Chapter 4: An Unexpected Reunion
After two nights' flying, the Storm Hawks were approaching their destination. The terra the coordinates pointed to was at the far end of the terra-outcropping. The Condor flew by idyllic-looking, vegetation-dappled terras under a dull-yellow sky's aqua aurora, banks of wispy green clouds rolling far below the terras' tops – it was the sort of place where one might build a rural cottage. The carrier crawled towards the rolling, grassy hill of a terra, dominated by a single cottage, at a slow pace – it didn't look abandoned, but the owner didn't exactly have a garden on the plain hill. The landing legs extended upon the terra's sole hill, at the crest of which was a single cottage.
In the Skimmer bay, six Storm Hawks (minus Stork) were arming up, a chicken approaching Radarr to peck him for good luck. Moments later, the squadron were descending the Condor's ramp to the rolling hill, and moving straight towards the cottage – no-one had yet emerged. Aerrow craned his head, trying to see if there was something inside the cottage's window, though a curtain veiled it. Piper by his shoulder stopped three feet short of the door, as if fearing it might be booby-trapped. Aerrow silently gestured to Finn and Starling for them to take up positions on either side of the cottage's front door, their weapons ready. Piper could taste the mounting tension, the sense of unease like the calm before a storm. Aerrow nodded at Finn and Starling, drawing his lightning-blades, and Piper readied her crystal-staff whilst mentally touched her powers. Finn and Starling moved – halfway, before the door creaking open made them both halt.
"Hello?" The Storm Hawks had all frozen but hadn't let their guard down as the door pulled half-open. The voice that had spoken from inside was electronic with no determinate gender, intonation sounding innocently surprised. Inside the door, a dark-blue hood concealed the speaker's head in shadow, except a metal piece on their jawline. "Storm Hawks?!" The cloaked figure's electronic voice sounded innocently surprised – small lights flashed from the jawline-piece with each syllable. "I hope I haven't done anything wrong, I simply try to get by with my work up here."
Aerrow silently contemplated, though his voice pinched in uncertainty. "We're here because we wanted to ask some questions about your home and anyone who might've lived here."
"I see," the hooded, electronic-voiced figure murmured quite affably, stepping half-outside. "Come, let us speak out here – it is a wonderful day after all." As the figure spoke, Piper quietly nudged Aerrow, then gestured with the slightest motion of her head. At the cottage's corner, flowers – with fleshy white petals – were growing on curving vines. Aerrow's green eyes narrowed an inch. "I only obtained this house for my work on manufacturing my own crystals. The solitude does wonders for one's focus." On the speaking figure's flank, Starling had noticed her leader's body language and gave Finn a silent glance. "You could say this is only a substitute for my true home."
The figure had stepped almost into the centre of their audience. A pause passed, in which the hooded figure was unmoving – save the slightest glimpses of eyes inside the shadow shifting from one Storm Hawk to another. Finn and Starling's gazes shifted. Aerrow's didn't shift in the slightest. Aerrow lifted his ignited blades, and the cloaked figure leapt ten feet into the air, padded and armoured legs revealed to be gangly and spider-like as the cloak flew about. Mid-leap, the figure unsheathed from their back and ignited a long-handled, double-bladed weapon, fluidly spinning and unleashing mauve-pink energy bolts. Piper and Aerrow leapt to avoid one blast, Finn somersaulted sideways to avoid another. The sharpshooter fired his crossbow in retaliation. Returning to the ground, the figure spun his energy-guandao like a protective wheel, deflecting Finn's shots. Yelling, Junko charged the figure from behind – the cloaked one deflected the wallop's knuckle-buster with either guandao-blade, then kicked out at Junko's middle, sending the heavy wallop hurtling and kicking up dirt. While the figure's back was momentarily turned, Piper leapt and tried to bring her crystal-staff's point down on them, but the figure spun just in time to fire a blast into her stomach, reversing her momentum.
"YEARGH!" The figure wasn't fast enough to dodge Starling, her energy-nunchuks striking the head brutally. A jawline-moulded cybernetic brace hit the earth. Sliding to a stop, the figure was in a hunched stance, white hair visible above the gloved hand on their head. The Storm Hawks had by now regrouped and glared at the figure.
"Heh. Nice shot, young Storm Hawk!" The figure stood and removed the hand from his grinning face – despite the spiky hair's milky colour and the mauve-pink irises, the long and gaunt face with high cheekbones and a pointed chin was unmistakeable. The Storm Hawks on the ground were staring, slack-jawed momentarily – on the bridge of the Condor parked on the terra, Stork's jaw was slack as his eyes slowly widened.
"Dark Ace?!" Aerrow gasped, green eyes wide.
A stalemate passed, the gathered Storm Hawks staring at the unhooded figure who in turn stared them down. Hair and eye colours were changed and he had no sideburns nor a metal helm, but it was definitely him.
"Cyclonis blew this guy up with Ionos crystal-energy and he STILL comes back?!" Junko exclaimed.
"How are you alive?!" Starling exclaimed – hearing her raise her voice so could've turned some of the other Storm Hawks to stone. The gaunt brute chuckled – the Storm Hawks didn't know whether to be more disturbed by the familiar voice or the way the laughter sounded lighter and softer than the Dark Ace's old mocking cackle.
"Now that we've done away with the masquerade, Storm Hawks, I suppose I should properly introduce myself," he said. Okay, those kinds of manners were quite unlike the Dark Ace, Piper thought. "I am not the Dark Ace, though I am currently wearing his flesh and bones, you might say. So sorry you and your ex couldn't get another dance." He directed the last sentence at Aerrow with a cheeky grin. "I am Blacktalon, child of Atmos." He held his crackling energy-guandao up, arm straight. "And I have to say, Storm Hawks, I'm slightly disappointed that you found me perfectly on-time."
"On-time?" Junko exclaimed, grey eyes narrowed. "We tracked you!"
"You asked left and right where that Birdsong Crystal came from, and you knew I was here by the flowers in that window," the white-haired Dark Ace – Blacktalon – said, pointing his guandao towards the cottage's very same flower-vines. "And you took no more nor less time than I expected you to. Now that we've got the pleasantries over and done with, I'm sorry to inform you all that I have big plans afoot. And I won't have any of you spoiling it!"
That was all the warning Blacktalon gave before he suddenly charged with a war-cry. He came at Starling first, deflecting her crystal-nunchuks' first strike, though she ducked to avoid the kicking move that had finished Junko; Blacktalon leapt backwards to stop her kicking his feet out from under him. He knocked his energy-guandao's staff into Starling's chin, throwing her backwards. He turned and spun his guandao as a protective wheel again to block several shots from Finn, then a guandao-blade fired an energy-bolt which knocked Finn straight into the cottage's wall. Radarr pounced for Blacktalon's leg, but the pink-eyed man saw him coming, batting him to the air with a guandao-blade. The aged ferret-creature hit the dirt, large eyes bleary – near him, Aerrow's face darkened. Bright-blue crystal-energy rapidly surrounded Aerrow and pooled to his eyes. Blacktalon's mauve eyes widened slightly. Aerrow unleashed the Lightning Claw. Blacktalon's guandao-spinning shield-move absorbed the lightning-ball, and he was only sent sliding backwards on his heels. Aerrow returned to earth in a crouch. Blacktalon grinned, before his guandao fired another energy-bolt. Aerrow criss-crossed his lightning-blades to shield him, but it still threw him into the cottage, air knocked from him.
"Lightning Strike!" Piper yelled, firing a blue the beam into Aerrow. Aerrow got up, feeling alert, both him and Piper glowing blue. With a cry, Aerrow threw the energy-blast. Blacktalon sprinted clear, a split-second before the lightning-blast hit the spot where he'd been. Eyes widening, Aerrow sprinted forward, prompting Piper to turn her head in surprise. Blacktalon saw him coming. Aerrow yelled. Piper could've sworn she glimpsed Blacktalon smirking at one corner of his mouth – only when Aerrow was upon him did Blacktalon raise his energy-guandao defensively, and Aerrow's lightning-blades connecting sent a bolt from one of the guandao's blades firing straight into the cottage. In the centisecond the blast blew up a chunk of the cottage's wall, there was the briefest glimpse of machinery inside and a ball of white light, everyone on the ground and on the Condor's bridge throwing up an arm reflexively.
KRASHH-BLOOOM!
The explosive white plume rocketed over the terra. Within the space of one second, the peak and seemingly everything on it was reduced to a curtain of falling rocks and dust like the explosion of a volcano.
Blackness claimed everyone.
For a long time, the fresh rockfall was still as the grave.
With a sound, a few smaller rocks began rolling as something shifted. Starling forced the largest boulder off of the space above her, upper-body free as she coughed dirt from her lungs, her body matted with grey dust. Pulling her legs free, she forced herself to stand, swiftly looking around. The terra was virtually gone, leaving only a vast slope of rocks as far as she could see – which wasn't far. Sickly, pale-green fog was obscuring everything further than fifteen metres from her sight. Despite her hard face, she knew where she was, and it wasn't particularly good – she was in the Misty Wastes below Ionos' cloudline.
The fog swirled and rolled around Starling as she moved, one hand by her mouth as she called out loudly but not-too-loudly.
"Piper? Radarr! Finn?" She kept her other hand on her crystal-nunchuks as she called and went. "Aerrow?"
She heard noise, and her eyes flit to its direction. Ten metres away, she saw a crouched silhouette shifting and writhing. She jogged towards it, but she was all too ready to act defensively if it wasn't someone she knew. As she got closer, the shape materialised, forming Finn lifting a large boulder away from Junko (who was buried up to his shoulders).
"Guys!" she hissed quietly enough, drawing both their gazes to her, eyes lighting up slightly. Starling immediately began helping Finn lift the rubble off Junko, speeding up the process greatly.
Elsewhere amid the pale-green fog and rubble there was little sound other than wind whistling. Abruptly, a monkey-like paw shot from the dirt like something from a zombie mind-worm health-and-safety movie, grasping for air. A second paw followed, the limbs digging until Radarr's floppy-eared head was freed, and he coughed dust and pain from his lungs. Getting on his feet, Radarr's large eyes bulged at the green fog that obscured everything in all directions. Radarr's face darkened seriously, and he didn't waste any time before scampering along the uneven, sloping rocks, headed in search of his comrades. Twenty metres away on Radarr's flank, a silhouette scuttled fast in the fog. Radarr halted, ear and nose twitching as he became alert. He turned his head, unable to help the high-pitched frightened whine that came from him. He looked left, right, seeing nothing but rocky ground fading into green fog.
SKREEEEE!
That noise was all the warning before the monstrosity with the lamprey-like mouth-piece came charging out of the fog towards him, tendrils whipping about amid the fog.
Radarr screeched, and scrammed. The beast with a bulbous torso behind its lamprey-head's long neck slammed clumsily again the sloping rockfall, then it reoriented and charged after Radarr on triple-jointed legs. Metres ahead of the predator, Radarr screamed and push his muscles that much further. As uneven as the destroyed terra's rockfall was, Radarr couldn't find any bumps or ridges to hide behind and let the beast pass, and he knew he couldn't push his muscles forever. Something huge began materialising ahead, which had Radarr chirping without letting up his run. The Condor's bow and part of one of its engine-arms were above the sea of rubble. But the monster behind Radarr had already closed half the original distance behind him, and it screamed again. It prompted Radarr to give his muscles another push.
Honk! HONK!
The ship's foghorn sounded, lights flashing as it loomed closer through the fog. The light touched the tendril-whipping lamprey-monster, which shrieked in pain and screwed its four beady eyes. It whipped out a tendril, the razor end of which caught Radarr's hip and sent pain shooting through the screeching ferret-creature. Stork's face was visible in the Condor's half-buried windshields as he continued honking. The creature behind Radarr was slowing, mist eating it up as it got further behind, but Radarr wouldn't give up while he remained out here and exposed to predators. He scampered along the Condor's roof, the bridge's rooftop entry hatch opening for him so he could dive inside like a swimmer, whilst green mist enclosed.
Amid the swirling, greenish fog, Aerrow coughed out dust as he pushed up. Glancing back at himself, he saw one of his legs was buried up to the knee inside the rockfall. That was problematic. He quickly glanced around for any sign of his friends or anything else, and he found none. He quickly began lifting and shoving boulders and rocks away from the trapped leg-
A sudden scrape of rock rolling caught his ear like a twig-snap catching a doe's. Aerrow's gaze shot up, looking in the direction the noise had come from – too far through the green fog for him to see the point of origin. There was no other sound. Aerrow's eyebrows lowered – he had a keen enough instinct to know when a sound like that in a place like this was a false alarm or a sign he were being stalked. He began working double-time on getting his leg free. As he worked, his cautious gaze caught on one of his lightning-blades within arm's reach amid the rocks, and he promptly re-retrieved the weapon. He kept pushing, leaving only a couple more boulders sandwiching his leg.
"Let me help." Aerrow's eyes widened. He barely got a chance to half-turn with his lightning-blade lit, before mauve-pink energy blasted into him.
The silhouette in the fog lowered his bright-glowing energy-guandao. His features gradually materialised out of the fog as he approached along the rockfall. Aerrow was down, his face shifting unconsciously, hand still gripping one of his lightning-blades.
Wind whistled through the thickening green fog. Shifting outlines materialised and rapidly solidified to silhouettes, then to Starling, Finn and Junko sprinting forward. They stopped together eventually, Starling's hazel-green eyes looking about.
"You're not gonna thank me for saving you?" Finn deadpanned towards Junko, the bearded blonde scowling. Junko glanced over at the sharpshooter calmly.
"Finn, you knew how much my grandmother's uncle's twice-removed cousin's Soul Bauble meant to me," the wallop said quite neutrally. "I'm glad you helped me back there, but I can't forgive you until you apologise for what you did."
"Urgh, you want an apology?" Finn snapped, before turning his head away. "I'm sorry."
"You need to mean it," Junko said a little more sternly.
"Over here!" Starling suddenly exclaimed, both the men's heads snapping towards her. Starling was atop a mound in the sloping ground, looking at something poking out that could've easily been mistaken for a piece of rebar in a demolitions project. Starling gripped the handle, and pulled the rest of the object out like a sword from the stone – it was a familiar lightning-blade, one of a twin set.
"Aerrow…" Junko murmured, him and Finn staring in shock. Starling glanced back to meet their gazes.
Piper wandered amid the thick, horror-concealing fog, arms folded with hands in either elbow.
"Aerrow? Finn?" She called. Though her powers meant she could take care of any beasts down here, she kept her voice down in case she drew them near one of her friends without realising. Remembering something, Piper extracted a single bright-orange crystal from her satchel and held it up, the stone suddenly roaring with a burst of flames. It forced the visibility-limiting fog surrounding Piper back a further seventy metres, giving her better visibility of her farther surroundings. The sloping rockfall that remained of the terra seemed to extend practically forever around her, the pebbles making her think of a dormant volcano's slopes. Piper turned her head, amber eyes looking in several directions – no sign of anyone else around her. She set off in a direction, keeping the crystal held up.
Piper wandered for what felt like an hour, the fiery crystal beating the fog back as she emerged from it – the crystal also kept most of the beasts down here too wary to come near her. Piper knew by now that she'd gotten lost in the fog and wandered in the wrong direction, as the sloping rocks had since turned to relatively-flat, hard and bumpy ground under her feet, and it made her mentally kick herself. When it seemed quiet and still enough for her to risk making herself vulnerable; Piper sighed, then she closed her eyes, looking within for that two-way magic lifeline which connected her to Aerrow.
"Aerrow…" she murmured his name, resisting the urge to get frustrated as she seemed to be struggling more than usual to reach him. It was hard to explain, but for some reason it was like there was a haze over her mind stopping her from accessing the Binding – like when one had a day where their mind just wasn't working and they just couldn't focus it on what they wanted it to. She suspected it had something to do with the way her ears and head were buzzing with something, which she'd just now noticed happening to her while she'd been wandering. Still, Piper sighed and closed her eyes (firmly, though not tightly) again as she tried to beat the block. She imagined all her frustration at it were a chain tying her to an ocean floor, and that she was undoing the manacle. Then she was weightless, and needed only find a way to gracefully swim around the barrier she visualised that was attached to nothing. With that line of thought, her connection to Aerrow soon felt clearer.
"Seer's Gaze…" The spell took effect, linking her visual cortex to Aerrow's, and his to hers. He was conscious, as instead of being met with the blackness, Piper saw colours in a viewpoint that the magic made look slightly distorted.
Piper was looking diagonally downward, at greenish clouds sweeping away along her gaze, which was facing backward to wherever her gaze's source was moving. Able to control Aerrow's eyes, Piper flit them with her own will to look around him, though she couldn't make Aerrow's head move of her accord. She saw a hint of a tail attached to a metal spine, like that of a kite, with ribs of more metal through it. A flying wear-gear, thought it wasn't one she recognised.
Probably having felt his eyes shift involuntarily and realising what was going on, Aerrow's head suddenly started moving, giving Piper a clear view of what was over his shoulder. Atop his back was a plug holding a pale-green crystal (Piper guessed that might be what had made her struggle to get through to him), and he appeared to be bound atop the unfamiliar wing-ride apparatus. At the apparatus' head, they together saw Blacktalon's spiky, white hair blowing about the wind, the open sky beyond it.
Piper's vision gave way to white as the spell cut out.
"Aerrow!" she exclaimed, horrified. Blacktalon had captured him, alive, and that made knots of dread tie up in her stomach. She had to focus on getting back to the rest of her squadron now, and they had to catch up to Blacktalon if they could. She couldn't waste time, she had to take a risk to find the others as soon as possible. Piper started tapping into the other one of the two intricately-intertwined magic bonds that lay in the core of her being, ready to transform into a dragon and blow the fog apart-
KZZZT!
The moment her consciousness directly touched the Smaug-bond, Piper was blasted along a tunnel of multicoloured light, her vision leaving her body.
Piper was seeing through eyes that were as sharp as her dragon form's but definitely weren't hers, piercing the fog. That same buzzing that had been plaguing Piper for the last several minutes and which only now she was beginning to recognise, surrounded her head again; though she could feel and tell it was not in her head but in the head this other viewpoint belonged to. This other gaze was were looking upon Piper herself, her back facing the viewpoint at an angle, her fiery crystal shining like a twinkling star with the heightened draconic vision; the gaze's owner was producing a growling breath so softly that it was practically silent.
Returning to her body, Piper could've sworn her heart was suddenly arrhythmic. Did she hear an exhale through the fog from the spying creature, or was it just a breeze taunting her? She was still as the grave, and the fogged world around her seemed to do the same, as if even the elements were silent as hiding prey in fear of the predator she now knew the fog was hiding. Piper didn't dare breathe, certainly didn't dare look over her shoulder in the direction where she knew him to be lest that prompt the beast to spring forth upon its prey. She ran.
Almost immediately, a roar exploded behind her. The hunt was on. Knowing she'd accomplish nothing on foot, Piper tapped into the Smaug-bond and blasted the ground, rocketing herself diagonally upward. She shot above the cloudline, to find herself not in the terra-outcropping but somewhere else as she arced in the open sky. The sky here was turquoise with a sickly-yellow aurora, and valleys of terra-sized jagged mountain-spikes curved upwards above the cloudline like the pointed ribs of some long-dead vast behemoth to form the rib-like valley walls. Guiding her airborne arc, Piper landed fluidly in a crouch on one of the nearest valley- walls. She didn't stop for breath, she immediately ran. She could barely think clearly, so shocked verging on outright terrified that she immediately pulled on both her magic bonds together. In a bright-blue flash, her body transformed and was flying low, leathery wings working to quickly get her higher.
Dragon-Piper didn't dare look back as she gained elevation in the vast valley, didn't look at where her currently-silent pursuer was watching her distant form flying.
Piper flew hard and fast through the rib-like valleys, the indigo dragoness hoping to keep ahead of her pursuer. She couldn't hear him even with her current form's sharp senses, but the way the buzzing in her head persisted near-furiously constantly told her that he was around, stalking her, hunting. Above the curving valley-wall's tip on Piper's flank, a spiky shadow slunk snakelike through the foggy clouding – she snapped her head as her ears picked up something and she felt the air, but the wind wasn't blowing in the right direction for her to detect any scent. Piper twisted her neck left and right, seeking any escape or solution that could get her the hell out of this. It was too easy for him to hunt and find her in here. She spotted a narrow ravine in the valley's wall, seemingly leading to another valley. Piper looked back in the direction where she thought she'd last sensed her hunter, then she swerved and dived slightly, increasing her velocity as she shot towards the opening. She heard the distant-sounding roar as she shot into the ravine. Inside, she sucked in air, bright-orange light surging up from her bronze-scaled chest before she breathed a torrent of flame. Her fire seared the close ravine-wall molten-red at first, then her fire blasted over a tight cluster of boulders and caused a small explosion, which Piper angled her serpentine body to avoid as a plume of fire and smoke engulfed the cavern. She thought she heard a small roar. Angling her body as she flew along the opposite ravine-wall, Piper raked her stocky hind-legs' claws through the rougher rock, triggering a series of small rockfalls and then a lucky blast of boulders and dust which again curtained the ravine behind her. Instead of heading for the approaching mouth that exited the ravine, Piper twisted fluidly and quietly upon a narrow opening on the ravine's side, just big enough for her dragon body. She held her breath, draconic hearing alert, paying attention to how the buzzing in her head intensified or subsided with her hunter's nearing or departing presence. Here, not even the slightest breeze could carry her scent and potentially tell him where she was. Several tense seconds that seemed like an hour passed, molten-amber eyes glowing in the shadow where Piper hid.
She thought she sensed something above on the air – she was proven right when something landed almost directly above her hiding spot with an amount of vibration, disturbing a few pebbles and sending them rolling down the steep ravine-wall directly next to her hiding place. Piper couldn't see what was above her, but a moment after it had landed, its shadow cut off what little daylight reached her as it audibly scented the air. Some time passed, and Piper heard the other dragon's rumbling growl above her, a sound of puzzling and slight frustration as it worked its mind.
A quiet whoosh of air beneath it, as the beast took off from its place practically atop her. Piper didn't exit her hiding place immediately, keeping all senses open. Five minutes must have passed, before she heard his distant roar – it was very, very far away, at least several dozen leagues. She deemed it safe enough to emerge from her hiding place, opting to double back to the same side of the ravine she'd entered, since it was the opposite direction to where his roar had indicated he'd gone. Still, when she returned to the wider rib-valleys, Piper didn't dare return to the point she'd entered this place yet – he could have worked his way around to return there by second-guessing that she'd make that move. As she flew quietly through the rib-valleys, not daring to go higher than the tops of the valley-walls and keeping her senses alert; the buzzing in Piper's head kept rising and falling with each valley she passed through, indicating it was completely up to chance right now whether or not she accidentally flew right into him. She didn't know for sure if he was still lost searching for her, or if he'd spotted her again from afar and was toying with her again. Piper first wondered if she could quickly slip out of this valley-range and leave him searching for her before he realised she was gone – that had worked on him once before, long ago. Then Piper wondered if perhaps she could try flying above the highest clouds which blanketed the valleys' skies – she'd almost-certainly be spotted climbing towards the clouds, but if she got above them, she'd be able to see in every direction. Except down, she mentally noted. While thinking, Piper didn't see the hints of a winged silhouette shaped much like her current form briefly peak through a thinner part of the clouds directly above her.
Piper decided to keep to the valleys and keep her senses open. She tried contacting Aerrow through the Binding again – hoping desperately that her pursuer wouldn't sense that through the Smaug-bond. But it was like mentally commanding a dead limb to move. Something was cutting her and Aerrow off from each-other. Piper made a quiet, rumbling grunt with her frustration, brow-ridges darkening. She didn't see the cruel and elegant silhouette briefly dip its body below the upper-clouds, then return to them. But she sensed the shift on the air, and she paid attention to the level of the buzzing in her head, her alarm increasing-
ROAAAWR!
By half-a-second, the bellow preceded bright-orange fire bursting from the heavens behind Piper, the larger and shadowed dragon descending just behind his fiery torrent, huge wings dwarfing hers, scales the colour of blood. Piper screeched, molten eyes bulging – she twisted her body, and with a heavy wingbeat fired twin invisible magic-blasts. The larger dragon abruptly climbed to escape the blasts, which barely missed his long tail. He levelled off, and unleashed another stream of fire, which Piper barely twisted her body in time to avoid. He was too close, she had to dive-!
Powerful hind-legs slammed into Piper's back with significant force, knocking the air from her and pushing her in a forced downward-dive. Roaring, Piper lashed out her whip-like tail and managed to dislodge the larger dragon long enough to twist her winged body. She didn't see the oval-shaped purple crystal, which she'd been experimenting with that day Finn and Junko had come into her lab, slip out of the satchel on her scaly hindquarters to the air.
The golden-eyed dragon breathed fire aimed directly for her. The flying crystal passed directly over indigo-scaled neck and molten-orange eye in the split-second before flames bathed them. After a second, an orb of light shone through the fiery surge.
KH-SHAWW!
A blast of purple light erupted like a spirit of the heavens had just burst into the valley-land, its force mighty enough to throw both dragons in opposite directions. The larger male dragon caught himself on his wings before he could hit the valley floor. The bronze-and-indigo female, from whom the purple-visualised burst of magic trailed like glowing mist, crashed in the valley like some unimaginably-huge behemoth had thrown her by the tail, causing a tremor to crack the ground and showers of rock and earth to tear up in her passing, before her serpentine body slid to a stop. As the last traces of purple light-mist on her hide dissipated, the dragoness's great mass abruptly shrank in a bluish flash, leaving a tiny human lying on the ground in her place.
Teeth bared, Smaug exercised caution as he slunk forward along the barren ground. He knew how much of a cunning, capable pest his prize could be, and he wouldn't lose another victory to her mitts by getting careless. Piper remained unmoving as the dragon's bulk approached. His flaring nostrils scented her air while his hard, golden-yellow gaze looked her over, neuron and muscle ready to spring into action the millisecond she moved. She was alive and largely uninjured as far as Smaug could tell. The girl who'd trapped him in stone was now a young woman, wearing new armour and clothing, her features more developed, spiky hair longer and lankier with a small part of it twisted into small twin braids. She was now producing the smell of human genes and hormones, though traces of dragon-scent still clung to her. Smaug had hardly been able to believe it when he'd seen Piper transform into a female great fire-drake, the first female that Smaug had seen in a long time. It had stirred several emotions in him nearly simultaneously – awe, shock, intrigue, fury, disgust. His body had reacted almost as soon as his brain had registered the female scent, but it also now made the great dragon furious to think that this miserable, weak-bodied human had taken everything that belonged to a dragon's body for herself when she clearly wasn't worthy of it! Part of him was very nearly tempted to just kill her now. The dragon crept close enough that his huge foreclaw was on one side of Piper, crocodilian head and neck slinking closer. His senses almost-instantly detected the two gold rings she now wore in one ear (he couldn't exactly say he disapproved of seeing gold linked into his human treasure's body).
"My…" Smaug growled in his deep, rich voice, the sound of his words reverberating like the sound of an earthquake. "How you've grown." Piper's heartbeat altered, and Smaug felt the slight vibration along their bond. Black glee seeped to his black heart as Piper lifted her head, amber-orange eyes slowly blinking. Slowly, she registered the carriage-sized bestial head and looming close above her and the fiery eyes glaring at her. Then the woman yelped in fright and started scooting backwards on her rear like a mouse. Smaug was admittedly slightly taken aback that Piper didn't even try to put up a fight. She stopped when Smaug slammed a wing-claw to earth hard enough and near enough to make vibrations run into Piper's bones, but her eyes remained wide and terrified.
"Hello, princess," Smaug murmured slowly and darkly, savouring every moment of Piper's shock and terror. At hearing his voice, Piper yelped and her eyes bulged almost as if shocked.
"Y- You can talk!" she yelped. That gave Smaug immediate pause, lips closing and molten eyes narrowing. His gaze examined her keenly and he assessed and re-assessed every smell, sense and vital-sign, his brain rapidly working through the information he accumulated. Piper remained on her rear, saucer-wide eyes staring up at Smaug and looking as ready as a rabbit to flee him; while the dragon hummed deeply and arched his neck higher.
"Do you not remember?" Smaug growled, arching a brow-ridge slightly as his tone sounded both assessing and slightly concerned (not too much concern – that would be poor acting). Another pause before Piper spoke.
"What… should I be remembering?" she asked, eyebrows shifting in puzzlement. Smaug's face twisted into a serious scowl as he glared at her anew. He couldn't smell nor hear any of the telltale signs of a lie. One of the very next things that came into his mind was worry that this could've affected his and Piper's bond somehow, depriving him of the great power which made his human treasure so valuable. He didn't get more than a few seconds' quick thinking on that before the sounds of approaching sky transport made him twist his neck to look behind himself, growling.
"Piper!" a familiar wallop yelled. Four sky-rides were flying forward with an unmistakably-familiar carrier ship behind them, but all slowed to hover. Junko gasped in wide-eyed horror, and the Skimmer-riding, hazel-eyed familiar woman amongst the squadron was also wide-eyed with shock. Smaug was vaguely aware of Piper turning her confused gaze from the Storm Hawks and Interceptor back to him, whilst he kept his dark glare on the self-styled-hero whelps.
"Who's Piper…?" Piper slowly murmured, getting to her feet and staring bewildered back at the squadron. "Are… you talking to me?!"
"What?!" Finn exclaimed aloud, an extra flavouring of shock filling Starling and the Storm Hawks' faces – Smaug would've relished in it, save that he was still concerned by the unexpected turn himself. Piper, glancing back at Smaug, was almost like a hatchling hiding beside its parent, as Smaug's body largely remained still but his glinting eyes shifted between her and the squadron, cogs and wheels whirring rapidly.
"Who are you?!" Piper exclaimed, looking between the dragon's bulk and the Storm Hawks. Smaug subtly curled his lip, eyes shifting as his brain rechecked and verified his decision.
"THEY ARE OUR ENEMIES!" Smaug bellowed ferociously, spurs flexing and eyes blazing like an inferno at the Storm Hawks, shifting his entire carrier-sized body protectively around Piper. "Take hold! NOW!" Perhaps her memory-loss had affected her personality (Smaug hoped that hadn't happened) or perhaps it was just hearing him speak like so, but Piper hesitated half-a-second, before she sprinted deep into Smaug's shadow, latching onto and climbing a stocky hind-leg. In the second that a couple of the stunned Storm Hawks shifted their gazes back to Smaug, he gave them a savage grin, enjoying their bewilderment and the anguish he knew would follow like they were wine. Then he inhaled with light reaching his gullet, and let loose his molten fire. The Storm Hawks immediately scattered to escape the flames, but Smaug sharply and relentlessly twisted his neck in varying directions while still breathing fire, until he and Piper were wrapped in a garden-like wall of it.
His body largely obscured from sight by flames and smoke, Smaug was beating his wings to lift off while twisting his body – by the time the mortals could've made out enough to realise Smaug was taking flight in the opposite direction, his silhouette was already a significant distance ahead of them, flying fast. The Storm Hawks re-converged and passed the flames too late. Starling, Finn, Junko, Stork and Radarr were all gaping in the direction Smaug had gone, eyes wide in horror.
A/N: Dun-dun-DUNNN! :)