Raize sighed as he looked out of the opening of his new cave. It was still only a little higher then his previous one, but it was smaller, with fewer dragons. Five males and five females. It was quite a comfortable place, and the dragons he had met seemed nice. There were a few other fire dragons, and one of the females had seemed to have already taken an interest in him. While he had shared a cave with his sister for most of his life, it was strange to be living with females again, though he supposed he could get used to it.
What truly worried him was Silver. He couldn't help but think that something horrible had happened to her yesterday. And if Gravon had gotten to her before Zepos... He shivered at the thought. So instead of waiting to be called out of his cave for his now more advanced classes he exited the cave at the dawn of light, hurrying to the outside of Sky Mountain. The sun had barely touched the horizon, but one of the many skills of a fire dragon was near perfect vision in the dark, so the lack of light didn't bother him at all.
He flew to where he knew Zepos had been pointed the day before, and soon found a clearing that seemed like a place Silver would like to go. It was a small cave near a pond with long reeds around the bank and deep water.
He first checked the cave, hoping to find Silver and Zepos wrapped in each other's wings, but when he saw nothing he began to get worried. He leapt down from the cave and checked the forest around the small clearing, wondering if the two had slept in there. Still not finding anyone he began to think that maybe he was at the wrong place, when he saw a messily scrawled message in the rock.
'Hey bruther. I know you wood come hear evenchally. But if this is some other dragon, bugger of. Me and Zepos have left sky moutain to search for anuther Dragon Haven. Sorry for not bringing you, but it is to dangerus. Once we find anuther haven, we will come back for u.'
A small growl left his throat. She had left him! Again! He read the message over and over before stepping back and creating a fireball in his throat. He blasted the wall, destroying the message so no other dragon could find it. Oh this was so like Silver, doing things without thinking them through. Didn't she know that A.O.D.H had recently been on the move, coming toward this very mountain range? He turned, debating on whether to warn Iraliene or not. No, he wouldn't, not yet. First he would gather some friends and see if he couldn't find Silver.
With an angry snort he threw himself into the air with a beat of his wings, flying as fast as he could back to Sky Mountain. He needed to find her before it was too late.
* * *
Gravon was pacing in his cave, one of the highest in The Nest. He had slept badly that night, wondering when Silver would come, but she hadn't. It had left him angry, frustrated and confused. Why hadn't she come to him? Everyone else had, eagerly even. But this damned dragoness was just so... He snarled at himself before stalking to the edge of the cave and looking down over the mostly empty nest, as it usually was this early in the morning. There were a few dragons slowly getting up and flying around, mostly teachers getting ready for their classes. However there was one dragon that caught his eyes. A young fire dragon that couldn't be more then eight years old.
He frowned suspiciously and leapt from the cave, spreading his larger-then-normal wings and descending toward the dragon. He knew that Silver had two brothers; both of them fire dragons, and one of them resided at Sky Mountain. This dragon was definitely young enough to be her brother, and they had some similarities' in body appearance as well.
Seeing that the fire dragon was in a hurry Gravon manipulated the gravity around him with a thought, drawing himself toward the ground with greater force and making himself fall far faster then normal. Before he hit the fire dragon he opened his wings, lessening the gravity and coming to an almost perfect, stand still stop. The fire dragon yelped in surprised, reflexively speeding up, trying to get away from the threat from above. When he realised that there was no threat he turned around with a growl, looking at the dragon who had disturbed him. Gravon laughed in contempt.
"Why such a hurry hatchling?" asked the gravity dragon, knowing very well that this dragon was far from a hatchling.
The flame drake narrowed his eyes dangerously, but didn't attack back with an insult of his own, much to Gravon's surprise, "None of your business. Why did you try to attack me?"
"I didn't," Gravon replied, "Though it was amusing to see your reaction."
The fire dragon huffed, before turning as if to fly off again.
"Hey! Don't you turn your back on me! I haven't finished with you yet!" growled Gravon.
The fire dragon turned back to look at him, "What?"
"Are you Silver's brother?"
"I am. My name is Raize if you ever wanted to find that out."
"Do you know where she is?"
"Who?"
"Silver! Do you know where she is?"
"No, I don't."
The reply was quick and abrupt, as if the fire dragon, Raize, had anticipated the question. Gravon frowned, suspecting that he wasn't telling the whole truth, but there was no way he could prove it.
"When did you see her last?" he asked.
"With Zepos," Raize replied.
"Zepos?" Gravon frowned, "Who's he?"
"An electric dragon, one of Silver's... very close friends," the fire dragon replied.
Gravon narrowed his eyes. He remembered that dragon now; they were in some of the same classes, when he bothered to show up that is. And his mum had mentioned some competition, but he thought he could easily trump any other male in Silver's life. It seemed he was mistaken.
"And where is he now?"
"With Silver, so I don't know."
"You know Raize, I don't believe you."
The fire dragon shrugged, "Good for you."
He turned to leave again. Gravon snarled and manipulated the gravity around the dragon, forcing him into the floor. Raize yowled in surprise and tried to get up, only to find that he was far to heavy to lift himself. Still, he struggled, not allowing himself to be defeated so easily. Gravon landed in front of the downed dragon, a grin on his face. Fire dragons were so easy.
"Now, tell me the truth or I will crush you into the ground," he threatened.
Raize snorted and opened his maw, sending a torrent of flame toward the unsuspecting dragon. Fire was not affected by gravity because of its lack of weight and mass, so it still flew just as easily as it normally would. Gravon screeched in pain as the flames scoured his scales. He lost concentration on his hold of Raize, turning away and shielding himself from the flames with his wings.
The fire dragon took advantage of his lack of sight and pounced at Gravon, colliding with his side and knocking him over, before pinning him to the ground. The gravity dragon snarled and tried to throw Raize off, but he had underestimated the strength of the younger dragon and yowled when Raize pressed his claws into his flanks, drawing blood.
"You stay away from my sister, worm. She's too good for the likes of you," Raize snarled.
Gravon roared out in pain and looked at the fire dragon above him. He manipulated gravity again, but this time in the opposite direction. Raize growled in surprise and nearly let go of Gravon as he began to fall... upwards? However, he managed to keep a hold of him, and they began to fall together. Fire lit the gravity dragon up as Raize bathed him in flame. He screeched, the pain causing the gravity to return to normal and they began to fall back toward the ground.
With a thump Raize slammed Gravon into the rocks below, causing a few bones to break in the rarer dragon's wings and back. He roared out in pain, before falling limp against the rock. Suddenly worried Raize checked to see if he was still breathing, and let out sigh of relief when he was.
He took a step back from the broken dragon and snorted his contempt, before going to fly off again when another voice stopped him.
"Hey, you there!" cried an older earth dragon who had seen the whole thing.
Raize growled in annoyance and turned towards the dragon, "You may want to get him to a life dragon. He's badly injured."
"Oh, I'm taking him to a life dragon alright, and you as well," the earth dragon snarled.
He landed next to them and scooped up Gravon's broken form. The drake groaned, but stayed unconscious. The earth dragon looked at Raize angrily, as if it was his fault that this happened. The fire dragon snorted. He could just fly away if he wanted, but he knew that as soon as he did that the alarm would be raised and every dragon in Sky Mountain would be looking for him. He couldn't afford that. Best to go along quietly and hope they believed his side of the story.
The earth dragon took off and Raize followed.
* * *
Iraliene looked at the large screen set in front of her, worry hard on her chest. The screen showed a map of the mountain range stretching through western China. Upon the screen were hundreds of tiny dots, all moving in a jittery fashion toward their very location. Every one of those dots represented a machine or dragon from A.O.D.H. But from all her resources she knew that they didn't know where Sky Mountain was, unless they had just found the general location and were now searching through the mountain range for them.
She turned from the screen and began to pace. This wasn't good, not at all. While Sky Mountain was well defended against any attack even loosing a couple of dragons to them was something she couldn't risk. They already had minimal numbers and A.O.D.H had nearly twenty thousand dragons under their command. It was something she couldn't allow.
"Laang," she said, speaking in mandarin to a human that was working at a desk in the cave, "Call the Chinese government. We need as much help as they can give us."
"Yes Elder," he said, reaching to a phone on his desk.
With a sigh Iraliene looked back at the screen. If this was going to be a fight then they were going to have to fight with their utmost power. It was time to test the true capabilities of Sky Mountain. She turned and began to walk out of the cave, ready to give the order to lock down the mountain.
However she was stopped when an earth dragon landed at the entrance of the cave, accompanied by a fire dragon. He seemed surprised to see her, and bowed before laying something at her feet. Her eyes widened in surprise. It was her son, Gravon, badly injured.
Gathering her power in her maw she quickly breathed green energy over the gravity drake, healing all his wounds with the ease of centuries. She stepped back, worried as Gravon slowly regained consciousness. He jumped up suddenly, snarling. The fire dragon growled back.
"Who did this?" snarled Iraliene.
"He did!" Gravon accused, looking at Raize with red anger in his eyes.
The life dragoness turned toward the red dragon and narrowed her eyes. Raize took a small step back, a little intimidated by the giant dragon that was in front of him.
"I'm sorry Elder Iraliene," he said, bowing his head, "But he attacked me first. I merely defended myself."
"Lies!" snarled Gravon, taking a step forward.
The elder dragon snorted, not believing her son. It wasn't the first time he had done such a thing and it probably wouldn't be the last. The question was why he would do it. There was usually a reason behind it.
"Why would my son attack you?" she voiced her thoughts.
"He wanted to know where Silver was. I didn't know and he didn't believe me, so he attacked me, and I retaliated."
At the mention of the silver dragon Iraliene frowned, "Do you know where she is?"
"No."
Iraliene took a step forward to the dragon, boring into his head with her intense gaze, asking for the truth.
"I'm serious. I have no idea where she is," Raize stuttered, taking a step back.
"Well, we'll soon know, won't we," said Iraliene with a grin and then yelled into the cave, "Fahre, would you come here a moment please!"
A moment or two passed and a mind dragon revealed himself from the cave. He was maybe a hundred years old and quite experienced with extracting information from other dragon's minds, or people in general.
"What do you need my queen?" he asked with a bow.
"Would you please read this young dragon's mind and tell us what we want to know," Iraliene said.
Raize took a step back, wondering whether or not it would be a good time to run. He went right into the earth dragon however, who shoved him forward and sent him sprawling onto the ground.
"With pleasure," Fahre said, turning toward the young fire dragon.
* * *
Silver woke up to a filter of light being shone into the cave. She groaned and forced herself upright, looking around at her new surroundings. It was a small cave, one that Zepos and her had found the previous night while flying away from Sky Mountain. She didn't know how far they had gotten but she doubted very far. They had flown for less then an hour before deciding to stay here for the rest of the night.
Zepos was still sleeping, curled up around himself and snoring slightly. Silver smiled slightly at him before yawning and getting up from where she had slept. While sleeping on rocks was better then sleeping on straw or sticks, it definitely was nowhere near as great as sleeping in a metal nest. She would need to get used to the rough life again.
With a groan she stretched herself out, cracking a few joints as she began to warm up. She checked her wings and tail for any sign of the rust that occasionally formed on the surface, and finding none she grinned and turned toward the sleeping dragon. It was almost a shame to wake him up. Almost.
She walked over to him and prodded him with her tail. He murmured, refusing to wake, so she jabbed him again, a little harder this time. He opened his eyes and growled at her.
"Come on Zepos, we need to get moving," she said.
At first she thought it was a bad idea to bring him along. She didn't want to endanger another dragon because of her actions, but in the end Zepos had come up with a winning argument. If they met any dragons from A.O.D.H they could free them quite easily and they could even create their own small dragon haven. So Silver agreed to let him come, not that she would have been able to convince him otherwise.
"Aargh, do I have too?" he groaned, closing his eyes again.
"Yes, unless you want me to leave you here," she grinned.
Zepos quickly found his feet and stood up, "I'm up, I'm up."
He yawned and stretched like a cat. They had gotten used to sleeping in comfortable nests over the past few months, and now they were back to roughing it. Silver laughed at him and shook her head.
"You're getting lazy," she said.
"No I'm not. I'm a growing dragon, I need my rest," he snorted back, "I'm surprised you managed to wake...."
He froze as the light shining into the cave was blocked by another form. Silver frowned and turned, expecting to see a dragon from Sky Mountain, come to take them back. But as she saw who the real culprit was she froze, staring in a mixture of shock, fear and joy.
Standing at the entrance of the cave was the dragon that she had spent her whole life with, the only other dragon of her species. He was smaller then she remembered, the metal shell reflecting the light away from the cave. His eyes were full of sadness and remorse, and the mind-controlling device stuck in his head was bleeping a red light.
"Hey Silver," Elron smiled sadly.
"D...dad?"
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Hey guys! New chapter! I hope you enjoyed, vote if you did and comment what you thought. Next chapter will be out soon. I'm sure your looking forward to it :) Until then, see ya!
Pennator^^