"Do you see them anywhere?" Ruggar heard his wingman call as he felt a familiar lurch in his stomach. It had taken him ages of flying Ignis to get used to the feeling whenever the fire wyvern beat his wings. Ignis was a stellar flyer—able to outmaneuver even enemy argents if he put his mind to it—but they didn't need to worry about such birds this far into the desert's dunes.
"Nothing yet." Ruggar called back, slowing to a stop in order to scan the sloping dunes below. The earth was dotted with little specks of rugged life—Ruggar could make out the exoskeletons of manti and arthropleura with the occasional flock of vultures, but nothing that he was looking for. He glanced back up towards the air to find a familiar poison wyvern closing in and coming to a stop just before Ignis.
"I'm coming up blank too." Ruggar's wingman didn't have to shout so loud once they were wyvern-to-wyvern. "And we've been at this all morning. Honestly I don't know why Command couldn't send the argents. Using two wyverns for a simple search-and-rescue is just overkill. Cass wanted to go see what the traveling merchants had in stock, but Command just had to call me away."
"Calm down, Salamis." Ruggar's voice was turning hoarse from spending the morning in the scorching sun. He reached for his canteen and took a short drink, taking extra care to save the sacred liquid. "Command has its reasons. We're soldiers of the tribe, not politicians. Our place is to follow orders—not make them." But his wingman Salamis did have a point. Riders of the wyvern brigade—Ruggar and Salamis included—were usually saved for dire conditions on the battlefield. Sending not one but two out for a low-caliber mission was…peculiar. Ruggar wondered just how high value this missing person was. But Ruggar made it his place not to question Command. The tribe had grown into the beginnings of a city-state, and with all the population growth he had to assume Command was acting with everyone's best intentions. Salamis' wyvern Venom let out a low rumble that awoke Ruggar from his reverie. The fire rider turned his gaze back to the searing desert below to find a misshapen black figure poking out of the dunes.
"Hey, do you see that over there?" Ruggar called to his wingman. Salamis' sandy hair whipped in the wind as he followed Ruggar's pointing finger. The poison rider looked back at his wingman and they each gave a silent nod. It was a simple communication that no longer needed to be vocalized between two veteran soldiers: engage. Ruggar dug his toes into Ignis' back, asking for a dive. Ignis gave a roar as his red wings folded slightly and he nearly plummeted to the sands below. Salamis wasn't far behind—Ruggar could hear heavy wings flapping as the poison rider landed behind him. The sand dune shook as the two legendary beasts thundered onto the ground. Ruggar peered over the spikes on Ignis' back and at the collapsed morellatops. The desert wind had coated the majority of the animal in sand so that its entire right flank was embedded into the dunes. The other half of its body was curled around a clump of clothing. Ruggar
could only assume the site was the remains of the missing merchant.
Ruggar swung himself off Ignis' back and planted his feet onto the dusty sand. He began walking toward the figure when he felt an unusual lurch in the ground. He looked back at Venom to see if his wingmate had caused it, but the poison wyvern was obliviously looking back at him with no intention of budging. Ruggar's confusion gave way to dread as the dunes shook more.
And more.
And more.
Ruggar barely had time to leap back onto his wyvern when the colossus exploded out of the ground, showering its previous victims with a new coating of sand. Its mess of appendages curled in anticipation of its next meal.
"Deathworm!" Salamis shouted over the monster's animalistic clicking. "Run!" Ruggar didn't need to be told twice. Ignis leapt into the air as his wings narrowly missed a bite from the worm's maw. Ruggar let Ignis fly forward for a bit before turning him around for an attack run—he knew Salamis would be keeping the worm busy while Ignis was fleeing. Wyvern riders fought in pairs and took turns engaging the threat while the other was busy reorienting their wyvern. Ruggar steered back onto a direct course to the deathworm and commanded the wyvern to attack. A stream of fire plumed out of Ignis' mouth and the deathworm was drenched in fire within seconds. The fire wyvern added a passing bite at the worm's head while Salamis pulled back. It only took a few more passes for the deathworm to meet its end. The worm let out one last cry before its body collapsed to the ground.
Ruggar landed Ignis not far from the wreckage. The deathworm was a piece of work—claw marks, acid sores and burns now covered the once-hardened creature. Deathworms were easily one of the most dangerous creatures in the desert—battling one was a harrowing experience that few survive, even atop a wyvern. The wyverns made short work of processing the carcass into meat for the tribe while Ruggar went to inspect the fallen merchant. He had assumed that his mission of returning the individual alive had failed.
Ruggar walked up to the morellatops and brushed away the sand covering the merchant beneath. He had expected the sands to be stained with red, but there was no blood to be found. Curious, Ruggar respectfully tugged the merchant out of the dunes to get a better look. It was a woman, wrapped in coarse cloth rather than the popular desert armor Ruggar and most other tribe mates wore. Her hair was black and unusually long for a human on the ARK. And there were absolutely no injuries. Baffled, Ruggar put two fingers to her corroded artery to check for a pulse.
And he found one.
The wyvern rider was baffled. This woman was hardly a few feet from the deathworm's nest, and it didn't bother to eat her. That was unheard of. Deathworms were notoriously territorial, and more than willing to pounce on prey—especially if it was incapacitated. The morellatops was done for—the deathworm apparently had no qualms eating it, but for some reason it left the woman alone. Ruggar briefly wondered if he should leave her alone in case she brought some sort of curse to the village, but he loaded her onto Ignis anyway. A mission was a mission—he was instructed with the safe return of the missing merchant. He'd let the elders of Command decide what to do with her.
Hey-o! RisingPhoenix56 here. First off, thanks for reading through the chapter (unless you just skipped down to here, in which case get back up to the top of the page). This fic is actually a writing exercise rather than the deliberate concepts I usually post. I was playing around with a new writing style and I kinda liked the premise that was coming out. So I decided to just screw it and upload anyways. I've got a main idea for this fic, but the major plotline hasn't been decided yet.
I also haven't decided if I'm going to continue this. That decision will probably depend on how well this first chapter is received and/or if I want to write any more. So if you want me to continue this, let me know in a PM or something and I'll add it to my update list.
I also brushed off my old Twitter page where I'll start posting progress on upcoming updates to my stories. You can follow me 56RisingPhoenix