Happy Friday everyone! This chapter the White Fang gets desperate, and when some important news breaks, nobody's favorite doctor is among the first to see it.

98. Tools of the Trade

"Remember," muttered Corsac, "speed is everything. We hit them fast and hard, and then we get out."

Harbinger flattened himself against the ground and tried not to whine. This was his first big mission—Fennec still thought he was too young, but they needed the eggs desperately. They were finally free of all the sabotage, but there still hadn't been any successful new hybrids, because there just weren't enough injections happening. The Council was buying up all the eggs they could get their hands on, even from the smallest brooderies. They'd been relying on the few brood dragons they had with them, and almost half of those had wandered off into the wild after the attack on their camp.

Things had gotten so bad that even little Flux was going out on a raid. She and Sienna had to leave at the crack of dawn, to make sure that Hazel wouldn't see her. When Harbinger last saw him, the big human had still been trying to coax Brand out of his patch of sunlight so that they could attack one of the largest nearby brooderies. He'd been even more lethargic than usual, lately—sometimes he napped all the way through the day.

Corsac raised his hand in the ready signal. Harbinger tensed, waiting as his rider counted down with his fingers. Finally he clenched a fist and they both burst out of the trees.

The inside of the broodery was dim and smelled like sawdust. A young woman yelped at their abrupt entrance and pressed herself against the wall of the barn, a rusty shovel abandoned at her feet. Corsac stepped to one side to block her way when she tried to run back towards the farmhouse.

"Where are the eggs?"

She didn't speak—but another voice called out from behind them. "They're still in the stalls. You creatures have excellent timing." An old woman stood at the entrance to the barn, her arms folded and a scowl wrestling with the laughter lines on her face.

"Show me," Corsac said, tapping Harbinger's side to prompt him to sit up.

A silver-eyed brood mare poked her head out of the stall when the old lady approached. She stared at Harbinger and mumbled, "Who...?"

"Easy," the old woman said crisply, and reached in to the small heap of eggs at her feet. She balked and whined.

"No!" She stared at Corsac, and seemed to recognize his mask. Her tail lashed back and forth, making the whole stall shake. "No hurt! Bad ones! No!" Her paw blocked the old woman's attempts to take her eggs away.

"Hurry up," Corsac snapped.

The old woman glared at him. "They know who you are. Your people came here last month."

"Stop talking." He snapped his fingers at Harbinger. "Get her to move."

Harbinger's ears went flat. He tried to nudge the mare away from her clutch, but she snarled and snapped at him. "No!"

"We won't hurt them," he promised, feeling sick even as he said it. Maybe it wasn't a complete lie, they weren't trying to hurt the eggs... but too many of them died for it to be true. Not that it mattered much, since the mare wasn't listening. She curled her tail stubbornly around the clutch, and hunched down so that none of the eggs were visible.

"Harbinger," Corsac said sharply.

The mare was bigger than he was, and used her bulk to push him back against the wall of the stall. He had to resort to using his teeth and claws to force her away from the eggs so that Corsac could take them.

By then the others were starting to realize what was happening. One sire trumpeted at the top of his lungs and tried to break down the door to his stall in his panic. He couldn't get free, but he smashed off the top of the door, and a loose splinter lodged itself in the young woman's arm. Harbinger tried to lick the wound clean, but stopped when she flinched away from him.

"You've done enough," the old woman hissed. "Now get out. Unless you want to take the dragons, too? You damn parasites."

They left with fourteen eggs in Harbinger's saddlebags and a chorus of panicked wails in their wake.

It had been years since Sienna's last field mission. The quick excursion to Beacon, to try and get Blake to see Brand, hardly counted. It came down to the fact that her strengths lay mostly in logistics and strategy—she wasn't awful at breaking and entering, but she wasn't much better than the average recruit. Why send her, when there were twenty fresh-faced faunus sitting around the campfire who would jump at the opportunity to sneak into a broodery, but would rather die martyrs than try to work out how many supplies they needed to raise from their supporters in the kingdoms?

The answer, usually, was that you didn't. But they needed Flux on the raid, so here she was—choking on memories of the days when she had been one of those fresh-faced recruits. Back before Adam had even been born, when Corsac and Fennec were gangly children often reprimanded for excessive honesty, and when a 'raid' meant sitting in a cafe rather than stealing eggs. Back when those missions had been spent shoulder to shoulder with Kali and Ghira.

Flux chirped curiously from where she crouched, coiled around Sienna's ankles. The hatchling, who wasn't really much of a hatchling anymore, was starting to get more cautious about how she touched her rider, so that she wouldn't shock her. She wasn't sure if she was relieved by that or not.

"Let's get this over with," she said, and strode into the hatchery.

The farm wasn't large. It was so small, in fact, that they only had a single pair of brood dragons. Hopefully too small for the Council to prioritize commandeering their eggs. Sienna, Flux, and two of the rank and file of the Fang were the only ones there to raid it, mostly because the story they'd given Hazel was that they were traveling to a nearby village to collect more supplies. Technically true—and they'd be stealing some of the injection equipment as well as the eggs.

Sienna and Flux went in last, after the other two had already found the owner and subdued him. The dragon was there mostly in the case of something going wrong—but if they could avoid having her be seen, and possibly reported about in the news, that would mean avoiding a potential mess with Cinder. Not that she could do much to them, at this point—she was already fighting a three-way battle and wouldn't have time to focus on them. They'd lose her support, but that had been steadily dwindling anyway, and it was only a matter of time before she recalled Hazel as well. The only problem was that when he went, Brand might go with him.

They entered the barn. It was quiet inside—the brood mare snored contentedly in her stall, while the sire rested his chin on the door to his so that he could watch over her and the eggs while she slept. A third dragon sat on the floor of the barn, in a stall that was only half-built and partially open to the elements.

Sienna froze. So did the dragon. It cocked its head to one side and said, "Hnn?" Flux let out a little peep and hid behind her rider, which was perhaps not the most intimidating entrance she could have made.

Alright. So there was an extra dragon in the barn. Sienna scanned it from nose to tail—the frills around its neck marked it as a wind dragon, and the livid still-healing scar down the center of its chest gave her some hint as to why it was here. A recent and incapacitating injury, possibly sustained during the conflict between Cinder and the Council. The broodery must have scrambled to take it in on short notice, because their scout certainly hadn't mentioned it.

"Hello," Sienna said carefully. She hadn't opted to wear a mask—it was pointless when her face was on old posters with the Belladonnas anyway, and she'd never much liked the symbolism. That meant the dragon probably didn't know she was with the Fang. "Mister Grant asked me to fetch him the eggs."

Its eyes narrowed to slits, and a warning growl started in the back of its throat. The brood mare woke with a snort and blinked blearily at them, while the sire barked something at the elemental.

Well. It was worth a try.

"Go!" Sienna shouted, giving Flux a shove forward that left her hands smarting. She launched herself at the wind dragon. It roared and smacked her out of the air with one paw. She clung to its foreleg while it reared up, howling in surprise and pain as sparks popped and hissed against its scales.

Sienna bolted for the mare's stall. She was already up and growling a warning, but she was also slow and dazed. The eggs must have been laid only hours ago.

There was a thump behind her. The sire trying to break out of his own stall. The elemental only needed to swipe at the shoddy, half-built wooden wall in front of it to flatten it under one paw. Flux grappled with it. More sparks flew, and its tail jerked involuntarily and tangled in the mangled remains of its stall.

A hard smack on the nose made the mare rear back. Sienna picked up three of the eggs and shoved them into the sack slung over her shoulder. There were four more—and the mare was recovering, her ears drawn back and her teeth bared.

Two choices, in that split second—she could cut her losses and run, or risk making another grab. But they were desperate for the dragons that would let them outlast this crisis. They should have had an army by now, and because of her failed hybrid they had three dragons left, and only two whose loyalties they could really count on. There was really no choice at all.

She snatched up all four in one smooth motion—too smooth, and too fast. The shells slipped against one another. One slid between her shirt and its fellows and cracked against the floor. Sienna reeled, reaching out instinctively to catch what had already broken, and dropped another. It smashed open and soaked her shoes.

Howls erupted all around her. The mare shrieked with such fury that it deadened all other sound except for the ringing in her ears—but she couldn't attack without risking the eggs. Flux came when Sienna whistled, her jaws opened wide in what looked like a yawn and sounded, to her deadened ears, like nothing at all.

The elemental was the only one able to follow them out of the farm. It was panting heavily—not from anything Flux had done, but from the wound on its chest that had only just begun to heal. Sienna held an egg high and snapped, "Stop."

It stopped.

"Go back inside."

It growled. She loosened her grip slightly.

The elemental slunk away with its ears flat against its skull. Only when it was gone could Sienna finally relax and slide the last two eggs into her bag. Five in total. A good haul for such a small—

Pain erupted in her left arm. Sienna swore and lurched backwards. Her hearing had recovered enough to pick up a pair of guns cocking. The two other Fang members she'd brought with her.

When she looked down, there was a bite mark on her forearm, bleeding sluggishly, still tingling from the electricity that had run through it. Flux watched her with wide eyes and flattened ears. "What was that?" Sienna snapped, and the dragon flinched.

Slowly, she stretched out her neck—Sienna had to wave down the grunts before they pointed guns at her—and pressed her nose against the stain on her shoe.

Sienna knelt down carefully, keeping the bag of eggs tucked safely under her arm. She stroked her dragon's back, forcing down a wince every time sparks jumped from her spines. "I didn't mean for that to happen."

Flux stared reproachfully at her, even as her whole body trembled so violently Sienna was half afraid she might come apart at the seams. Demanding a better explanation.

Sienna didn't have one. Seven eggs would have been better than five, but five was still much better than three.

"No," Justice said, for the fifth time.

"She's not going anywhere," Blake promised. "Just let us look at her arm, please?"

Reluctantly, he raised one of his wings. Ilia was safe between his forepaws and his stomach, and had been since they'd landed. He'd let the General take the vial of poison and the listening device, and they'd been just fine hearing her report from under his wings.

"I'm fine," Ilia groaned. "It's just a bad scratch."

Pyrrha leaned down so that she could see. "It looks... burned."

"A bad scratch by a living taser. Happy?"

"No," Blake said curtly, and started dabbing something on the wound. Ilia flinched. Justice let out a warning hiss.

"It's fine," Harpy promised, bumping her snout against his shoulder. "Pyrrha puts that stuff on herself. It hurts, but sometimes riders get infections." Her ears lowered sheepishly—probably because she'd had something to do with the cuts.

"What's an infection?" Justice demanded, his tail lashing back and forth in a panic.

"I don't know. And it's fine, they don't get them if they put stuff on it."

"Oh!" Gigas put his paws up on Harpy's back so that he could peer in at Ilia. "I think they did that to Ursan, too. His arm was starting to smell funny, but it's normal again now."

Justice huffed smoke. "Next time one of them can go talk to the creepy murderer," he grumbled. "I never want to be glad there are humans with guns around ever again."

"I told you, I'll be fine." Ilia pushed Justice's head away and stood up. Then she noticed his drooping ears and added, "Thanks for getting me out of there."

"At least we got what we needed," Blake said. "It's hard to listen to that and not realize Cinder's the last person who should be talking about better treatment for dragons."

"Some people will manage."

"Yeah." Blake smiled. "But we've done everything we can, and the information will be out there soon. She won't be able to keep lying to everyone."

Days later, Brand lay sprawled in his favorite spot. The sun had long since set and stopped baking his scales, but he didn't feel like moving. Especially not when Hazel was sitting by his head, rubbing under his chin.

There was a noise behind him. He rolled onto his side and opened one eye to see Sienna standing there. Flux wasn't with her, and there was a bandage wrapped around her arm.

"You need something?" Hazel asked.

"He likes you."

Brand gave him a long, slow blink. It was true. Hazel petted his head, and never yelled at him, and didn't confuse him like Blake did.

"Why?"

Hazel shrugged. "I do what I can for him, and I hope that's good enough."

"Gud," Brand rumbled.

A last scritch, and the petting stopped. He craned his neck and found that Hazel was eyeing Sienna's arm.

"Bad injury, for a trip to a village," he said.

"He didn't bite Adam."

Brand flinched and tucked his head under his wing. Hazel shushed him and stroked the back of his neck. "I doubt that," he said with a sad smile. "It's an occupational hazard with fire dragons."

"When he was older, I mean. He grew out of it."

"Most of them do." A pat on Brand's scarred snout.

"Why not?" Sienna was looking directly at him, now. "Was everything he did not bad enough?"

Brand shut his eyes and ignored her.

Hazel sighed. "Treating them well is good. But it's not enough to do it because you don't want them to bite you. They're living things, not tools."

"So are we," Sienna said bitterly. "Humans still don't make the distinction."

"They don't." Hazel shrugged. "Neither do you. It's too convenient not to."

Sienna sat heavily on the other side of Brand's head. "You're here, too."

Hazel sighed and patted Brand's head. "He was angry, once. Lashing out. I think we all got like that, Cinder more than anyone. Maybe it's time to think of building, instead of tearing down."

"—undercover operative recorded this startling confession from a follower of the infamous rogue Cinder Fall, suggesting that she has arranged to sabotage Dragonry eggs on multiple occasions," Lisa Lavender said. Even the veteran reporter seemed taken aback by what she was saying. A recording followed, and Tyrian's voice was instantly recognizable.

The video cut to General Ironwood. "Our informant was nearly killed bringing us this intelligence—one whistle blower was murdered trying to escape Cinder's organization. This does not excuse the Council's actions. We still need to work towards better conditions for dragons, but it has become very clear to me that Cinder Fall does not have their best interests at heart."

Doctor Watts sighed and leaned back in his chair. "Well," he told the room full of silent, motionless hybrids. "I believe that's our cue to leave."

The youngest hybrids hadn't grown quite as much as he would have liked, but there was no helping that. He didn't waste much thought on the ones upstairs—not worth the risk of trying to take them from the riders they'd already bonded to. Three of his hybrids would have to stay behind—a pure lightning elemental, a second attempt at the lightning and fire mix, and an ice and water hybrid. All were too young to fly, and too dangerous for others to carry. The others could fly or be ferried mostly without issue—except for the eldest, his gravity elemental.

It could fly. Theoretically speaking. He'd finally figured out a way to get the device to access the creature's powers, which meant it could keep itself in the air... for a few minutes at a time. Not enough. None of the other hybrids could come anywhere near carrying the thing, not when it was nearly the size of an elephant and built like a tank. But it was nearly the size of an elephant and built like a tank, so Watts would prefer to keep it if he could.

Last, and certainly not least, was Watts himself. His hybrids simply couldn't carry him. He needed the pit dragons.

Luckily, he'd already prepared two of them. The injections hadn't worked as dramatically as they did on hatchlings, but after the fire dragon had kept down several meals in a row, he'd started using them on the water dragon as well. Unfortunately the improvements seemed to have diminishing returns—he'd needed to give them twice as many shots as he'd anticipated just to keep them healthy until he left. Their powers, on the other hand, had increased in potency and stayed that way. Watts would have to suggest to the Council that the treatment be instituted as standard practice.

He drummed his fingers on his desk. The two dragons he'd fly out on had arrived. So had Tumbleweed, to open up the lab so that Hybrid 3 could leave it. He'd deleted all his formulas off both terminals, tucked away as much Dust as he could carry... but he hesitated. Should he deactivate the devices on the pit dragons when he left?

They'd likely cause chaos and make it much easier for him to leave... but the only dragon in the camp big enough to follow him was Strike, and he was quite confident that the boosted pit dragons could outfly her. Quite confident, because he'd taken the liberty of spiking her food. Nothing lethal—he didn't want to give Cinder a reason to ignore Ironwood and the Council in favor of coming for his head—but she wouldn't be flying for the next day or so.

No, he didn't need the pit dragons to cover his escape. On further reflection, he even left behind a file containing the key to controlling them. Not his personal override, of course, but enough that Cinder would be able to fly them against Ironwood. She was being kind enough to distract him from the Council, after all—it would be foolish to weaken her too much.

Watts tapped out a sequence on the scroll strapped to his arm. There was a low rumbling as the walls of the room shook, and small pebbles rained down from the ceiling. Then the door came crashing inwards, leaving a gaping hole that even one of the smaller pit dragons could have crawled through. He strode into his demolished office at the head of the flock of hybrids and swung himself into the makeshift saddle on Pearl's back. Tallow picked up the Gravity hybrid in his claws.

It began to glow. The two pit dragons took off as if they were weightless, followed by the hybrids. Watts was already far above the ground when he saw people starting to emerge from the cabins, shouting and pointing. He scanned the valley and spotted Cinder in the middle of the chaos, her hands held out to her sides. She was too far for him to see her expression, which was a real shame.

Watts snapped her a sardonic salute, and was gone.