"How do you know it's a dragon?!"
Raiden looked at Adonis like he'd gone mad, but with the way his hair was getting more white by the day he definitely fit the role of a mad scientist. Adonis would have to make a mental note to dye his hair again at some point.
"It's the only likely outcome" Adonis shot a look at Vulcan, who ultimately understood what his captain was hinting at. A son going missing wouldn't have been a problem, but with a potential dragon on the loose there was a possibility the boy they were after was already long dead. Dragons would kill if they were extremely hungry- and all livestock in the small village were under strict lockdown and supervision. Attacking a boy wandering at night wouldn't be a surprise to the group.
"You're not going on your own" Vulcan was quick to grab the older males arm as he tried to walk away, a stern expression on his face.
"It's better if I go alone. No one else gets hurt that way" Adonis answered too casually for Vulcan's liking, the grip on his arm not loosening. Vulcan hated this Adonis. The ideologically stubborn one.
"That dragon could be anywhere" Vulcan spoke through gritted teeth, Adonis still not budging.
"Prepare for the worst. If you find a body - call out a signal, we'll call the coronary and retrieve it together" Adonis changed the subject quickly, shrugging out of Vulcan's vice grip and speaking the latter part of his sentence quietly. Their client wasn't going to have the faintest clue at what was going on, perhaps that was for the best for now.
"Do we tell her yet?" Ara whispered, eyes watching the mothers every move as she attended to her youngest son, wiping mud from his face and fussing around him.
"No. It's best not to" Adonis hated this part of the job. He'd seen it so many times since even before day one, but it never failed to make his blood run cold.
"TEAM, MOVEOUT!" Adonis was quick to bark, his teammates jumping into action under his commands. As they scrambled to their dragons who'd landed in a flash, Adonis didn't budge from the ground. He'd let everyone get a head start before he took off with fury.
"GET IN TOUCH IF THERE'S ANY PROBLEMS!" Vulcan yelled as his dragon started to move its wings, the flapping noise and gusts of air hard to hear over.
"KEEP IN TOUCH WITH EACH OTHER! DON'T DIE!" Adonis yelled back, watching Raiden salute before his copper dragon Taranis took off at an alarming speed. They were soon to vanish from sight, disappearing behind the mountainside. Mitzi however had held back- she'd watched Raiden and Taranis effortly take off from the safety of her own dragon.
"MITZI, COME ON! YOU'LL BE FINE!" Adonis knew she was confident, but the lack of training with the team would surely put anyone on edge. She quickly turned towards him, looking down from above with a smile. Sometimes a few words of encouragement were all that were needed. In seconds she'd followed Raiden's lead, shooting up into the sky elegantly.
Vulcan and Ara had already taken off in the meantime, no need for farewells as they'd got a longer journey ahead of them.
"Mr Cassidy..." Adonis was bought out of his thoughts as a small voice came from behind him.
"Madam" Adonis gave a small warm smile back to Chihiro, who had sent her son away to speak privately with the captain. He could tell just by her stance and fidgeting hands exactly what was coming.
"Will you bring my son home to me? Please? I know he might not be..." She was close to tears again, voice trembling as she spoke. Adonis didn't let her continue, taking her hands into his gloved ones, he squeezed them once. He'd adopted this from Raiden and Ara's funny little way of communication - one squeeze to the hand meant 'it's okay.'
"What's your eldest son's name?" He asked quietly, wiping away her tears with his glove.
"Genjirō" She teared up again.
"I will try my best to bring Genjirō home." With that Adonis released his hold on the woman's hand, tears in her eyes as she watched the captain stride towards his own dragon. Fury made a rumbling noise as Adonis got closer, the male smiling to the beast before him.
"You up for some tracking today buddy?" Obviously the beast did not reply with words, but the louder, more potentially happier sounding noises the dragon was making implied he was ready for anything. Despite the weight of the world firmly on his shoulders, and a teen potentially and most probably dead, he had to keep his spirits high. People die everyday, this case was no exception. Even their missing case's poor mother understood this.
"LET'S GO, FURY!" Even mounted from his dragon, Adonis had a good view of Chihiro and her son, who was pointing enthusiastically at the dragon and it's incredible wingspan. He couldn't help but smile before Fury took off into the skies and beyond.
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Originally, Dewa Sanzan was just home to the three sacred mountains and their respective shrines located deep in the mountainside. A very sacred and religious place for all to enjoy- tourists and people in general would travel to pray there, to sightsee and even to perform pilgrimages. Now it was also home to a couple of small farming dwellings nearby, specializing in crops and smaller livestock and dragon management. Dragons weren't an everyday sight here due to the remoteness and thickness of the surrounding forest and mountains.
Adonis couldn't wrap his head around the fact a young boy had been a potential victim. He hadn't spoken much about it within radius of the mother, but here, dragons would have easy access to wildlife and livestock. Why go for humans?
Now that he was up in the skies and the sun was at its highest, Adonis could finally take in the surroundings. It was almost terrifying how remote they were- all Adonis could see was mountain ranges and forest below. It had been like that for a while, he'd got no concept of time when in the air. As he scoured from above, he finally found the starting point for his search: a large open patch.
Alarmingly large.
How he found this was simple - it was either fate or simple coincidence.
Fury was cautious, a dragon always protected their rider. Upon reaching the ground, his tail wrapped around Adonis: a barrier, in case anything jumped out at the rider. Adonis grabbed his gun that was situated on the side of Fury's saddle, loaded it, and began scanning the perimeter of the space. No signs of life, bar a couple of small birds sitting in the grace, hunting for words. Other than that everything was dense in greens and browns, this was sacred land that was mostly untouched. It would be a pain to navigate.
Adonis wondered why he was even bothering, his gut instinct told him this teen was definitely dead if he'd got lost here. But another gut feeling was telling him to stay upon this path, and after observing the surroundings he'd soon confirmed that the intuition may have been correct.
Tracks. Footprints in the ground.
No human eyes could pick these up, but a rider's eyes were trained for even the slightest changes in the normal order. People shouldn't be this far off the public tracks.
"Fury, stay close..." Adonis lowered the gun slightly, taking small steps towards the towering forest where the footprints disappeared into. Fury followed close behind, the beast small enough to follow Adonis through the density. It had been raining terribly in the early hours, the footprints more visible as Adonis took more steps into soil, bark and moss. Even more alarming - the prints were fresh - the soil was still wet underfoot and the rain clouds had barely even passed when Adonis made ground. Whoever made these tracks was close by, perhaps they were even watching him as he studied the prints out in the open.
It was always said dragon riders had a six sense, maybe this was it - intuition.
That's when he saw it, a shadow in foliage. A human, armed- they'd got a gun in hand. Fury started to rumble, but one swift hand signal and the dragon stopped making any noise. They needed silence. If the person knew Adonis and Fury were watching, they could be ambushed. Not that there was any sign of backup, but Adonis couldn't be too sure. The figure was definitely alone, it turned around multiple times, gun pressed to their chest.
Adonis had to move- and so he did.
Chester had always said he was a 'quick bastard,' but he had to be. Ambushing someone had to be done quickly, efficiently. If not he'd be the one being killed.
"DON'T MOVE!" Adonis clocked his gun back in seconds, aimed at the figure that was now in his vision. Finger on the trigger, no hesitation...
"SHIT!" A startled scream and a thud stopped the trigger being pulled, Mitzi dropped her gun to the ground as she jumped. When she locked eyes with the captain, her eyes went wide before a relief waved over her with a long sigh to match.
Caught red handed.
"And why the hell are you here?" Mitzi composed herself, brushing herself down with a huff. Adonis tutted.
"I could say the same about you!" A hand came to his head in dismay, Fury poked his head through the foliage Adonis had run through and huffed at Mitzi.
"Where's Raiden?", Adonis' team was always his first priority, and seeing Mitzi alone was a potential cause for concern.
"He's gone off by himself. I'm heading west and he's covering the east. It saves time and we cross land quicker." A good plan even if he hadn't thought of it himself. It seemed Mitzi and Raiden were working together better than Adonis ever imagined.
"Where's your dragon?" It was unusual she was completely alone, yet again Mitzi had been rumoured to be just as good as a soldier before she became a rider.
"She's in the sky, took off as soon as I landed. I wanted to pursue alone" Mitzi huffed, cracking her bones one by one.
"Pursue what?" Adonis finally walked closer to her, stepping over fallen branches and rocks until he was standing right next to her.
"This."
As she moved aside, Adonis finally saw the reason why she'd been all alone. In the dirt lay a dragon, but something was horrifically wrong. It was dead, yet instead of skin on bones the beast looked like it had ripped fabric as a replacement. Adonis always wore gloves for a reason, he was quick to kneel closer to observe the remains more carefully. It cut like a knife through butter- smooth, quick, effortlessly. It's skin was indeed fabric- a thick type of canvas if he was being exact. Held into place by big looking staples, the job had clearly been rushed no matter who'd put it together. There was no blood seeping from its remains, rather oil and a smell of petroleum. As Adonis peeled the fabric back carefully, he revealed the dirtiest secret of all. A motor as a heart. No blood, no bones either, metal instead of calcium, a whole lot of it. A complete exoskeleton to be precise. Definitely something of that out of a video game, a real life nightmare.
"Holy, what the hell is this?!" Adonis was frantic with the knife, making small incisions to further his understanding of what exactly he was looking at. Metal scraping on metal, the hairs on the back of their necks stood up at each small scrape.
"I don't know, I've been trying to find a way to drag it out for the past ten minutes. It's really heavy" Mitzi wasn't wearing gloves, her hands and parts of her face were covered in ice and oil.
"Did you kill it?" Adonis asked quietly, turning to look her in the eyes. She didn't show any signs of fear, that was always a good thing. He really didn't need her retreating back in a panic right now.
"Yeah...I chased it down here, it was chasing me before. Unusual behavior, I could see by its teeth it wasn't a normal dragon" Mitzi pointed towards its mouth, Adonis didn't dare to shove his hand straight in. Rather, using the tip of his gun, he parted the clamped jaw carefully apart. A sick feeling washed over him at the sight of its mouth.
A row of bloodied razor blades and knives instead of deadly white enamel.
"Did you see where it came from?" Adonis' voice was barely over a whisper when he spoke, words stuck in his mouth.
"No, only that it came from above. I'd not long left Raiden when my own dragon must have sensed it above us"
"Above?" Adonis was asking himself more so than Mitzi. He was pretty sure that unless the motor and exoskeleton was something like that of an aeroplane or helicopter, then this thing would have no chance of flying high or with the precision of a dragon.
"I'll hook it to Fury's saddle, we need to get this back to the DRA ASAP. Call Raiden in too, I don't want him out in the field when we've found this." Adonis was quick with his orders, Mitzi complied quickly before ringing up Raiden over her radio.
"This is Mitzi to Raiden, come in Raiden, do you copy?" Mitzi paced as she spoke, she realistically should never have split with Raiden. He was reckless, didn't think, probably dangerous if he had a brain. However, if anything was to happen, he was a quick thinker when needed to be and would probably be more than capable to handle anything thrown his way.
No answer came through on the radio.
"This is Mitzi to Raiden. This is a second request, do you copy?" Mitzi tried a second time, clutching the radio tight, awaiting the voice through it.
No answer came through again. Adonis had been tinkering around the corpse and listening at the same time. No news is usually good news, that's what an old friend used to tell him. Adonis was too long in the job to keep taking risks concerning his team.
"This is Alpha, Adonis. Raiden, send a reply if you are receiving, over?" Adonis spoke through his radio, waiting for a reply through his earpiece.
No answer, only a faint crackling this time that he could slightly pick up if he thought long and hard about it. This was his last resort.
"This is Alpha, Adonis, requesting a response with HQ, over?"
No answer.
"The lines are dead. There's no signal." Adonis wasn't panicking. After all, panicking wasn't something he did unless things got really bad. Yes he was worried, and by the looks in her eyes Mitzi was too, but no one was panicking yet.
"Let's get out of here, now" Adonis didn't have to say anymore, as Mitzi was by the mechanical dragon in a flash, both of them tugging hard to attach the body to Fury. With a lot of heaving and huffing, the pair hauled with the dragon's body, trying to retrieve it as soon as possible.
Everything was a blur. Before Adonis could register what he was doing, they'd made it out of density and into the clearing where he'd first landed. The sun was at its highest, Adonis hadn't noticed the mountains towering around them, closing them in even more. He must have landed in a very low space closer to sea level. Mitzi was huffing the side of him, taking off her DRA jacket before tying it to Fury for safekeeping. Adonis was sweltering. Unfortunately his own well-being would have to wait for the time being.
"Come on, we need to-"
Adonis never finished his sentence, as a loud interference suddenly screeched over their earpieces. Both riders yelled and winced, clutching their ears as the sound faded as quick as it arrived.
"The hell was that?" Mitzi yanked out her earpiece in a flash response, dropping the wire over her shoulder as Fury looked between the two with innocent animal concern and confusion. But then everything changed. Fury's face changed, the beast coming out as teeth barred, his back coming up and wings spreading out as he looked towards the sky. In a flash Fury was gone, leaping up and soaring away like lightning. Adonis was stood bewildered, confused more than anything about what was going on.
That's when he saw the cliff on the mountainside that overlooked their position a little too clearly. The figure of a man staring straight at them and the red dot sight of a gun aimed right at his head. As if planned, Adonis' earpiece came to life.
"Smile, Adonis Cassidy."
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chapter 5, end.
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