The sight of the Nightwing boiled Phantomtide's blood. One of the Nightwings who despised him so much to send assassins after him too often. A hush fell over the arena. The Skywing guards hovered up in the sky, halfway through unchaining the Icewings. All the dragons stared at Morrowseer, whose vast black form seemed to fill the whole arena. His darkness sucked up all the light around him. He pointed at Starflight and addressed Scarlet.

"This dragonet is ours." Just Starflight? Typical Nightwings…

"Ours who?" Scarlet said. "We found him with some Talons of Peace revolutionaries. Are you telling me the Nightwings have finally chosen sides?"

"Are you allying yourselves with an underground peace movement instead of a real queen?" Burn chimed in with a snarl. Morrowseer glanced up at the sky, where a flight of black dragons was circling. What are they doing...

"No," he said in his deep rumbling voice. "I come only to claim this dragonet as ours. We will take him and go."

"Oh, will you?" said Scarlet. "On whose authority? Would your mysterious queen like to appear and discuss the matter with me?" Morrowseer's eyes glittered dangerously.

"Do not anger the Nightwings, sky dragon. Give us our dragonet." Scarlet stamped her foot.

"No! I want to see him fight Icewings! It's my hatching day!" Scarlet acting like a selfish brat of a dragonet? This is a new low, even for her. Jeebus… The black dragon's tail twitched, just the tiniest bit, and all at once several Nightwings came plummeting out of the sky. Without a word or a visible signal, the Nightwings fanned out across the circle of prisoners. The Skywing guards dodged out of the way, looking terrified. Each pair of Nightwings fell on an Icewing prisoner, talons slashing. Within moments, all the Icewings were dead. Their silvery corpses flopped across their cells. Bluish-red blood dripped slowly down the sides of the rock spires. How dare they! Cowardly snakes, the lot of them! Only dare to attack whoever can't fight back! Especially that manipulative freak! Glaring at Morrowseer, Phantomtide was seen by the Nightwing, who gave the hybrid a scornful gaze. So much smoke was pouring out of Scarlet's nostrils that it was hard to see her eyes. Beside her, Burn's tail was lashing. She looked ready to jump down and attack Morrowseer herself. The large Nightwing smiled coldly. "There, we've taken care of your Icewing problem. Now we'll be going." He beat his wings once, lifting up into the air. During that, Phantomtide heard a small hissing sound, and moved his gaze to see black goo land on his wings bindings. Glory silently settled back onto her tree as the venom seemed to dry under the intensity of the sunlight. Huh? She used her venom on the bindings...and it appears to be drying...like sand in a oven becomes glass! If that's the case, then the bindings should snap like glass...Glory is smarter than anyone could expect of the Rainwing tribe...interesting that the venom doesn't appear to work on metal...hmm… While Phantomtide formulated a possible plan, Morrowseer had carried Starflight away with him.

"Guards!" Scarlet roared, rousing Phantomtide from his thoughts. "I will have one thing go right today." She fumed. "Fetch my champion. And clean up that mess down there." She swept one wing toward the arena. Burn looked to angry to speak.

"Are you figuring out her next idea?" Glory whispered, startling Phantomtide.

"Possibly...I guess she prefers talking about her ideas when the chance arrives? You know, you've got a pretty handy set of skills. Congratulations."

"I'll take that as a compliment. And yes, she's that prideful. The next match is going to be Clay against her champion, that Skywing, Peril." The idea surprised him, but he hadn't ruled it out as a possibility Scarlet would do. Focusing on the situation, Phantomtide was greeted by a shocked stillness hung over the watching dragons all around the stadium. By the silence, he guessed it had been long since a similar occurrence had happened.

"As you all know," Scarlet said suddenly, her voice regal and commanding as if mystery dragons hadn't just swooped out of the sky to steal her toy. "yesterday my champion, Peril, offered to stand for the accused prisoner, Kestrel, in a Champion's Shield. She will now fight a dragon of my choosing, and if she wins, Kestrel goes free. If she loses - then I suppose I'll have to get a new champion." She paused, expecting a reaction from the crowd, but nothing happened. Scarlet frowned. "Oh, right. You think Peril can't lose. Well, it so happens that we have a special guest here today - a dragon whose scales are impervious to fire. Isn't that...thrilling?"

"Wait, what?" Phantomtide got confused, until the guards seized Clay and dragged him into the tunnel. So, this is her plan. Scarlet is forcing Peril to choose between the dragon she likes and her mother. And Clay has to choose between killing Peril...or death.

"Either way, it's going down. We might have to act soon. You got anything to tell me, Glory? This might be the last chance to get anything out."

"Yeah. When I say 'Now!', you duck and I'll spray Burn and Scarlet, okay?" Phantomtide gave her a small nod, then proceeded to watch the fight.