"How's the device going?"

Max sighed, taking off his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose. "I've been working on it, but it's got a lot of pieces. It's hard to make every section in secret."

He glanced over at Adrien. "How's Kagami holding up?"

Adrien blushed. It was fortunate his father had left to go on his expedition right away; he wasn't sure he could stay away from her long enough, was patient enough to wait until he wouldn't get caught.

And if his father caught him, or worse, followed him to Kagami…

He shuddered.

"She's holding up pretty well, all things considered," he replied. "She's… she's been through a lot. ALL the dragons have been through a lot."

His eyes hardened. "I am NOT letting her - not letting ANY of the dragons - be tormented, used, abused by that… that MONSTER of a Queen anymore."

Max gave him a level look. "Have you thought of a way to take her down? Considering the dragons haven't managed it and Kagami's explanation of her size and strengths, I give you approximately a 0.1% chance of success as it stands now."

Adrien blinked. "0.1% chance?"

"If all the Queen's guards happen to be napping or otherwise distracted, the rest of the dragons chance letting you through without alerting anyone, even though they'd be punished severely if it was discovered they did so, and when you try to stab her somewhere, she's too startled at your audacity to fight back before you incapacitate her."

Hm… that didn't sound TOO bad…

"Adrien, NO."

Adrien pouted. "But it could wo-"

Max gave him a look .

He continued giving his best puppy-dog eyes.

Max was unimpressed. "Those are a lot more effective when you aren't proposing marching to your death."

Adrien held up his hands in surrender. "Fiiiine. What do you suggest then?"

Max looked down uncertainly. "I… I don't know. Let's just concentrate on capturing more dragons, freeing them from mind control first. Maybe they'll have some ideas."

"Yeah, maybe…" Adrien murmured.

Adrien snuck out of dragon-slaying practice early.

He'd LOVE to stick around, to talk with Max, Alix, Alya - everyone really. He didn't get to hang out with them much under normal circumstances, so getting to spend so much time with them? Was a real treat.

But he wanted to talk to Kagami more.

As usual, she emerged from the shadows. Her wings had healed nicely in the past week, the swelling going down significantly.

He wished that could be an entirely happy development.

But a tinge of dread colored Kagami's voice when she told him of the improvement.

If she was able to fly soon, to get away… would she be able to resist the Queen's call? They were a long distance from her, but… her voice carried far.

He shook his head. It did no good to dwell on that now.

"You feeling okay Kagami?" he asked.

She gave a curt nod. "Prey is plentiful in this area. And my wings…"

She opened them slightly, something she hadn't been able to do yesterday without wincing. "I think I'll be able to fly soon."

Looking over his shoulder, she gestured with her head. "Who's your friend?"

He blinked. "Friend?"

A small, red-headed figure emerged from the undergrowth.

Well. 'emerged' may be putting it lightly.

More like 'front-flipped over a bush'.

Alix didn't do anything by halves.

She jabbed a finger in Kagami's direction. "Mind explaining?"

It only took about five minutes to bring her up to speed. It helped that Alix was less concerned with details, and more with 'oh cool I have a dragon buddy now'.

"Hm… you like testing your agility huh? I think I know some places we could use to put that to the test…"

...He was getting the feeling it might be best to supervise those two whenever they were together. Alix was known for pulling the craziest stunts of anyone on this hunk of rock.

Not that he was totally immune to getting sucked into those stunts as well but. Well. This wasn't about him.

At least they had another person on their side. One who tended to pull insanely risky stunts (a lot of the villagers TRIED to keep an eye on her, half to make sure she didn't get up to anything too crazy, and half because what she got up to was SO crazy you couldn't help but watch to see what she pulled next) but…

Wait…

"Hey Alix," he said, a gleam in his eye. "How'd you feel about causing a distraction?"

She grinned.

The village was unusually quiet.

Adrien worked his way past various blacksmith's tools, wincing at the pounding of Max's hammer against the anvil.

"How're you doing?" he called.

Max looked up. "I'm 80% done with the contraption. Another hour and I should reach 100%. Out of curiosity, how'd you get the village to leave for so long?"

"Uhh…"

Truthfully he wasn't sure, he'd been hanging out with Kagami when Alix had initiated her plan. All he knew was it required three sleds, two lengths of rope, a barrel, a lot of mead, and a duck.

"Never mind that," he waved Max's question off. "Do you think this will work?"

Max looked down at what he'd put together so far, brow furrowed. "The models indicate it should, but… there's still so much we don't know about dragons. Plus they come in all sorts of shapes and sizes."

He hesitated. "I… I can't guarantee it won't hurt the dragon at all. Being knocked out of the air, even like this, comes with risks. But it's the best I can think of right now to incapacitate one long enough for the Queen's mind control to wear off."

Adrien grimaced. That was the rub.

Incapacitating dragons was a dangerous affair for everyone involved.

"We'll run it by Kagami first," he told Max. "These are her people, after all."

Max nodded. "I would expect nothing less."

Pointing to a plank, he asked Adrien, "Now could you hold that up against this other piece here? It'll be easier to hammer it in if it's being held securely in place."