Author's Notes: This is my very first story. I apologize for any typos or mistakes. Still trying to figure this thing out.
Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural or it's characters! I only own Ember and the dragons.
• Chapter One •
Ambush in the Windy City
Chicago bustled under the black night sky, glittering with streetlights and the headlights of cars as if dusted with glitter. The full moon stared down at Earth like a giant white eye, the stars glittering across the vast black sky. Christmas was nearly a week away, and the ground was layered with five inches of snow at the least.
Car horns, Christmas bells, sirens, the occasional yell of an enraged local could be heard from the outskirts of the town. But something still seemed abnormal to the large city. Strange black cars quietly patrolled the outskirts of Chicago, as if searching for something. Ember flashed a triumphant grin as they failed to spot her as she shot through the sky overhead on a silver dragon.
Ember was a small fifteen-year-old teenager, no more than five feet tall, had pale skin, as if the color had been drained from it. Freckles speckled her face, ranging from cheek to cheek, keeping around her nose. Her tree-bark colored hair was tied in a short, curly ponytail which was kept by a black hairband. Her forest green eyes, flecked with silver, shown with recklessness and cheer most of the time. She could have been compared to a fox, small and compact, with sharp movements and a certain alertness that seemed to edge every thought that run wild in her mind. She was attired in a black hoodie that was thick, a white dragon patterned over her heart. Her jeans were loose and dark navy, and black boots slipped onto her feet.
/Up a little more, Enclave./ she sent the thought to the dragon beneath her, casting a nervous look at the black-clad men baring machine guns. /We're fine./ the silver dragon sniffed back, although cockiness edged her thought. The dragon was no longer than two Toyota Tundras backed against each other with not an inch to spare in between. She was short-bodied, her tail ranging to nine feet. Her wingspan was twenty feet with her wings spread out as far as they would allow. Enclave's scales gleamed like a shiny new half-dollar. Small, ridged scales protruded from her spine, needle-like and sharp as her teeth. Near the end of her tail, two extra bones jutted out, connecting with the last two feet of the tail with white and silver dappled skin, matching the membranes on her wings.
Her golden eyes were as large as a small dinner plate, and shone beautifully with paler gold webbed like cobwebs around her black pupils. The dragon's eyes had always reminded Ember of the gold dollar her friend had given her a decade ago, long before Temeraria happened.
Temeraria happened five years ago this very day, to be precise. It was a snowy day, cold and quiet as expected. That morning the dragon struck the White House. It had been turned into dust and rubble by the time authorities had reached it. Dragons were to blame seemingly, but it was honestly the scientists who had caused it. The only ones at fault were they. But they never took responsibility for their faults. The particular dragon had been subjected to rage inducing experiments for anonymous reasons, causing it to build up far too much frustration. It had broken free of the secluded laboratory earlier that morning and I suppose you could say the White House happened to be the path of the creature. The president had been killed along with his family, and the rest of the people trapped in the huge building. They had always blamed dragons - claiming that they were Hell's pets - not the scientists, who had been very much at fault.
/Where's the building?/ Ember asked, scanning the bright lights of the city for the structure she had seen so many times when studying it. They darted through the freezing night air, it was so cold that frost accumulated on Enclave's silvery scales, which reflected the lights from Chicago. Ember noted this and worried. /Fly a little higher. Your scales are casting shards./ she grunted, shuddering as they passed a particularly cold air current. Enclave soared through it for a moment, ceasing to flap her wings and let herself drift along the current. /Stop basking. We have to find the building./ she snorted, slightly amused. /Why are you so bossy today?/ Enclave shot back, obeying despite the retort and grinning to herself. /This is an important! We need to rejoin with Clawz and Dean./ Ember hissed through her mind. /There!/ she gasped, almost missing it. It was a short building, no more than one story high and a mile long.
The old mall was deteriorated in some places, but the bricks were holding up. /Where's Clawz and Dean../ she thought, scanning the place for her friends and their dragons. /Hmmm./ she sighed, sitting back in the saddle strapped to Enclave's shoulders. The saddle was made of leather, one strap wound tightly around the base of the silver dragon's neck and another strap wrapped snugly behind her shoulders. /Land there,/ Ember signaled towards the back of the big building.
Enclave spiraled into a dive, stretching out her wings and pulling back to alight in the overgrown parking lot. In most places the asphalt was cracked with weeds prospering in between. A gaping hole caved in about the one forth of the distance to the left across. Graffiti was painted on everything. The faded spray paint was tattooed on the walls of the building, almost every inch was covered with varied colors and images. One depicted a red dragon. An all too familiar dragon. /Clawz needs to be more careful. Someone spotted Conjour./ Ember commented, unbuckling herself from the saddle and sliding off Enclave's shoulders.
Not a moment later, a guttural growl echoed from the empty hallways of the abandoned mall. Ember and Enclave froze with alarm at the same moment. Enclave's eyes narrowed until the slit was no wider than a scrap of paper. /Get ready./ The silver dragon hissed, studying the black depths of the exposed hallway. The strange noise sounded from the yawning hole again. /It-/ Ember started, but stopped as a familiar fifteen-year old girl appeared out of the yawning aperture. She was about the same height as Ember - if not the smallest bit shorter - but had short, dark, curly red hair that reminded her of blood that hung down to her shoulders and brown eyes flecked with carmine. Her skin was a bit darker than Ember's pale flesh. She was also dressed in a similar hoodie, but the differences were colors. Hers was pale gray with a red dragon staring solemnly upwards. Her pants were black. She was spattered with gore.
"Clawz!" Ember exclaimed at the sight of the carnage. "What happened? Did you run into trouble? Where's Dean?" She poured questions on her friend and hurried over, Enclave right behind her. A large shadow fell over Clawz. "There were a few complications." Clawz said, leering. The shadow gave the same growl Ember and Enclave heard from the hallway, and a mottled crimson dragon appeared. The red dragon stood about twenty-nine feet tall and was larger than Enclave.
"Conjour and I lost Dean and Chem about a half a mile back. He said he'd be right back and that he had to do something." Clawz sniffed. "We had fun though. He," she gestured towards the ample bloody dragon. "Almost got himself caught. But we lost them." She said quickly.
Conjour's neck towered over the dragon and two humans, lanky enough to reach the roof of the building standing somberly beside them. His scales were red, black scales spanning out over his entire, long agile body and giving him a mottled look. The length of his body was thirty five feet at the least, his neck and tail ten feet drawn. Serrated teeth stuck out from under his jawline like kitchen knives. The membranes of his wings were dark red with black meshed over the skin, forming a peculiar pattern across the bridge of his shoulders that looked like a pair of ominous eyes. The berms of the membranes looked as if they had been eaten away by acid, leaving them looking like shot-up paper. The wingspan of the gore-smeared dragon was forty feet at the least. His maroon eyes were peppered with brighter, blood red motes.
A thick black horn topped the end of his snout. There were no ridged scales that ran along his spine unlike Enclave, but black spikes stuck upwards from his spine near his haunches.
"What kind of complications?" Ember said slowly, prudent of Clawz' dragon's presence now. Clawz seemed genuinely amused. "The kind of complications that carry machine guns." She snorted, shaking her head. "Dean led them away. I told him not to but he didn't seem to care.." She trailed off there. Ember frowned. "What happened..?" She asked, somewhat quietly.
"We were flying over Bloomington when we ran into trouble. Apparently there are Caenons there, too." Caenons were a secret society of the government, meant to hunt and kill whatever remaining dragons hid in caves like hunted rabbits. They were established after Temeraria, only they didn't exactly call that terrible incident Temeraria. Temeraria was a term that the dragons - and the ones who allied with them - had labeled it as. The Caenons called it the "Dragon's act of Bellum", which, translated from Latin, was of course Dragon's Act Of War. Clawz, Ember and Dean knew at least four of the deadly, secret agents were stationed in every state, but their whereabouts were unknown to the three.
"They spotted us and shot, but missed most of the time." Clawz paused, waiting for Ember to start.
"/Most/ of the time? Were any of you hurt?" She demanded, prickling with unease.
Clawz frowned. "I'm not sure. Conjour has a bullet hole in his left wing, but Dean and Chem weren't hurt as far as I know." She sighed. "When they showed up, Dean contacted me and told me that he would lead them away. We landed a minute after he left, then that's when a couple of the Caenons ambushed us. We got away - not to mention that the agents didn't." She added with a devious grin.
They then noticed all of Chicago seemed to go silent. Not a car horn blared, nor were there sounds of people hurrying home and yelling for a taxi. Not a sound. It was as if the populated city was holding its breath.
A sudden shrill, warning shriek sounded, quickly superseded by a harsh, wailing siren. Something green suddenly vaulted from from the sky, hurling like a comet towards the abandoned parking lot.