A/N: So, yeah, sorry this chapter was a day late, guys, but here it is.


Chapter 3: Awareness

"Ah, wait! Come back!" one of the two brothers called out desperately after the fleeing teenagers, from where the body that the twins shared from their vine-waists down had fallen. "Our all-star review opens on Terra Bogaton in a week!" The rushed words were just out of the ginger-haired brother's mouth a second before they noticed an unusual high-pitched whine coming from beneath them.

About a second later, a blast of steam from the geyser they'd fallen on sent the brothers' monstrous shared body darting in circles round the steam column faster than its large stocky legs should have been able to carry it, long green tendrils all curled to the gargantuan creature's rear end. The brothers had just enough time on finally ending their comical run, to see the adolescents drive away into the Wastelands on their rides; taking the producer brothers' star with them. The two let out a roar of defeat and hugged their humanoid upper-bodies together in their grief. The comforting embrace lasted for all of two seconds before the ginger-haired brother glared and pointed a finger.

"This is all your fault!"

"What? My fault?!" The dark-haired brother exclaimed in outrage.

"You heard me!"

"No, it was your idea to come to Terra Neon!" the dark-haired one snapped back.

"Well we couldn't go to Toledos with that dragon flying about!" the orange-haired retorted.

"Dragon?! You mean that fancy tabloid hack!" The dark-haired exclaimed.

"Oh, so a tabloid hack burned a whole terra did it?!" All while the brothers were busy squabbling, they didn't notice anything slithering in amongst the Wasteland's crags around them.

"Ay, ya know we don't have any stars yet," the orange-haired groaned aloud miserably, slapping a hand over his eyes. "It can't get any worse…" It was just then that his brother went wide-eyed at something and lightly elbowed the orange-haired to open his eyes. Lava eels were slithering in across the barren black land towards them, jaws snapping and roaring hungrily as they closed in on the gargantuan-bodied brothers from all sides.

"For you I've got news…" the dark-haired brother murmured grimly to his twin.


Word had quickly spread amongst the skies over the last ten days since the visit to the Forbidden City. In those first few days, it had been carrier ships disappearing in the skies; some being found taken down and torn apart in the Wastelands, with few survivors found, who were horribly burned and screaming of the alleged dragon they'd seen. But it had been just a spreading rumour, until the so-called dragon had attacked a terra in the area, scorching dozens alive and burning much of the mountaintop's landscape to such a severe extent that most of it was left a scorched-bare rock.

Word of the dragon that had suddenly appeared in Atmos spread rather quickly after that, as more ships continued to disappear in the same quadrant, and eventually even another terra further out was attacked. The supposed menace of this dragon was soon the headline of most Atmos news; especially as all attempts to capture, hunt or destroy the destructive beast failed dramatically, and ship after ship saw the great bloodred-scaled monster flying in the skies; a second before it incinerated them with its destructive fiery breath and tore away at its victims with its teeth and claws. Many were asking and gossiping about where this creature had sprung up from after dragons had been believed long extinct for centuries, and what its appearance meant. There were all sorts of theories and gossip being passed between people at sky pit-stops and terra communities, as news of another dragon sighting or another ship taken down in fire and destruction went over the news.

And that was what the dragon that was becoming increasingly well-known across the Atmos was doing right now; laying waste to another terra that had caught his sights. Smaug cast his great shadow across the scream-filled town upon the terra, its pathetic inhabitants quailing in fear; as he flew fast above the houses and halls, and unleashed a great torrent of fire forth from his jaws to bathe the town below in ruin.

Yet another chorus of agonised screams rose up to Smaug in the air, as a handful of dozens were instantly incinerated along with a great stretch of their town, quite to the dragon's pleasure. A few archers quickly started firing from their rooftop vantage points at the powerful beast flying overhead, but their crystal projectiles merely bounced away or exploded harmlessly against the dragon's impenetrable hide, without any damage done. Smaug laughed a deep, growling laugh of mockery that the mortals were thinking to pierce him with such weapons, the sound cutting through the night air. A second afterwards, Smaug unleashed yet another destructive stream of fire from his jaws, which washed and burned across the town's rooftops as his draconic shape swooped overhead, burning the archers away to ashes before they could even attempt to flee with their worthless lives.

Within a total of sixty more seconds, the town was little more than a ruin; with rubble littering the streets from where Smaug's claws and his explosive fire-breath had reduced buildings and towers to pieces raining down on the streets. Whilst those of the mortals that were still alive; just like any vermin did, scuttled and scampered frantically over the dead and cried out pathetically. But screaming would do no more to save them than it did all the many others that had screamed in Smaug's presence throughout his life before he'd ended them; and if they thought he was anywhere near finished with them yet, then they were mistaken!

Climbing slightly higher in the air that was growing thicker with smoke, Smaug circled round the very edges of the town; his large, cruel silhouette hanging as a deathly shadow above the flames that engulfed half the town. And once he had completed his circle, Smaug made a beeline low over the town, burning many more streets and screaming people away in his fire-breath beneath him, as he made straight for the fifty-foot statue at the centre. He splayed out his hind-claws to catch the giant stone just in time, jarring it loose with minimal resistance from it, and sent it shooting hard along the ground ahead of him to raze much more of the town away to ruin and death.

Smaug grinned maliciously at all the death and suffering he wrought as he observed the trail of further loss of life left in the town statue's path. The dragon was already climbing higher in the air again, and proceeded to run another line of fiery destruction from one edge of the town all the way through to the other. The screams of the people dying below in Smaug's fire and ruin were becoming considerably lesser now, and his keen draconic eyesight clearly made out how the number of the bodies was rising and the number of the wailing living was falling.

It was only a few more blasts of dragonfire upon the streets and a few more buildings torn down under his claws before Smaug finally moved to retrieve the spoils he had come here for. There were still a good few wails of suffering rising into the air from the half-burned, half-destroyed town, but that was just the way Smaug wanted it – he wanted the few who had survived his wrath here tonight to spread word of the great death and destruction he had wrought upon them to the rest of Atmos, to make all the miserable mortals quail in fear of the threat of the dragon that would soon with time be coming for them all!

Smaug came in for a landing at the half-ruined town square, touching down smoothly as a plane on all fours, as his massive form filled the entire spacious yard. His fiery yellow eyes glowed piercingly out on his head as he fixed his gaze upon a certain, moderately-high hall-building in particular, and he went to work tearing the foundation's roof and walls away to get to what was within.

Within seconds, Smaug soon found it – the vaults and bags' worth of shining silver and gold hidden away in the bank's walls, his eyes lighting up with a greedy feeling of elation at the sight of the precious coins he beheld before him. After taking a couple seconds to admire the sight of them, Smaug scooped the gold up in his hind-claw; the room-filling amount fitting snugly within the dragon's massive paw. Then he climbed to the top of the ruin, all bat-like on his forelimbs; he leaned forward over the top of the roof, with his wings spread, and with a great pump of them, took to the air. But as Smaug's terrible shape flew over the burning town and away towards the night sky, the dragon was sure to let loose one last stream of molten fire upon the already-devastated town below; leaving a whole half-mile's worth of further burning ruin in his passing.

Smaug flew far for miles towards his destination; he was little more than a fluid shadow in the great expanse of the skies, though his body was barely tired when he finally came upon it from his latest plunder. Deep into an uninhabited and relatively-ignored region of Atmos, where no inhabited terras poked above the clouds and no human ships passed through for miles and miles; Smaug's shape swooped through the remote valley of barren crags pointing to the sky, heading towards one in particular near the centre of the outcropping. The great fire-drake's flight-speed slowed as he upon the cave opening in the jagged central crag; landing smoothly upon the ledge, before he immediately crawled in through the cave mouth, coming out into the current lair he had claimed for himself with his fresh spoils in hand.

Smaug's fiery gaze looked about the vast cavern within the crag that he had established as his lair, looking to see if a single piece from the coins and crystals littering the cave floor was missing. The cavern was vast enough for Smaug's massive size to fit within as he crawled inside, though it was still nowhere near the glorious vastness of the Lonely Mountain's halls. Smaug's head could just brush the cavern ceiling if he stood to his full height and stretched his neck high, and the distance from one cavern wall to the other was barely more than twice Smaug's own full length (though that was still a very great distance). The treasure that Smaug was gathering to himself here in this lair was little more than a very light littering of gold and crystals about the cave floor, their light casting faint but shining glows of gold and multicoloured-gems across the cave. Though that would all soon change, Smaug thought darkly. After all, just a week ago this cave had barely had more than enough coins and crystals to spread across half its floor. And Smaug had every intention of gathering a treasure hoard greater than even his old one in Erebor, under him again before he was finished.

Letting the new metal coins he had taken for his hoard gently slide from between the claws of his hind-paws to join the rest of his beautiful collection on the cave floor, Smaug lay his massive body down and curled it around a large portion of the thin floor of coins almost protectively, letting the shining treasure all around him bring him the great sense of satisfaction to rest as he lay himself down to sleep. It was true that just as dragons could sleep for anything between days and decades when they had a satisfying bed of treasure all to themselves, they could go for weeks without sleep before they became in health-threatening need of rest; but Smaug still took rest when he could get it, he was not so foolish a wyrm as to go dulling his strength and senses by spending too much time awake.

But as Smaug closed his large eyes and withdrew his mind to deep slumber, the huge dragon's low rumbling noises reverberating powerfully off his lair's cave walls; Smaug's thoughts went back to the magic that had tainted him after his fall at Lake-Town, bringing back a lick of disgust as Smaug remembered the taint he now bore with it. Smaug had examined it with his draconic brain's great mental faculties, feeling that there was something different inside of him, which he had no doubt the magic that had infected him was responsible for. Smaug had been unsuccessful so far in finding any knowledge on this accursed magic, nor what threat it could pose to him that he could only speculate on; in his plunder of the Atmos for treasure. But one thing the dragon knew for certain was that if he scanned and searched on it hard enough, he could just sense something radiating from some unknown source. Something powerful… And that interested the dragon more than almost anything else.


Three weeks after the Forbidden City, the Condor stabilised in the green-tinted air of the Great Expanse as it finished its ride out of the maelstrom in one piece; just barely. But onboard, whilst Aerrow breathed a sigh of relief at their survival, Stork was just staring dead ahead from his station at the helm, as though he'd just lost something important.

"My cabbage…" the Merp helmsman murmured airily after the cargo they'd had to dump into the storm to escape. Then he immediately rounded on Junko, looking angry. "You dumped the whole load!"

"Yeah… well, sometimes, you know, the tough choices have to be… um… you know… chosen," the wallop Storm Hawk stuttered as he tried to excuse himself. Stork didn't look the least bit impressed as he just lowered his face and put two fingers to his temple with a bitter sigh.

"Uh, guys?" Finn called to get everyone's attention. "Our friend is back…!"

Sure enough, at that moment the dreaded eerie figure of the Sky Siren – the one who had lured them all into the Expanse like a trap, and who had just now tried to trick them into flying right to their doom – reappeared hovering off the floor before the squadron, strands and tendrils of unearthly violet-glowing energy twisting and emanating around her green-skinned female form.

"Is it just me or does she looked majorly peeved this time…?" Piper pointed fearfully as the Siren bore her perfect-looking fanged white teeth in a frightening snarl, her milky-white eyes narrowed under her twisting hair.

"We escaped her little trap, so now it's personal," Aerrow reasoned, scowling at the Siren. Who was now raising her clawed hands, the glowing purple energy gathering and building around them. "Everyone, stay at your posts!" Aerrow called out, knowing what the Siren was about to do.

"Her only power is illusion," Piper spoke up to get everyone's attention, her face fixed in defiant determination. "Resist, no matter what she throws at you!" The Storm Hawks only had a second to register the Sky Siren's savage grin at them before, in one great swoop, she sent a blast of power from her hands hurtling straight at their minds…

Piper looked around for a second, then felt an awed gasp escape her chest at the beautiful orange-gold crystal she saw hovering in front of her…

"A Helix Stone…" she murmured, her hands drifting towards the crystal without conscious accord. "The most powerful crystal imaginable!" And it was right here for her, practically calling for her, the deepest desire she could have…

Deepest desire…

No!

"No, I don't want it!" Piper told herself, turning away from the Helix Crystal as she desperately tried to force herself to focus on what was really happening. "I don't want it!"

"Ah, but I do," a familiar but far from welcome voice suddenly caught Piper's attention. And she turned to see a familiar girl about her age holding the floating Helix Stone above the palm of her hand, one who that crystal belonged in the hands of less than anyone else. Master Cyclonis, her personal nemesis.

"NO!" Piper screeched out desperately, ready to move forward rather than see Cyclonis use something this powerful for evil…!

The Sky Siren smirked triumphantly from where she floated in the air as she watched her victims fall prey to the illusions of their own desires, just as so many more before them had and had fallen to their doom. They were all putting up more of a fight than they had before now that they knew, but if they wouldn't embrace their desires' lures willingly then they would just be pushed to it by their fears.

The girl in particular desperately fought the urge to take her deepest desire and banish her worst fear. The Sky Siren frowned a little at all their persistence, but it only prompted the wicked creature to push them that little harder… So when each of them tried to push their desires away, the Sky Siren either forced them to their desires or brought out their fears to mentally push them towards it, going deeper in her anger the further they still resisted. The particular girl, the Sky Siren found; had a fear relating to this other girl, this Cyclonis, and what she could do if the wrong things fell into her hands. One that ran rather deep, the Sky Siren found as she went deeper…

Until she came across something that had nothing to do with the girl's fears or desires and was latched into her core…

Something… connecting?


Suddenly, Piper had a split second to feel a jolt of strange power of some kind run through her like a powerful shock, surging and reaching through the connection within her, running to the other end like along a power line. Then, as that power's transmission reached its end, the dragon Smaug's yellow eyes bulged in his head and he recoiled mid-flight in the shock of what he felt.

Smaug had cried out as he'd felt the strange jolt of energy surge into him from some inlet within, filling him up, and took a moment to regain control of himself on the air; hovering on his wings. Whatever it was, in that moment, he had felt like he were close to what humans would probably call a god, like he were invincible! And then, it had stopped and gone again, as though it were just a spark of the actual thing.

Smaug shook his head on his long, muscular neck, astonished at the connection and what he'd just felt with it triggered within his being. He'd known there was something different in him before; as though whatever magic had tainted him had twisted and reformed something inside his being, or perhaps had added something extra inside of him (like a parasite laying an egg in its host!), but it wasn't until now that he'd been fully aware of it. The connection had seemed to just come out of nowhere, Smaug mentally noted, his mind immediately going fast through the calculations and possibilities of what it was and what it could mean.

What he had just felt was linked to the magic that was now inside of him, Smaug was sure of it. But at the power jolt he had felt it bring, Smaug had not felt paranoia of an infectious threat inside him as would usually be his first reaction. He wanted it, he wanted the source of that power that would make him stronger!

It was enough to set Smaug's mind, as he narrowed his fiery gaze as though he could burn through the sky with it to see what he sought. Now his top priorities were no longer just collecting a new treasure hoard for himself and enacting his revenge on mortals in Atmos. He now had his mind set on a greater treasure than any gold, on a power that could make him even stronger than the great dragon already was… or pose a threat to him from within like a parasite. But Smaug was confident that it would be the former, and he would find it no matter how long he had to scour the skies or the Wastelands below.


Piper fell down to the flight deck's floor with a disoriented groan, a haze across her mind like she were just waking up out of a dream. Or rather, like she had been forcefully woken from one by an electric shock.

"Yes! I've got the Time Pulse beacon back!" Piper heard Finn call out from where he was at the Condor's instruments, as she shook off the hazy feeling of the illusion – and the new, immaterial thing she had clearly felt inside of and extending out from her that she hadn't been aware of before…

"Keep resisting!" Piper called out to her squad-mates from where she'd fallen to the floor. "I think we're overloading her powers!" No-one even noticed the way the Sky-Siren, its glowing aura drained from exertion where it floated; seemed to glare for that moment at her in particular, almost as though disturbed by something it had seen.


A/N: Please tell me what you think, reviews are more than welcome!