Old steamer: Thank you for your review. I'm afraid I don't have any further plans for the Sky Siren beyond the last chapter, however.
Chapter 4: Contact
It had been a few days since the Storm Hawks had escaped the Great Expanse, from which no ship had ever returned before. Finn and Stork had both had the Condor to themselves for the day while Aerrow, Piper and Radarr were taking Junko to see a dentist about his chaotic toothache; but whilst Finn had been itching to take down some Cyclonian cruisers, Stork had only been interested in his book.
That was when a message had come from Terra Vapos (on a white falcon that had just vanished to dust moments later), calling for their heroic Domo's help. Finn remembered the time when the Storm Hawks had stumbled on the legendary long-lost terra by accident, and Finn had become its Domo and saved it from Verrocs; right before Stork popped his bubble of the good times' memories. Stork had been reluctant to go and become their Domo's song-writing minstrel, but Finn had pushed him into it between that or dealing with more Cyclonians by himself.
When they arrived on Terra Vapos, Finn and Stork had been quite disturbed as the ruler King Agar had physically shown them that the people were all literally fading away, and needed their home's energies replenished. And when Agar told them that for that they needed Serpergris – found only in the stomachs of dragons – Finn, and Stork especially, had momentarily grown immediately fearful at the thought of trying to find the only dragon known to be living in Atmos, which they'd heard of over the last few weeks. Thankfully, their fears had been alleviated when Agar had shown them a map to the last known Serpergris deposit. And wouldn't one know it, it was just as Stork had tried to wish Finn good luck on his quest and slip back to the ship, that the people of Vapos had named him the Domo's minstrel who would have to go with him on the quest to write of his accomplishment.
Which brought Finn and Stork to where they were now; the Great Domo as Terra Vapos had hailed him, leading the way into a dark, foreboding-looking cave whilst Stork was improvising a less-than-optimistic song at the back.
Stork immediately began to shudder in paranoia at the sight of the massive broken bones, that the light from Finn's torch revealed littering the bare cave floor, like the leftovers of some ferocious beast's meals over ages.
"Ohhh… And this does not look… safe," Stork piped up in a voice high with his nerves.
"Relax dude," Finn spoke as he trudged on without noticing what he was walking towards; "there's only one dragon alive in Atmos right now, and it's a hundred miles away from-"
Finn was cut off with a cry as Stork suddenly pulled him back behind a rock, letting the torch fall away out of sight. A quick peak over the rock ledge they were hidden behind, and Finn immediately knew why, spying several figures in the opening below them – several amphibious figures dressed in pirate gear, gathered round an open chest.
"Here it is, boys," a deep, accented voice growled out as the familiar figure of Captain Scabulous pulled something out for all his men to see.
"I'd prefer… the dragons!" Stork hissed in a whisper next to Finn, the green-skinned Merp's large eyes wide with fear.
"Here's the plunder we've been looking for!" Captain Scabulous announced again, earning another round of cheers from his men as he held the glowing object up high victoriously.
"Murk Raiders," Stork groaned miserably in recognition of the sky pirates.
"And they have the Serpergris," Finn whispered gravely at the sight below them, his eyes never leaving the glowing vial held in Scabulous' hand.
Finn and Stork weren't able to do anything to intervene as the Murk Raiders left the cave with the Serpergris in hand, and they could only follow The Blood Crow that was Scabulous' ship in the Condor, as it had flown back towards Terra Deep. Stork was less than pleased when Finn remained set on getting the Serpergris back for the people of Vapos, and even less so when they wound up walking onto The Blood Crow disguised as pirates from another ship, to swab the decks.
Thankfully, after handwashing many eyepatches and scrubbing many floors and pipes, the disguised Storm Hawks' chance to grab the Serpergris was finally on them when they were serving at a celebratory feast amongst the crew; at which they saw the Serpergris hanging in a vial around Captain Scabulous' neck. Though Stork grimly declared that Finn would die trying to swipe the Serpergris, especially when Finn only just got his reaching hand out of that crew photo at the last millisecond.
But unbeknownst to anyone on The Blood Crow, they weren't the only ones whom wind of the last known Serpergris in Atmos had reached, and they weren't the only ones seeking such a precious treasure to claim for themselves right now…
"Time to go to Plan B," Finn hissed to Stork in a moment that they got to the side from the dinner; immediately taking up the domed platter-dish Stork had in his hands, and quickly putting on a straight-backed waiter-posture that went absurdly with Finn's grizzled pirate clothing.
"Do we even have a Plan B?" Stork hissed back, as Finn immediately strode over all waiter-like, to where Scabulous was completely occupied munching on a thick stick of meat. Finn waited, the Storm Hawk's blue eyes never leaving Scabulous, placing a loaf of meat out on an oblivious Murk Raider's head and another on the table. His opportunity finally came as Scabulous started jugging down a mug of water, Finn quickly reaching to the vial around his neck with the tongs…
Ting.
Scabulous stopped drinking. A second later, a powerful three-fingered hand was wrapped around Finn's hand that held the tongs, pulling him hard towards the furious captain's snarling, scarred face.
"And just what do ya think YOU'RE doing?!" the Captain growled furiously into Finn's face, the latter only able to whimper fearfully for his life without a good answer as the Captain and every Raider at the table glared right at him. Then, one frantic look around the room by Stork later; and classical music was playing from the recorder and filling the dining room. Finn immediately caught on and laughed nervously as he turned back to the Captain.
"Asking you for a dance?" Finn proposed. There was a long moment where all the Raiders continued to glare at Finn, whilst Scabulous turned the non-scarred side of his face to peer at and examine the sweating boy out of his one eye thoughtfully.
"Don't mind if I do! Hah-hah!"
A moment later, Stork could only stare dumbfounded with his shoulders drooping, as the frightening pirate captain took Finn gracefully waltzing around the room, the other Murk Raiders all following example with each-other jovially.
"You're very light on yer feet!" Scabulous cheered to his dancing partner, laughing loudly.
"Help," Finn just managed to whine over his shoulder desperately, to where Stork had just found himself waltzing with Eyeball.
"I would have preferred the trip to Wallops," Stork murmured flatly.
Finn and Stork were thankful when Scabulous and Eyeball finally exchanged partners on the dining hall-turned-dance floor, and quickly went waltzing away together. And it couldn't have been soon enough either, because it was just three seconds later that Eyeball opened his single eye and pointed out the leg of meat replacing the Serpergris on the Captain's neck. The music immediately died down as Scabulous held up and glared at the meat.
"THIEVES!" he screamed after the two newbies who had just slipped away. "AFTER THEM!" The Captain's voice rung out throughout the ship, followed by the yelling of every angry crewmember onboard.
The Condor was just lifting off from where it had been parked nearby yet out of sight in the green murk of Terra Deep, when something happened that no-one had been expecting. A rumbling sound carried on the wind towards them, its echo building until it was clear it was the building roar of something powerful and bestial, coming straight in. From where they'd just been taking off the Condor to make their getaway, Finn and Stork still in their pirate-disguises, could only stare in spine-chilled terror at the sound out into the murk; a split-second before a fast-moving yet great shadow passed by in front of their ship.
The crew of The Blood Crow had noticed it too, as their ship had just been getting up as well. And they had just a second to react to it before the huge form of a dragon; cruel and terrible and about the same size as a carrier ship; swooped towards their ship with impressive speed.
The dragon twisted round the bigger Murk Raider ship in the murk-fogged air – and unleashed a streaming bellyful of orange fire across The Blood Crow's grubby red hull as it flew by, the flames bathing and rolling over the metal. As Finn and Stork could only stare in jaw-dropping horrified awe from where they were desperately trying to pull their ship away fast, explosions boomed and blasted and tore across the burned area of the ship's hull, with the flames eating through it like the protective metal were nothing. At the same moment, the dragon was flying away from The Blood Crow straight towards them, faster than their ship could get away. Its front reared, hind-claws splayed; the dragon smashed the Condor to send it violently careening straight in a specific direction towards one of the looming spiky formations in the murk.
Stork and Finn both screamed from at the helm, as the Condor was jarred hard into the spikes; one particularly thin yet long one impaling the nearest of the ship's two main engine-arms as it was stuck in place. Stork desperately twisted the helm hard as though with all his strength, but the ship wouldn't budge and could only groan in protest – it was stuck firmly in place.
Meanwhile, it seemed that the dragon wasn't yet done with The Blood Crow, as it flew back towards the pirate ship, unleashing a torrent of roaring flames that ate and burned further into it and caused further damage. By now, the dragon's fire had eaten all the way through the hull so that the halls and layout underneath, filled with Murk Raiders frantically running about, were clearly visible.
As if on cue, half a dozen crystal cannons immediately began firing huge bolts of violet energy upon the attacking menace, but the energy-bolts merely deflected and exploded harmlessly upon the dragon's undamaged hide, as it circled around the pirate ship. At their strikes, the dragon opened its jaws and laughed; a deep, terrible growling sound of a laugh that rolled over the spiky landscape and the two ships within it.
Finn and Stork could only stare from out on the bridge in pale-faced horror at hearing the dragon laugh, a very intelligent sound that spoke of the beast's immense power and deadliness all at once.
The Blood Crow's cannons continued firing on the beast desperately, but the dragon's hide continued deflecting the blasts without a scratch to a scale. The dragon swooped by the gun deck; the gunmen at the cannons barely having a second to even try to run, before the dragon's fire burned them, and their whole section of the ship, away to nothing.
Finn was staring practically bug-eyed with terror at the fate that could well be his and Stork's at any moment now. "Stork, we've gotta get out of here!"
"Nnngh… I'm trying!" Stork strained at the helm as he continued to desperately twist it with all his strength, trying to pull them free of the spike that had them stuck fast. But it wasn't budging. For a moment, Stork's face looked utterly defeated, but then it quickly lit up again as a bright idea came to him. Pulling a lever, one second later; there was the sound of liquid gushing within the ship's impaled engine-arm, and black oily fluid came quickly oozing out through the puncture point around the spike. With one last great heave of the helm from Stork, the ship suddenly began lifting as the slippery fluid helped it slide on the spike; and within moments, the ship was free. The dragon sharply whirled its fiery gaze from where it had latched itself onto The Blood Crow's hull, just in time to see the Condor turn and blast away fast in the green air.
Enraged, the dragon gave a roar after the ship. Then, spreading and pumping its wings furiously, the dragon tore away from The Blood Crow; taking a very important chunk of the ship's internal workings out in its hind-claws. The pirate ship spun as it went falling down with the loss of its engines. Captain Scabulous and the Murk Raider crew onboard only had three seconds to scream in their descent, before their ship crashed hard and fast to the jagged, spiky landscape surface below it. The dragon was already flying away after the smaller ship that was getting away, pumping its wings hard.
The Condor sped hard and fast through the thick, obscuring air, the green murk rushing by fast all around it as it sped quickly free of Terra Deep's treacherous spike-crags. Finn breathed a sigh of relief on the bridge, whilst Stork never took his positively-bulging eyes away from the view ahead of them.
"I think we lost it."
CRASH!
The whole Condor shook violently a second after the words were out of Finn's mouth. Behind the speeding ship, the dragon's huge form loomed through the murk as it gave pursuit, the beast's savage yellow eyes piercing. It unleashed another torrent of fire at the ship, which just grazed past the rear side, nearly sending it violently off-course if not nearly destroying the propulsion engines. Stork just barely stabilised the ship and kept it flying, whilst the dragon's silhouette far behind through the now-fading murk didn't get any further away behind them.
"This is bad!" Stork positively squeaked out, his eyes never losing any of their readiness to pop right out of his skull. Even Finn was now looking distressed and frightened as the terrifying creature kept up with the ship that was at full-speed, and continued to bash and hit at it.
"We need help," Finn agreed gravely.
Junko continued to screech and struggle on the dentist's operating chair, kicking his legs frantically; as the frightening fellow wallop was literally on top of him pulling violently at his mouth, going on about not taking care of his teeth, and next tooth pulled out is the charm. Aerrow and Piper were both cringing behind the glass pane at the sight, and Radarr's face was going green again as the ferret-like Storm Hawk held his mouth shut with two paws.
Aerrow and Piper were almost relieved when the wallop desk-nurse who looked no less frightening than the bigger dentist, poked her head in through the door, radio microphone in hand.
"Call for you two," she said in her accented voice that sounded like a demented asylum doctor's.
Aerrow took the microphone and held it up to his face. "Hello? Who's there?"
Frantic-sounding, unintelligible shouting immediately came fighting through the hissing static over the radio, which sat just through the doorway on the nurse's desk from there. Though the voice was undoubtedly Finn's.
"Whoa, whoa," Aerrow quickly tried to placate, as Piper and Radarr both came over to see what was going on. "What's happening? You're… being hogged by a maggot…?"
"Being chased by a dragon!" the marksman Storm Hawk yelled out frantically clear through the radio speaker.
"WHAT?!" Aerrow and Piper both yelled loudly, as Radarr screeched, in shock.
A couple seconds later, the waiting room behind the glass pane was deserted as the Storm Hawks all went running out, leaving a very traumatised-looking member of their number to shake uncontrollably at the operating chair.
"Guysh? You shtill there?" Junko called out almost desperately for his friends with his mouth forced violently wide open again.
"Now, this should do thee trick," the dentist's accented voice spoke up; a second before Junko was screaming again as the drill came fast towards his mouth.
The Condor flew as hard and fast as it could go through the blurring cloud-banks, now long clear of Terra Deep. But the red dragon of equal size didn't seem to be giving up as it flew equally fast behind the ship, regularly shooting streams of molten fire at it which the Condor just barely twisted to avoid each time.
Finn desperately worked to force the pipes that were hissing steam back together as they strained with the ship, red lights and alarms blaring throughout the bridge.
"Stork, the Condor can't take much more of this!" Finn shouted over the havoc to the Merp helmsman, who held the helm in a very white-knuckled grip.
"I can shake that dragon off quick, there's an old crag system coming up ahead that'll take us straight through to Vapos!" Stork called back, his voice high with the severity of the situation as his eyes never once left the view in front of him.
"We can't do that," Finn moaned back, though there was an uncharacteristic sense of duty in his otherwise-straining voice as he rationalised: "We can't risk leading that thing back to Vapos!" Almost as though on que, Stork just barely managed to twist the ship harshly in time, as another torrent of flames skimmed over the right-hand engine-arm in front – close enough for the fire to burn the metal surface black.
"We can go around in twists and bends until we lose the thing, then head straight for Vapos!" Stork cried back, impressing Finn at how fast he'd rationalised frantically. Another distant roar signalling the dragon unleashing its fire again, at which the whole ship shook way too violently for comfort, was all Finn needed to decide there and then.
"Okay, do it!"
The Condor instantly went blasting almost frantically down, straight towards the barren, rocky land that loomed below through the clouds – a bare, uninhabited land of valleys of spiky, rocky, harsh terrain, just a little above the Wastelands – with the dragon remaining hot on the ship's trail.
Within seconds, the Condor was whooshing, bending and swerving through the vast network of jagged-lipped valleys that were more than wide enough to accommodate the carrier ship, as Stork struggled to shake the pursuing beast off of their trail. But the dragon wasn't giving up in the least; swooping, climbing and twisting to avoid every protruding rock and jagged spike that would hinder it, at every turn.
Smaug's fiery yellow eyes, blazing madly, remained firmly fixed upon his fleeing prey flying ahead. Smaug had heard rumour of the Serpergris – a mineral unfamiliar to him which was said to be produced in the stomachs of the (so-called) dragons that had once lived in Atmos millennia ago before going extinct. And naturally, of course, when the great dragon had heard that it may well have been the last ever deposit, he was invariably drawn. But when Smaug had arrived at the cave where this Serpergris was supposed to be, he had found nothing there; save the fresh scents in the cave to indicate that thieving mortals had arrived before him and taken the Serpergris. That was when Smaug had spied the two ships flying away; and, instantly arriving at the obvious conclusion, he had gone after them.
The dragon and the Condor must have played that deadly, risky game of cat and mouse through the rocky terrain for a good several minutes; several minutes of the ship being swerved and jerked harshly with the helmsman's intense, frantic efforts to evade and try to throw off the beast; before Stork finally spoke up.
"It's no use, the dragon's not giving up!" he exclaimed, his voice high enough to be almost a squeak by the last word.
"Well, we'd better think of something!" Finn said back desperately, the vial containing the Serpergris in hand. "If we don't get this thing back to Vapos soon, the people there are all gonna be goners!"
Finn was shocked for a moment as Stork for the first time just looked out of the corner of his wide eye back at him from where the Merp was piloting the helm. "Then take your Skimmer, get the Serpergris to Vapos, and I'll keep the dragon chasing after me until I can ditch it, and meet you back on the terra!" The words were out of Stork's mouth so fast Finn just barely managed to comprehend them all, thanks to the situation's gravity.
"Stork, you're a genius!" Finn praised his friend with a grin, the Serpergris vial already hung around the blonde Storm Hawk's neck. "See you back on Vapos!" At that moment, the whole ship shuddered violently, for the massive dragon outside had managed to aim a much more precise torrent of fire at its rear.
"You might want to hurry!" Stork positively shrieked back to Finn, who didn't need to be told twice.
A few moments later, Finn's Skimmer went flying fast away from the Condor into the rocky landscape; a tiny, insignificant-looking thing compared to the carrier ship and the vast land all around it. But despite the vehicle's small size, Smaug still whipped his gaze on his long neck at the smaller sky-ride breaking away from the main ship – and his yellow orbs narrowed particularly on the small, dragon-headed vial, containing a glowing orange-red stone, hanging from the new sky-ride pilot's neck; that he saw with his keen draconic eyesight.
Finn got a sense in his peripheral vision of something not quite right as he flew away into the craggy landscape, a sense screaming fear and danger into his brain. One look over his shoulder was all he needed to confirm it, as he saw the massive dragon instantly changing its course, abandoning the Condor to go straight for him. His heart skipping a beat, Finn revved hard on his Skimmer and sent it shooting fast, deeper into a valley that looked narrow enough to give the giant dragon some trouble, but the dragon was closing in the distance between them fast. At the same time, Stork had slowed and twisted the Condor in the air as he saw, with terror in his eyes, the dragon going straight after Finn.
"Come on!" Finn growled to himself, blue eyes narrowing with determination on the hole that went straight through the thick rock wall ahead of him right out to the other side. His Skimmer was ploughing ahead with tremendous speed towards it, Finn not even noticing the dragon seeming to pull off far behind him in its course.
Finn's ride went whooshing in. Then it burst out the other side – just in time by one second for the dragon to come barrelling in from where it had flown around, and send the sky-ride hurtling on a collision course straight out of the air with the impact in the creature's shoulder.
Finn screamed as he had never screamed before, terror unlike he'd experienced much before building with the sound, as his Skimmer was sent spiralling and hurtling out of control; doomed to plough to a nasty end on the rocky ground quite a way below. But it was just at that moment that the Condor came swooping in as if out of nowhere, catching Finn just in time as both he and his damaged Skimmer went violently rolling along its bay ramp. Finn just catching with a violent smack against the ship bow's walling, while his sky-ride fell past him through the ship's open bay doors.
But neither Storm Hawks had even a moment to celebrate saving Finn from death, before Stork had turned his gaze just in time to see the huge dragon come swooping towards them, hind-claws splayed out as it came upon the Condor. In one swift move, Smaug's claws had dug into the ship's roof, violently jerking it in the air as he stopped himself on it. All in the split-second before he tore himself away and took a significant chunk of the ship's outer-hull away with him, leaving the ship to go careening out of control through the air.
The Condor smashed into the edge of a towering jagged rock face hard, as though it had been specifically aimed to hit there, and the impact left the ship trailing smoke from its propulsion engines dangerously as it continuing hurtling and spinning down towards the ground; all whilst Smaug was already circling in the air. Finn had just a moment to let the laws of acceleration carry him into the ship's open bay, and Stork to brace himself with shut-tight eyes at the helm. Before the ship crashed hard into the ground of the valley floor at the bottom, kicking up a cloud of dust before it; the impact propelling the two Storm Hawks through the open bay and windshields respectively, to go rolling out hard, landing in the dust and dirt of the ground before their ship.
Finn and Stork both groaned in more pain than even they were used to, from where they'd violently landed close together just ahead of their now-wrecked ship. The two of them, heavily bruised and battered and barely able to move their bodies; could only just lift their heads up from the dirt as the dragon came in, landing in a rushed-looking run. The creature's glowing eyes were positively angry in its skull as it glared down upon them.
"So, the Sky Knights of the Atmos think to keep me from what I claim?!" the dragon positively raged in anger; Finn and Stork only had a moment to both gape up in utter horror at hearing it speak, its powerful and fearsome voice reverberating through the valley. Smaug didn't need the words forced out of the two filthy mortals' mouths to clearly see it all over them, the clothing and proof that they were with the Sky Knights squadrons that defended the mortals in Atmos.
"Except…" Smaug stopped as he thought, though the contained rage in his eyes and growling voice didn't lessen slightly; "what use would any Sky Knights have for such a meagre, valuable trinket?! Unless…" Finn looked from where he lay sprawled and battered on the ground at the mention of the Serpergris; to see the vial with its glowing content, lying several metres away from him on the ground. He just strained to try and crawl his way over to reach it while the talking dragon seemed to be distracted; when suddenly a gigantic winged foreclaw like a bat's slammed down violently and aggressively, right between Finn and the Serpergris. At the same time, the dragon seemed to have reached a conclusion in its rage-musings.
"Unless these Sky Knights need such a thing for some nefarious purpose of their own; it is to appease a threatening enemy or to bring some sort of peace or salvation to a pack of troubled weaklings perhaps, isn't it!" The dragon sharply whirled its frightening, blazing eyes straight back down onto Finn and Stork below it, at the last two words.
Finn and Stork each felt an automatic compulsion to reply under that dragon's burning, frightening glare, however rage-blinded its intelligence currently was. And in the moment when Finn realised that this dragon had no intention of letting them keep the Serpergris, and that he and Stork were both battered and helpless, he found himself replying freely.
"Yes…" Finn managed to force out, his voice heaving as breathing hurt his throat. He hoped desperately that there was even just a shred of kindness in this creature as he pleaded: "But the people of Terra Vapos need it… please, if they don't get it, they'll all be gone!"
A resonant hum rumbled deeply within the dragon's powerful chest in interest at that as it raised a scaly brow.
"Oh, will they now?" it murmured in its deep voice, but it was not an expression of pity at all. "Very well…" It brought its head on its long neck right up close towards Finn and Stork; who were both looking up from on the ground. "Then in that case, you can live in the knowledge that you failed them and cost them their lives!" As the two young mortals on the ground were left to gape appalled at the creature's utter lack of sympathy, Smaug whirled his crocodilian head away and began stalking off on all fours across the valley floor; picking the tiny Serpergris up in his hind-paw, as he made to climb towards a vantage point from where to take to the air-
BLAST!
Smaug screeched loudly in surprise as he was assaulted by bolts of energy from above, which hit him right in the face around his eye area to disorient and briefly blind him. Shaking the assaults to his vision off in his fury, Smaug craned his head as he looked upward to where they'd come from – to see two new sky-rides had arrived on the scene. One four-winged ride with the energy-propulsion of crystals out of two engines keeping it aloft, the other ride held up in the air with the assistance of circularly-rotating blades. The red-haired human boy on the former craft caught Smaug's glare with his own green-iris eyes, unflinching.
"YEARGH!" The girl who was piloting the other craft and whom Smaug hadn't taken notice of until now, shot another energy-bolt from her long metal staff at Smaug's head; which had the dragon roaring furiously and running forward along the ground, taking to the air to attack them. Both the two crafts immediately took evasive manoeuvres in the air, as Smaug opened his jaws wide and unleashed a fiery torrent to the heavens, which blazed through the air where the two had been just a moment ago. The girl took her ride twisting in a downward spiralling flight-pattern around Smaug's huge body, as she tried sending a blast at the wing membrane of the flying dragon's forelimb – which proved just as useless as striking at the scales. The beast immediately whirled its blazing gaze to glare on her at that.
Whilst Piper kept the dragon distracted snapping its jaws and trying to breathe its fire upon her in the air, Aerrow and Radarr went swooping on their ride straight for where Finn and Stork were lying in a bad way; the Skimmer switching to bike-mode as it touched down upon the ground and braked to a stop. The red-haired Sky Knight of the Storm Hawks immediately dismounted whilst Radarr stayed looking on at the co-pilot's seat; coming straight over to crouch down over his battered squadron-members.
"Are you two okay?" Aerrow asked them, concerned.
"Define okay," Stork murmured gravely from where he was lying on his chest, his face underneath his emo-like hair bruising and caked with dirt.
"We could be worse," Finn managed to wheeze out with a grin – though Aerrow sensed both of them weren't quite in their usual moods, even given the circumstances. "But that thing-" Finn pointed to where the dragon was viciously trying to murder Piper "-has the Serpergris that the people of Terra Vapos need to stop them fading away to nothing."
"Can you two walk?" Aerrow asked them both as he tried helping them onto their feet.
"Yeah, we're fine!" Finn quipped, putting up a grin.
"Get back into the Condor while Piper, Radarr and I deal with the dragon and get the Serpergris away from it," Aerrow commanded like a leader much older than he was.
"The Condor's engines are damaged, and I don't think it's going to do anything to stop that thing!" Stork wheezed out harshly, pointing to the dragon that was snapping at Piper.
"Just get in there and work on fixing the ship or taking your sky-rides out of here, we'll keep the dragon from going near you," Aerrow commanded fluidly. "Move!" Finn and Stork both turned and helped each-other limp quickly back to the crashed ship, whilst Aerrow turned and took his Skimmer blasting to fly straight back into the fray and rejoin Piper. Even as Radarr looked anything but easy in his co-pilot seat next to Aerrow at what they were heading into.
Piper tried flying up close to the dragon's head and getting quick blasts from her crystal-staff directly into its eyeballs to blind it; but she had to abandon that tactic when the creature caught on and started moving its head too quickly for her to get a clear shot, and at one point it snapped its deadly jaws far too close to her. Not a moment too soon, Piper saw Aerrow and Radarr flying back in. Aerrow quickly got the dragon's attention as he used the Lightning Claw, to send a powerful energy-blast to the protective hide on the back of the creature's spike-crowned head.
While the dragon was now distracted dealing with both of them at once, Piper quickly looked it all over for weaknesses. The dragon's hide seemed to be indestructible all over; all their hits from both their energy weapons and the crystals Piper currently had for her staff, just bounced harmlessly off wherever they hit. Piper thought for a moment to perhaps try lodging one shot at just the right angle to get through the cracks between the scales, but dismissed it, as the red and dull-gold scales of the dragon's hide looked to have no room for anything to get under them that way.
Then Piper's eyes landed on one particular scale that stood out on the dragon's thorax – a single crystalline-clear oddity on the front of the dragon's chest, to the left side; frankly looking more like a crust of clear-coloured crystal than a real scale, as Piper looked more closely at it. She quickly thought it over in her head, wondering if that discoloured odd scale could be a weaker point than any of the others. It seemed unlikely but it was worth a shot, so Piper immediately took her Heliscooter flying down straight towards it; whilst Aerrow kept the dragon occupied.
Reaching the odd scale without the hovering dragon noticing, Piper leapt in the air off the seat of her sky-ride, bringing her crystal-staff poised above her head to attack like a master martial artist with a bo staff – and with a cry, she struck. The effect was instantaneous as bright white light flashed out from the struck crystalline scale to wash over both Smaug and Piper, the dragon screeching out and Piper likewise crying out in the air, as the both of their minds were pulled simultaneously into a shared vision.
Piper saw this very same dragon setting a wooden town on fire beneath him…
She saw an arrow bury itself deep through his chest…
She saw the dragon fly above the flames to the skies, screaming…
And she saw a strange embrace of nothingness close in on him as the light in his eyes faded…
Piper snapped back into her body with a ragged gasp, feeling for a moment like she were floating, before she realised she were on Aerrow's flying Skimmer; practically in his lap. Suddenly, Piper felt strange, more specifically aware of what was different with her, what had changed, as she felt the immaterial line linking out of her. And the whole air seemed to buzz around her unpleasantly from the contact and being so close.
Piper realised she and the dragon must have been out for a moment, as she looked over to where the giant monster was lying on its side on the ground, rising back onto all fours. Aerrow must have saved her from falling. But when the dragon recovered and turned that piercing fiery gaze of his straight onto her with an astonished expression – not onto the Skimmer, onto her – Piper immediately realised that this creature was indeed exactly the thing on the other end of the line that she could only get the very vaguest, most unconscious impression of. Piper felt an instant lurch of her heart inside of her at realising that, as she didn't know where she wanted to begin comprehending what it meant.
What disturbed Piper even more was when, after just a few seconds of staring; the dragon's face instantly took on a more conniving, pleased-looking expression, a monstrous grin slowly spreading across its lips. And if she concentrated on the tether linking between them while their gazes were locked, Piper could almost feel the frightening dark emotion that the dragon was currently experiencing.
"My, now this is particularly unexpected," the dragon murmured almost gleefully, slowly slinking across the ground on all fours, with its fiery yellow eyes remaining fixed firmly on Piper. Aerrow scowled at the beast, Radarr in the co-pilot seat joining by growling defiantly a bit; as Aerrow positioned himself almost protectively over Piper in his lap.
Smaug's eyes were glowing as he could hardly believe it. He had found it – he remembered the spark of something that he'd felt a few days ago, and now he'd felt it again but more solidly; when this human girl before him had struck him on the former weak spot where the black arrow had pierced him at Lake-Town, and they'd both shared a vision. Whatever doubt was in Smaug's mind was instantly cleared away by the buzz they both felt in the air now at their proximity – this girl was what lay at the other end of the connecting tether.
And what was more, Smaug had felt it, he had felt the well of unlimited power lying at the centre of the line between them like a glow in the centre of a rope; just waiting, begging for them to slacken the line and come together over it!
Aerrow, Piper and Radarr were all unnerved as they saw the dragon just look, grinning and almost mad with dark glee in its eyes, as it made no move to attack. Though as they did that, Radarr just managed to catch sight of something else as he thought he saw something see-through moving along the rocky valley landscape – it was only when Radarr saw Stork half-emerge, to quietly pick up the Serpergris from where the artefact lay forgotten on the ground away from the dragon's hind-paws, that Radarr realised he saw the Stork-Mobile camouflaged. Radarr made out the Stork-Mobile's movements alone as it rode fast away along the landscape without making any noise, until it had gone far enough away behind the dragon to take to the air unnoticed and fly off.
"It seems that my opponent in the tug of war has revealed herself," the dragon said in its rich, powerful growling voice that cut through the air as it spoke the words with perfect articulation; bringing all attention straight back to the monster, as it continued very slowly along the ground towards where the Skimmer was hovering stopped in the air.
Aerrow looked down at Piper, shocked, as everyone could feel on the dragon's strangely powerful gaze how it was her the dragon was focused on specifically. Piper half-balled two fists over her chest almost protectively, as though she were naked under the mighty creature's piercing vision and overwhelming power; never breaking eye contact with the dragon.
"Who, and what, are you?" Piper exclaimed questioningly to the dragon; there was a bit of bravery and defiance in her eyes as she glared, but that was it as she remained curled up almost protectively against the dragon's gaze.
"Oh, you don't know who I am?" the dragon murmured, its glowing eyes widening. It dramatically reeled back its crocodilian head on its long serpentine neck, arching said neck high in a glorious display as it roared: "I am SMAUG! I am Smaug the Magnificent, Smaug the Tyrannical; the Dread of mortals who laid low Men's warriors of old, the greatest dragon in living memory!"
"What do you want with my squadron?" Aerrow spat out the question; his tone clearly conveying how he'd only known this Smaug, as he called himself, for a few minutes, and in that time the dragon had already earned his hostility. The dragon looked as though it had only just remembered that Aerrow was even there as it looked back at the sound of the redhead's voice.
"I want nothing of you, or your little pack-mates, boy," Smaug snarled nastily at the Sky Knight with his teeth bared, spikes on his head flexing. "What I want-" he turned his fiery gaze back onto Piper with an unnerving smug light in them "-is her." The horrible feeling that had been building inside of Piper reached climax at that point.
"What are you talking about?!" Aerrow demanded to know loudly; but the dragon was now completely ignoring him as if he wasn't even there, fiery eyes focused on Piper and seeming almost fascinated with her. Then, Smaug pointed a taloned finger out at Piper as he addressed her:
"Young one, I offer you a bargain," Smaug said in his bestial but articulate voice. "I will let your friends fly off on their merry way from here with their lives… if you give yourself to me for their safety."
Radarr practically squawked, equal parts baffled and aghast. Piper had a look of defensiveness and terror in her amber eyes, as she seemed to curl her body in protectively that much further, looking horrified at what Smaug had just demanded of her. Aerrow glared defiantly back at the dragon, furious.
"That's not happening," he spat, pointing one of his lightning-blades.
"I don't remember it being you that I was asking," Smaug hissed as venomously as a real viper at Aerrow with his frightening foul temper; and at the frightening tone, Aerrow seemed to for the moment back down, to Smaug's pleasure as he grinned smugly. Piper appeared to look away and ball up further into herself for a moment.
"What shall it be, child?" the dragon's voice taunted her cruelly as he waited. "Do your friends live, or do they die?" Piper whirled and glared defiantly at Smaug.
"I'm not going anywhere with you!" Piper growled at him, despite all the fear under her defiance. That seemed to be the last straw for the dragon as he suddenly burst forward on the ground with frightening speed, his eyes wide and burning bright as he roared furiously. Orange light was shining at the back of his throat as he leapt straight for them, flapping his wings as he took to the air. Aerrow immediately swerved his ride in the air to let Smaug's huge form slink right past in a long red blur, and at the same time took the Skimmer gliding away fast, into the depths of the rocky terrain. Aerrow, Piper and Radarr could only hope as they blasted away at full throttle, that the dragon would be too busy chasing them to remember Finn in the Condor. Their hopes proved true when Smaug whirled his fiery gaze after them, twisting round in the air. The crashed ship was left behind as the Storm Hawks and the dragon flew away into the barren landscape.
Aerrow took his Skimmer shooting and swerving through the vast rocky valleys of the terrain, Smaug flying after them right behind – he was moving at faster speed than his prey, as he seemed to be even more motivated by claiming Piper than he'd been in getting the Serpergris.
The Skimmer's three occupants heard the roaring sound that signalled Smaug's fire-breath rushing up behind them, and Aerrow incredibly manoeuvred to avoid the burning torrent just in time as it blasted forth through the air. They navigated around rocky protruding spikes easily, the small sky-ride having even freer space through the expansive valleys than a carrier ship, or a dragon of equal size. But that didn't do anything to hinder Smaug as he came ruthlessly flying fast right after them, climbed higher or twisting this way to avoid every hindrance in his path; glowing eyes blazing furiously.
"Come on, come on!" Finn practically squealed frantically as he all but beat the crystal engines to get them running. He'd put the parts as best as he could where Stork had told him to, before the helmsman had gone out to slip away with the Serpergris while the dragon, Smaug, was distracted. But still the Condor's damaged engines weren't starting back up! Finn could only hope surely to heck that he hadn't put the wrong bit here when it should have been there, and he desperately resorted to beating a wrench against this pipe and that around the inactive engine. He had to get the ship running again before the dragon got to his friends, and if he didn't, then there would still be it coming back here to finish him off!
"Come on, start!"
Verbally pleading didn't do anything for a moment. But then the central engine compartment through which rows of crystals stood out like spikes, glowed and flared to life before Finn's face and began to rotate again, as the Condor's main engine started back up.
"Yes!" Finn exclaimed loudly.
Aerrow just barely swerved his Skimmer on its path through the narrowing valley to avoid another torrent of Smaug's fire-breath, with the huge red dragon gaining ground on him and his friends fast. That must have been the tenth time in the last couple minutes that they'd just scraped being roasted alive in the air.
Aerrow swung one of his lightning blades from his seat driving, sending an energy bolt firing at Smaug – it missed the giant dragon. Piper leapt up into a fighting stance on the Skimmer, and fired a couple energy bolts from her crystal-staff at the pursuer. But Smaug shook the small explosion of light across his face off just as quickly, and he never even drooped in his flight, before fixing his fiery gaze back onto his target.
Piper took a moment to stare, uncertain.
"Aerrow, we can't outfly him," Piper turned to say back down to Aerrow – they needed to think of something else, and fast. A moment after she'd spoken, another torrent of flame just barely missed her as it roared by over her head, and the searing heat could clearly be felt on both the humans' skin.
"I know, I'm thinking," Aerrow said back to her, stressing it, with his eyes fixed hard on where they were going. Piper chewed her lip over as she scanned around the barren valley's slopes for a possible way out. That was when she spotted the tiny, almost invisible cave mouth, and remembered the tunnel networks that ran through here.
"There!" Piper pointed, and Aerrow and Radarr's gazes both immediately followed hers to the tiny cave hole. Aerrow slightly smirked as he instantly caught on, while Radarr whined keenly in despair as he knew where this was about to go.
One second later, Piper leapt from her stance back down into her seat behind Aerrow, in the moment that he took the Skimmer shooting straight for the cave-mouth; the sky-ride just missing Smaug's jaws in its changed course as the dragon had tried to snap them out of the air. The small sky-ride shot in a straight line towards the valley wall, the huge dragon twisting in the air as Smaug made to go for them…
In the moment where the sky-ride and the dragon behind it were shooting in a straight line, the opposing forces of the wind blew hard against the occupants in the air. In a single, random moment, Piper's fingers' strong hold on Aerrow's waist slipped a little, and for a split second she cried out and almost went flying off the Skimmer to go straight towards Smaug's face.
"PIPER!" Aerrow called back over the roaring wind in distress as Piper just managed to regain her foothold in time. Then, the Skimmer switched to bike-mode just a second before it shot through into the cave opening. The Skimmer continued in a straight line away from the daylight; one second into which, the earth all around trembled as Smaug's huge form came thunderously down upon on the tiny cave mouth just behind. The dragon roared in angrily at the mortals, though his jaws were too big to fit through the opening. Then two seconds later, he sent a column of flames surging forth like napalm straight after the Storm Hawks.
Aerrow didn't need to look behind them to feel the building heat and light chasing after them in the dark tunnel, but thankfully he got the illumination from it to see the tunnel fork in two ahead; one right and the other straight on. And he took the off-centre turn just in time to scrape away from the coming flames. Still though, for a moment after, the dragon's tremendous roars in its anger made the entire underground tunnel shake around them.
"Piper, where do we go from here?" Aerrow asked quickly, as he braked his sky-ride around the corner and turned to look over his shoulder at his trusted best friend.
"All of these tunnels are supposed to lead back to the surface, no dead-ends," Piper explained as fast as she recalled what she knew about this area; "keep going!"
Aerrow didn't need to be told twice, taking the Skimmer blasting off in a random direction through the dark tunnels; until finally, they saw a circle of daylight coming up ahead and shot straight for it; out a cliff-face into another part of the crags and valleys, away from where they'd slipped Smaug. The dragon was nowhere in sight as Aerrow screeched his ride to a stop on the valley slope, kicking up dirt. But a much more welcome sight greeted them instead as the three saw the Condor, battered but flying, rising up into the air from beyond the jagged slope lip ahead of them.
The three at the Skimmer on the ground didn't even have to wave up at it before Finn, at the helm, spotted them, through the broken-open centre of the windshields. The ship immediately went gliding down straight for the three; though one could tell by the blunt, plain flight pattern and the way its turns seemed a little crooked in the air, that piloting the Condor was definitely Stork's job. Thankfully, the ship was upon the three within seconds, hovering just slightly above the ground as the landing ramp extended.
"Nice flying, Finn!" Aerrow called up, though not too loudly lest the dragon that was still somewhere amongst the landscape hear them. Then Piper in particular heard a dreaded voice carrying on the air from faraway but not far enough.
"Where are you, young ones…?" the dragon's voice hissed savagely out on the air from whatever part of the valley-lands he was searching for them.
"Let's go," Aerrow half-whispered before he, Piper and Radarr were taking the Skimmer riding straight up the ship's ramp.
"Finn, take us out of here!" Aerrow called up as soon as they were in the Skimmer bay, the ramp ascending…
"Aye!" Finn called back down from the bridge at the command, and quickly got the ship rising upwards. Within a second, the Condor was rotating almost turbulently in the air. Then it was shooting fast straight away from the rocky valley terrain into the skies beyond… And the occupants on board couldn't have been feeling more relieved, rotten, beat-up and haunted all at once as they were safely flying away and leaving the dragon behind still hunting for them.
Stork's battered and worn-out form climbed up the large statue of the Flame of Vapos to reach the water-filled basin held high in the statue's arm, where he'd thrown the Serpergris in. After a day's worth of stealing this thing from Murk Raiders, followed immediately by getting attacked, chased for a long while, and almost killed by a giant, intelligent dragon-monster; safe to say, Stork was hardly feeling in the mood for this when he'd thrown the Serpergris into here as King Agar had instructed, only to get a very letting-down nothing.
"Well, Serpergris," Stork murmured as he peered, more like glared, over the edge of the water basin at the object glowing at its bottom; "I'm not very impressed!" It was as if on cue a second later; that the orange stone began to shine out brighter with building intensity, the water in which it rested bubbling violently as the brightening glow cast shadows across Stork's face.
Stork gave a short, nervous laugh as he realised he'd spoken too soon… about a second before he was sent flying back across with throne room with a cry as a powerful blast of orange light exploded out from the basin, its power bursting and rolling out in a wave across the entire terra.
Both in the throne room and across Terra Vapos, the people; who had been lying sick and moaning on their city's steps and floors, faded see-through as glass and dead-looking as corpses when Stork had arrived; instantly felt their strength replenished as they all started rising up, their hands solid before their eyes again. Whilst back in the throne room, a very bitter Merp was left lying on the floor with sorely-burned face and hair now added to his bruising.
"It figures…" Stork murmured despondently.
It was about half an hour afterwards that Aerrow, Piper, Finn and Radarr arrived on Terra Vapos in the Condor. Stork had written a song for the whole court about Finn the Great Domo's achievement as his friends all listened with the whole throne room. Piper was surprised that Stork had been named the 'Domo's' minstrel for his quest. But Stork had left the dragon they'd encountered out of the song entirely.
King Agar awarded all of the Storm Hawks present a medal of gold each for bravery – non-Vapos gold he'd specified; since he'd demonstrated that nothing ever truly left Vapos, when the message falcon that Finn had thought disintegrated after delivering its message, returned to his side. But though it was a good relief and certainly got all their feelings back up; throughout the celebration and as Finn and Stork had told their comrades all about the Domo's new quest, none of the Storm Hawks' minds ever truly left the dragon-monster they had encountered, the one they had thought to be nothing worse than a rampaging beast until now.
Piper's mind in particular, after they left Vapos and picked up Junko from the dentist (then went on to explain everything to him); kept going over the strange vision that she and the creature had shared, the threading link she had felt connecting them (no longer as prominent now since they'd gotten far away from him), and what all of this meant. Her friends' minds didn't forget about her and Smaug the dragon-monster either, as they privately looked over at her in concern every now and then.
Smaug had been enraged even further when he'd realised that the squadron of mortals had escaped him; with the disappearance of their ship after he'd searched every nook and cranny of the landscape confirming it. In his anger, Smaug had smashed and blasted the lifeless rocky formations around him with his fire.
But once he was over his anger at the mortals' escape (and the loss of the Serpergris with them which had added to Smaug's rage and bitterness), Smaug had to go over what he had learned today. He had found the source at the other end of that strange threading connection, in the form of that girl – and he'd gotten another, this time more-real taste of the great power that it could provide him with. Smaug had felt stronger than ever before at the contact, it had boosted and augmented his strength and prowess that was already there to near-uncontainable levels. And as a great fire-drake who'd spent most of the first couple centuries of his life since maturing, clawing his way through and above other drakes to the dominance he knew to be rightfully his; that was saying something.
Even though the boost had disappeared again as soon as he and the girl had broken contact, Smaug had felt how it could strengthen him more permanently if he harnessed it enough – and for that, he already knew that he needed the girl. As for finding her, Smaug had her scent now and he knew what she looked like. He even had a name to go by, he'd overheard the insolent boy that had been with her speak it to her during their little chase: Piper.
He didn't care how long it took, he would have that youngling creature right with him where she could provide him with all the power and potential he desired to make himself stronger. And Smaug furthermore had no intention of letting that girl go off easy for her insolence here today; if she thought she would simply disobey his demands like that and get away without consequences, then she was sorely mistaken!
A/N: Hope you liked this long new chapter! Please R&R!