A/N: Hello all, I'm back! And I finally managed to complete the prologue alright. Once again, sorry for any grammatical mistakes and so on, I hereby blame my native language once again for that! Beside that, if you haven't read "To the Last Breath yet, it might give you a good idea of some of the stuff happening here. And in contrary of forementioned story, this won't be a oneshot indeed.
Ok, aside from the obvious stuff I just mentioned, I'll also be accepting OC's to a certain extent (look below the story for what I'd like to know about them).

And remember, I do not own American Dragon: Jake Long, it belongs to Disney, who discontinued the show years ago (curses!).
Enjoy reading!

Prologue:

- 4 months after the events of "To the last breath"-

He sighed, he was binge drinking and no one even bothered, it was like it was normal here. Not a good way to redeem himself. He couldn't help but give a chuckle at the thought. As far as the dragon council cared, he was a fugitive. As far as his family cared he simply disappeared. The ones he knew cared about him hadn't heard about him since Hong Kong. He figured it was the best for all of them.

A figure approached, sat down and said something to him in the local language.

"Get lost, leave me alone", it was harder to say than it should have been. Was he that drunk already?

The figure sighed and tried again, this time in English. "I don't know much, but I DO know that you can't be sixteen already. Go home or wherever you're staying for that matter, your parents must be worried sick."

He wanted to mutter something but he vomited instead and the world turned black around him…

- Same time USA-

Rose sighed, where was Jake? Why hadn't he told her anything? Sure, she could understand him being a bit secretive, as he was marked a fugitive criminal by the council, but four months? When he contacts her, he'll have a lot of explaining to do, she thought. If it wasn't for the duties she and the former Huntsclan did to help the magical community, she would've turned crazy. They were with 8 former Hunters. 8 who had decided to change their lives.

She knew the names of all of them. There was David, who got wounded in the battle against the Dark Dragon, if she remembered well, he was of the Israelian division of the Hunstclan . Juliette, a huntress of the French division, she had a thing with machines. Victoire was a Congolese hunter, he had more experience than most, you name it, he already fought it. Simon, a Swede that loved to put some distance between himself and his target. Mai Lin, Vietnamese and she was the one of the two that had pulled David out of the temple. The other one was the Brazilian Rodriguez, he was the one that, second from Rose, hated the magical creatures the least. And then there was the Ukrainian Tatyana, she was the most silent of the bunch.

Yet Rose couldn't watch the survivors without remembering those they had to leave behind. Over a hundred of their comrades had stayed behind to slow off the Huntsmaster and his lackeys. 164 former hunters to be exact. And then there was the hunter that gave his life to ensure the Dark Dragon didn't leave the dragon temple. Every deed they had done, to ensure the "prodigies" of the Huntsclan, as they called her and the others, could prove themselves to the magical community.

That was the reason they told her to get out, as girlfriend of a dragon, she had the most chance to succeed, the most chance to redeem the Huntsclan and get the aid of the magical community to rescue those that stayed behind. If they could see her current situation, they'd feel betrayed. She was sure of that.

And thinking of all of that she couldn't help but wonder. Why did Jake leave without a single clue for her to trace him. Where was he and why hadn't he contacted her?

She sat down and cried silently, she was certain the worst had happened. But she wasn't the only one who cried that night.

- Long Residence, New York City, USA-

Haley cried. Not for herself but for Rose, who she knew had it even harder than her, she cried for Jake, who had to find a way to achieve the impossible, redeem himself for the dragon council. She cried for her parents, who had to see their son disappear like a pariah to his own people and hadn't heard about him for months. She cried for Lao Shi, who she even couldn't call grandfather anymore, confronted with the truth, he snapped and broke off all communication with what was left of his family and Haley knew, this was out of shame for his alleged failure. In his eyes he had failed to raise his grandson as the dragon he should've been and Lao Shi had lost all hope.

She cried for the dragon council too. They were stuck in old ways and held on tight to them and Haley knew why. The world changes to fast for them and all they had held for dear became obsolete as they watched. Yet there still was Sun Park who was the opposite of the other councilors, forgiving and modern.

But mostly she cried for the loss of hope. She had heard all the charges that were raised against Jake and she knew there was no possible way for Jake to redeem himself anytime soon.

She wiped away her still flowing tears and entered Jake's room, walked up to the window and looked to the skies.

"Where are you Jake? We need you, all of us."

And to her, the silence was her answer. And she wished silently that she'd see him anytime soon. But deep in her heart, she was convinced of the opposite.

- Jake's position, somewhere else-

"Where am I?" he muttered to no one in particular.

"That depends on what you mean. I'd say in a bed, but that'd be playing captain obvious," a figure walked in the room and sat on his bed "Here, drink this, it'll help you deal with the headache" and Jake swore he could hear the person mutter "not that you'll need it with a dragon metabolism"

"Thanks," he answered, ignoring his remark.

"Any questions?"

"Two, who are you and where am I?"

"Well you are in a small town in Flanders, that'd be in Belgium if you want to know that. And before I answer the first question, I'll need your name," he answered.

"Jake" he had said his first name before he could even think about it and to minimize the damage he frantically tried to think of a second name.

"I see, I don't know whether to kill you or to think of you as a colleague right now"

Jake blinked. "Say what?"

"Long was your last name wasn't it? Jake Long, former American Dragon also known as the Maroon Dragon. Disappeared of the Dragon Council's radar 4 months ago, deemed as capture or kill on sight." The man sighed. " I could hand you over the council and become an asset again in their eyes," He continued, "But that'd go against everything I stand for".

Jake's heart stood still, no way he'd fall in the hands of the dragon council, he'd rather die then. And at that very moment he realized even more how hard he'd screwed up. Though if he had to die, he'd liked to know who would be the one behind his demise. So he asked the question that was ignored largely again. "I believe you have me at a disadvantage here, mister …"

"Ah, yes, sorry about that, where are my manners? Liban De Bolle, former Belgian Dragon, nowadays vigilante and thus not bound to the council anymore."

Jake's mood lightened up with the last part of the sentence, a plan formed in his mind. And he believed this vigilante would be able to help him.

- Rose's dream, Dream world-

"Hey there," A familiar voice sounded from behind Rose, a voice that still made her heart go crazy.

"Hey yourself" She turned around and saw Jake standing right before her. She resisted the urge to hug him and instead did the opposite. Her hand hit his face "That was for not contacting me for the past 4 months"

"Okay… I deserved that one," Jake muttered, holding his jaw.

"Yes, you did, now say what you need and scram," Rose answered. She had imagined hundreds of ways to hold this conversation and this was what she came up with? She almost ridiculed herself, almost.

Jake thought , what had he expected? Love? Kissing? A reunion like in those romantic movies? Welcome to real life. He guessed he ruined his chances. Then it's better to get over with it, he thought. "I," he started, "wanted to give you this".

He passed a small note to her. "Rose, I…" and then he disappeared.

Rose stared at the exact place he just was standing. What happened? Why did he leave unannounced? He'd explain later she guessed.

"Playing hard to get, smart move, Rose," she thought out loud. And only then did she realize that she still had the note clenched in her hand. "Now's an as good time as any huh?"

She read and stood there in utter shock. She had been expecting a lot, but not this. Not this small light of hope, this chance to find out the truth.

-Liban De Bolle's guest room, Flanders, Belgium -

"Get up lazy kid! If you want to go on with the plan, you better get up and be ready to move in 5 minutes!" A voice, a loud one for that matter, bellowed next to his ears. Jake groaned, someone was going to pay … definitely. He came out of the bed, prepared himself and went to the kitchen.
"So you finally got out, let's go, we don't have much time left before our window of opportunity is gone."
Jake seethed, he had just been woke up and now he gets treated like a dog? He didn't sign up for this, in contrary this was against all they agreed to.
"Why did you wake me at this hour?" he demanded "WHY NOW?", the anger was barely concealed in his voice. He did, however, not expect to be grabbed by the collar of his shirt. Neither did he expect to look in a pair of eyes that just shot fire.
"Where do you think you are? Your precious USA? A paradise?" Jake struggled, but the grasp was to strong, "There is NO more influence here of your precious dragon council! Or what? Did you think you could fly here too above the cities in the middle of daylight and expect to be ignored? To not to reveal the existence of magical creatures? A gas leak doesn't spread out to ten different cities! Five hundred people that see the same here won't be considered a coincidence! There is only a window to fly safely for three small hours and your conversation cost us an hour already," He dropped Jake and left the room after saying one last sentence, "Now hurry up and move".
Jake stood there for a few minutes trying to process what just had happened. In the end only one thing crossed his mind before all the rest. "Touchy guy," he muttered and he too left the room.

They flew for 30 minutes without saying a single word, until Jake broke the silence.
"You said there was no influence of the Dragon Council here, what do you mean?"
"In the USA, when you get spotted, all messages you cause get filtered out by agents of the dragon council and the persons who spotted you, get one of those memory potions. Here they can't do that, so we have to lay low for weeks out of fear for getting spotted and being pictured again. They simply do not have enough men."
"But there live more people in Europe than in the USA, so you'd think we'd have more agents too? So what happened here then?"
It was obvious Liban didn't want to tell the truth, but he felt as if there was no choice for him in the matter anymore. "There were 2 causes. The first one is what the humans call the Second World War. You see back in the time the Huntsclan infiltrated the Nazi-party and as there was a Holocaust for humans, there was something likewise for the magical creatures. The Huntsclan used the opportunity to catch disguised magical creatures, under the guise of 'untermenschen' and disperse of them just as easily. Especially the German magical community suffered badly under it, it's numbers going down from two million to two hundred thousand, never mention that fact to a German dragon though, they tend to break down of the memory. The dragon council tends to shame themselves for the reason they couldn't do anything about that, hence half the reason for the low influence."
"And the second reason?"
Liban hesitated. Only after an impatient look of Jake did he continue. "After the Second World War, the huntsclan realized what they were doing and became quite, counterproductive, here compared to the other parts of the world. They did most of the keeping everything secret and stuff like that. However, after a certain somebody removed the Huntsclan out of the play, Europe became more dangerous to magical creatures, most of them started moving to other areas of the world, effectively decreasing the influence of the dragon council to five cities in Europe, where there still are comparatively large communities. Dublin, Belfast, London, Moscow and Paris. "
Jake now realized the reason for the hesitation, in the eyes of the European magical community, he was the cause of the destabilization, the cause why their homes became more unsafe by the day. Yet for Jake, it was only more motivation to go on with his plan.

"Well it seems our target is in sight, and not a moment too soon, we got past two hours flight."
Jake looked up and saw the city of their destination: London.

They shifted back to their human shapes and walked towards a pub, in a, rather dark, alley.
"Our contact is inside," Liban spoke up, "He'll be rather hard to miss, with his bloody attitude."
"Oi, I heard that, you overgrown reptile!" A familiar voice sounded from behind them.
"Jake, meet …" , "Reggie?"
"Jakey! In the name of Piccadilly Circus! I thought you were dead, matey!" Jake couldn't stop the incoming hug, the brownie had a lot of strength for someone his size.
"I assume you two know each other. Reggie, I'll leave him to your care, I'll have to speak to the British dragon."
And with that Liban left before either of them could acknowledge it, not that they cared, the old friends had a lot of catching up to do.

- abandoned Huntsclan base, USA-

The huntsmen gathered around a large computer. How Jake had discovered this base or the password of the old Huntsmaster was a mystery to every single one of them. Yet here they stood, watching how the computer started retrieving the requested information. Every minute agonizingly slow. And all of the hunters would soon have another thing in common. The moment the computer finished they'd all know who their families were. And then the moment they were all waiting for came,

Processing request...
Displaying results:
Juliette Duchamps: Parents marked traitors; exterminated in line with order # 5684. Girl brought to facility to prevent influence from uncle, still residing in Paris. Trail lost as of 16th of July 2004.
Simon Paerson: Parents deceased in hunting accident; marked traitors posthumously. Boy left to care of Swedish Huntsmaster.
Tatyana Sidonova: Parents condemned guilty of treason following the publication of order #5684. Escaped and KIA during a skirmish 2 weeks later. Girl brought to facility 3.

At this point, Rose wasn't even sure anymore whether she wanted to see the other results the other names gave. Hell, if she looked at her fellow Huntsclan-members, she had to fight her tears, for she saw her fellow hunters collapse under the negative news.

Victoire Kayembe: Orphan, found in home for victims of civil wars. Taken for training by huntsclan-members.
Rodriguez Olveira: Son of Brazilian Huntsmistress, father unknown, presumed fugitive as of order # 5684. Hunstmistress Maria went MIA along with most of the Hunstclan around 1 year ago.
David Cohen: Parents reeducated by suspicion, order #5684. Executed 2 years later in line with the same order. Boy taken and educated by his uncle Arik Cohen.
Mai Lin Phan: Father KIA in a skirmish with the Black Dragon. Mother suspected catalyst to order #5684. Mother killed during 'the desperate measures'. Girl taken to Hunstclan base. Addemendum: Girl used as persuasion multiple times against aunt, still an influential person in Vietnamese politics.

Rose sighed, again that order #5684, what was that? What did it mean? She was going to search it up next, but first the last two names had to appear. She was getting a bad feeling about this.

Rose White: Brought to the Hunstclan as newborn. Prodigy and possibly new Headhuntsmistress. Natural family residing in Hong Kong. Addemendum: Suspected of violations going in line with order #5684. Charges and execution pending as of 1 year ago.
Lucas Blackmoore: Not found, this member does not exist.

She had only just completed reading when alarms started to sound out across the entire room. And a new text appeared on the computer:

Alarm: Two connections found between queries!
Alexander Weber: Parents unkown, background unknown. Suspected family member of the German Dragon. Kill on sight, extremely dangerous. One of the leaders of the reformers during 'the desperate measures'. When order #5684 went in effect, he went under the radar. Suspect for murder on the Hamburg-cell. Query: gather all charges and known history of subject (150 p.).
The first thing Rose noticed was the picture next to the text. There hadn't been pictures of any of the others before. Were his criminal charges that large that they needed all huntsmasters to recognize him? She was inclined to know more of the guy's background, but first she wanted to know about the second connection, order #5684.
Order #5684:
"After a skirmish with the Black Dragon, and the subsequent death of hunter (erased), huntress (erased) openly started to question the Huntsclan's goals. Hunter (erased) was hereby sent to investigate the cause and deal with it appropiaretly. After genetic testing he discovered that huntress (erased) was somehow related to the Vietnamese dragon(ess? To this day we still have not confirmed this as this dragon seems to operate in the shadows). We don't know if this was the reason for hunter (erased) 's ridiculous idea's, but he seemed to be certain and tried to prove his cause by researching the genes of other hunters. Imagine our suprise when we saw that they, with 100%, too proved positive! The dragons had been secretly ruining our bloodline! What was worse was that this hunter tested himself and proved he was related to the German dragon tree (assumed a cousin of the current German dragon)! With those people, all faithful members of the Huntsclan he corrupted, a reform movement. They claimed we should co-operate with those vile dragons and protect that magical community! That we should protect our mortal enemies! Ridiculous right? And that wasn't even the worst of their speculations! But I digress, so as a response to that pathetic movement we decreed order #5684, anyone who is related to a dragon, be it by blood, positive emotions (or negative for the clan), or merely some stupid coincidence and realize it without confessing it to the clan and abnegating all connections immediately were trialled and punished appropriately. We took their children for a proper education as the traitors and leaks were dealt with. As of today only 3 of the reform movement are still alive. 2 of them abnegated their old beliefs of which one even became a loyal Huntsmistress who was granted absolution for her sins, the other one serves as my servant, always under my watchful eye. The third one, hunter (erased) was the leader of their movement and is still missing today. Despite a disconcerting report that he'd have killed our people in Hamburg. Nonsense, in my opinion, it was most likely the German dragon, that one has been a thorn in our sides for too long now! Order #5684 still stands in effect and rumor has it our American prodigy will know the results of that soon enough" - Huntshistorian Geoffry Blackmoore.

Rose felt cold. Had she been that close to death? And what else had they claimed? So many questions, so little time. After all, they had to decide what to do. And she had a feeling she wouldn't like it one bit.

-Long Residence, New York City, USA-

"Haley, hurry up! We're going to be late for the dragon master-pupil bonding event!" the voice of Sun echoed through the house. She despised putting Haley through official dragon stuff. But there was no choice, Haley was the official American Dragon after all.
As Haley stepped down the stairs, she memorized every dragon of importance she knew again. The Australian dragon, Fred Nerk. The Central American dragon councilor Kulkulkhan. Omina, Atlantean dragon councilor. The African dragon councilor Andam. Kulde, the European dragon councilor and finally Sun Park, Asian dragon councilor and her mentor. Lao Shi served as an advisor, though this was just a title the council gave him to keep their eyes on him.

"Ah, there you are, let's get going", Sun said. Haley merely nodded and followed Sun. After all, she needed the training, there would always be new enemies, bigger challenges and she had a duty she couldn't run away from. The alternative was being an exile and ending up as Jake. Alone, forgotten and probably executed by the dragon council's agents. With those thoughts a single tear flowed down her face, a single testimony to how she felt deep inside. A single witness to the sadness she felt and she prayed that Sun wouldn't see it, lest she'd think Haley would break. No, Haley wouldn't be replaced, she'd make sure of that. Because the next in line was Gregory and that would mean the magical community's damnation. A single pat of Fu Dog, got her out of her thoughts, her one good friend. At least he understood what she was going through, she'd be able
"Councilor Park, Lao Shi, we need to talk," the voice from Kulde called from behind. So they left Haley and Fu Dog alone. Far from matters that didn't concern her.

-Back in the Long residence-

"Susan, I still think letting Haley take that dangerous job is crazy!" Jonathan said, "You saw what it did to Jake and he's a lot older than Haley!"
"I know Jonathan, but what can we do, my father demanded it," Susan replied.
"I'm just concerned for her safety," he replied
"I know," Susan sighed.

Ok, so about the info I'd love to know about OC's is

1: Where do their loyalities reside? Is your character a villain? A council loyalist? A vigilante that joins Jake and Reggie (only for non-dragons)? Or a Dragon fed up with the council?
2: Do they have a romantic interest? (Not Spud, Trixie, Jake or Rose; will allow most other character, including the new ones that pop up in chapters (in case of another OC, only with permission of the one who submitted it)
3: Any other useful information you consider necessary.

Greetings

Joniedinofreak