes she’d disappear on him for hours before she’d finally come back, exhausted, and he’d have to help her back to the hideout where she’d have to be coaxed into eating some little bit of food before she’d collapse.

He peeked in on the stall where the two dragons were. Apyrattyss was laying sprawled out on the round in an exhausted heap, while Gyzzmo stretched out enxt to her, whimpering in concern. Scavenger dragons were never the most robust looking of dragons, but Apyrattyss had shed a good bit of weight since her child had gone missing.

“Need find Wydgett soon, yes…” Stewardd said, before turning and going to Gunny’s stall.

“Gunny!” Stewardd called into the stall, rousing the sleeping light green scavenger dragon. “We go now, hurry, yes!”

<<>>

“So why are we bothering going out tonight again?” Cain asked Moordryd as the pair rode along the streets of Dragon city. They were making a circuit of the roads that held closest between the three remaining un-struck Scalesheen corporation stables. “The whole reason the dragons are revolting is because of something your old man did, I doubt he’d be pleased if we interfered with it.”

“Look, my father’s primary plan is to have me attend the academy, and graduate from it, fully trained, and that’s not going to happen unless they’re holding classes, which they won’t be, unless these dragons stop revolting. In the long run, he can see the most important goal.” Moordryd said without looking back. “Besides, he hasn’t contacted me to say ‘don’t interfere’ yet, so it’s fair game.”

“This whole situation’s just plain weird.” Coershun rumbled as they ran on through the streets.

“Not as weird as the one in my head, trust me.” Decepshun groaned as another dragon’s snorting laughter flittered through her mind. Thankfully, most of the time, unless it was something urgent or somewhere she particularly felt the need to make her opinion heard, the Vysox’s spirit remained mostly dormant, or talked to Decepshun inside, mentally. To be totally honest, Decepshun wished she was going crazy, because at least then the voices in her head would be her own, not someone else. Things were a little different when they transformed when Moordryd put on the Shadow booster armor. With the change, Decepshion found herself in a strange state, half controlling herself, half not in control. It was like control of her own body was being shared with the spirit in the bone mark.

“Trust me.” She repeated with a growl, and started running a little faster on her own.

“Whoah, Decepshun, easy girl!” Moordryd said, pulling back on the controls.

<<>>

“Where are they…?” Compashun growled, keeping an eye on the front of the stables, again, from a rooftop. Over an hour since she’d sent Payshance out with Wydgett and several of her girls to knock out the power, and no result. The last time they’d barely been gone a few minutes.

She heard paws approaching her from behind and turned quickly. A moment later Payshance poked her head into view, followed by Wydgett.

“Payshance, what’s wrong?” Compashun trilled. “Did you find the power source?”

“We did, Leader.” Payshance panted. “We were not able to break it.”

“What happened?” Compashun trilled, walking over to the exhausted female.

“We got there, but it was surrounded with as many dragons and humans as here. They sniffed us out and chased us. We had to run very far, though… the other dragons didn’t seem to want to fight us, only humans. I couldn’t understand.” Payshance rumbled in thought.

Compashun sighed. “Bring up Affecshun and Empathya. We need to discuss this.” Compashun growled.

Within the next minute the other two lieutenant dragonesses were up on the rooftop with Compashun, Payshance and Wydgett. Compashun was the first to speak, trilling; “Even if we get through the defenders, it would take us forever to burn holes in all the stall doors. Any suggestions?”

“Why not open doors from controls?” Wydgett asked.

“Wydgett, trust me, if we could’ve figured out how to open our stall doors on our own, we would’ve, a long time ago.” Empathya snorted with a mirthless laugh.

“No no no…” Wydgett said, shaking his head. “Find control room. Everything be turned on or off there, is usual way in big places.”

“Um… again, same problem. We never could get in there, and we couldn’t figure out how to do anything there even if we could get in.” Affecshun rumbled.

“Wydgett can!” The little scavenger class said.

The four dragonesses looked at each other for a second. Then Empathya spoke to Wydgett again before the others had recovered their wits. “Wydgett, how quickly could you get the stall doors open once we’re inside?”

“Not long.” Wydgett shook his head. “Oh, not long at all. Just need get to pen control room.”

Compashun looked at the other three dragonesses. Empathya nodded. “I’ll take some of mine and stay in the rear with him. Everyone else can play offence.”

“What’s this, wimping out?” Affecshun snorted.

“No, I’m protecting our most valuable asset.” Empathya trilled practically. “We won’t get anything done if our little scavenger here gets banged up.”

“No more discussion. Let’s get this thing done… if we can.” Compashun trilled, then whimpered the last bit.

“Hey, don’t worry Compashun.” Affecshun chirred. “You got all of us behind you, we’ll get them out.”

“Thanks Affecshun.” Compashun sighed.

<<>>

Fracshun couldn’t help but smile. For the first time in months, he was out with the rest of the group, keeping pace with Beau as they patrolled. Sure the route was different than usual, but things really FELT the same as they used to.

Tonight, everyone was in their full gear. This time there’d been plenty of time to get outfitted properly. Fracshun didn’t have his custom made red thrust gear, so he was going without, like he usually did. He was, however, wearing his ramming gear. Beau had just about every type of gear that Connor had in the stable, while Wyldfyre and Cyrano were decked out in their usual allotment of red, green, and in Wyldfyre’s case, a touch of white in the form of aero gear. Their riders were all pretty decked out too, besides just their blocking staffs, each one had a green trapping gear wrist launcher and flash stick. Connor’d made sure they all had as much armament as they could carry, even Lance.

“So, we’re just going to patrol between the three buildings all night?” Lance ventured.

“Well, normally we’d stay at the stables till we got word of something happening over the security scanner, but considering how fast these attacks go, we need to decrease our transit time to any of the locations to be effective.” Parmon explained.

“Uh…?” Lance said, confused.

“They’ve been rushing the places so fast we couldn’t get to them before they’d gone, if we started from dad’s stable.” Artha explained.

“Oh.” Lance said.

“Don’t worry about it kid.” Kitt said, as the group turned onto another dragway.

<<>>

After having sat in the garden, thinking, for over an hour, Connor went back inside… not the house, but the temple deep below. There he activated the monitor and had it bring up vid feeds from the three different remaining Scalesheen breeding centers. He had no love for the company, their practices of overbreeding their dragons were unsound. By their mid to late thirties, these dragonesses began to have a variety of problems from the excessive levels of hormones in their bodies, particularly cancers. Though another problem was malformations of the hips from passing too many eggs. He’d seen the damage first hand in a sky class who’d been overbred, and could barely walk. He’d almost been willing to do business with the company, but the sight of that poor creature incensed him, and he hurled some very nasty words at the company’s chairman’s face, and stormed out of the building.

He hadn’t so much as bought a barrel of feed from them since.

Still, as much as he hated the company’s practices, he couldn’t just let these dragons run rampant. They needed to be stopped. The dragon-human war was the most important thing, stopping it anyway. All other concerns were secondary. They would work out the problems of society in peacetime, or not at all.

Connor sighed. He wasn’t being honest with himself. He wanted nothing more than to see dragons treated as equals to humans, and that wouldn’t come about unless something major happened.

His musings were cut short as he heard dragon paws approaching through one of the access tunnels from the wastelands. Raising an eyebrow, connor turned just in time to see Stewardd come out of one of the other dragon heads on a scavenger class dragon, then make a nimble leap across the gap to the central platform.

“One named mortis!” Stewardd called. “Oh, Stewardd is glad to find you here.” The keepers leader called out, the scavenger class coming up to the bald man’s side.

Conner couldn’t help but smile. “Stewardd! What are you doing here?” he asked, coming over and patting the scavenger class dragon atop his head.

“Stewardd come to Mortis in time of need, yes. Keepers dragon go missing, five days ago, yes.” Stewardd said, anxiously, hopping down from gunny’s saddle.

“Please, Stewardd, Just call me Connor now.” Connor said, kneeling down to get on the keeper’s level. “And what’s the matter? A missing dragon?”

“Yes yes! Dragon named Wydgett, little one, too young for rider. He go missing, yes. Mother and father very worried, mother growing ill, search much, eat little. All worry for her, she well liked.” Stewardd explained.

Connor frowned sadly. “I’m terribly sorry Stewardd, I’d love to help you find the little one, but we have a big problem to worry about… much as I hate to admit it, bigger than one lost little dragon.”

“Problem? What is problem Mortis?” Stewardd said, still using Connor’s priest name.

“A lot of dragons in the city have begun revolting, without a human leading them. They’re attacking breeding stables and adding the dragons inside to their number.” Connor explained. Both Stewardd and Gunny’s eyes went wide with shock at the news.

“This terrible! Dragon human war will…!” Stewardd exclaimed, but couldn’t bring himself to finish.

“I know Stewardd… the dragon booster is doing what he can to stop this, don’t worry.” Connor said, when suddenly the sound of a dragon roaring came over the speakers on the monitor behind him. The three of them, two humans and a dragon, whirled around and looked, as one of the three subscreens showed a huge wave of dragons rushing the defenders, leaping atop them to maul both riders and dragons viciously.

“Oh no…” Connor said, then took one second to verify which building was under attack, and waved his hand at the monitor, changing it to a direct commlink to Artha’s saddle.

“What is it dad?” Artha asked, almost as soon as his face became visible.

“Scalesheen’s number three stable is under attack! You have to hurry!” Connor said, almost in a panic. From the size of that mass of dragons, if they were being as vicious as they looked, there were going to be a lot of people, and dragons, hurt very shortly.

“We’re on it!” Artha said, before closing the connection.

<<>>

Compashun lost herself in the haze of the wild melee that resulted at the end of their charge, her large paws flying out to batter and claw at anything with a rider or devices on their hide, and her teeth sinking into flesh in an almost feral frenzy. As her mind was so driven by her anger at what the humans and their slaved dragons represented, she hardly noticed how little resistance the defending dragons actually offered past the initial charge, ahd they been willing to fight, they wouldn’t have scattered, or at least, not as easily. Most of them were sent running almost immediately, and those that were too slow received many scores from claws and teeth. The humans did their best to attack them, with their rods and projectile launchers. But even with these increased numbers, and the presence of proper illumination, the presence of the calculating psi class and frenzied sky class dragonesses, bolstering her own energy class and the regimented pack class dragonesses, they simply swarmed over the defenders until they had scattered them.

Several of the females blew through the main doors, and checked out the interior of the main level for a few moments before one came back and reported to Compashun that things were clear. Compashun then roared out in a high call back to their previous hiding spot, and Empathya, along with three other psi class dragonesses, came out, in a protective ring around the diminuitive scavenger class light green, Wydgett. They escorted him inside without pause, and the rest of the group followed them in.

Shaking her head to clear it of the battle rush, Compashun came up to Wydgett. “Can you find this ‘control room’ in here?” she growled, glancing around. Doing this with the full lights on was making her nervous.

“Yes, yes! Wydgett find it, come!” the little light green said, running up the ramp that led to the pen areas.

“Empathya, Payshance, you two bring your classes and follow me. Affecshun, you stay here with my class and yours. If any more humans on dragons come, send someone to tell me, and then hold them here until we come back with the dragons from here.” Compashun barked out at the lot of them, then ran after Wydgett, the psi and pack class females following her closely.

Suddenly, up ahead, Compashun heard Wydgett let out an alarmed squawk, before she saw wydgett fly backwards from the hall ahead, and hit a wall, being pinned there by one of those green restraining pods with the cables attaching itself and the small dragon to the wall. Roaring out in alarm, she came careening around a corner, and saw a group of green armored humans. Leaping as high as she could with a ceiling overhead, she landed amongst the humans and whipped around quickly, her tail sending the lot of them flying before she descended upon one and bit down on the weapon mounted on his wrist, crushing it into metal scrap with her teeth before she spat it out on the ground, and growled into the human’s face. His eyes wide with fear. The other humans were backpedaling away from her as the other dragons came charging up from behind, and quickly bowled them over as well.

“What should we do with these?” Empathya’s rumble cut through the anger in Compashun’s mind.

“How should I know!?” Compashun growled back. She looked, and saw Wydgett being taken down from the wall. He appeared dazed, but unhurt.

“Wydgett, are you ok?” Compashun asked as the little scavenger class came over.

“Wydgett alright…” the small male said.

“Back to my question. Do we kill them or…?” Empathya said.

“No!” Wydgett suddenly yelped. “No kill humans! Is bad, is very bad!”

“Why does he care so much?” Empathya asked.

“Oh. He apparently was raised by humans who actually let their dragons run free for the most part, unlike humans here in the city.” Payshance chirred.

“Huh. Lucky you.” Empathya snorted at the scavenger class male.

Wydgett came over to the guard under Compashun’s paw, and with his dextrous claws fished around in the human’s pocked, and pulled out a small rectangular, flat object, nearly as thin as a hair, then trotted over to a small door along the side of the hallway and waved it infront of a pad next to it, opening the door. “Put them here! Here!” he yapped, very anxiously.

Compashun growled. “You heard him.” she snarled, then, taking her paw off the human, immediately grabbed him with a mag stream, then just about threw the human into the small chamber. He was followed shortly by about six others. As soon as the humans were all inside, Wydgett hit the control pad again and closed the door, then tapped it a few more times and a sound came from the door, like a hiss followed by a click.

“There, door locked, they not get out, not bother us, yes?” Wydgett said, trying to sound appeasing to the large, angry blue dragoness.

“If you say so.” Compashun rumbled, shaking her head. “Come on, we still need to release the dragonesses here.”

“Yes yes! Come, this make everything easy!” Wydgett chittered, holding up the object he’d taken from the human. “Come!” he chirred, then turned and jogged on ahead, this time with Compashun following directly on his heels.

<<>>

“Hey boss, report coming in.” Cain said, holding one hand to the side of his helmet. “They’re hitting the number three breeding stable.”

Moordryd immediately turned Decepshun in a rapid 180, then set her to running back in the opposite direction, now heading towards where the attack was. “Ok, let’s get moving. The faster we get this situation under control, the faster we can get things back to normal.”

<<>>

Wydgett had led Compashun… clear past both pens, and up to somewhere on the fourth level, where he looked around for several minutes before finding a small side room and chirring excitedly. [i]“Here! It here!” he yipped, before using that little object on the side of the door to open it. He then walked in with no problems, but Compashun found it a tight squeeze, particularly with her middle, so she opted to just peek in from the door.

The little light green male put down the object and began tapping his dexterous claws on these panels covered with little buttons, his eyes getting very focused.

“What are you doing?” Compashun trilled, curiously.

“Finding control, yes.” Wydgett yapped almost distractedly as he continued tapping the buttons with the tips of his claws. A minute or so of silence later and suddenly Compashun heard, behind her and down the hall where she’d left Empathya and Payshance and their groups each at one of the pen doors let out alarmed cries. Compashun growled and was about to whirl around when she heard Wydgett almost purr.

“Doors open now.” He chittered, smugly.

“All of them?” Compashun asked.

“Stalls and pens, yes, all open.” He said, leaving the object he’d used to get them in there and trotted out the door.

The first group that they reached were Payshance and her pack females, confronted with abunch of very agitated dragonesses who were so slim and streamlined that their egg bulges showed on them more than any other dragon Compashun had yet seen. Dark green in color, tall at the shoulder, long limbed, and slender as anything, with a number of large frills on the sides of their square shaped heads, and spike-like protrusions on the backs of all four of their legs that were pointing upwards.

Payshance was looking rather flustered as one of the dragonesses of this type was advancing on her demanding answers to what was going on. The chatter was so rapid that Compashun was only barely able to make out the gist of it. Still, she couldn’t get a word in edgewise until she drew in a deep breath and roared, as loud as she could, right next to the dark green dragoness’ head, making her jump.

“What was that for!?” The dark green dragoness yelped, her rapidfire speech broken in her confusion.

“To get your attention.” Compashun snorted. “Do any of you have a name?” Compashun continued, trilling.

“Yes, thank you!” The one she’d roared at chittered, indignantly. “Elashun.”

“I’m Compashun, and this is Payshance. Are all of your dragonesses out here? The stall doors should be open.” Compashun trilled.

“Yes, and what is this all about anyway?” Elashun chittered. "And where are all our tenders? They vanished several minutes ago, then the doors open and you’re all out here and nobody’ll explain anything to us!”

“What class are you by the way?” Compashun trilled

“Turquoise sonic class, what does that matter?” Elashun growled. “Normally I’d be happy to go for a stroll but this is just too much!”

“In simplest terms, the humans have been stealing something very, very precious when they take what we push out when the pains come. They are called eggs, and the contain young dragons.” Compashun trilled, then sat back and watched the shocked expressions roll across the faces of the sonic class females.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me!” Elashun whined, staring at Compashun. When Compashun shook her head, the dragoness took a step backwards. “But… but why?”

“So our young, who have never known us, will unquestioningly serve them outside of places like these, in whatever way they can think of to use them.” Compashun rumbled. “We are here to let you go, so they can’t continue stealing eggs from you. We escaped, and we’ve helped others escape. If you come with us, you can help us free more.”

Elashun rumbled and shook her head. “This is… a lot to take in.”

“You’ll have all the time you need to think on all this later. First we need to get moving. Payshance.” Compashun grunt barked authoritatively.

“Yes leader?” the pack female trilled in return.

“I need you to get Wydgett out of here. He’s done his job, get him to safety.” Compashun trilled.

“But Wydgett can still help!” the scavenger class whimpered plaintively.

“No arguing Wydgett. We’ll see you later.” Compashun said as Payshance pulled several of her number aside and actually mag lifted the tiny light green male onto her back and held him there firmly before she ran off, taking her best with her as a small guard.

Left with the rest of the pack females and the sonic class dragonesses, Compashun nodded. “We’re going. We still have to pick up the other dragonesses that were in this stable and then get out ourselves.” She rumbled.

“Others? How many of you are there?” Elashun asked, seriously confused.

“There’s the rest of my class, blue energy, and our Black psi, white sky, and whatever other class that was just released one level down. Now either come with us and be free, or stay and let the humans lock you back up again.” Compashun said before running off down the hallways. Immediately she heard the pack females following, and a moment later the quadrupede sonic class females.

Shortly, she found herself confronted by another argument. This time however, it was Empathya, the psi class female, who was doing the shouting. The odd looking dragoness before her shrinking down under the angry shouts of the psi class.

“I’ve already told you four times, they’re called eggs, they hold young dragons, and the humans take them from us to do things for them without our consent.” Empathya snarled at the female, clearly exasperated.

“But… but why? Why would they want to do that?” The other female spoke in this strange set of tones, but she was still clearly understood. She had a very smooth hide, with a rounded, sloping head with a jutting chin and a kind of bulb on the underside of her jaws behind that chin, just before where her throat started. “Can’t they do things on their own? Why would they need us?”

“Because they’re weak, lazy, or something else, I don’t know!” Empathya groaned, shaking her head, then looked up as she saw Compashun approach. “Well at least your group believed you.” she snorted, looking at the sonic class females. “This bunch of idiots refuse to believe the humans have done anything bad at all.”

Compashun snorted. “First off, you won’t get very far if you insult their intelligence.” She rumbled, coming over. “And your name is…?” she rumbled again at the pale blue female.

“Innosense, I’m a light blue nautilus class.” She chattered in that odd manner. “Is… is what she said true?” She continued, sounding very troubled and unsure.

“I know it’s hard to believe, but it is. We can explain it better, so you can understand it, but we have to leave this place first." Compashun crooned, gently.

“But… but we’ve never been outside the pen before!” Innosence whined, the tone now more normal, but holding an odd edge to it.

“Neither did I, before a few days ago, and I’m doing fine.” Compashun trilled.

“Same here, now can we go please?” Empathya snorted, exasperated with the nautilus class.

“I… I guess, but I want a full explanation at some point.” Innosence said, before turning and chittering in what was apparently her class’ unique vocal tone to the rest of the light blue dragonesses.

“You’ve got to teach me that sometime.” Empathya said to Compashun.

“It’s called staying calm.” Compashun said as she led the combined group down the hall, the Psi and Nautilus class dragonesses joining her.

They rounded the corner on the ramp down to the main level and found the energy and sky class females all waiting for them.

“Compashun! You got them to come!” Tendyr cried joyfully, coming forward.

“I thought you’d be coming soon.” Affecshun chirred. “Payshance came through here a few minutes ago carrying Wydgett, they’re off, probably going ‘home’.”

“So many dragons…” Innosence whimpered, awestruck at the huge number of dragonesses out here.

“Yes, and the humans were stealing eggs from all of them, too.” Compashun trilled to her. Innosence just whined.

“Well, if we’re all done here, let’s get moving before-” Empathya started to say, before a very loud, very powerful draconic voice roared from outside the doors, drawing the attention of every single dragoness there.

<<>>

Beau and Artha had transformed into their hero looks, and he’d jumped down from a rooftop overlooking the breeding stable to the middle of the deserted roadway. For some reason the rebelling dragons were all standing inside the building’s lobby, where it was pretty much standing room only. He roared out a wordless challenge to them, gaining their attention.

“Ok Beau, there’s a lot of them, be careful.” Artha in the dragon booster armor said as he drew his jakk stick.

Beau advanced slowly, growling as the dragons inside growled back at him, a blue, a black and a white the foremost in the group that faced him.

“What is this, only one dragon and human?” The foremost black psi class dragon rumbled, it’s voice feminine.

“This is a laugh.” The sky class, again, a female, snorted. “We went through dozens of you before we even got in here. Give up!”

“Wh… why is there a human on that dragon’s head?” A nautilus class, behind them, chitered, she wasn’t growling, she sounded confused.

“He’s riding the dragon, because he’d rather do that than walk on his own two legs.” The psi class rumbled.

“Oh now that’s just plain lazy, and he just LETS him do that?” A sonic class, again, not growling, but trilling, spoke.

“It’s what the humans WANT us to do.” The dark blue energy class in the front growled.

Beau drew in a breath to roar at them again, to stop the chatter and get a word in, when suddenly, the intake of breath brought a concentrated scent with it. A scent that he was very, very familiar with, having grown up in Connor’s breeding stable. It brought with it the memory of every expectant female dragon he’d ever met there. And it reminded him of how dominating they could be around those not carrying eggs. Now, he understood why all the other dragons in the stable had made way for them; he’d come here ready to give battle… now a force inside his mind, a primal force, was telling him to lay down and roll over, show his belly, and submit to them, every violent urge in him being suppressed by the smell they radiated, particularly when he coupled that with the fact that every single female there had a bulge in their middle to go with it.

Still, he was determined to do something, and with a massive force of pure will he forced himself not to simply roll over, and opened his mouth again, and spoke, though his voice was admittedly shaky.

“Ladies, please, I don’t want to hurt you, but you have to stop. You don’t know what you’re doing!” He called out to them, his voice the tones similar to the ones he’d used to stop the dragon army he’d called after Word Paynn had snuck liquid black draconium into him.

The energy class at the head of the group stared at him for a span of two heartbeats before she started growling, a low, intense rumble of rising anger. “Don’t know what we’re doing? We don’t know what we’re doing!? Don’t you DARE say that to me! For the first time in my life I actually know what’s going on, no thanks to your humans!” she roared back at him.

“Uh… Beau… what’s going on?” Artha asked, looking nervously at the advancing pack of females.

“You can’t just run wild like this! Please, you’re starting something horrible!” Beau cried out.

“Starting something horrible? We are ending something horrible!” The psi class snarled.

“No more stolen eggs, no more imprisonment. I don’t know who you are, male, but I’ll be damned if I let you help continue what was done to us, or put us back where we were.” The white dragoness growled at him.

“Don’t… know who I am?” Beau snorted, truly stunned. He’d never, not once in his life, met any dragon who didn’t know exactly who and what he was the moment they’d met. Something was suddenly very wrong here.

“Some kind of special dragon to be sent to try and stop us by yourself, I’d imagine.” The psi class female growled.

“You mean… he’s trying to stop us from leaving!?” a nautilus class female yelped in surprise.

“Of course he is! The humans want us to just stay in the pens and give them as many eggs as we can push out. They’re not happy when we try to leave, so they try to stop us and put us back.” The psi class spat back at the nautilus class.

The nautilus and sonic class dragonesses all started growling at that point. “I didn’t want to believe it… but now it’s impossible not to.” The nautilius class female rumbled, low and angry, narrowing her eyes at Beau.

“You know, if they think he’s so special…” a sonic class female chittered, coming forward. “I think we should send the humans a message, through HIM.”

“My thoughts exactly.” The psi class snarled.

“Leader?” A pack class female growled to the head energy class dragon.

The energy class female at the head of the giant mass of dragons suddenly broke out in a dash towards Beau, and the rest of the dragons followed immediately behind.

Artha reacted instantly, drawing on Beau’s power to form a mag bolt in his hand. Beau felt this, and suddenly realized Artha was going to attack the females. The primal voice inside his head, in this moment of absolute panic, won out, and Beau found himself suddenly launching Artha backwards out of the saddle with a mag blast, sending the armored young man flying backwards.

It was all he had time to do, before the huge mass of dragonesses descended upon him, claws and teeth flashing as he was buried under a thrashing pile of bodies.

<<>>

Moordryd and Cain had been standing on another rooftop watching the scene unfold, figuring they wouldn’t interfere if the dragon booster was there to handle things. But now, Cain suddenly started freaking out, concidering that the dragon booster and his dragon could singlehandedly whip him and the rest of the dragon eyes, save Moordryd these days, and now they were being completely overwhelmed.

“They’re gonna kill him!” Cain yelled. “Moordryd, what do we do?!” Cain exclaimed.

Moordryd immediately reached inside his jacket for the dragon eye shaped pendant, and pulled the sigil off its mount there, and then pulled back his sleeve to reveal the black draconium gauntlet of sight.

“Boss, they’re too many, even for you!”

“Shut up will you!” Moordryd shouted, then went to put the sigil in the gauntlet, when suddenly, a length of chain with a hook on the end came flying out of the shadows and wrapped around the gauntlet and yanked, hard, the hook catching in one of the chain's ring and cinching tight, nearly pulling Moordryd off his feet. Coershun rounded and snarled into the dark where the chain came from.

“Who’s there!?” Moordryd yelled.

“Sorry, child.” A voice said. “But I can’t let you go down there just yet.”

“Just yet!?” Moordryd said, confused, before he yelled at his dragon. “Decepshun, get him!”

Decepshun, meanwhile, was paying absolutely no attention to her rider’s plight. She was staring down at the scene below with her jaw hanging open in horror, her blue eyes staring.

“Decepshun! Blast it… Cain, help me!” Moordryd yelled at his second in command, who drew his staff and ran at the figure in the shadows.

Meanwhile, in decepshun’s head, while everything around her played out in was seemed like slow motion, a voice growled. “Move you useless thing! They’re going to rip Beau to pieces!”

“But… but master wants him dead…” The psi class thought back, torn.

“Your master doesn’t want him dead you stupid weak willed… just let me out!”

“But… all those times we fought…” Decepshun whined mentally at the voice of the second mind within her. Somehow, with her own mental horror, she’d frozen them both.

“Fighting? You were barely sparring with him! If you were fighting you would’ve been trying to kill him yourself! Don’t think you can lie to me about how you feel for him, I share this body too!” The vysox’s voice snarled.

“You… you know?” Decepshun whined inside.

“Yes, I know, because I was once the same.” The vysox rumbled, it’s tone slightly gentler for only a moment before it snarled again. “Now either let me out, or you go help him yourself. YOU. CANNOT. LET. HIM. DIE!” the voice roared, puncuating every word.

Reality suddenly came into focus again, events moving at full speed, Cain was dashing towards whatever was restraining her master, Moordryd, the dragonesses down in the road were still mauling Beau… and the black and gold dragon’s cries of pain were horrible.

“Good.” The Vysox said even as Decepshun roared and leapt down into the fray. “You can do this yourself, but I can help you still.” Its voice rumbled, and suddenly Decepshun found her conciousness focused to an extreme, she saw nothing, smelled nothing but what was absolutely necessary, the dragons around beau, the dragon himself, and the path to him. She bowled her way through the mass of dragonesses, tail whipping, mag blasting, and paw swiping anything that got in her way, quickly scattering the surprised throng of dragonesses before she found herself standing protectively over the prone form of the dragon of legend.

“TOUCH HIM AGAIN AND I’LL DESTROY EVERY ONE OF YOU!” Decepshun roared, louder and more ferociously than she’d ever done in her life.

<<>>

The battle between Cain, Moordryd, and the figure in the shadows had taken only a few moments. As Cain tried to run over to help, the chain suddenly pulled sideways, Making Moordryd stumble into the darker skinned young man’s path. Cain couldn’t stop himself and collided with moordryd, however, the impact shook the chain loose from around the arm with the black draconium bracer. Moordryd recovered fast enough to launch a magbolt into the shadows, thought it was clumbsy, hasty, and easily dodged. Briefly, the bolt illuminated a figure wearing polished, slightly bulky black armor over parts of his body, and dark cloth inbetween where it covered. The face was older than they were, emotionless, and set in a hard line. The hair was totally smoothed back, and long, not unlike moordryd’s or his father’s, but the color was a pale color, though he couldn’t tell what it was due to the fact that the light illuminating it was a single color itself.

“Mmm… you are a bit more skilled than most in this city, aren’t you?” The figure said.

“I don’t know who you are, but if you’re trying to stop me, I’ll destroy you.” Moordryd said.

“Stop you, child? No.” the figure said. “Delay you? Yes… now, I think thirty seconds is plenty, don’t you?”

“What?” Moordryd spat, angered and confused, before the figure simply did a backflip off the edge of the building… and down into an abyss.

Cain had recovered in the few seconds Moordryd had spoken to the figure, and ran forward to look over the lip of the building. “He’s… gone!”

Moordryd snarled, turned, slapped the dragon eye sigil into the gauntlet, and in a purple flash had aquired the full shadow booster armor. He charged forward and leapt off the other side of the building, heading after Decepshun, who, having not been touching him, hadn’t transformed into her Vysox state.

<<>>

Artha finally regined his senses. He had been totally unprepared for being thrown from beau’s saddle. He hadn’t even seen the mag stream that did it. Somehow it felt like it had hit him in the stomach somewhere, really, really hard. That alone had knocked the wind out of him before it sent him rocketing off Beau, but concidering he’d slammed into a wall at the other end of an alleyway some 60 meters from where beau had been standing, it was only now that he was able to stagger out. Up ahead the rebelling dragons were standing in a ring around something, all snarling, while roars came from the center… but… the roars weren’t beau’s, he knew his dragon’s voice… why wasn’t beau roaring?

<<>>

“She doesn’t have a rider… why is she challenging us?” Affecshun growled.

“She’s still got a saddle and those other things on her, she’s probably got a rider around here somewhere.” Empathya snarled at the psi class that had momentarily scattered them.

“I’ll kill the first one of you that tries to come at me.” The psi class female snapped as she stood over the dark colored male with the reflective stripes and paws.

Compashun snorted, her battle fury broken by the stinging tailslap that’d smacked her in the side of the face. She looked at the psiclass female before her, then at the male underneath her legs as she tried to shield him… and let out a gasp.

The scene of the young blue energy class male from her dream, broken and bleeding flashed through her mind as she looked at the dark colored male on the ground… for he looked in just as poor condition. She then looked at her claws and saw them stained with a dark, slick fluid, the same one that was oozing from the wounds on the male on the ground.

She suddenly felt sick.

“We’re leaving.” Compashun rumbled.

“What?” Empathya snorted, looking her way.

“I said we’re leaving!” Compashun growled.

“But…” Affecshun rumbled.

“NOW!” Compashun roared. Instantly the dragonesses were running off, back to the safety of their hiding place, The sonic class and Nautilus class females following the lead of the others. Compashun hesitated for only a moment, looking at the dark male on the ground, before she turned and ran after the rest of the group.

<<>>

Artha watched the huge mass of Dragons go. “Scales…” He swore under his breath, before he turned to look… one Psi class dragon hadn’t left.

“Wait a second… Decepshun?” He said, before he looked below her, and his face went ashen.

“BEAU!” he screamed as he ran forward.

I am shocked with the latest chapter. Keep it up. :)

thanks Cain. i needed that.

I figured i'd give it a few days before i did anything else... i'm really shooting for alot of critique and feedback with this. i don't want to sound like a needy person, but it's kinda why i'm doing this project in the first place.

In any case, i did come up with another chapter. i originally planned to go a vastly different direction with this chapter, but suddenly something struck me and i came up with this version. it's a unique scenario, please, if you read it, tell me what you think.
Edit: minor, minor things.

Mother's rage chapter 12

Beau was floating… somewhere, he didn’t know. It was dark, that was all. He couldn’t feel cold, or hot. His paws felt no floor below him, though he thought he was upright. He wasn’t in water or anything, he couldn’t feel it resisting him as he tried to move. How very strange.

“How pathetic.” A voice, clearly a draconic one, for it came with a low growl, emanated from somewhere in the darkness.

“Who…?” Beau asked, grunting.

“You’re a mockery of the one who wore your skin ages ago. A pathetic weakling playing at being a hero.” The voice continued growling, as a red glow outlining a shilouette appeared in the darkness before Beau, it was a bipedal shape, with many fiery frills and protrusions about it, and the glow was red.

“You…!?” Beau snorted. He knew that shape. Phorrge had worn it once, briefly, in the Furox’s temple.

“To think, you, who carry the soul, memory, and power of he who destroyed me utterly, would be bested by a bunch of weak females.” The figure shook its head.

“Where are we? How did I get here? What happened?” Beau barked to the vague form before him.

“Worthless… pitiful… such a failure…” The form growled, before the glow and the growling voice both faded into the darkness.

“Wait!” Beau roared, before he vaguely felt his paws contact something solid, and where he was grew slightly lighter, and he found himself in a rock tunnel, not unlike the ones inside the dragon temple, but there was no statuary here, no grand pits, just a very long plain tunnel of bare stone.

As far as his eyes could see before him, and behind him, the tunnel went and fell into pitch black shadows. For no reason he could figure, he started walking ahead, where he’d seen the red figure.

<<>>

“Oh… my…!” Parmon said, his eyes wide and his skin rather pale

“Beau?” Fracshun whimpered.

The six watchers stood, frozen in shock at their vantage point. Beau lay where he’d fallen, Decepshun was backing away from him as Artha charged at her with his jakk stick drawn.

“What… just happened?” Lance asked, his voice shaking, as he looked up at Kitt.

Kitt’s voice failed her as she tried to respond.

<<>>

“GET AWAY FROM HIM!” Artha screamed at the Psi class dragoness, swinging the jakk stick at her and forcing her away from the fallen gold star dragon. She hopped backwards a few steps, then whined pitiably, and hunkered down flat to the ground.

Artha turned and ran to Beau, kneeling down next to the dragon’s head, tears forming in his eyes. “Oh, no… Beau…” He placed a hand on the dragon’s cheek, looking over the dragon’s face as it was twisted with pain, but his eyes closed in unconsciousness.

“Beau… please, talk to me… wake up…”

<<>>

Connor stared in shock at the monitor. The impossible had just happened.

“Dragon of legend hurt! Must help, must help, MUST HELP!” Stewardd cried, running to Gunny and leaping into the saddle, then kicking the dragon to knock it out of it’s own state of shock, then turning and making the dragon charge out of the temple at full speed. The burst of noise forced Connor to react, and suddenly grabbed a common hand communicator and dialed in emergency services.

“Dragon City emergency center.” The voice said on the other end of the line.

“Ar… The dragon booster’s dragon was just gravely injured at the Number three scalesheen building trying to stop the rogue dragons there, he needs help!”

Normally, emergency workers are supposed to be trained to keep their calm, but this news stunned the person on the other end.

“WHAT!?” the person cried, then almost instantly caught himself. “Uh, right, well send a dragon ambulance right away!”

Connor closed the line before anything else was said. “Beau, hang on…”

<<>>

“I’ve been wondering when we’d meet again.” A strangely familiar green bull class dragon grunted to Beau as he entered a large, dome roofed cavern. The bull class was standing in the very center on a small circular pedastle barely a foot off the ground. Its body was very ornately marked with protrusions and designs, and a very dark, rich primary green color that marked it as a very powerful green draconium dragon, even more so than Brutaris, the premier street class green dragon of the age.

“Who… who are you?” Beau asked the dragon.

“Hmm… I guess you haven’t remembered that yet.” The dragon snorted.

“What?” Beau asked, puzzled.

“It’s not important. You’ll figure that out eventually anyway.” The bull-class dragon snorted. “But tell me, what happened? You wouldn’t be here without a reason.”

“I…” Beau grunted, then whined as he realized his memory was a bit hazy for some reason. “It’s hard to recall… I remember I was trying to talk to a bunch of dragons, and they were acting strangely.”

“Mm… were you fighting them?” The bull class dragon asked him with a rumble.

“I… I think so… at least I wanted to at first, then suddenly I couldn’t.” Beau barked.

“Couldn’t? Well that’s unusual. Did they do something to take your strength?” The green responded with another rumble.

“No… it wasn’t an attack… it was… something about them made me not want to fight them… no wait, It’s not that I didn’t want to fight them, I knew if I did fight them… if I fought too hard I’d do something very bad… but I can’t remember what it was.” Beau replied.

“Well, that’s a start.” The green rumbled with laughter, smiling.

“… You know, I really think I should remember who you are, but it’s… just beyond me.” Beau rumbled.

“Trust me, when you need to remember my name, you will.” The green rumbled and snorted in laughter. “Now, off with you.” The green said, and started glowing as though he was powering up for a mag burst. “There are others waiting for you up ahead.” He said, before he vanished with a ripple of green energy.

“A mag escape?” Beau snorted, surprised, then suddenly realized what he’d said. Nobody had taught him about that move yet, and yet he recognized it when it was executed.

A wall at the other end of the domed cavern slid open, while the one behind him slid closed. Realizing he’d get nowhere standing here, Beau continued on into the tunnel.

<<>>

Moordryd peeked out from behind the corner of the alley where he’d landed after jumping down from the roof. He was still wearing the armor, but there wasn’t any need for it at the moment. Decepshun was cowering near the black and gold dragon, Beau, who was actually the Penn’s red and blue dragon. Artha, in the dragon booster’s gold armor, was kneeling at the dragon’s head, having a breakdown while the dragon lay unconscious and very, very badly injured.

Any other time, Moodryd would’ve practically rejoiced at this sight, or taken advantage of it and finished them off. Yet somehow, right now, those were the farthest things from his mind.

He put two fingers around the small nub of the shape of the eye sigil on his right gauntlet and pulled, and the fused piece of metal popped out as the armor turned into energy and retreated into the gauntlet of sight. Popping the sigil back onto the amulet, he came out of the shadows, pushing his coat sleeve down over the gauntlet, and walked over.

Decepshun whined as she saw her master coming. Suddenly, behind him, a number of thuds sounded, and several loud draconic growls came. Turning, Moordryd saw the three other Penn brats, the egg head, Kitt, and the mini brat.

“Don’t you go anywhere near him Paynn!” Kitt said, brandishing her blocking staff, the others behind her were doing the same, even the little kid, Lance.

“Oh would you quit it?” Moordryd practically growled at them. “Decepshun!” he called to the psi class dragoness. “Stop sulking and get over here.” He commanded. After a moment of indecision, she stood and crept over to Moordryd, casting looks back to Beau and the armored Penn.

Moordryd hopped into the saddle, looked at Artha, who looked back at him from under the solid visor, before he pulled on Decepshun’s saddle controls, leaned, and forced her to turn before he pushed forward, and they galloped off as the sound of sirens from an ambulance trailer approached.

<<>>

“Oh, well isn’t this a surprise. He told me you were coming, I almost didn’t believe him.” A red magma class dragon said as Beau entered another domed cave, this one a carbon copy of the last one, plain and featureless, with the pedastle in the center which it was standing on.

“Will you tell me your name?” Beau asked with a grunt, looking the fierce looking creature over. It too had many frills and protrusions, similar to the furox, but this one was different, another one, though it too was definitely powerful.

“Sorry, can’t do that.” The red bipedal dragon snorted with a wry grin. “If you can’t remember, I can’t tell you. I can tell you that we knew each other once.”

Beau cocked his head to the side.

“So, you remembered how you got here.” The red said, sitting down on its haunches. “But, do you know why you were doing what you were?”

“I… I was trying to talk to a bunch of dragons, that much I remember. It feels like it just happened though, I don’t know why I’m having a hard time remembering.” Beau grunted, then barked.

“That’s because it did just happen.” The red dragon rumbled, chuckling.

“It did?” Beau snorted. “Then why am I here?”

“To help you understand.” The red chirred. “That’s as much as I can tell you just now. Now, think. Why were you talking to them, what were you saying?”

“Well…” Beau snorted, trying to focus his thoughts, a task that was unusually difficult in this place. “I was talking to them… there were a lot of them, of a lot of different kinds. They looked angry… I… I suppose I was trying to make them calm down.” Beau grunted, then whined at the end.

“You suppose?” The red snorted, then started growling. “No, you have to know what you were doing. Supposing and assuming won’t cut it.”

Beau pulled back in surprise. “Well… they were aggressive dragons… wait, that was it, they didn’t have riders. I was trying to stop rebelling dragons. They were attacking someplace. I don’t know why.” he rumbled.

“Do you forget why?” the red asked with a trill, rubbing his head against one of his forelimbs almost as though grooming himself.

“No, I don’t forget. They were taking more dragons out from where they were attacking.” Beau snorted.

“Then what didn’t you know?”

“Well… I know they were getting more dragons, but I don’t know why they needed so many. If this was a plot of Word’s or Armeggadon’s, there’d be a specific reason. Word would’ve been putting wraith gear on them by now, and Armeggadon, once he had any dragons he wouldn’t let them go, but he only wants black dragons, and there were many others besides black dragons.” Beau rumbled.

“Ah, there’s a name I remember.” The red dragon rumbled. “Armeggadon. Yes, this whole situation seems too far off from his usual style.”

“You knew Armeggadon!?” Beau snorted, suddenly becoming confused. “How? Did you work for him? Who are you!” Beau roared.

The red snorted with laughter. “Peace, peace. I’m no friend of his. Infact, I helped you fight him.”

“Huh?” Beau snorted. “But… the only ones who helped me fight Armeggadon was Artha, Moordryd, Decepshun, Connor and Tyrannis, and Drakkus and Abandonn. There weren’t any reds there!”

The magma class started laughing uproariously. “Oh, so narrow in your view aren’t you?”

Beau shook his head. “Oh whatever.” He snorted. “If it wasn’t Word or Armeggadon, who could be the one who’s making these dragons do all this? I knew they were following one of the dragons at the head, but who’s controlling her?” he asked.

“Ever consider that there might not be anyone behind her?” the red asked with a chirr.

Beau snorted. “What?”

“Sorry, I’ve run out of time.” The red snorted, laughing. "But there are still others ahead who can help. Talk to them.” The dragon finished, before with a flash of red energy, it was gone.

“WAIT!” Beau roared into the empty chamber, but there was no answer. Shaking his head, he went into a trot, then a canter, heading to the door that opened at the other end of the chamber.

<<>>

“Ow!” Pyrrah said as they put the bandages around her head. “Easy will you! what’re you trying to do, crush my skull?”

“Oh be quiet Pyrrah.” Fistus said, cradling his right arm. It was in a sling, having taken a bite from a pack class on the unarmored arm. “I got hit worse than you and you don’t see me complaining.

“That’s cause you didn’t get hit anywhere important!” Voiciferous said from his bed. His leg had been broken, and was now in a cast. “I’ll be out of the next several months of races!”

The lot of them and their crews were in the hospital for a variety of injuries, and teir dragons had hardly been spared the pain this night, Fistus thought. He was about to say something more to the others when suddenly a lot of commotion near the entrance caught their attention.

“Clear a path, we need to get him to the Dragon ER, stat!” A human orderly said as a pair of large hybrid bipedal dragons came in pushing a dragon sized gurney down the hallway outside. Fistus stood up on his tiptoes to see what was in the gurney, and gasped in shock as it rolled past.

“That was the dragon booster’s dragon!” he exclaimed, and suddenly every single patient in the ward looked out and saw the dragon booster following the gurney.

“Magna draconis… they got HIM too!?” Pyrrah said, stunned.

“We’re doomed…” Voiciferous said.

<<>>

Beau walked up to another large chamber, again, a perfect copy of the last two, down the smallest detail, save for the dragon standing on the pedastle. It was a blue energy class, male, and very deep blue, with lightningbolt patterns across its hide.

“Hello. They told me you were coming.” The energy dragon, a male again, trilled.

“I don’t suppose you can tell me your name?” Beau grunt-barked.

The dragon grinned. “Sadly, no. I would love nothing more than to tell you that, but it’s not why I’m here, nor why you’re here.”

Beau nodded. “I suppose I’ll have to go along with it…” he growled, though he really wanted some answers.

“Now, what did the other two help you remember?” the blue asked, stretching and yawning.

“Well, the bull class helped me remember how I ended up here… I think. I was facing a lot of dragons, and they did something strange to me, then I was here. The red helped me remember that I was trying to talk to them after they attacked someplace and brought more dragons out with them. But he said that the dragons might be the ones doing all of this, without a human behind it, when I told him that. I don’t understand.”

“Is it so hard to imagine us doing things on our own? You yourself have seen how discontent some of the dragons of the city are becoming.”

“Well… its just never happened before. Even Armeggadon in the ancient war led his dragons in the war, for his own reasons.” Beau grunt-barked back.

“True. But what about the orange dragons?” The blue trilled, grinning. “They led themselves quite well, and controlled their humans. It’s not beyond dragons to start things on their own, or keep them going.”

Beau stared at the blue for a moment. “You’re… absolutely right. Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Does that tell you anything more?” The blue trilled.

“Maybe…” Beau snorted, shaking his head. “I remember a bit more now… I tried to tell them to stop what they were doing… to stop rebelling. I told them that they didn’t know what they were doing. Their alpha said that she knew exactly what she was doing… then…” he paused, and looked up.

“Then what?” the blue trilled.

“Then… then they attacked me.” Beau rumbled, astonished. “They attacked me, then I ended up here! What happened? Did they throw me here somehow? Did I fall into the undercity? Am I in a temple? Why doesn’t anything hurt?” he whined, very confused.

“The answers to that will become very clear, shortly.” The blue trilled, shaking his head. “I’ve helped you all I can. Those beyond may help you further, but we will meet again soon, count on it.” The blue chirred, before abruptly he was engulfed in blue light and vanished.

“They help me understand, then confuse me worse.” Beau growled. “I need to get out of here, find Artha…” he rumbled, then broke into a gallop and ran for the door that opened ahead.

<<>>

“Blast it all, nurse! Get me another Cauterizing tool. He’s still bleeding too much. And where the hell are the results of that quick test! We need to know his blood type before we give him a transfusion!” the doctor’s voice cut through the door to the ER.

Down the hall in a waiting room, Artha sat with his face in his hands, still in the dragon booster armor. He hadn’t dared remove it since that would force Beau to revert, and in his state, he didn’t know what that’d do to him.

Lance was crying on Kitt’s shoulder, Parmon was trying to force himself to calm down, walking back and forth talking to himself.

“Beau’s gonna be ok… right?” Lance asked, tears in his eyes.

“They said the doctors working on him were their best, I’m sure he’ll be alright.” Kitt said, then hugged the little boy tight.

“Dragon booster!” A deep voice said, right before Fistus came walking in.

“Fistus!” Artha said, standing. “What’re you… oh.” He said, taking in the huge older teen’s arm.

“Yeah… they proved too much for all of us it seems.” He said, turning and loking out the waiting room door. There outside was Pyrrah, Voiciferous in a wheelchair, and Wulph on crutches with one of his underlings at his side with only a light bandage on one arm.

“What a sorry bunch we are, eh?” Pyrrah said. “All of us, dragons and humans, cut to ribbons by those rogues.”

“Disgraceful.” Wulph said. “After everything we’ve gone through, to be beat by a bunch of overweight stable dragons.”

Lance pulled his face out from Kitt’s shoulder. “Uh… those dragonesses weren’t fat.” He said, wiping a tear out of his eyes.

“And what would you know?” Voiciferous said, grating his teeth.

“Plenty. And I’m telling you, those dragons weren’t fat.” Lance said.

Suddenly everyone was looking at lance, through for different reasons, all of the penn crew, plus Artha, were looking at him knowing that the kid sometimes came out with gems of insight, voiciferous and wulph looked at him with disdain, while pyrrah and Fistus looked interested in what he had to say.

“Young Penn… what did you see?” Fistus asked, kneeling on one knee to get closer to the 11 year old’s level.

“Those were Egg bellies.” He said.

The eyebrows of everyone in the room, plus several people outside, perked up.

“How do you know that?” Voiciferous said. “They were just sitting around in a stable eating, it could’ve just as easily been fat.”

“Uh, first of all, dragons don’t get fat just from being in a stable, they have a very high metabolism. I know this, I grew up in one. Second of all, that wasn’t just any stable, it was a breeding stable. What else do you think they do there? Those dragons were all girls, and they were all carrying eggs. I’ve seen it too many times at home not to recognize it when I see it.” Lance said, defensively.

“Are you sure?” Pyrrah asked.

“Oh yeah. I’m perfectly sure.”

“Why didn’t anyone mention this earlier!?” Parmon suddenly burst out. “We wouldn’t be in this mess if someone’d made that knowledge public!”

“What’re you talking about professor?” Kitt asked.

“It’s a well documented fact that pregnant dragonesses can exert a form of suppression on other dragons, both male and female, who are not carrying eggs. They excrete pheromones that tell the other dragons that they are gravid, and forces them to not become aggressive, or even defensive, in their proximity. Our dragons, particularly yours-” Parmon said, looking at Artha in the dragon booster suit. “Couldn’t have fought back if they wanted to. Their natural instinct is to avoid doing any harm to a pregnant female at all costs, even if it hurts them in the process! Typically such an attack is only till the female is satisfied that they’ve driven off a threat, but here…”

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Voiciferous said, alarmed.

“That’s why Hyve refused to obey me!?” Wulph exclaimed.

“Probably. Oh, this is bad.” Parmon continued. “An army of dragonesses who exude that pheromone, in theory, could overrun any defence we could muster, because our dragons would refuse to take part in any activity that meant they’d be putting the unlaid eggs at risk!”

“This is ridiculous, I thought pregnant dragons were supposed to become docile and lazy while carrying a clutch!” Pyrrah exclaimed.

“Pregnant dragonesses have been known to become very violent when they perceive a threat to themselves or their offspring. I can’t be sure, but something must have set these dragons off, in a rather extreme manner! Oh, I need to go tell this to Captain Faier!” Parmon said, before he ran out of the waiting room.

“Pregnant… dragonesses?” Fistus said, in total shock.

“I guess that’s something even the dragon booster can’t fight.” Voiciferous said, before he turned his wheelchair and started pushing himself along back to where his bed was.

<<>>

“You!” Beau roared as he entered the next chamber. Sitting on her haunches on the pedastle was Decepshun, as she appeared when Moordryd donned the shadow booster armor, her ears extended dramatically, her entire coloration dark black and purple, and spikes everywhere. “How’d you get into this temple? What do you want here? Did Moordryd send you?” Beau barked at her angrily.

“I’m hurt, don’t you recognize me?” The dragon purred… in a very different voice than beau was expecting to hear from her.

Beau froze. “D… Decepshun?” He whimpered, confused.

“That’s not my name.” she rumbled.

“But… but you look just like her…” he whined, greatly confused. “What’s going on? Who are you? And don’t tell me you can’t tell me. I’ve had it with this. You tell me who you are right now or I’m turning around and going back.”

The female suddenly looked greatly unhappy. “You… you mean you really don’t remember me?” she whimpered, sounding really hurt. “I could understand how you could forget the others… but me?”

“What, did I know you too?” Beau growled. “I want answers, how do you look exactly like Decepshun when she’s transformed if you aren't her?”

“Exactly?” the female snorted, then purred. “Oh, this you should know.” She continued, trilling. “Come closer.”

Beau narrowed his eyes, but slowly padded up to the female. He could barely smell her even as he got close, but it was not Decepshun’s scent. He slowly circled around the pedastle, examining every aspect of her body. It all seemed to match, flawlessly, to Decepshun’s transformed state.

“You must be some kind of copy. Don’t try to tell me I know you, I never met anyone who looked like this before I saw Shadow booster riding her when she looks like this.” Beau growled.

“Alright.” She sighed. “Look here.” She trilled, lowering her head before him.

Beau looked at her for a minute. “I don’t see anything different.” He growled.

“Don’t you see anything missing?” she trilled.

“No I…” Beau growled, then stopped, and looked closer at the top of her head. That’s when he realized what he’d missed. This female had no bonemark nub.

“No bonemark nub?” He snorted. “What is this? What does it mean? I don’t understand any of this.”

She whined. Then looked up at the ceiling. “Forgive me.” She whimpered, then stepped down off the pedastle, and came up to him, and nuzzled him before he could react, and with it came a strong wave of her scent.

With that scent, came a small explosion of images… ancient memories like he received sometimes when Connor talked about the ancient days to Artha and the others, or during the lectures on tactics… only those had always been violent images. There were some now, a dragon very like himself fighting a psi-class black draconium war dragon exactly like this one… but also… mingled with those were flashes of this female, without her rider… Armeggadon. They were together, alone, in hidden places, close, touching each other, not fighting. With these images came a strange sensation of contentment and fulfillment… and the knowledge that these moments were stolen, and one of the few comforts of his ancestor’s life.

The last image was this female standing before his ancient self outside the shadow track. Armeggadon was not there… she’d removed all her gear. The weight of a rider was atop him. She closed her eyes and lifted her head, exposing her neck. And then he felt the memory as the ancient dragon of legend built up a incredibly powerful burst of energy, and fired it at her. The black dragon screamed once, briefly, before it was silenced, and in her place was a slowly rotating, hovering piece of pure black draconium in the shape of a dragon eye emblem.

Beau suddenly came back to his senses and looked at the female who was standing on the floor, on the same level as him, right infront of his face. She looked sad, and guilty.

“You… you’re the bonemark?” he snorted, stunned.

She nodded, saying nothing.

“And… when you say I don’t remember you… you’re not talking about me… you’re talking about…”

“The one who’s soul you carry within you.” she crooned, lifting one paw and gently touching the star mark atop his head.

“All the other dragons… they were other friends of my namesake, my predecessor… the other boosters dragons?” Beau rumbled, realization dawning.

“I wasn’t supposed to reveal this to you.” she whimpered sadly. “We’re here to aid you in times of need, not burden you with irrelevancies.”

“Irrelevant? I just remembered an affair my ancestor had with an enemy. And how she surrendered to him willingly in the end. You call that irrelevant?” Beau growled.

“Please… I am sorry, but I cannot tell you more!” She whimpered. “Forget about us, please. What happened before you arrived here is what is important.”

Beau was about to retort, but he saw in her eyes how torn she was. He restrained himself, and sighed, sitting on his haunches. “Very well. I know that I arrived here after I tried to confront and speak to a large group of rebelling dragons. They were attacking what must have been a stable, because there were many other dragons there that they were taking with them, and that they apparently were doing this by themselves, without the guidance of word or… Armeggadon.”

“What did you say to them?” The black dragoness asked with a trill.

“As I told… the energy booster’s dragon.” Beau snorted with a wry grin. “I said they had to stop, and that they didn’t know what they were doing. Then their leader said that she knew exactly what she was doing.”

The psi class female before him groaned. “You didn’t even bother to ask them why they did this?” She chirred, exasperated.

“I thought, at the time, whatever they were doing, they were being commanded by a human. Plus… their smell confused me.” He whined, his gaze leaving her eyes as he felt embarrassed.

“Smell?” She asked.

“They all smelled of eggs.” Beau rumbled. “I know it well.”

“And you said THAT to them!?” she snorted, then growled, becoming angry. “Beau, forgive me, but did you completely lose every scrap of intelligence you once had!?” she roared at him.

Beau winced. “It didn’t occour to me they might’ve had their own reasons for doing this…”

“It would’ve if you remembered anything!” She snarled at him.

“What does that mean?” He snapped back at her, becoming defensive.

“The original war was not won through sheer brute force. Don’t you remember what the priest said in the green empire’s outpost?”

“What, the closed fist parable?” Beau snapped, then paused and thought. The green empire had been one of the warring parties, but had eventually turned to the dragon booster’s side. And this female before him… she had given herself to the ancient dragon of legend willingly… outside the shadow track where…

“You… you betrayed Armeggadon.” He rumbled.

“What?” She snorted, surprised at the change in topic. “Well… yes, I did, but I don’t understand what that has to do with this.”

“No… no I’m beginning to understand.” Beau grunted, emphatically, his eyes widening. “My ancestor didn’t defeat you in battle… like the original dragon booster did with the green draconium empire, my predecessor won you over with words and… other things. He convinced you to betray your rider… I don’t know why you sacrificed yourself to him then, but…”

“Then my task is done.” She purred, stepping backwards away from him.

“Wait!” Beau snorted, starting after her, but a bright flash of the telltale purple that was black draconium energy and she was gone.

“Wait…” He whined.

<<>>

A nurse came into the waiting room. “Mr… dragon booster, sir?”

“Yes?” Artha said, looking up.

“Your dragon has been stabilized and is now in the Intensive Care Unit. Please, follow me.” She said. Artha immediately after her, followed by Kitt, Lance, and parmon, the tan skinned young man having returned after speaking on a phone with Captain Faier.

The room they were taken too was on another level. After ashort trip in the elevator, which only served to make everyone more agitated, they came out into a hallway with only doctors and nurses and orderlies walking about. Though there were a few dragons with hides that were probably altered to match the hospital décor about should their strength be needed, there were no dragon or human patients about.

They were led down the hall a ways before the nurse stopped at one of the doors and held it open. Inside, laying on a huge pad filled with conforming gel was beau, various parts of him wrapped in bandages, and with an IV drip feeding into one of his forelegs.

“Is… is he ok?” Lance asked.

“He’s stable, but still in critical condition. He’ll need a lot of time to recover, I’m afraid. You can go in, just try not to disturb him.” the nurse said.

“Thank you.” Artha said, before leading the group inside. Once the door was closed, he touched the side of his helmet, and an image of his father appeared on the inside of his visor.

“Artha, what happened? How’s Beau, is he allright?” Connor said, frantically.

“He’s stable, but critical, they said… we’re stuck in the hospital, I’m still in the armor, and Beau’s still ‘black and gold’. Any ideas?”

“Hmm…” Connor said, rubbing his chin. “Send Parmon to me, tell him to bring Cyrano… in fact, tell everyone else to get their dragons and come to me, you sit tight with Beau. And tell the others to hurry!” he said, then cut the connection.

“Ok, guys, you all need to get your dragons and get back to base. ‘Mortis’ will tell you what to do from there. Hurry!” Artha said, choosing his words carefully incase anyone would overhear him.

“But…” Lance said, looking at the still unconscious Beau.

“C’mon Lance. The faster we move the quicker we can help him.” Kitt said.

<<>>

Beau walked out of the tunnel into another room. But this one was different. Instead of a dome, this one was rectangular. Smaller versions of the dragon head statues of Connor’s great dragon temple were situated on the walls. The blue and black, red and green on the walls to the right and left, and the gold star dragon on the far wall, looming above an altar. There were pillars supporting the ceiling in this chamber, not unlike the prophet’s temple, but the symbols on these were gold star, blue bolt, green fist, red flame, and black dragon eye.

“So you’ve come.” Rumbled a voice that Beau was intimately familiar with. His own, but it didn’t come from him, he snorted and whirled around, then suddenly felt his mag energy power up before it seemed to… ‘leave’ him. going out through the bottoms of his paws. He looked down and saw his gold energy drain out into the cracks between the stones in the floor, and as the energy drained… his black and gold coloring drained out like water sluicing off his body, leaving his red and blue coloration behind.

“W… what!?” Beau snorted. Stripped of his legendary color and his ornamental frills and his greater powers, he was now just a so-so street dragon. He whirled around. “What’s going on!?” he growled.

“A separation, of sorts.” The voice… his voice, rumbled again, from the altar, before Beau whirled around to see the glow of his energy racing along the floor and climbing the carved detail in the rock to the top of the alter, before the energy coalesced into…

The black and gold dragon of legend. Himself, though, somehow…

“You’re… you’re me! But… different?” Beau snorted, before walking forward.

The dragon on the altar smiled. “Yes, I am you, in a way. Can you guess? She rather gave it away prematurely.”

“You look like me, sound like me, but you’re different…” Beau grunt-barked, then snorted and stopped dead. “You’re… my ancestor!?”

“Wonderful! You’re catching on!” The dragon of legend chuckled.

“Then… why weren’t you here when I came in? And why did my powers leave me?” Beau asked, whining.

“Where do you think those powers came from?” the dragon of legend snorted.

“You mean… I don’t just have your memories locked inside me…” Beau whimpered, realization coming like a physical blow.

“You carry my soul, much the same way you now carry the soul that was inside the Furox. And… may I thank you for giving me such a ‘wonderful’ room mate. That scale scraper simply won’t stop whining.” The dragon of legend groaned, rolling his eyes.

“Sorry…” Beau whimpered, hunching his shoulders in apology.

“Now… as to the reason you’re here.” The dragon of legend chuckled. “You realized most of it with… her.” He sighed wistfully. “I can’t blame her for behaving that way. But tell me, what did you take from it?”

“She… she helped me realize that I didn’t even take the time to ask them what they were doing, why they were doing it. Thinking that they were pawns of some human, I forgot something important.” Beau grunt-barked.

“And what’s that?” the dragon of legend rumbled.

“I forgot… that in the dragon-human war… there was a ‘dragon’ side. Humans didn’t rule over dragons in that time. Dragons fought against humans, almost wholesale. I’d forgotten that.”

“And just as the dragons had their own side, it also took the dragons to bring an end to it.” Came a new voice, wholly human. Beau looked beyond the dragon of legend on the altar in shock, and the black and gold dragon turned his head casually to see. The head of the star dragon statue opened wide, wider than a natural dragon should have been able to, and… the dragon booster came walking out. But this wasn’t Artha. The armor was on someone taller, and stronger. Much, much stronger.

“Who…?” Beau asked, whining in confusion.

“He is my dragon booster.” The dragon of legend purred with laughter, and the man pulled the helmet off, revealing the weathered face of a veteran warrior, much worn from battle, worry, and sorrow.

“You’re beginning to understand now, Beau.” The dragon booster, the original dragon booster, said, reaching up to pat the black and gold dragon of legend on the shoulder. “Our war, we had to end it, through force, through words, through whatever methods we could use to stop the fighting. You, though… your destiny is to prevent one from ever starting. Combat skills like you’ll be trained in will help, but they are not everything. Use your head… and your tongue. Sometimes, they’ll work better than any mag technique or piece of gear.

<<>>

“Here you are Mr. Penn.” The nurse said as she led Connor penn into the ICU room with the dragon he’d painstakingly bred. Beau was in sad shape, and still unconscious, his breathing at least regular, if considerably elevated. He’d had a report on what had happened. Several hundred stitches, a lot of transfused blood (He made a silent prayer to the priests who wrote the Magna draconis that Beau’s blood type wasn’t particularly rare) and a few other injuries, like one paw that had a nasty bite wound. One of the dragons that had attacked him had decided to bite down hard on one of his forepaws. There was no bone damage, but the flesh would take a long time to mend.

“Da… Uh, I mean, Mr. Penn, glad you could make it.” Artha said. He was still wearing the dragon booster armor.

“Well, I hear that the dragon I bred is in the hospital, of course I’m going to come running.” He said. then turned to the nurse. “Can we have some privacy, please?”

“Of course.” The nurse said, then closed the door as she left.

“I hope you’ve got a plan…” Artha said.

“Yes.” Connor said, then turned on his wrist Comm. “Parmon, are you where I told you to be?”

“Exactly where your coordinates said.” The young intellectual’s voice came through.

“Good, stay exactly where you are, do not move.” Connor said, then closed the connection.

“So, what’re we doing?” Artha asked as Connor went to kneel next to Beau, behind his shoulders.

“Come here.” Connor said, holding out his right hand, his left going to rest on Beau’s head.

Artha obeyed instantly, and was there in a moment. “What’s this for?” he asked.

“Place one hand on Beau, then put your other hand on my shoulder.” Connor said.

Artha, stumped, did what he was told, but looked at his father perplexed.

“I need you to bridge my energy with Beau’s.”

“Dad, I don’t think Beau has any energy to spare…” Artha said.

“I’m not using his energy, I just need him connected to mine, through you.” Connor said. “Just hold still and clear your mind.”

Artha sighed, and did as he was told, placing one hand on beau’s side, and the other on his father’s shoulder, then closed his eyes and sighed, clearing his mind, making it blank.

Connor raised his right hand, putting it out above beau’s side, and infront of Artha’s chest, before he made a fast move like he was swiping at the air above Beau, and released a wave of energy, which enveloped all three of them, two humans and one dragon, and with it, they disappeared.

<<>>

I wonder why dad had us stop here…” Lance said, as they stood on a deserted Dragway looking at the huge central hospital.

“Look, he had a plan. Probably so he could get Artha and Beau out of there now that Beau’s not in serious condition.” Kitt said.

“Probably, I’m just hoping he knows how to treat a dragon with as serious a set of injuries as Beau has.” Parmon said.

“My dad’s good with most injuries… but I’ve never seen him deal with something THAT serious.” Lance said.

“I’m sure he’ll…” Parmon started to say, before they heard a ‘Whumph’ type sound coming from the inside of the empty dragon trailer that connor had hitched up to Cyrano before they’d left.

All three riders, and two of the dragons, went to the back as the door opened… Cyrano unable to come as he was hitched, though he was craning his neck trying to see.

“Mr. Penn!? Artha!? Beau!?” Parmon exclaimed. “How’d you…?”

“An ancient mag technique the dragon priests taught me.” Connor said as Artha blinked and opened his eyes, then looked around.

“Whoah… Where are we? Outside?” He said, looking out.

“Dragway 157, central mid city. Just outside Central medical.” Parmon said. “But how…?” He said, looking at Connor.

“Parmon Sean, just turn the lights on in here, close the door, and take us home.” Connor said.

“Uh… right, good idea.” Parmon said, before he closed the door, and hurried back to Cyrano where he activated the control to have Cyrano channel a little power into the trailer to make the interior light come on, before the bull class dragon started moving again, taking the trailer back to Penn stables, along with it’s cargo, two humans, and one badly injured black and gold dragon.

<<>>

“I think I get it now.” Beau grunted, sitting on his haunches. “I can’t just fight every problem I’m faced with. I have to look deeper and see it for what it really is. I’m not here to fight a war as some kind of superweapon, I’m here to diffuse the tensions that are threatening to start another one.”

“Yes. The powers of old are here for when those avenues fail, and they will be necessary at times, but you must not rely upon them.” The dragon of legend rumbled. “If force is all you rely on, you will deliver this world into the hands of those who wish to see it torn apart in violence.”

The eyes of all the statues in the hall suddenly glowed, and the stone around them rumbled. The two star dragons and the human in the chamber looked about.

“It seems our time is at an end.” The dragon of legend snorted, then looked at Beau and chuckled, before standing and spreading his legs as though in preparation for battle, then threw his head back and roared as he glowed brightly with his gold power, before he became a blinding yellow light, forcing Beau to shield his eyes from it with a paw. When the light faded, and he looked again… the dragon of legend was gone, and in his place was what appeared to be a larger version of the sigil on Artha’s amulet, hovering in place.

“A… gold star Bonemark?” he snorted, shocked. “But… there aren’t supposed to be any!”

“There was only one, but it didn't exist in a solid form, as the others did.” The ancient dragon booster said, picking up the mark in both hands. He had to, as it was rather large. He carried it over to where Beau was now standing.

“Are you ready to be a true hero?” The dragon booster asked.

Beau nodded, slowly, then lowered his head, presenting the top of his skull to the human before him.

The dragon booster placed the gold star bonemark on Beau’s head, and with a brilliant flash of gold, Beau felt his powers return, and his form return to that of the black and gold dragon of legend, his ornamental frills on his legs, jaw and tail returning. His gliding wings waiting underneath the skin on his sides, and the tingle of the enhanced gold draconium power within his bones.

He opened his eyes, and found himself alone in the temple hall… before everything seemed to turn to black mist… and he was floating again.

<<>>

Pain greeted him as he regained sensation. Pain all over his body. Pain like he’d never felt before in his life. A number of dull aches all over, plus a few particularly intense ones, particularly in his left forepaw, which was a mass of heat and prickling stabbing pains. He didn’t want to see what it looked like if it felt that bad.

He let out a groan and tried to shift himself… and the movement made everything feel even worse, if that could even be imagined.

“Hey, I think he’s waking up!” Lance’s voice came, before a large number of feet, and paws, and a set of hooves came tromping over.

Beau opened one eye to look up from a carefully prepared cushioned dragon bed to see the faces of his family, both human and dragon, looking down at him, with expressions both relieved, yet still concerned.

“I’m back…” Beau rumbled, as he forced himself to smile at them.

I cannot believe the latest chapter. It was so nice to read. My first dragon, Luke, cannot believe it either. But he is asking you to continue.

Oh, man it's been a while since I commented. But words cannot describe what I have to say. ._. Everything is so interesting and it's picked up really quickly. Those pregnant dragons are LETHAL too, managing to bring a whole lotta damage to Beau. :faint: But I love how Beau went into a subconscious with all the previous colors of balance ancestors, and it's interesting how there's some Original!Beau/Vysox interacting too. ^_^

Keep an eye out for spelling errors, capitals, and typos is my only criticism if I had to give any, as well as consistent format. It is key to have the quality as good as the quantity and content for very good fics. Run it through Microsoft Word if needed be and then proofread. While it is very tempting to skim, as much as possible avoid it and just read it through; you'd be surprised what you/your Microsoft Word had missed.

Thanks alot Skylii. wonderful review, and the critique i feel the truth of. My serious, 'planned to be published' origional work that i've been working on for two years, i move slowly with, trying my best to chose my words carefully, and i typically go over each line about a dozen times. This fanfic, meanwhile, well... I'm not joking when i say the inspiration is so strong it just wants to flow forth in a violent rush. I'm hard pressed to keep my fingers flying across the keyboard as fast as i can think up the words sometimes. The DB universe is just so... easy to write for!

Anyway, here's a rather calm chapter for you. trying to slow the pace just a tad here before building the pace and tension again.

Oh, here's a minor warning, the 'potential sue' makes his real debut here.

Mother’s rage 13

Compashun sat near one of the walls in the stock warehouse. The Sonic and Nautilus class females were poking around, inspecting every unfamiliar thing they found, or talking to the females who had been out for longer, eager to know what things were like here outside the pens. Her band had proven their ability. The humans and their enslaved dragons had proven to be no match for them, even in full light.

And yet, she found no joy in the moment. She had liberated over 160 dragonesses from their imprisonment and forced egg bearing, she had won against the best the humans could throw at her. But all she could think of was that dark colored male lying on the ground, her claws slick with his blood.

“Hey, Compashun!” Affecshun chirred, coming over with Elashun, the leader of the sonic class dragonesses at her side. “Me and Elashun here are going to go for a little run around the perimeter of the stock yard. Wydgett just told us that the odd riderless dragon isn’t really paid attention to, so we’re going to go stretch our legs. Want to come along?”

“Hm?” Compashun snorted distractedly. “Oh, I’m sorry Affecshun. Maybe some other time… I’m not feeling well right now.”

“Were you hurt?” Affecshun chirred, looking her over, the sonic class leaning in as well.

“That was a pretty intense fight when we left. Did the male get you anywhere?” Elashun trilled.

Compashun’s mind flashed with images as the question registered. What had been a blur in the midst of the battle came back to her in crystal clarity. How the male had folded, unresisting, merely trying to shield himself as claws dug into his hide, and fanged jaws clamped down.

She suddenly felt about a dozen times worse than she had a few moments ago, and fighting the urge to retch, she quickly rose and ran outside.

“Is she ill…?” Elashun whined, tilting her head.

“I hope not.” Affecshun rumbled.

<<>>

Word had worked for hours the previous night on that control gear. He was making further improvements on his design. It wasn’t premier gear like the 10x powered control gear he’d used on the dragon booster, that had been a rare work of sheer genius. However, he was making improvements in the more mass produced control gear he used on wraiths. If this continued he might be able to repeat that little plot with the cover company, slithercorp, without having to use a special transmitter.

Now, he had risen later than usual, cursing himself, and hurried through his morning routine and returned to his workstation. He no sooner sat down at his worktable and picked up the soldering tool than suddenly the intercom buzzed.

“What is it?” He growled.

“Sir, there’s a… person here to see you.” The voice of one of the guards at the main entrance said.

“Whoever it is, have them make an appointment. I’m not in the mood to be disturbed right now.”

“Sir, he insists he has to speak to you, right now, in person… he says-” The voice said before word grabbed the comm. piece and yelled into it.

“Do not make me have to come down there and remind you how to do your job, if he won’t leave then kick him out by force!” he said, then slammed down the commlink.

There was some mumbling at the other end between two people before…

“Word, don’t be an idiot.” The voice that had been resonating from nowhere in his huge private lab chamber for weeks now, was suddenly coming from the intercom.

Word froze, for a span of ten seconds he did not move, then finally pressed the button on the intercom again. “Ah, yes…” he said slowly. “I had forgotten about him. Please, show him to my private chambers.” He said, then released the button, took off his goggles, and stood.

“Time to get a proper look at my new ‘associate.’” Word said with one of his wicked grins.

He cleared away his work equipment and projects and made his little command center presentable, then adjusted his outfit. This person had proven to be quite intelligent, at least, and he didn’t want to seem insulting.

He turned as the door to his lab opened, and saw a man, not quite as tall as he was, but taller than Moordryd come walking out. He was wearing a mix of purple street clothes, a one piece skintight suit of deep purple that was accompanied by shining, black colored armor boots, gloves, and a chestpiece and shoulderguards, along with a black belt. Attached to the front of the chestplate, and draped across his back was a hooded cloak, the end of which dangled down somewhere around his ankles. It looked as though it could’ve easily wrapped around his body fully, but it was pushed back around behind him.

He pushed back the hood as he entered, revealing a length of slicked back long hair that went down to just below his shoulders, the hair a pale purplish-gray, an odd color. His eyes were even paler violet. His face was angular, though fuller fleshed than Word’s own was, and he wore a very bland expression.

“So, your… ‘business’ elsewhere was concluded then?” Word said.

“Indeed.” The man said, walking the length of the bridge. The voice was identical to when he’d been contacted in that unusual manner. “Tell me, have you checked the news today?”

Word was about to reply no, then thought better of it and immediately turned and turned on one of his monitors.

“… scene last night, as taken by security cameras from the scalesheen building itself.” A news anchorwoman was saying, before the scene shifted to a security recording of the lot in front of a building. Facing away from the camera was a large number of dragons. Standing in front of those dragons, facing the camera, was the dragon booster and his dragon. Suddenly, in a sudden rush of events on screen, the rebelling dragons began to charge the dragon booster, who prepared a mag bolt that was cut off as the dragon of legend forced his rider off with a mag stream, before the dragons leapt at him.

“They fought the dragon of legend?” Word said, stunned, then grinned. “Oh, this is rich!”

The scene was then followed with the dragon of legend being loaded into a hospital trailer, the view now from a cameraman on foot, almost crowding in to get shots of the black and gold dragon as he lay on the dragon stretcher.

Word didn’t hear what the anchorwoman said, he was focused on seeing as much of he could of the damage on the black and gold dragon. It looked very, very severe.

“I take it you’re impressed?” his associate said from behind him.

“Libris, the chromatic dragon, my wraiths, all failed to best him… but a pack of pregnant dragons are the ones that do this to him?” Word said, stunned.

“The dragon of legend and the dragon booster vanished from Dragon City medical last night, shortly after the dragon’s status had been downgraded from severe to critical-but-stable condition.” The anchorwoman said before the face of one of the doctors came up in an interview.

“I don’t know what the ‘hero’ was thinking, but he’s being careless with his dragon’s health. All I know is that we’d normally give continuing medical care for several weeks before we’d even consider releasing a dragon that badly injured.” The doctor said before they blinked back to the anchor's desk to begin another topic.

Word frowned. “So the dragon of legend survived, did he? Well at least he’s been put out of commission for a while.”

“Don’t be so short sighted.” The purple and black garbed man said, walking forward. “The people of your city have just seen their hero defeated, and his mighty dragon nearly slaughtered by these ‘rebellious’ creatures. What do you think is going on in their heads right now, seeing this?”

Word grinned in understanding. “Fear… they’re growing afraid, very afraid, of what these dragons can do.”

“And fear is an excellent way to spark violence, isn’t it?” the man said.

Word sneered, then frowned. “You still haven’t told me your name, friend.”

“It’s rather an unusual name, I have to warn you.” The man said, reaching around and pulling the edges of his cloak together, shrouding his body. “Du’rath. It’s an old name, from a language that’s not spoken any longer.”

“Du’rath… well, I’ll get used to it I suppose.” Word said.

<<>>

Fracshun had spent the entire night laying half awake next to Beau’s sickbed. Every time the older dragon, carefully reverted to his red and blue form so as not to aggravate his injuries, made a sound, Fracshun was up and checking to see if he was ok. By morning, Beau had gotten almost as little rest as the young energy class.

“Fracshun, really, I’m alright. Please, go get some rest.” Beau rumbled.

“But… Beau… you’re not ok… I saw you get really hurt. I thought you were…” Fracshun whined, then stopped as he sounded nearly ready to start howling in sadness.

“Hey...” Wyldfyre rumbled, coming over and nudging Fracshun in the shoulder. “What’s all this about? Why’re you crying? Beau isn’t dead as far as I can tell.”

“He…” Fracshun whined.

“What he needs is rest, food, and a little tender care, and he’ll be back up and running races in notime. Trust me.” Wyldfyre chuckled, smiling broadly and nudging the smaller dragon. “Now why don’t you go rouse Lance or Parmon or someone, see if we can’t get the dragon of legend something to eat.”

Fracshun glanced back at Beau, who smiled at him. “Go on Fracshun, I’m fine.” he grunt-barked, voice holding steady, unlike last night where every sound he made came with a sharp edge of pain.

The small blue energy class male nodded, then slowly padded out of the stall. Wyldfyre closed the door with his tail once the younger dragon was out and went over to beau’s side and sat down on his haunches.

“So how bad does it feel?” the magma-class rumbled.

“Remember when we were trapped in that cave by Prophesi, after I got hit by that Mag rip, and said I’d never felt so much pain in my life?” Beau rumbled.

“Yeah, clearly.” Wyldfyre grunted.

Beau drew in a breath and hissed as he shifted slightly. “This is about a hundred times worse… ow.” He ended whimpering as he settled back down again.

<<>>

Decepshun lay in her stall at Moordryd’s compound, her eyes half closed and staring unfocused at one of the side walls.

Coershun, Cain’s dragon and one of the dragons Decepshun most often found herself working alongside during races and in plots of her master’s father when he sent the young man out to do his bidding, was peeking in at her from the stall’s mouth. He’d peeked in at her constantly, coming back into the stables every fifteen minutes or so to see if she’d moved any. Now with it nearing noon, he was becoming very agitated.

“Decepshun… c’mon, get up.” Coershun whined, nudging her in the shoulder with his nose.

“Leave me alone…” Decepshun grunted.

“Decepshun, please, talk to me. Are you alright?” Coershun trilled, nudging her again. “You missed breakfast hours ago, and they just put lunch out, and…”

“I’m not hungry.” Decepshun rumbled, then curled in on herself.

“Decepshun… I’m sorry I couldn’t help you last night but…” Coershun trilled low, trying to be comforting.

“You don’t know anything about it Coershun, just go away.” Decepshun sighed.

Coershun whined wordlessly, then nudged her shoulder again, before turning and leaving, his tail dragging on the ground.

“Nice male, but he really needs to learn how to take a hint.” The vysox’s spirit purred.

“You shut up too.” Decepshun thought back at her mental ‘roommate’, gritting her teeth and narrowing her eyes on the outside.

“Oh don’t be so sour.” The Vysox chuckled back at her. “You’re going to set your face like that if you keep frowning.”

Decepshun growled, but said nothing.

“Decepshun, you did well last night. Beau’s still alive thanks to you. What more could you want?” The Vysox trilled in her mind.

“I thought you said you knew everything that went on in my mind.” Decepshun grumbled.

The Vysox’s mental voice snorted. “Is that what this is about? I don’t go looking for it, but I can feel your stronger thoughts and feelings. Now are you going to get up and go feed yourself or am I going to have to move your body for you?”

Decepshun forced herself to her feet, growling low.

“Good girl.” The Vysox purred with laughter.

“I hate you.” Decepshun snarled.

The Vysox just gave a mental sigh.

Decepshun padded out to where the communal feeding trough lay. The other dragons were all there, all the other black psi classes and the one bull class dragon that served as their heavy hauler when they needed to move their dragon trailer. All the others immediately stepped aside and made a space for her where they was plenty of feed remaining. Without so much as a glance in their directions she started eating, but she was clearly distracted, and ate mechanically.

After she’d eaten her fill, Decepshun wandered off to sit on one of the overlooks at the tops of the compound walls. None of the other dragons went near her. They knew she was in a mood, and besides that, except for Coershun, all the other dragons avoided her because of her recently acquired ‘split personality’. It was just as well, Decepshun didn’t feel like talking to anyone at the moment.

<<>>

Compashun had managed to keep herself from losing the contents of her stomach, but suddenly found herself in a quiet and deserted corner of the stockyard. She’d ran blindly trying to find an out of the way place to either calm herself down or… well, best not think about that.

She looked around. Behind her, in the distance, she could clearly hear the dragonesses voices, though somewhat distant. She could easily find her way back to them. But the quiet out here was soothing to her mind now. And after a few moments, she sighed and turned and started walking away from the sounds of her friends.

There was a queer smell in the air, cutting through the smells of the factories and rusting metal here in the stockyard, and the smells of dragons, and humans drifting down from the many levels above.

Compashun walked on, her head low, hardly keeping track of where she was walking, concidering that the entire stockyard had a 10 foot metal wall around it. She followed the edge of that wall, the warehouses the dragonesses were staying at were near one of the corners. Eventually she’d come back there anyway.

She kept shaking her head every few minutes… to force it clear of the image that kept flashing through her mind, that dark dragon that they’d brutalized in front of the breeding stable. Soon though, she started seeing other images… flashes of when she’d led the last two assaults… times when things had been hazy to her mind, reacting almost purely on instinct and her conscious mind blurred and unfocused, now coming into sharp clarity. She had seen the fear in the eyes of not only the dragons that had been defending the stables from her and her group, but the humans too. The humans looked almost as scared of her as the dragons, or more so. She currently held no love for them, save, perhaps, those that Wydgett kept going on about as being so kind to dragons, but she had not met them yet, but still, the thought of the looks of horror on their faces, and the horrible screams they made when she had attacked them.

She rounded a corner and kept walking. Her mind no less troubled, and kept on walking.

She knew that they had to release the other dragonesses from those horrible breeding pens, this she felt absolutely sure of, but then she thought of what they’d done. They’d torn through several dozen dragons over the past few weeks in their attempts to release the others. At first she’d just thought it was typical human selfishness making them try to defend what made their lives easier… but then, if that was the case, why did the dragons out here follow them? They didn’t seem to need to be forced to do things… in fact, they usually were very willing to run from her and her group when they threatened them, despite their human rider’s commands to stay and fight. But then, those few that either couldn’t get out of the way fast enough, or…

“Am I as bad as they are? I… I didn’t even care about the dragons in front of me… they were just an obstacle…” Compashun whined to herself.

She turned the next corner after a time of walking in silent thought. There, ahead of her, was a break in the stockyard wall. Something had apparently crashed into it some time ago and knocked it down. The standing portions on either side were sharply broken off, and there were structural cables with ragged ends dangling down out of them. Curious despite her mood, Compashun poked her head around the edge of the break in the wall, and found herself looking out into what was just about a surface street. The area nearby looked old and disused, all the buildings boarded up.

She backed up a step, and was about to turn around and go the other way, when something inside her pricked, and she looked back at the opening. All her life, spent in the pens and her stall, she’d wanted nothing else but to be able to go out and explore. She’d always known there was more to the universe than those places. She’d been in a growing pen early on, and had once glimpsed the outside world through the tiny slitted windows of a transport trailer as a young dragon, as they took her from that place to the breeding pen she’d come to know too well.

“Affecshun… she mentioned Wydgett told her that a lone dragon isn’t seen as strange around the streets…” Compashun thought to herself, before she slowly padded out onto the downed segment of wall, and into the street.

She felt very nervous for a minute, then took a few steps out into the middle of the road, then turned around, looking about. The buildings here rose high around her. Up above she could see dragways on a higher elevation than where she stood, the lights illuminating those roads tiny pinpoints of light above her.

She turned about, looking up and down the road. Either way she looked the road made a turn around a tall building just outside the stockyard wall. At random, she chose to turn to her right, and started slowly padding down the path.

<<>>

Slyder was in the practice ring, running one of the obstacle courses. It was very, very tough, even though it was one of the lowest settings that the inner order crew used. Zann, the inner order master was running him and Skreet absolutely ragged. Zann said right off the bat that he saw something in the pair that was more than he saw in most young rookie street racers. What that was, he hadn’t elaborated on, and just continued to run the pair through the training course over and over, despite the fact that their time completing it each run was sadly below average.

Skreet was getting along pretty well with the other energy class dragons here. He was just about the same size as them, though maybe a bit shorter at the shoulder than Shuko, Sarjo’s dragon, or Shoc-rah.

The dragon of the leader of the inner order hadn’t been around much since Slyder had arrived. From what he could gather, something had happened at that feed station when he met Khata, and the noble leader of that crew was more than a little upset, leading to the ‘disciplining’ Zann had mentioned when he’d arrived. He still didn’t know what that entailed, nor did he think he wanted to know.

After something like the 18’th run through of the obstacle course, only improving his time by 0.14 seconds, Zann finally called an end to the training exercises.

“You show much determination, young Slyder. Perhaps we will see some improvements in the weeks ahead.” Zann said, then turned and walked off. Having seen him do this a number of times by now, Slyder knew this was a dismissal. Immediately he turned and walked Skreet off to the stables. He hadn’t been officially accepted as a member yet, and still lived at his little apartment with Skreet staying in a small stable at the foot of the building, but the crew was allowing him to rest his dragon in their stables after training exercises before he headed home.

He took Skreet over to the corner where the dragon wash was, had the dragon mag all his gear onto a mag rack, then took out everything he needed to get the dragon cleaned up. Considering all the dust they kicked up in the course, skreet needed a good sluicing down afterwards.

He rinsed Skreet off, then pulled out a scrub brush and gave the energy class dragon a good scrub down all over, a time consuming process considering Skreet was just about full grown.

As he was rinsing all the suds off, he heard the door behind them open and khata came in with a very downcast looking Shoc-rah following behind him. Slyder cast a glance at them as they entered, then pointedly focused all his attention on Skreet. Khata was not in a good mood today. The attack last night, where the dragon booster’s dragon and several other crews had been thoroughly thrashed had the blue haired man out of sorts, kicking himself. Slyder wasn’t sure if he blamed the fact that they weren’t there to help on himself, or on Shoc-rah, or what. Slyder was personally thankful he and Skreet hadn’t been anywhere near there, as the young energy class and himself might’ve come away from that with more than a few scratches, with their inexperience.

Khata was walking Shoc-rah back to his stall, down the hallway from the dragon wash stall when his wrist unit started beeping at him. pausing, he looked down at it. They weren’t very far from where Slyder and Skreet were standing, and the wash stall was openfaced, so there wasn’t much to block the sound.

“Fistus?” Khata said, somewhat surprised. “Are you alright? I heard you and your crew were all hurt last night.

“Yeah. Khata, I picked up a bit of information you need to hear. Dragon city security isn’t telling the media about this because it’d cause a city wide panic, but there’s a reason our dragons didn’t do so well against those rebelling dragons.” Fistus’ voice came through the small wrist comm.

“Oh?” Khata said, raising an eyebrow.

“Those dragons? They came from breeding stables, and apparently, they’re all gravid. Apparently, that makes other dragons become completely passive around them.”

Khata was staggered by this news. “What?” he said, looking back at Shoc-rah, the dragon nodding his head vigorously at his master. “You mean…”

“You can stop punishing your dragon for cowardice. He couldn’t help it any more than my Brutaris could. And you got off light, Brutaris and I aren’t going to be racing for a while, I’m afraid, nor will Wulph, Pyrrah, or Voiciferous.” Fistus said with a small chuckle. “Easier for you to rack up points for a few weeks, at least.”

“I am sorry for you friend.” Khata said, bowing his head in an automatic gesture. “Be well.”

“You keep an eye out, and keep your dragons away from these females. With this… smell they’re putting out, even our best warrior dragons turn to mush when confronted with them.” Fistus said before closing the connection.

Khata turned and looked at Shoc-rah, and hung his head. “My friend, I am sorry. I did not know. Forgive me my foolishness. I should not have doubted your courage.”

Shoc-rah came forward and nuzzled his master gently in the chest with the top of his head, silently forgiving him.

“You heard him, my young friend?” Khata said, and Slyder hunched his shoulders, before stepping out of the corner of the shower stall, Skreet following him.

“Uh, it was rather difficult not to…” Slyder said, sounding guilty.

“Well… In any case, you would do best to follow his advice. No-one can fight these dragons because our dragons cannot bring themselves to attack them.” Khata said.

“I’d feel the same. Would you go one on one with a pregnant woman, for any reason? I know I couldn’t.” Slyder said.

Khata shook his head. “Seen in such a light, I no longer doubt why shoc-rah acted as he did. Indeed, there are some opponents one should never fight. I do not know what evil has managed to align such a force against us, one which none will dare fight back against. It is most troubling…”

<<>>

Decepshun was growing agitated. Since she’d finally left the stable, she heard the dragon eye humans talking about what had happened last night, about the dragon booster’s dragon mostly. What she’d heard was troubling. As far as she’s pieced together from listening to several conversations, he’d been rushed to a hospital, and for several hours had been treated in the dragon ER for shock due to severe blood loss and extensive claw wounds, among other things. There was another conversation she was listening in on now. Prankk and Rancydd were chatting about it, the same conversation the others had had so far.

“I mean, seriously, the way that dragon and his rider whipped all of us so many times, if they could do that to him, I don’t even wanna think what they could do to us!” Prankk said.

Rancydd nodded. “All that’s clear to me, but what creeps me out is how the Dragon booster got his dragon out of the hospital! One minute he’s there, then, poof! He’s gone and nobody saw him leave. Plus, the window in that room wasn’t big enough to let the black and gold dragon’s head squeeze through, much less the rest of him, and it wasn’t even touched!”

Decepshun pricked her ears up sharply at that.

“I know. It’s that time we kidnapped Kitt Wonn all over again, he appears and disappears at will. It’s freaking me out just thinking about it!” Prankk said, hugging himself to fight off a sudden chill, though the air was warm.

Decepshun growled, then stood, and turned and looked out over the drop in front of her perch. The drag way was within leaping distance. Without a second thought, she propelled herself away from the balcony and landed square in the middle of the dragway, and started sprinting down it, heading away from the compound…

<<>>

Compashun had very slowly made progress away from the stockyard. The sounds of humans were picking up, becoming closer. There were more lights ahead of her than there were back at the stockyard.

She was in an alleyway, since this one passed behind and between a number of buildings. Up ahead of her was an opening into a street filled with sounds and smells and lights, glowing almost as bright as her old pen had been in the daytime. Slowly she creeped forward, and looked out around a dumpster.

She felt her jaw nearly fall open. There were many humans, and dragons, walking around. And almost all the dragons were going riderless. The humans were lounging around, talking, some playing some kind of game over a table with a small ball that they whacked back and forth at each other with an object in one of their hands. Some of the dragons were racing each other up and down the length of the road without a rider, though they didn’t stray too far. Groups of humans sat around tables that had these overhangs mounted atop a pole jutting out from the center of the table itself. A couple dragons lounged around these tables as well, apparently content to stick close to the humans.

“Oh, well hello there!” a human voice suddenly said in her direction, making her jump backwards with a yelp. The human that had spoken was standing near some wheeled object that seemed to emanate a very… enticing smell. Meat, cooked meat. It smelled even better than fresh feed from the barrels, and much different.

“Oh, sorry, did I scare ya?” the human said with a hearty, good natured laugh. “C’mon out. I won’t hurt ya.” He said.

Compashun was confused, until she remembered, again, what Wydgett had told Affecshun. Cautiously, she stepped out of the shadows.

“Oh, well! Aren’t you a pretty dragon.” The man said, looking her over. He was large in the middle, unlike most men. He was wearing a stained white covering over his front that covered the rest of his grey and red clothing. In his hand was some kind of metal tool, she shied away from that, again, though she didn’t retreat.

“You hungry?” he asked. “C’mon, this one’s on da house.” He said, then picked up a small tannish colored object that he… folded open with two fingers with that hand, gloved in some clear material, similar to but different than what the doctors at the pen had used, then with the metal tool he reached into a compartment that steamed and released a lot of that mouth watering smell of meat, and pulled out… a long, skinny pinkish red object, and placed it in the tan one, then held it out towards her.

Compashun glanced around. None of the other humans… save maybe one or two, and maybe one of the dragons nearby, were looking in the direction of her or the man. Most of the others seemed completely unconcerned with her presence. Carefully, she took a few steps forward, and reached her nose out to what the man was holding. The darker object resting in the tan one smelled a lot like food, only, considerably more intense. The other part… smelled very, very strange, and she snorted in surprise. Its smell was very dull and muted, but it was there, though far different than anything she’d smelled before.

“What’s the matter, never had a foot long before?” the man laughed. “Go ahead, it won’t bite.”

Compashun extended her neck again, opening her mouth only about an inch or two, and gently clasped the offered end of the food object with her front teeth, then pulled back slowly as the man simply let her take it.

With a quick motion, Compashun threw the food object back into her mouth whole, and bit down on it. With that, an explosion of intense meat flavor from the cylindrical object, mingled with the far more subtle one of the squishy, dry tan object, overwhelmed her taste buds. She stood there as the tastes flooded her mouth, reveling in it. It was the most delicious thing she’d ever tasted. Canned feed paled in comparison. She was actually sad when she finally swallowed it as the flavor mostly went with it, though some lingered in her mouth.

“You liked that, didn’t you?” the human said, chuckling.

“Why don’t you give her another one?” another human voice said, approaching. Compashun looked up with a startled snort and took a few steps backwards. She was suddenly feeling very insecure, having attracted another human’s full attention.

“I usually only give one freebie to strays, you know that Jo.” The man said to the approaching person.

“Then give her mine.” The human, a female, said.

“But you already…” The man said, right before the human female tossed a sparkling little golden object at him, which he caught.

“Give her one with the works.” She said. “If she liked it plain she ought to go crazy for that. Besides, she’s gravid, I figure she could use as much food as she can get.”

“Is that what that bulge is…” the man said, before he grinned. “Very well. One foot long with everything on it, coming up.”

Compashun watched as the man put another meat cylinder in one of the squishy tan objects, but then he started picking up bottles and squirting slightly congealed fluids, one red, one orange, onto it, then a jar of some kind of chunky green material, and another of white moist strips.

“One footlong, with everything on it, courtesy of my best customer.” The human said with a broad smile on his face. This one he put on a firm paper disk and held out to her.

Compashun looked at the object. With all that material on it, it wouldn’t stay together very easily if she held it in the air with her teeth, most of it would probably slide off. So, she put her head over it, and put her teeth around the middle of he object, bit down, and pulled back to chew on it.

If she thought the flavors she received from the plain food he’d given her the last time was good, this simply blew her away. All kinds of potent and very appealing flavors filled her mouth and overwhelmed her poor, inexperienced tastebuds with the sheer rush of it.

Savoring every bite she slowly chewed her way through it, making crooning noises, Compashun reveled in this delicacy.

“Oh yeah, she liked it.” The female human said as Compashun licked her chops after she’d scoured the plate for every last morsel.

Compashun couldn’t help but smile. These humans out here weren’t really that bad, she was finding.

Suddenly, she felt something wet splatter off her snout. She blinked, then shook her head, looking around. Suddenly, she felt another one atop her head, and looked up. Above her was nothing that she could see… but there were small specs moving through the lights above her.

She felt several more bits of water hit her back, and snorted, turning around. The human woman held her hand out, and a droplet hit her there as well.

“Great, rain.” She said, as the sounds of the voices of all the humans, and dragons nearby became displeased.

“Well, I’ll be out here for another hour, anyway.” The man said, pointing to the umbrella above his little cart. “You’d best get somewhere warm Jo. You too missy. Don’t wanna catch cold while you’ve got little one’s on the way to worry about. Git!” he said, smiling at Compashun, but waving her off with the paper disk he’d served the food to her on.

Compashun came forward, gently nudging her head against him, then immediately turned and loped off into the shadows the way she’d came.

<<>>

Moordryd sat in an office chair in the command center of his compound. He’d been sitting there since morning. He’d taken a few quick breaks to eat, stretch his legs and such, but he’d been here waiting for a call from his father. Somewhere around 7 in the evening, he realized he wasn’t going to get one. So he stood, walked over to the console, and tapped in the sequence to send a connection request to his father’s personal communicator.

The annoying vidmail recording appeared. Gritting his teeth in annoyance, he redialed for his father’s lab, the land line that went straight to the monitors there. Again, the same message played. Slamming his fist down on the keyboard and nearly breaking the key to close the line, he stormed out of the control center… and found that outside, it was storming… or at least raining pretty heavily.

Immediately he went for the stable. All the dragons were in their openfaced stalls… save for his dragon, Decepshun. Scratching his head briefly, he called out her name, and even gave a sharp whistle. When that failed to make her appear, he groaned and went to the main lounge.

“Has anyone seen my dragon? She’s not in her stall.” He said, cutting across the low sounds of random conversation.

“Can’t say I have boss. She only ate at lunch time today, didn’t see her at morning or evening feed.” Prankk said.

Moordryd groaned, then stalked off to a side room where the security monitors were. Sitting inside was Vizz, the loner surveillance expert of the dragon eyes, sitting infront of racks of monitors.

“Hey vizz, any idea where Decepshun is? I can’t find her anywhere and nobody else seems to know.” Moordryd said.

“Hopped over the south wall about an hour ago, went running off, tracked her as far as the edge of down city, she headed up from there, took a lift up to level 43, then got off and headed north.” Vizz said.

Moordryd stood and stared at the green haired teen, then groaned. “And you didn’t TELL ANYONE!?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I thought you didn’t want me bothering you with every little thing I keep tabs on here, just the important bits.” Vizz said, finally turning around in his chair to actually look at moordryd.

“My dragon running off is kinda important, Vizz. TO ME!” Moordryd yelled, then put his hand on his forehead.

“Hey, this is Decepshun we’re talking about. If any dragon can take care of itself, it’s her.” Vizz said, then turned around again, dismissing Moordryd and his bad mood entirely. Quite possibly the only person in the dragon eyes who’d dare do that on a regular basis.

Moordryd was about to yell something else at vizz, then just growled, turned around, and walked out.

“Cain.” Moordryd said to the dark skinned young man over where he was pouring a soda.

“Yeah?” Cain said, looking over.

“Go get Coershun saddled up. Decepshun decided to go out and I need to go see my father.”

“In this weather?” Cain said, looking at the window as rainwater pelted and ran down the glass.

“Then get a raincoat, I don’t care! I need to speak to my father, right now, and he’s not answering my calls!” Moordryd said, storming off to his room. “Meet me outside in five minutes.”