Wings of Evolution (WoF AU)

Chapter 42

Morning Glory

It was evening when the three dragons sent to inspect the fallen base returned. Glory watched them speculatively, mostly confused about how Mangrove of all dragons had been the only one in the entire base spared.

But either way the plentiful flowers and news they'd brought made it impossible to not send another team to retrieve the greentop. It was too important to not take advantage of.

She was about to retrieve twelve squads of the best soldiers she knew, and lead a charge on the island when Exotic explained with sadness that the base was still occupied. That complicated things greatly, mostly because of the problems with transporting such a large amount of the flowers, and it was just a matter of time before the enemy realized what the greentop was, and destroyed it.

So that meant that storming the base was out of the question, thankfully, the RainWings were the tribe with the best stealth in Pyrrhia, if anyone could deal with the operation to retrieve that cure, it was them.

It took an entire day of consulting with Riptide and Tsunami, to figure out the best way to go about this, and the best dragons to bring along. They finally decided on a large team of two rainwing squads, Glory at their head, with the three scouts who'd previously gouged the island's occupation to help lead the mission.

They were also taking Echo because he wouldn't stop asking and he wanted to see the plant itself, not just the flowers. When they left they would only be taking the flowers because of how little room they had to begin with, any sacks had to be carefully fashioned to fit under the wings so the RainWing camouflage could block it from most angles, but because of the complications with flying with such bags, they couldn't take too many.

It was a whole complicated mess, but it was the kind that might just work if it was done right.

So as the battalions of RainWings flew, almost as silent as the breeze, it looked just as if there was nothing but air. Glory had carefully stationed Echo in the middle so that the collective rainwings could shield him from view, though it was sort of difficult to gauge whether it would hold together under scrutiny.

It was stressful as they approached the island, keeping track of the darkness that was enveloping the land as the sun ended the day with a sigh of relief.

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Murderbasket

Deathbringer followed his target to their fallen base, watching with awe as roughly twenty RainWings sightlessly landed on the island. It occurred to Deathbringer that probably the easiest way to eliminate his target would be to alert his allies occupying this base that they were being invaded, and use the chaos to kill him. But that would be too easy, besides, General Glory would be caught in the crossfire.

Deathbringer wasn't sure why he cared whether Glory got involved, but part of him couldn't bear to deliberately put her in harm's way. And if her dragons were in danger, she would surely come to their rescue. That was... dangerous thinking on Deathbringer's part. Who knew what he would do with ideas like those, why, he might even grow a heart.

Either way, Deathbringer did nothing, watching for an opportunity, but his thoughts had led him downward and he kept wondering. Would his death hurt her? Are they friends enough for her to care? Part of him wanted Glory to care about his target, because that was what she seemed to be like, a dragon that cared. But another part knew that if she cared about the target, there was no way that Deathbringer could eliminate him.

The fact that he'd let those thoughts take root was bad, he knew he wasn't supposed to get attached to anyone that might put his mission in jeopardy, but Glory was just... Glory. A sarcastic beautiful RainWing that had unknowingly stolen Deathbringer's heart.