Rise of The LegtapusWings
(This was written under the assumption the reader has read WoF 1-14 for context, apologies if you haven't finished them yet!)
Chapter 1
Off the western coast of what was once a particularly claw shaped peninsula, the depths hum with activity. Deep down into the darkest crevices of the sea, they twinkle to one another. They are preparing for the journey ahead. Where others would use talons, they use their white, forked tongues to point at the map carved into the stone walls of the cave.
One flashes thousands of tiny speckles in their eyes.
Alert the rest of our bloop. It is time to find The Scroll of Creation. We leave tomorrow, when the light just reaches the edges of the largest cave.
Filled with excitement and dread, the other nods, then kicks his eight legs through the water to swim out of the cave. Passing many others like him, the creature also observes other forms of life.
An anemone swishing side to side. Baby sea turtles letting the currents carry them. A squid floating breezily along. Glowing blue animals who he didn't know the names of yet. Schools of fish exploding through a forest of coral, chased by one of many SeaWings welcomed into the tribe years ago.
She stops and waves, flashing Hello friend with her luminescent patches of scales. Her wings gently flow up and down alongside her body, keeping her in place. The eight legged creature waggles one of its feet back, wiggling his toes. He understands her language, but does not have the same physical properties to replicate it.
She smiles and continues on her way, knowing they can't communicate properly underwater. He watches longingly as she goes, bright blues and shining greens melding into the colors of the deep.
I wish she could follow me to the bottom, but the water pressure would surely be too great. He wondered as he swam down towards the darker realm of the sea.
Would it crush her if she was dragged down? Could she open her gills with it pressing on her?
Pondering the idea of moving his home higher in the caverns, he dove farther into the darkness.
ooo
Half a world away, another slimy, octopus-like dragon was working on similar preparations. Instead of life underwater, this one lived in a maze of twists and turns at the bottom of a hole. The hole gaped in the center of a vast savanna, currently overrun by another species of dragon.
Except they were not enemies. She controlled them. Bent them to her will, but only when necessary. The HiveWing queen was under her control, and therefore the Hive Mind of striped dragons.
She hummed to herself, scribbling along a book of notes in her private chamber. Presidential chambers? She thought scornfully.
This is simply a cave with President Globby carved into the wall leading to the 'doorway'. I'm going to make sure everyone's homes are much nicer when we live on the surface. Lots of sunshine and within walking distance of the sea!
Her soft scales shivered happily at the idea. Won't that be wonderful?
She hoped her tribe would move up there before she was out of office. Madam Globby always dreamed of being the hero of the LegtapusWings.
Soon. She thought while rearranging stacks of books on the rock she pretended was her desk.
A string of tiny lanterns encircled the cave, and she tipped her bulbous head questioningly at them.
"Don't go out yet." She told them aloud.
I haven't had time to bring the next load of flamesilk to the hole this week. Way behind schedule? This is so unlike me. I wish I could share the burden of the Hive Mind with someone else. Maybe if I had dragonets by now like my council suggests, this strange power would pass down to-
Before she could finish her carefully constructed thoughts, a LegtapusWing the color of the moons came barreling in. They ran right into the opposite wall, rattling books off their shelves.
Globby's eyes twinkled sporadically in disbelief.
The sudden visitor pulled themselves off the floor, gasping for air.
"By all means Shimmer, what's going on?"
Globby rested her front feet on their shoulders. "Spit it out!"
This LegtapusWing was the tribe's Safety Commander. Their duties include coordinating the guards in the cave and at the top of the hole, as well as watching over Hive Mind supply drops (in case Globby loses control of the HiveWings). If Shimmer was here in a panic, something big must be going down.
Shimmer took a deep breath. "The spies on the other continent sent an emergency messenger back!"
Globby's breath hitched, her brain flooding with possibilities. "Who's hurt? Who found them?"
"N-no one! Everyone's fine. Apparently they found something. The squad was camped out in some mountains when the whole place started rumbling and then they watched a massive NightWing-hybrid-looking-thing burst out of the ground and-"
Before she let them finish, Globby spun around and whisked away through the tunnel leading to The Great Cavern. She came to a halt at the balcony entrance, overlooking dragons flying between caves, reading books, working on projects, and playing in the stream running through the bottom of the cavern, all around flamesilk light globes strung across the looming space.
She looked back at Shimmer, skittering as fast as they could and stopping abruptly as they and Globby locked eyes.
It's happening. Her eyes twinkled. Shimmer was too rattled to respond, tensing up as realization hit.
Without delay, the president saw what she needed; the Attention Rope, hanging beside the balcony. She opened her squishy beak as wide as she could, jumped up and yanked it downward with all her might.
GONG! GONG! GONG! GONG!
A bell as big as a pile of twenty dragons hung atop the cavern, swinging back and forth, eventually gonging quieter into silence.
Everyone stopped.
Mid-sentence. Mid-flap. Mid-thought.
Shimmer still looking unnerved beside her, Globby sat on her four back legs to address her tribe.
"Everyone listen up!" She burbled as loudly as she could. "We are under a Code Orange. Emergency protocols are taking effect immediately. All safety personnel must report to the meeting cave for further instructions. Gather your dragonets as soon as possible. We are under a CODE ORANGE." She winced as her voiced reverberated through the dead silence. Hundreds of eyes stared back at her in confusion.
Globby was glad they couldn't read her frustrated twinkles from this distance.
Shimmer leaned close to her and whispered, "I don't think anyone actually memorizes the emergency codes, because we haven't had one in hundreds of years."
Globby huffed, turning back to the crowd. "Let me recite what that is. 'The Stalker has awoken from his supposedly eternal slumber.'"
LegtapusWings all over looked at each other with mixed expressions. The dragonets were puzzled, the adults were baffled, but the eldest were a mix of horrified and excited. Still, no one sprang into action like she'd expected.
Globby flared her crimson red wings indignantly.
"GO!"
ooo
Things are different now that most of the students who were originally in her winglet have been replaced. The new IceWings are… okay. Peril hasn't set anyone on fire lately. Everything was about as normal as it could get.
Kinkajou was perfectly content at Jade Mountain Academy. No one spitting out any more prophecies, no crazy princesses trying to beat people with magic brooms, no wars, no exploding cacti, no stress. Just peace and tranquility.
At least that's what she thought.
Kinkajou was curled up in her soft vine hammock in her sleeping cave, more than ready to sleep after working her brain all day, but there was one more thing she needed to do.
It's been days without a word. I just want this whole 'lost continent' thing to be over so my friends can come home.
The latest update Turtle wrote to Kinkajou through the one way animus-touched writing slate was about a small stealth team being sent back to the crazy place he and Tsunami just barely escaped.
Who knew being a bystander to the action would be so stressful? Forget school! I wanna see these new planty dragons and insect dragons he mentioned!
She wondered if you could draw anything on the slate, or if it had to be words.
Kinkajou fished the slate carefully out of the secret pocket woven into her hammock. Her friends whom she now shared the cave with were fast asleep.
As usual for the past few days, it was blank. She sighed, wondering if she could intimidate the slate into doing something. Kinkajou peeked at the other dragonets in the cave, but they were still fast asleep. She watched it impatiently, hoping it would just start writing and be another "Three moons I'm tired. Wanna come home. Nothing interesting to see here." so she could sleep peacefully.
Just as she was about to slip it back into the pocket, the slate started scrawling out words frantically. So fast, in fact, that the newly literate RainWing focused on the more concerning things, like "mind controlled zombies" and "army of evil octopus dragons with scavenger legs".
She read and re-read it several times, and each time it sounded more insane than the last. This part at least sounded pretty clear;
"Get someone to call a Council of the Queens. Queen Snowfall needs to know ASAP. If I get kidnapped, tortured and possibly eaten, please tell everyone I died heroically! Actually, no one will believe that. See if you can find someone who knows what these things are so I know we're not all losing our minds over here!"
Then, written a little more deliberately, Turtle scribbled at the bottom "Kinkajou, whatever you do, DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES TRY TO RESCUE US. WE ARE NOT IN IMMEDIATE DANGER. I MEAN IT."
She stared at this part for a moment, glaring at it as if the slate had feelings and she could make it say something more encouraging.
Lesson One; Don't think you can tell me what to do, Prince Grumpy Scales. Kinkajou thought with a smirk. Lesson Two; If I'm your friend, you can bet your sorry self I will not let you get eaten by some giant slimy spiders or captured by an army of zombified dragons!
Completely ignoring her lack of sleep, Kinkajou slipped cautiously out of her hammock (which, if you have ever tried, is quite the event) and held the slate close. She tiptoed to the doorway, peeking down the tunnel each way, hoping all the other students were asleep.
She hugged the slate close, and shifted her scale colors from bright yellow and pink to a more subdued gray. Kinkajou debated whether to go full camouflage, but ultimately decided that if she bumped into someone like that, they would think she was doing something she shouldn't be.
Moving quietly down the tunnel, she headed towards the library.I don't want to show anyone the slate, but If I ask for help from someone who can't see…
Just as she predicted, Starflight, the now permanently blind NightWing, was still catching up on his various librarian tasks.
Kinkajou stopped being sneaky when she entered the room, so he could identify her by the sound of her talon steps.
Starflight froze, perking his head up from behind his desk, turning his head slowly to locate the sound.
"You're up late… Tam- no, wait… Kinkajou?" He was facing her now as she stopped in front of the desk, piled high with scrolls which were being organized methodically.
"Yeah, it's Kinkajou." She lowered her voice. "Can I talk to you about something super serious and secret?"
Starflight cocked his head, leaning a bit closer. "Of course, what is it?" he said, lowering his voice to her level.
Kinkajou was tempted to spill everything she'd heard (or, read, rather) from Turtle, but she thought it best not to. He had mentioned that Tsunami was using a Dreamvisitor to inform the other Dragonets of Destiny of the current happenings, so it's possible Starflight could already be aware. Instead, she asked about the mysterious creatures described in the slate's last message, explaining she got a letter from a friend talking about them, which is technically true.
"They were spotted around this weird hole that leads deep into the ground, going on forever into the darkness. You wouldn't happen to have a scroll abo-"
Starflight threw his talons up, smiling. "I have more than that!" he whispered a bit louder than Kinkajou would have liked. "Can you keep a secret?"
She almost made the mistake of just nodding silently, but quickly said yes. The blind dragon felt the edge of his desk, aligning himself with the room, then spun around and headed off to the far end of the library cave.
Kinkajou trailed behind him, slowing down when he stopped a few times to reach out and feel which shelves he was near. She'd watched her friend Tamarin do the same thing more times than she could count, except she didn't have a blindfold covering her big gray eyes as they moved around, unable to fulfill their purpose.
In a dark little nook of the room, there stood a tall shelf of scrolls, seemingly no different from all the others in the library.
"Is anyone coming?" Starflight turned towards Kinkajou and perked his ears to listen. She looked around, listening to the silence surrounding them. "I think we're alright."
The black dragon nodded, then reached around the right side of the shelf, sliding it outward, and Kinkajou noticed the left side was hinged on the back, directly connected to the wall. Behind the shelf was a small opening in the rock, just big enough for a young adult dragon to squeeze through.
"No way." Kinkajou said.
"Give me one moment." Starflight said, poking his head and one arm into the opening. He felt around, then pulled a torch from the tiny cave. He blew the tiniest flame he could to light the torch, using his other talons to shield it, trying not to set the whole library ablaze.
"Follow me." He beckoned her and headed into the tiny cavity, which was just big enough to hold a chest, a table, and maybe three dragons, so at least they fit. The walls were covered in sketches of animals and plants Kinkajou had never seen, various maps of Pyrria's kingdoms, and a bunch of timelines. Like, a whole lot.
After fumbling around looking for the torch holder in the wall (and nearly dropping it in the process), Starflight opened the chest and dropped a pile of scrolls onto the table.
"I usually ask Sunny for help with my little project, since I can't write my own findings down."
Kinkajou noticed a little smile creep around his snout as he mentioned Sunny, but that was something she could investigate another day.
"Woah. You must have spent a lot of time researching Pyrria's mysteries. There's a lot of information in here!" She exclaimed, scanning over a few scrolls full of rambling notes, quotes from other scrolls, and timelines full of question marks.
"See if you can find one labeled 'Tall Tales or True Stories?'" Starflight dug out a few more scrolls and dumped them on the table. "Unfortunately I haven't had the time to make my personal scrolls blind dragon ready."
Kinkajou checked each one and set them into a neat row on the other end of the table. 'SkyWing Anatomy'… 'Dreamvisitors'… 'Are Scavengers Sentient?'… 'RainWing Venom'… 'Dragon Hybrid Theory'… Oh here we go!
"I think this is the one." She unrolled the scroll, which had several sections of intriguing myths and questionable stories.
"Looks like the section where I summed up all the IceWings' Darkstalker horror stories needs a few things added..." Starflight adjusted his blindfold nervously. "Look for a section titled 'LegtapusWings'."
Kinkajou scrolled a bit further down, and sure enough there was a very big, who-knows-how-many-paragraphs-long area dedicated to these seemingly unknown creatures. It even had a few sketches with captions about where they were copied from.
"This is really detailed, Starflight." She skimmed over it, a lot of the words too big for her to understand yet. "Now I'm glad I learned how to read."
"Well," the bigger dragon snorted, "I always thought they were another crazy story passed around Pyrria for generations. Why would someone actually create an octopus-scavenger-dragon hybrid?" Starflight set his jaw.
"If whoever is telling you all this is serious, we might have an extremely dangerous situation in our talons."