Hello folks! Have some shenanigans!
105. Belladonna
It happened because of the pit dragons.
They needed a lot of attention and help, and none of them would go in the barns—except for Tumbleweed, who was in the other earth barn, anyway. And, since almost everyone was busy making sure they were eating and sleeping alright, there was only ever a scattering of dragons left over to keep watch over Gigas and Ursan.
So when roaring and pained howls erupted outside, getting louder by the second, dragons poured out of the barn to go see what was going on... leaving them alone. Except for the human named May who lived in the stall next to theirs.
"Now," Ursan murmured.
Gigas knew what to do—Ursan had been whispering to him about it for a while. He'd said it was very important that he could do it right, and quietly.
The lock jiggled. "Slower," Ursan urged him. "Keep steady."
It was hard. His rider knew how to open locks like this, but he'd never done it with powers like Gigas had to. Not to mention he'd only practiced it a few times, in the dead of night. He stood up on his hind paws to get his head closer to where the padlock was. Click... click...
The lock fell open. Gigas carefully lifted it free of the door and let it drop to the ground. He dropped with it, right onto his belly with a little thump. He'd never concentrated that hard on anything in his life. His brain felt like mush.
"C'mon," Ursan whispered, tapping him under the chin. "Up. No telling how long before they come back."
They tried to open the door quietly, but the hinges squeaked. There was a rustling sound from May's stall. "What's going on?" she mumbled.
Ursan was silent.
"Oh. You're leaving."
They both tensed. Would she shout for the other humans? But May only said, "Bye, Gigas."
He tapped his tail against the door of her stall, because he didn't dare bark. Then they went out through the back of the barn and into the dark. He was struck by the sight of the stars—he hadn't been out at night since he could still fit through the little door in the stall. Ursan led the way as they crept behind the water barns, then doubled back to avoid a pit dragon that lay sprawled on the lawn in their path.
Ursan started to breathing hard. Gigas rumbled softly and nudged him, his ears drooping when he realized his rider was cradling his bad arm. It was getting better, and it didn't smell funny anymore, but it still hurt him sometimes.
They slipped past the water barns on the other side. There were only the fire barns, now, the woods were almost in reach—
Two shadows emerged from between the barns, right in their path. Gigas skidded to a stop with his nose about six inches away from Harpy's chest. He twanged in alarm, then backed up... and noticed Justice right beside her.
Silence, except for Ursan's muttered curse.
"Um," said Gigas.
Justice snorted. "If you want to leave, I didn't see you." He promptly wandered back the way he'd come.
Harpy watched him, her head tilted to one side. "You promised."
Gigas' tail twitched nervously.
"I promised." She turned her bright eyes on Ursan, who flinched and clutched his arm. And with that, she melted back into the shadows.
Ursan let out a lungful of air and sagged where he stood. "Damned thing keeps popping up out of nowhere," he grumbled.
Gigas barked reproachfully at him.
"Sorry." Ursan took a tentative step forward. "Let's go."
But Gigas hesitated. He glanced into the place between the fire barns where the older dragons had disappeared. "Harpy?"
Two yellow spots appeared in the dark. Ursan jumped and almost fell over backwards, swearing viciously under his breath. "Little one," she said, and stepped into the fading daylight.
"Are you and Justice still going to fight again?"
"Yes."
Gigas hesitated. His paws kneaded the ground as he thought, and his wings fluttered anxiously. He wanted to go and find Flux and Harbinger, but he didn't want Harpy or Justice to get hurt either. The dragons in the White Fang were safe—they had Brand protecting them, and he couldn't imagine anyone beating Brand. But if Harpy was right about the Council... they were hurting little hatchlings, and they were dangerous.
He whined and paced in a little circle, his tail drooping. Ursan tensed. "What?" he demanded. "Is someone else coming?"
Gigas sat down on the ground.
Ursan groaned. "Come on. We have to go, now. They'll notice we're missing in a minute."
He put his head down and buried it under his paws.
Ursan knelt down next to him. "What is it?"
He hesitated. He hadn't tried to do any human words yet, and it seemed hard. But he pointed his nose towards Harpy and barked.
Ursan made a noise, like he had almost laughed or screamed in frustration, or maybe both. "You're worried about that thing."
Gigas bobbed his head.
His rider rubbed his nose. "Don't be. Pity the poor bastard that has to fight it."
Harpy let out a little hiss that made him flinch again. "Stop that," Gigas insisted. She blinked at him, then huffed and lay down on her side. That had to make her a little less scary to Ursan, didn't it?
His rider was quiet. Then he pressed a palm to his face and said, "You want to stay, don't you."
Gigas barked agreement.
Ursan heaved a sigh and got to his feet. "Is this about the fight coming up?"
Another bark.
"I can't promise we'll get another chance like this afterwards," Ursan warned him. "Are you sure?"
Gigas twanged joyfully and almost jumped on his rider. He remembered just in time that he was too big for that, now—so he jumped on Harpy instead. She rolled onto her back and snorted indulgently at him. "Go," she said, and gave him a nudge.
Ursan edged closer, then stopped when Harpy looked at him. "Come on," he told Gigas. "We need to get back before someone notices we're gone."
Brand's chest was on fire. The pain flared every time he flapped his wings, shooting all the way down to their tips. He hadn't ached this badly since he'd first learned to fly with a rider... but it wasn't the time to think about that.
He landed heavily in a small wooded area on the outskirts of the Dragonry. Out of sight of the main buildings, like Sienna had wanted. Then he waited for the three faunus to dismount.
"This is where we leave you," she said, inclining her head towards them. "And thank you again."
Harbinger reached behind himself and started tugging Fennec loose from his saddle. Sienna wasn't even strapped in—Brand only had to pick her up and deposit her beside the Belladonnas.
"What are you doing?" Fennec demanded.
Sienna patted his side and asked, "Do you need to rest?"
He whuffed and raised his head to look towards the main buildings. Gigas would be kept somewhere secure. The barns? Brand wasn't sure if they locked or not. He didn't even know what most of the buildings were for, or whether Gigas and the Lieutenant would be together.
They'd have to try to sneak around as long as they could. He was too big for that to work forever, but there were too many of the enemy to just—
"Flux!" Harbinger barked, and lunged at her. Too late. She was already tearing off through the trees, and it was all Brand could do to keep up with her. How was she moving so fast with such short legs?
"What?!" Sienna started to run after them. "No! Stop! Flux!" But the faunus didn't have a hope of keeping up, and before long Brand couldn't even hear them anymore.
"We have to be stealthy!" Harbinger tried to pounce on Flux, but she slipped between his front paws. "There might be guards, or—"
The trees ended. Brand and Harbinger skidded to a stop, but Flux was moving too fast. Her momentum carried her straight into the side of a sleeping dragon. She slammed into it, sending sparks flying, and then scuttled backwards.
She was an earth dragon, and she had been big once. Marbled pink and white scales hung loose under her belly and neck, where muscle and fat had melted away. He could count her ribs. But she burst into motion the instant she was touched, rolling to her feet and slashing out in a panic. The only thing that kept Flux from being hurt was that she had been aiming at an opponent closer to her size—the dragon's claws passed harmlessly over her head.
A growl started low in her chest. She moved ponderously, now, like there was something heavy pressing down on her back. Brand edged away, and snapped at Harbinger and Flux to get them to do the same.
"We're sorry!" Harbinger blurted. "We, um, didn't mean to wake you up."
Her roar was shaky and hoarse, like it had been a long time since she'd used it. But Brand could see other dragons sleeping in the field nearby picking up their heads.
"Go," he snapped at the young ones. "I'll distract them."
Both tried to protest at the same time. He snarled and lashed out, forcing them to back up to the edges of the forest. "Stay down," he ordered, "and stay hidden. Smell him out." This time, instead of arguing, they disappeared into the brush.
Brand squared his shoulders and turned to face his opponent.
Opponents.
Six of them, if he counted the ones across the field that were coming towards him.
His ears went flat. Maybe this hadn't been such a great idea...
At first, Flux could try to track the fight by the roars and shrieks that could be heard, even when they'd left the field behind to dart between buildings, hiding in the shadows wherever they could. But before long it was impossible to tell Brand's cries from the others. And there were a lot of others.
"Why are there so many of them outside?" Harbinger groaned. His eyes darted frantically back and forth as he slipped between two gigantic buildings, then edged away from a pathway where the light of the lamps might give them away.
Flux didn't answer. She sniffed the air, her neck straining as she tried to get a little bit closer to... to...
Gigas!
At the first scent of her brother, she streaked towards him like a heat-seeking missile. Heedless of the noise she was making, or whoever might see her, or Harbinger's frantic whisper. "Flux!"
She pelted around a corner. There he was—he'd stopped to sniff the air, but he was looking in the wrong direction and then she was almost on top of him and then, impact.
They rolled over one another, bounced down a small hill, then came to a sudden stop when they struck something solid.
Very solid.
And warm.
She struggled to untangle herself from Gigas, then looked up. And up. And up, until she finally met the eyes of one of the dragons that had invaded their camp. The one that stole her brother. His traitor rider was there with him, and the ice dragon, and the two others.
"Eep!" Flux shrank back... then stopped. No—this wasn't the time for being scared of the enemy. Even if the enemy was much, much bigger than she was, and she and Gigas were outnumbered two-to-one. This was a rescue mission! So she hissed and flared her wings menacingly.
"...Hi?" He blinked at her in bemusement, then bent to study her closer. She swiped at him and zapped his nose. He pulled back. "Hey!"
"Wait!" Gigas barked. "That's Pit! He's nice, he told me all about—"
A roar from behind them made them both twist to look over their shoulders. Harbinger came charging towards them, his wings spread wide. "Get away from them!"
"But—" Gigas started to say. Harbinger leaped over them and crashed into Pit's side, sending them both sprawling. The traitor rider ducked under their flailing tails as they wrestled on the ground. The other dragons converged on Harbinger, ready to gang up on him.
Flux let out her most fearsome battle cry. It sounded a bit more like a squeak than she'd intended.
The plan, after Harpy left Gigas, had been to find whatever fight was causing all that noise. So of course, only moments after he got out of her sight, she started hearing roars and shouts back the way she'd come.
She turned on a dime, slipping between buildings until she found the source of the commotion. And by then, half of one of the fire barns had collapsed.
At least three dragons were wrestling together in one giant ball, crashing into the side of the building and kicking out in every direction. The ground had sunk into what looked like a gigantic mud pit, and the barn had sunk with it, listing heavily to one side. Its front wall was covered in ash, and would probably be on fire right now if it hadn't been built to withstand elemental attacks like that. And, nearer to Harpy, the ground had gone from mud to dirty slush, while little Gigas was trying to pin...
"Flux?"
She froze. So did her brother. Both blinked up at Harpy like they'd just been caught stealing treats out of their riders' pockets.
"Stay," she told them, and trotted towards the bigger fight. She spotted the Lieutenant, who was trying to keep himself between Specter, Storm, and the two brawling hatchlings. And Justice, who looked like he'd just shown up like she had. He huffed in exasperation and dove into the main fight, dragging Harbinger away from Fang and Pit.
"Everybody stop," he roared.
Flux twitched. Harpy reached out with a back paw and gently pushed her down.
The Lieutenant wiped mud off his face, swayed, and fell down on one knee, clutching his bad arm. Gigas yelped, "Ursan!" and sprinted over to push his face into his rider's chest. Pit sat back onto his haunches, looking guilty.
Harbinger glanced at Harpy, then Justice, and bared his teeth. "We're taking Gigas back."
"Huh?" Gigas poked his head over the Lieutenant's shoulder.
"He's my brother!" Flux pounced on him. "Mine!"
Gigas winced a little when she shocked him, then licked her nose. "Yeah!" he said. Then, "Wait, what are you doing here?"
"Rescuing you." She shot Pit a baleful glare.
His ears went back. "I told you, no one's trying to hurt him. You didn't have to bite me."
"You attacked our camp!"
"And you hurt Blake!"
Everyone started trying to talk at once—Justice explained that Gigas had decided to stay despite the fact that no one was listening, Flux tried unsuccessfully to menace Pit, Specter and Fang started talking about the Council while Storm called out to Gigas and Harbinger started growling—
Harpy reached out to the wall of the fire barn and scraped her claws down its side. The noise it made set every dragon and rider clutching at their ears and stopped all other noise cold. "Gigas goes where Gigas wants," she said, and sat down. Waiting.
He wilted under all the attention. "Um... I want to help. With the Council."
"Oh!" Flux blurted. "Sienna mentioned that! What even is it, anyway?"
There was a shocked silence.
She shrank behind her brother. "I stopped paying attention when she mentioned Gigas," she admitted. "Wasn't it something about—"
Another roar cut them off. They were the same ones Harpy had been hearing for almost twenty minutes, now. Her hackles rose, and Harbinger's eyes went wide with horror.
"Brand!" he blurted.
Harpy tensed. Justice glanced at her, and she jerked her head towards the sound. "Go. I guard. Explain."
He darted away, followed by Pit and Specter, while Fang and Storm stayed back to watch Harbinger. Flux followed the action with her tail twitching anxiously. But Gigas kept nudging her until she was distracted, and chattering cheerfully about the Council.
"They're bad," he proclaimed. "Really bad. But that means we can all help fight them, right? Ursan wanted to leave, but I couldn't go when Justice and Harpy—Harpy's the big one! Her new human named her—anyway, they want to fight and it's dangerous and scary, so I have to stay and help! And I thought you and Harbinger were safe in camp with Brand, but if you're here that's even better!"
Harpy exchanged a slightly exasperated glance with Specter and Storm, and put a paw on Gigas' back so that he stopped talking.
"Complicated," she warned him. "But... we can try."
"What's going on?" Blake shouted, as Pit and Specter sprinted towards the sounds of dragons fighting. "Wasn't that the hatchling from the White Fang camp?"
Instead of answering, Pit barreled out from between two barns and charged down a hill. The pit dragons that had been sleeping were up, flaring their wings and snarling, and even taking swipes at another dragon in their midst. One that looked healthy only by comparison to all of them.
"Brand!" Blake slid off Pit's back before he'd even come to a stop, stumbling as she rushed to put herself between him and Granite. "Both of you, st—"
She didn't see which pit dragon it was. She only felt a tail collide with her stomach, and the next thing she knew she was on her back, struggling to breathe. Brand screeched in fury, and Pit let out a roar that cowed a few of the pit dragons.
Only a few. Definitely not Granite, who couldn't even hear him.
Hands came down on Blake's shoulders. She looked up, expecting Weiss, and had the wind knocked out of her a second time.
"Blake! Blake, honey, are you alright?"
"M-mom?!"
She noticed for the first time the solid presence at her back, and turned her head to find her dad, kneeling next to her on the ground. Her mouth fell open. "What—how did you—?"
A roar forced her attention back to the dragons. Weiss was having only slightly better luck than she had with calming Granite, though she managed to get Brick and Riptide to move away from Brand. Pit growled over her shoulder at Kite—she was probably the one who'd knocked Blake over, then. Justice, meanwhile, wrestled Dusk away from Brand, which would have ended horribly if she hadn't been nearly comatose after she'd been freed from Cinder's control.
And there, in the middle of the chaos, stood Sienna Khan.
"What are you doing?" Blake burst out, the second she had her breath back. "Did you bring him here?"
Sienna, who looked like she'd been trying to soothe Brand without coming inside his reach, turned her head. "We weren't supposed to be this close," she said, shooting an irritated glare at the dragon.
"They're supposed to be resting!" Blake gestured at the pit dragons. "Just—help me get him to back up. They'll calm down easier if they can't see him."
Brand dug in his heels when she approached him, and kept craning his neck to look at the main part of the Dragonry. "The dragons who came with you are safe," she promised, giving him a gentle push to get him going. "They're with Gigas."
At the mention of the hatchling, Brand finally relaxed and let them lead him away. In his absence most of the pit dragons slunk off to go back to sleep. Dusk collapsed where she stood, her chest slowly rising and falling, a row of scratches across her nose bleeding sluggishly.
"Just what is going on here?" Weiss demanded, rounding on Sienna. "And what exactly were you hoping to gain by starting a fight with a bunch of dragons that are trying to recover?" Then she finally seemed to realize who she was talking to, and stopped. Specter crept up behind her, mantling his wings in a silent warning.
Blake wanted to say something, but it felt like anything she said would be the spark that caused the explosion. The tension built—
"Blake!"
And shattered in an instant, as Kali wrapped her in a fierce hug. An instant later she felt her dad's arms around them both. She was too shocked to respond at first, but after a moment she melted into the hug.
A curious bark roused her. Pit poked his head over her shoulder and sniffed at them both, his eyes lighting up with excitement. Before she could stop him, he stuck his tongue out and licked her dad's face. He blinked a few times, his hair hanging wet and limp across his forehead. Then he started to laugh.
"It's true, then?" Kali reached out to touch his flank. "He's yours?"
"Y-yeah." Blake felt like she'd just fallen into a dream—nothing made sense. "I don't—how did you get here?"
Brand snorted and arched his neck, the picture of draconic smugness.
"And how did you know... how..." She trailed off. It was getting difficult not to cry.
Her mom kissed the top of her head. "We saw you on the news. Then Sienna came by, and... we wanted to make sure you were alright."
That asked more questions than it answered.
"Why is Sienna here?" Blake twisted around to look at her, and found that she and Specter were still in a silent stand-off.
"Oh!" Her mom backed up, grinning. "I almost forgot. Since she and Brand gave us a lift, we should probably fulfill our end of the bargain."
"She wanted our help delivering a message," Ghira added. "Though it looks like it might be easier to talk to the General directly, at this point."
Sienna scowled. "I suppose the damage is already done," she said, through gritted teeth. "I'm here to offer you a truce, and help if you want it. From Brand, and two hybrids."
"The ones you created in that slaughterhouse you call a lab?" Weiss asked coldly.
"Pit was injected there, too," Sienna snapped. "And it didn't look to me like Ironwood was being picky about his allies."
Kali heaved a sigh. "You'll have to tell us all about this handsome fellow later," she sighed, giving Pit a pat on the nose that made him thump his back paw against the ground. "It looks like it'll take some doing to smooth this one over."
