Rose stirred slowly. Her mind felt foggy. Her muscles felt like she'd been put through a meat grinder, at least twice. As the mist began to clear from her mind, she became more aware of the cold concrete floor beneath her. It was a welcome respite from the throbbing her body was experiencing; the chill felt nice. As she let her head be comforted by the temperature of the concrete it also began to clear. The situation that had brought her body to feeling like this, had brought her to this concrete floor, began to trickle back into her mind.

Dragons.

88.

89.

She sat up in a hurry, unwilling body tensing to fight. The movement brought black spots to her vision. As she blinked away the spots her adrenaline gave way to confusion. She was definitely in a prison of some sort, but of what sort, she couldn't be sure. She was in a tube – that was the only way to describe it. A blue, transparent, tube. She had been deposited in the center of it and it seemed to be about six feet in width. She moved to the very edge of the tube and reached out to touch the strange material her cage was made out of.

"I wouldn't do that," a harsh, accented, voice warned.

Rose, to her credit, didn't jump in surprise. Instead she slid smoothly away from the wall, coming onto her aching feet as she did so. She slowly turned to face the dragon that had spoken, taking in the surroundings beyond the tube as she did so. There wasn't much to observe. Four empty walls. There were steps ahead to the left, though she couldn't see up them, they curve to the side, hiding the door from view. Behind her were 88 and 89 in their own tubes, though she could see that they were still out cold. She felt a flash of worry for them. Yet, she was also grateful to note that they still had their masks on.

She looked at the blue Chinese Dragon who was perched stiffly near the steps. He had his dark eyes trained on her and Rose felt a little uncomfortable under his unyielding gaze. She wasn't sure whether or not her discomfort came from being his captive or if it stemmed from her disappointment at herself for becoming his captive.

"And why not?" Rose asked, a challenge in her tone.

"It's magic," the old dragon explained. "You'll be electrocuted. If you hold on for too long you'll end up dead." She swore he smirked. "And we wouldn't want that, would we?"

"No, of course not." Rose rolled her eyes, playing along with his sarcastic side. "So why not let us go?"

"You know why." The Chinese Dragon responded.

She swallowed as he alluded to the prophecy. She couldn't guess at the intricacies of his plan – if he even had any; was there anything beyond keeping her in captivity? – but she knew that it couldn't end well for her. Rose pushed away her weaker feelings and struck a cockier pose. Even with the complication of being here, she wouldn't lose. Master would, no doubt, find her soon and then they could be on their merry way, destroying the dragons and what not.

"So let my companions go." Rose bartered, without much hope of it actually working. "They have no purpose here."

The Chinese dragon ignored her words. "Now, Huntsgirl, I have a few questions for you."

Rose met his eyes defiantly. She didn't like the sound of that – her apprehension only grew as the American dragon slithered down the stairs – but she wasn't going to let the dragons see that.

(-.-)

Andrew paced the length of the Huntsgirl's quarters again. She was supposed to have been back already. A bad feeling grew in the pit of his stomach. He couldn't imagine her disappearing like this, especially not with 88 and 89 with her. He liked the two younger Clan members well enough but they wouldn't be good protection if it came down to a battle. He knew the Huntsgirl could take care of herself but no one was infallible. Something could have happened to her, especially now that the prophecy time was getting down to the wire.

He had been anxious ever since he returned to the Huntsquarters to find that Rose wasn't where she had said she'd be – her room at 3 o'clock. Andrew had waited, knowing that she was a busy and important woman. Her being ten minutes later wouldn't be the end of the universe.

Yet, somehow, ten minutes late had turned into fifteen, then thirty. Now, an hour later, Andrew knew something had happened; something had gone terribly wrong. He took a deep, shaking breath. Through the Clan he had been trained to think, to assess, before acting. He knew what his first step was – to check the computers. There were trackers in some of the Huntsgirl's devices, ones whose locations could easily be brought up. He sat down at the Huntsgirl's computer, logging onto his account and accessing her tracker's location. As he waited for the program to locate her he thought of how amazing it was that he was able to access the Huntsgirl's location; the second in command when it came to the Clan, soon to be the first.

Andrew never thought he would be in such an important position.

The computer let out a beep, signifying that it had finished its search. Andrew jumped at the unexpected sound before focusing on the monitor. Nothing; there was absolutely nothing for him to look at. Someone had found her trackers and had disabled or destroyed them. He felt his organs sink through the floor as reality set in. Despite mentally preparing for the worst (or so he thought) he had still been in denial about the whole thing, he truly had seen the Huntsgirl as infallible.

Andrew bolted from her quarters. He booked it up the nearest stairs up to the highest floor of the Huntsquarters. He arrived, panting, looking at a door he had never seen before; the door to the Huntsmaster's chambers. He had never had a need to meet privately with the Huntsmaster before, despite his special assignment. Now, he pushed away his fear of the intimidating man. Though the Huntsmaster had yet to know it, everything was, at once, going wrong.

He knocked on the door.

"What?" The Huntsmaster boomed.

"I need to speak with you . . . Sir." Andrew tacked on the last bit at the last moment. Through Rose's familiarity with the man he had almost dropped all formality. It was fine when he was in private with the Huntsgirl, 88, and 89 but it was not all right when speaking with the Master himself – he deserved the utmost respect from Andrew.

"Who are you?" Huntsmaster barked.

"Huntsboy 22." Andrew replied promptly with his number.

"Leave."

Andrew took a deep breath. He couldn't walk away. Summoning his courage, Andrew threw the door open and marched into the Huntsmaster's elaborate office. The large man looked up, annoyed at the subordinate who had refused to leave. He opened his mouth to voice his irritation but the thin child in front of him began to speak.

"It's the Huntsgirl. I believe she's been captured."

(-.-)

A high pitched noise invaded Kyle's heavy sleep. A faint vein of irritation came to him; alarm clocks. How petty, how annoying. He wished the world would do away with early mornings. He went to stretch out, finding that he couldn't do it. His body resisted any movement, yelping in pain at the smallest of twitches. With no small amount of effort, Kyle forced his eyes open taking in the dingy surroundings. As he focused on the bright red of a dragon tail, he remembered the fight. He recalled easily the American dragon crowding him and Nicholas – their daggers had drawn blood but not enough to hinder the creature. He'd had them pinned against the wall of the building and that was it.

The high noise that Kyle had found so grating moments before sounded again. Yet, this time, it was not slowed by the heavy blanket over his head, shielding his ears. Now he heard the sound in full force for what it was – a pained, feminine, scream. Feeling panicked at the noise – there was, after all, only one person in their party who could make such a sound – Kyle flung his head to the left. His cheek collided painfully with the hard floor but it was nothing compared to the pain welling his heart at the sight that greeted him.

And it was nothing compared to the pain that the Huntsgirl was feeling at the moment.

She was in a tube prison, almost the same as Kyle's. Except where his, and Nicholas', were a light green, hers was blue. He didn't know what the colours signified and at the moment, didn't care. Somehow the dragons had managed to get her cage to contract. She was frozen in place as the walls of the tube came in, colliding with her skin. She trembled violently at the contact, another anguished scream leaving her lips. The dragon gave a whisper and the walls eased away from her.

"Where is the Huntsquarters? Where are the gems? How much do you know?"

Rose, who had dropped to the ground without the painful support of the walls, lifted her head to stare at the hard-faced beast. How dare he think she would betray her Clan; her family? How dare he think her weak to succumb to his electrical shocks, no matter how much they hurt? She was loyal to them – she would die before she told this scum anything about her world. She would give her life before she gave him information. No words could properly define her defiance, her hatred of the creatures. So she spit at him. To her surprise the fluid flew through the tube walls and hit the creature in the face.

Disgusted he used a claw to wipe away her saliva. "I see," he said in a measured tone. "I was hoping you would be a bit more agreeable."

Rose resisted the urge to spit at him again.

"I think I'll leave you and your companions alone for a while to think."

(-.-)

The Huntsmaster brought his massive, meaty, fist down upon his wooden desk. He had no other way to dispel the frustration, the utter anger, coursing through him at the moment. He thought he had trained her better. He had thought that she could never succumb to the beasts like so many others had. But it was, of course, human error. Both on his part and hers. The Huntsmaster, however, was assured that she was still a class above the rest of his warriors; she was still smarter, still deadlier. She could think her way out of the situation with the dragons but not, he feared, in time.

He needed to find her, and he needed to find her now. He would not eat, would not sleep, and would not calm until she was back under his roof. The time of the prophecy was arising, faster than he could even chart. It would not do to have his Huntsgirl, his little fighter, trapped in some unknown nest, wasting away to nothing while the fucking dragon trained, became stronger.

"Was she alone?" The Huntsmaster asked the scrawny Huntsboy.

"No," 22 answered. "88 and 89 were accompanying her."

"Lot of good that'll do," Huntsmaster growled. Those two were not at the level they should be; not for their ages and not for working with the Huntsgirl. He looked down at 22 again, regarding him. "Do you know where she was going?"

The boy shook his head. "If I had any ideas I would have gone looking for her; I wouldn't have come to you unless I was certain there was no other way to find her."

"Get to the labs – see if any of our genius' have engineered anything for her in the past bit." The Huntsmaster passed Andrew a card. "All access pass. I'm making you my go-to on this, seeing as you are the only one left in the Huntsquarters that was close to her."

22 jerked his head in a nod. "Understood," then he scampered out the door and down to the labs as Huntsmaster had asked.

Theron immediately put a call into his Captain, telling him to ready the army. They were going on a city-wide, perhaps country-wide, manhunt. No one in his facility would rest until the Huntsgirl was safe. He didn't care what his people had to do to find her, who had to suffer through the course of the mission. If war broke out between the Clan and the magical creatures during the course of his hunt, so be it.

He needed her back.

I don't own anything recognizable. Thank you to my fantastic beta; Noble6. I apologize for the delay.

~TLL~