Okay, here's chapter two. I decided to update because it's a snow day and I'm bored. I have checked eagerly for reviews, and have only seen one, so I guess I am talking to one person.
Thank you queenglorythefirst, you made my day. Also, thank you for those points. I am trying harder to keep my spelling and grammar correct, but of course I still miss things, sorry. I guess that's part of breezing through a prewritten document. As for your other points:
-who are those skywings? You will see.
-yes, using sandbags is a thing. At least, in theory. The idea is that a normal club would most likely damage the victims brain, which could very likely kill them. A sandbag, correctly sized and wielded, would be solid enough to render them unconscious, but soft enough to not damage the skull.
- Fatespeaker does know how to read, but not that well according to this story. It is mentioned later on why that is-and finally, yes, you are correct. I was wrong, scarlet is orange. Thanks for pointing that out, please let me know if anything else is incorrect.
Okay, with that said, here's chapter two.
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Clay woke up in a cave. He had a splitting headache, and he ached all over. He sat up and did a quick assessment of his surroundings. This cave was actually a cell, a very large prison cell. There was a passageway leading past it, but blocked off from him by cast iron bars. There were torches in the passageway, lighting the whole area in flickering orange.
Clays first thought was the others, and he began looking around for them. To his dismay, he was alone. The only thing in his cell, oddly, was a large oak table.
Clay closed his eyes and tried to think. The last he remembered, he had been attacked by scarlet. Which could mean anything had happened to his friends.
He went to the cell door and tried to look out into the passageway, but there was nothing. The tunnel disappeared from sight on both sides as it rounded a bend.
"Hello?" he called, "is anyone there?"
He didn't hear a reply. Clay sighed, and leaned against the wall. What was going on? He wondered. Last time they had been Scarlets prisoners, she had made them fight in an arena for her amusement. Now what would she do? Scarlet was pretty mad about how they had escaped, and how glory had ruined her face. He suspected that she wasn't just going to let them sit in a cave while she did her own thing. He was afraid for glory. He was scared for all of them, but mostly glory. Who knew what scarlet would do to her.
He suddenly heard footsteps in the passage, echoing from around the bend. In a moment, a tall, unfamiliar skywing was staring at him through the bars.
"I thought I heard something." she said, "the queen will be happy to know that you're awake mudwing."
"Where are my friends?" asked clay, "what's happened to them?"
The skywing shrugged as she turned back the way she came.
"That is not my place to say." she said.
And with that, she was gone.
Clay sat down and worried as he waited for her to come back with scarlet. He didn't have to wait long.
Scarlet was there in only a minute. The other skywing stood behind her as she peered through the bars at him.
"Well well, look who awake." she said, "it's about time, your friends are still out cold."
"Where are they?" he asked, "what did you do to them?"
Scarlet grinned.
"It's not what I have done to them. It's what I'm going to do to them.
Clay felt his stomach twist into a knot.
"What… are you-"
"Oh, really, should you even worry?" asked scarlet, "who cares about them? Arent you worried about what I'm going to do to you?"
Clay blinked, unsure of how to answer that. Yes, he was a little worried about that, but he was really only worried about his friends. Scarlet kept talking. "I'm sure it will put your mind at ease to tell you that I will do nothing to you. Consider yourself safe here mudwing. As you can see, you have a large, roomy cell, no chains or muzzles, and I will be sending shale with some roasted boar. You will be just fine."
"But," said Clay, "what about my friends?"
Scarlets grin grew into a toothy smile.
"That's the thing." she said, "i had a thrilling idea. Your friends are alright for now, but they won't be. They will suffer the most brutal, painful things i can think up, and you will be here. Safe, well fed and sound as they suffer. They will be totally removed from you, so you cannot even try to share in their predicament. You will only see them when they are paraded past your cell."
Clay began to tremble.
"Please," he said, "please don't do that. It's me you want, really, I-I made the escape happen, it's my fault your face was ruined. Take me instead, please let them go."
Scarlet laughed as she began to walk away.
"Oh little mudwing, it's so cute when you beg. I'd like to hear more of it in the future, but right now I have other things to do. Have a nice day."
And with that, she was gone. Clay slumped, and held his head in his talons. This was bad. He could only imagine what sick ideas scarlet had thought up, apparently this was one of them. He was trapped, his friends were in terrible danger, and he could do nothing to help them.
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When tsunami came to, she was in a very unfamiliar place. She groggily looked around, taking stock of her surroundings. She was lying on cold rock, in a dark cave of some sort. The rock walls were damp and showed signs of deep chiseling, like that had been carved by hand. She tried to sit up, but fell back with a cry of pain and a loud metallic clatter.
She began to realize what a killer headache she had, and had to take a minute to stop from throwing up. When she got her stomach under control, she once again sat up, slowly. It was dark in the cave, but her fluorescent stripes cut the gloom, and her eyes let her see in the dark. Thick iron chains were clamped around each leg, connecting together to form a hobble, that was then attached to an iron ring that had been driven into the wall. To her left was the wall, straight ahead was a tunnel which led in from one side of the cave and out the other in a downhill slope. Tall iron bars stretched from stone to ceiling, blocking her off from that tunnel. To her right, she saw the others chained to the wall just like her. Tsunami's heart leapt at the sight of them, all lying unconscious on the stone. She took a quick head count, and to her horror, clay wasn't there. She looked around, but there was no sign of the mudwing. She hobbled over to them but ran out of slack before she could reach anyone. The closest was glory, lying in an untidy pile on the stone. Tsunami reached out with her wing and brushed it against the rainwings tail.
"Glory!" She hissed, "wake up. Come on get up, this is a really bad time to be asleep."
Glory didn't stir. Tsunami wished she had some water to throw over them. But there was nothing around to use, so she resorted to nudging glory with her wingtip. After quite a long time of this, glory began to stir. She groaned and shifted, but her back was to tsunami so she couldn't see if glory was actually awake.
"Glory," she said again, "wake up! Are you awake? You had better be, because we're in some big trouble."
Glory moaned and sat up, taking a moment to hold her head in her talons. Then she slowly faced tsunami, who started in surprise. Glory had a big, heavy band of steel locked around her jaw, effectively muzzling her. Tsunami blinked, then looked past her at the others. It wasn't just glory. Fatespeaker and sunny both had muzzles clamped on their jaws as well, but not starflight. The blind NightWing still had his bag of scrolls with him, many of the parchments were spilled across the floor.
Glory tried to say something, but it was muffled and came out as a mumble.
Tsunami shook her head.
"I can't understand you. Are you alright?"
Glory looked around and shrugged, nodding.
"Clay." She said. She had to grit it out through clenched teeth, "whess clay?"
Tsunami shook her head.
"I don't know. I was hoping you would."
"No." Said glory, "wha bout detch- deth bringer?"
Tsunami again shook her head.
"No, I don't know. Last I saw, he was falling."
Glory sniffed and looked at her shackled feet. "Try not to worry." Said tsunami, "I'm sure he will be okay. He's been through a lot, he's the world's best assassin, remember? He'll be okay."
But tsunami knew that couldn't be true. She and glory had both seen the spear driven into his back, and the way he had fallen to earth like an empty rag.
"Let's wake the others." Said tsunami, trying to change the subject, "and let's get out of here."
Glory nodded, and turned to fatespeaker and starflight. She reached out and grabbed fatespeakers arm, and shook it vigorously. After a few minutes, fatespeaker began to stir, so glory switched to starflight. Starflight regained consciousness with only a few sharp jabs. He yelped, and sat up. The bandage that was normally around his seared eyes was gone, and now the destroyed Retina reflected tsunamis fluorescent scales like mirrors.
"What's going on?" He whispered, swiveling his head around, "fatespeaker? Glory? Clay? I can't hear you."
"We're right here," said tsunami, "were all here, except clay."
"Where are we? Where's clay?" He brought his talons to his face. "My head hurts really bad. What happened?"
"I'm not sure." Said tsunami, "Queen scarlet captured us, and now we're here. You and I are the only ones not wearing a muzzle, but we're all chained to the wall."
Starflight shivered. Now fatespeaker sat up, groaning as she blinked back into consciousness.
"Whath… whath going on?" She said, the muzzle slurring her words.
"Starflight, can you try to wake sunny?" Asked tsunami.
Starflight looked around.
"Where is she?" He asked.
"Beside you, take a few steps to your right."
Starflight did this, reaching out blindly.
Suddenly, from up the tunnel, there was a clatter of metal.
"Watch it, would you?!" Somebody barked, "you nearly stabbed my foot you clumsy ox!"
Everyone looked at each other, not sure of what to do. In the tunnel, an orange glow appeared at the bend in the tunnel, and the sound of footsteps approached.
"Pretend your still unconscious!" Said tsunami. She dropped to the floor, trying to recreate how she had been laying before, the others followed her lead. They waited in tense silence as the footsteps drew nearer. In a short time, bright firelight flooded the cave. Tsunami kept one eye cracked slightly open. Three skywings walked into the cave. Tsunami instantly recognized Queen Scarlet, but she didn't know the other two.
Scarlet growled, stamping her foot in frustration.
"Oh come on." She said, "still unconscious? How long do I have to wait? It's been a whole day now, we didn't hit them that hard, did we?"
One of the skywings, a female only slightly smaller than scarlet, leaned into the bars and peered at tsunami.
"Well," she said, "when suffering a blow to the head sufficient enough to render one unconscious, it is not unusual to remain unconscious. After all, that is a very heavy shock to their brains, and they are still adolescents."
Scarlet snorted.
"Of course. Of course they would do that, just to drive me crazy. It's bad enough I had to do some of the dirty work myself, but now I have to wait forever to get my revenge. Maybe I should just kill that mudwing while I wait, at least he's awake."
Tsunami felt her ears prick at the news of clay. But she immediately wished she hadn't, as the other female skywing looked closer at her.
"Your majesty, perhaps we can render them conscious again. Cory, go fetch that water bucket from the forge."
The other skywing, a male who was holding a spear, looked at her.
"But shales usin' that bucket, he cools all those metal bits with it."
Scarlet snapped at him.
"Do like she said. Bring that bucket, and don't spill any of it you clutz, in fact, leave me that spear. Now hurry, I don't have much patience, and if I have to wait much more I'll do to you what I plan to do to them."
The skywing, cory, dropped the spear and hustled off down the tunnel. He took the torch with him, leaving the cave in darkness.
For a few minutes, there was silence. With the only light coming from tsunamis fluorescent scales, she felt more confident to open her eye a little wider. She waited. She could feel the others behind her, also waiting. It was a very tense quiet. Tsunami wished scarlet would say something more about clay. Was he alright? Where was he? She knew he was awake, but she had no idea what condition he was in. but knowing queen scarlet, she feared the worst. What had she done with poor clay?
"You know," said scarlet, almost making tsunami jump. Scarlet was looking right at her, "those glowing strips are kind of pretty. What makes them do that?"
Tsunami was almost afraid that scarlet knew she was awake, but the other skywing started talking.
"It's a chemical, or biological reaction, I think. It's unique only to the seawing species, and because of the war, I haven't gotten to study them very much, I'm afraid."
"Well why not?" asked scarlet, "you were my head medical scientist. I found some of your work very interesting, all you needed was to ask and I would have given you some prisoners to experiment on."
The other skywing shrugged.
"I would have done just that, but i spent a lot of that time pursuing the knowledge of skywing anatomy. I had no shortage of wounded soldiers to work on, and devoted a lot of time into putting them back together. I was doing some side projects when you disappeared, and lost them in the chaos. Among them were my experiments with seawing stripes."
Scarlet shook her head.
"And what a pity." she said. "I would have liked to have known what you found. It's so interesting, in fact, those stripes seem to remind me of a certain rainwing that I kept on display. I would have liked to know how that works too, venom teeth, color shifting scales."
Tsunami had a bad feeling that she knew where this was going.
"Perhapse all is not lost?" asked the other skywing, "i mean, we do have several subjects right here-"
"Ciel, don't get too many ideas!" scarlet barked, "they're mine! Nobody lies a talon on them save me."
The other skywing, ciel, had backed up a step. After a moment, scarlet deflated, and looked thoughtful. "You know," she said, "you're actually not wrong. Maybe we could work together, see what we can do."
Ciel nodded.
"That sounds mutually beneficial to me."
"Oh cut it out with the big words." said scarlet, "they make you sound all stuck up and snobby."
At that point, the glow of the torch appeared around the corner, and running footsteps approached. Corey cam running into the cave with the torch in his talons and the bucket hanging from his jaw. He was breathing hard as he set the bucket down.
"Well that certainly took you long enough." said scarlet, "what was the holdup?"
Corey held the handle out to her.
"Shale was still using it. I had to almost fight him for it too. Be careful, the water is almost boiling."
"Oh perfect!" said scarlet, snatching the handle, "somebody unlock the door. It's about time we got this show going."
Corey held the torch, ciel unlocked the door. Tsunami noticed that the spear was used as the key. The oval shaped blade fit into the lock, which popped the door open. Tsunami watched as scarlet stepped inside, holding the wooden buck with two talons. The water inside was steaming, making a cloud that quickly condensed and dissipated. Scarlet walked up to them, and drew back her arms. At the last second, tsunami sprang to her feet, snapping at scarlets wrists. Scarlet was taken completely by surprise, and staggered back. Tsunami spread her wings and caught almost all the water before it could hit her friends. It was scalding hot, and she roared in pain while staggering back, trying to blink the hot liquid out of her eyes.
"Why isn't that thing muzzled!" screamed scarlet, "they're supposed to be muzzled, why aren't they muzzled!?"
Corey stepped back as the irate queen stormed out of the cell.
"They are, majesty, they-"
"No they're not!" yelled scarlet, "does that look like a muzzled dragon to you? Werent you and your idiot brother supposed to take care of that?"
"We are, we did!" said corey, "it's just, the muzzles we built weren't the right size, and the lock broke on one of them. We had to make new ones."
"Why didn't you tell me!" snarled scarlet.
"We thought they wouldn't be awake yet! Besides, they're all muzzled except the sea wing and blind nightwing. We figured it would be safe to leave them for last, shales making their muzzles right now."
Scarlet glared at him for a moment, then turned away.
"Fine. but he had better hurry up, or ill kill you both. I should tear your wings off for not telling me."
"My queen," said Ciel, "I have a better idea."
By now, all the dragonets were standing, except sunny. Scarlet looked at them, and a grin spread across her face.
"Well, I suppose you're right." She said. Scarlet came back to the cell, through the door, and looked over the dragonets. Tsunami stood between her and them, still smarting from the hot water that was now cooling and collecting in a puddle beneath her. She had a snarl etched on her face.
Scarlet only grinned wider. "Well, this is exciting. Who should I start with first? The annoying sea wing, the blind night wing, or-" she leveled a sudden glare at glory. "Or the horrid rainwing."
Tsunami growled, bringing scarlets eyes back to her.
"You aren't going to lay a talon on them. Any of them."
Scarlet raised an eyebrow.
"Ciel, you should look into this. It's the weirdest thing, these dragonets are always throwing themselves in front of the others, like they're trying to sacrifice themselves for each other. You heard that mudwing, didn't you?"
Ciel nodded.
"Yes, a whole lot of-"take me, let them go" nonsense."
"Where is clay?!" Tsunami demanded.
Scarlet waved her away.
"Oh don't worry about him, he's just fine, now you-"
"Don't lie!" Hissed tsunami, "tell me the truth."
Scarlet raised her eyebrow further.
"What makes you think I should tell you anything? Your the prisoner here, not me. But as for your mudwing friend, he's fine. Literally. Like, I actually haven't done anything to him, he's in his own cell, without a muzzle and with all the food he could possibly want."
Tsunami didn't believe scarlet at all. But before she could say anything more, scarlet clapped her talons together. "Alright, let's get on with this. I've been waiting so long, it's time we settled our business. First up, the rainwing."
"Back off." Said tsunami, "your not getting at anyone."
"Really?" Said scarlet, "and how do you plan to stop me?"
Tsunami just glared. She knew she couldn't stop scarlet, but every second she bought was another second that scarlet wasn't hurting her friends.
"Corey," called scarlet, "come and help me get the rainwing. At least keep this creature away from me while I unhook the chains."
Corey took the spear back from ciel and advanced on tsunami. Tsunami growled as the blade came closer to her face. "Subdue her,". Said scarlet, "but don't kill her."
Scarlet began to go for glory. Tsunami lunged at her, hit the end of her chain and crashed to the ground. Immediately, Corey was on top of her, effecting a pin. Tsunami lashed out and struggled, squirming out of his grasp while at the same time looping a chain around his neck. Corey tried to grab her, but she pulled away, and reversed the pin. The chains had snarled the two of them, and now they were in affect chained together, back to back. Tsunami pulled on the chain for all she was worth, and Corey began to buck and kick as she cut off his air supply. She was out of his reach, putting him at her mercy. He began to gag and pull at the chain, but she held tight.
Then Ciel was there. With an open talon she swung at tsunamis face. Tsunami felt the blow, but ignored it. With her hind legs she kicked out and caught Ciel in the jaw, sending the skywing a step back.
Ciel came at her again, and dodged another kick. Tsunami swung her powerful tail and took the legs out from under the bigger dragon. Ciel crashed to the ground, and tsunami got in a second and third kick with both hind feet.
"ENOUGH!" Roared scarlet, "stop this at once or I will kill your friend!"
Tsunami paused mid kick and looked over at scarlet, who was holding sunny in the air by her throat. Sunny was just now coming awake, and was kicking feebly in scarlet's grasp.
Tsunami hesitated, unsure of what to do. "I mean it." Said scarlet, and to prove her point she dug her talons into the scales on sunny's neck. Sunny let out a muffled squeal, and the sound made tsunami freeze. She slowly released the chains, and Corey took a big gasp of air. Scarlet nodded. "That's better." She said. She dropped sunny ungraciously to the floor. The little sandwing gasped and tried to press her talons to the deep claw marks.
Scarlet stormed up to tsunami. Glory tried to intercept, but scarlet smacked her aside with her tail.
"I was going to start with the rainwing, but since you want to be first so badly, I will grant your wish."
Ciel stood, looking a little unsteady. She spat out a broken tooth.
"Unhook her." Said scarlet, "we've got business to attend to."
Tsunami had to squash every instinct to fight. She wanted to so badly, and she knew that no good would come of peacefully following scarlet anywhere, but she didn't want to see her friends hurt. As She was unhooked from the wall, all she could be thankful for was at least for now her friends were safe. She was still buying time, and when they were out of this cell and too far away for scarlet to easily threaten her friends she would fight every step of the way. Every second she could make was worth all her strength.
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When tsunami was led away, the cell was closed and the cave was dark once again.
"What happened?" Asked starflight, "where have they taken her?"
Fatespeaker sniffed.
"Good old tsunami. She beat them up good, but now they're taking her somewhere."
"What's going to happen to her?" Asked sunny, still not aware of what was going on. Glory shook her head.
"I don't know. But it's not going to be good. We need to get out of here, fast. Any ideas?"
She couldn't see them shake their heads in the dark.
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Thanks for reading. When writing the character dialogue for those in muzzles, I tried saying their lines through clenched teeth and then wrote what the words sounded like. After this chapter though, they speak normally. I figured that the steel bands would let them talk normally, if not a little muffled. Also, my jaw got sore from clenching my teeth.
Anyway, thanks again for reading. Please review, I love reading your comments.