"Ready?"

"Go!"

Swordfish felt Michael's hands dig into his back as he took off and they went to the roofs of Sainsbury. The buildings, smokestacks, church steeples, and clotheslines surrounding them. Swordfish saw Blizzard lift into the sky nearby with Marie on her back. Then they took off to the left. "Come on! Go!" Michael said, snapping Swordfish back to real life. He had been staring at Sainsbury from up above as the other dragons flying in the sky did every day. It was just so breathtaking, like Lochberg had been. This creation of the past. And to think, that there were cities bigger than this! There were ones that were totally different!

But Swordfish focused and began to fly through the chimneys and buildings after Blizzard and Marie. Swordfish hadn't been in a race like this before. Michael got a bunch of his friends and introduced them, and they began playing a game called Obstacle Race. A human would get on the back of the dragon, and guide them through the city that was unfamiliar to them. The dragons would have to race each other through the obstacles the city produced.

Swordfish flew towards the direction Blizzard and Marie were going. "Faster! Come on!" Michael urged. Swordfish put on some speed, narrowly avoiding a large Mudwing flying by. "WATCH WAR YER GOIN'!" The Mudwing yelled. "Sorry!" Michael yelled back to him as Swordfish took a sharp turn down Orwell Street. Blizzard was nowhere in sight, but she suddenly appeared again. She was flying down close to the street, and a carriage had been hiding her. The driver turned to yell something at the two, but Blizzard put on a burst of speed and ascended to Swordfish's height. "You're going to have to be quicker than that!" She taunted Swordfish with a smile, her crystal-blue eyes shining in the light.

Swordfish used her momentary pause to rush further down Orwell. "Hey!" Marie said, surprised. "Ha! Who's taunting who now?!" Michael exclaimed smugly as Swordfish pulled ahead of Blizzard and Marie. Swordfish said nothing as he narrowly avoided another flying dragon, this time a small Skywing speeding across the street.

Blizzard took off towards Swordfish, but was cut off by another dragon flying across the street. "Okay… Blizzard's fast… but if we keep putting obstacles in front of her, she gets stopped." Michael said. "Yeah, Blizzard's athletic." Swordfish said. "She's a good fighter too."

Suddenly, Swordfish heard a voice behind him. "So you admit it." Said Blizzard. "Vulture won't for some reason. Even though I could probably down him in seconds." She smirked lightly. "Well yeah I'll admit it." Swordfish said, smiling. "You kicked Scaleslasher's ass." Swordfish used a human term he had picked up. "Did I use it right?" He whispered up to Michael, who nodded with a proud look.

"Hey! We gotta focus on the race Blizzard!" Marie reminded. "Yeah, stop flirting you two!" Michael said, chuckling. "Hey!" Swordfish said, embarrassed. I don't like Blizzard like that. He thought to himself, looking at the equally embarrassed Blizzard. "We were not flirting!" She said angrily to Michael, who smiled and shrugged. I don't like her like that. Swordfish thought to himself again, his mind flashing to Rattlesnake, but as Blizzard flew ahead of him, Marie yelling something back to Michael, he found a voice whispering slight disagreement, but he shook it off. I can't fully trust her yet. Especially with the whole animus thing. "Hey come on! They're ahead of us!" Michael urged. "Right!" Swordfish yelped, snapping out of it.

The dragonets left Orwell and began flying over the metallic roofs, the chimneys puffing smoke. A small Aniwing dragonet was standing on top of a building. "Wow!" She exclaimed. "They's fast!"

Swordfish noted they were about to fly over a factory with smokestacks. "Try to get her to fly into the smoke." Michael said. "And make sure you avoid flying into some yourself." "Got it." Swordfish replied, and they flew into the smokestacks.

One of the large smokestacks read "Stenners Metals Co." Swordfish saw Blizzard flying nearby. "Make her move into smoke." Michael whispered. Swordfish looked over at Blizzard and did a roll move that his brother had taught him long ago. Swordfish did it a little wrong, but Blizzard successfully dodged it and flew into a black plume of smoke rising from one of the smokestacks. "Ha! Got 'em!" Michael yelled in victory. "Now pull ahead!"

Swordfish put on more speed, attracting attention from human workers looking up through a glass prism window on the ceiling of the factory. Swordfish looked ahead and saw the shop where the races ended, Prichard's. It was so close! Only Vine had been able to beat Blizzard before, and that was because of her tree hopping skills.

Suddenly, Blizzard pulled ahead of Swordfish, not saying anything, Marie wobbling on top of her. "Hey… what?" Michael asked as Blizzard ascended higher into the air. Swordfish watched her go higher. "HEY! PAY ATTENTION!" Michael yelled. "SMOKE!"

Swordfish looked back just in time to see he and Michael were about to fly into a cloud of smoke. They hit the polluted air and Swordfish began coughing. He couldn't see anything. He could hear Michael coughing above him as well. Swordfish pushed forward until he was out of the cloud.

By the time he could see again, Blizzard was far ahead of him. "Damn it…" Michael cursed under his breath. Swordfish tried to catch up, but it was pointless.

Blizzard landed in front of the shop on Dundee Street. Marie got off her back and cheered, her curly brown hair blowing slightly. Swordfish landed down next to Blizzard, tired from the flying. "How do you fly so fast?" He asked her. "I would always try to be faster than my cousin back in the Ice Kingdom. Even though we liked each other we would compete a lot." Swordfish saw a hint of something like sadness in Blizzard's eyes. He was going to ask her what was wrong when he was interrupted by the others. "Who won!?" Vine asked from across the street, waiting for a carriage to pass by, her loud voice slightly startling the horses.

"Of course Blizzard did." Michael responded in defeat. "Only you can beat her." Swordfish looked to see Rattlesnake, Vulture, Anthony, Marie's friend Bai Zhou, and even Polar was there. Bai was a writer for something called a newspaper. A telling of current events, printed on paper in large amounts and sold to the public.

It had been two days since Anthony told Swordfish about Rainfall and the legends about Hamza. Since then, things had taken a turn for the better. It had been sunny since then, and one of the biggest things on Swordfish's mind had been trying to accustom himself to life in the past. It had been 1868 years since Hamza's birth, which is how they told the years. Similar to how it was counted as "years since The Scorching" in Pyrrhia.

Since then, Anthony and Marie started going out. Swordfish had tried to do the same with Rattlesnake, but she still wouldn't really talk to him. And it was understandable. This wasn't the same Rattlesnake he knew from before the collapse of the old world. The one he had known… he had slammed the healing center door on when she tried to kill him. She was dead now. They all were. But then again, they weren't even real to begin with.

Other things had happened. Swordfish had been learning more about the new tribes, and the world around him. The world map looked totally different, yet almost the same. It was like the continent he was on right now, could split into two, and the one East of Arnia would be Pyrrhia. The geography was all the same. There was even more continents beyond this one. Ones to the south, ones even further to the west. And it all looped around because the world was a sphere. This basically confirmed it (to Vulture's excitement). That Pyrrhia wasn't alone. There were other continents.

Today, there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Swordfish had been able to temporarily forget about the threats like the Demons and the Darkists. Adnachiel hadn't shown her horrific face, and Swordfish wondered if he was protected from her here. She couldn't go into the past unless she got the Necklace of Eclis. Swordfish had convinced himself he was in a safe place. Everyone else here seemed relatively safe and happy.

"Are you forgetting we have to go do equipment check today?" Polar asked Marie and Michael. "Oh right." Michael said slowly. Marie didn't make eye contact with the Old Monarchy soldier. "Come on." Polar said, and Michael, Marie, and Anthony walked away with the Icewing.

"Hey, you'll be joining us for dinner, right?" Rattlesnake asked Bai, who nodded. "I haven't seen Anthony in a long time." He said in his accented voice. "And I am eager to hear what Pyrrhia is like." "Well… I can tell you it's a lot different from now." Vulture said.

Bai had been raised in Cheng, an eastern country that had been attacked first along with Kibot. His family had ran away from dragons before the treaty was formed. He now lived in the capital of Arnia, Buckombe, and wrote for one of the newspapers there.

"You realize that this is going to change the world forever." Bai said. "Whether it's avoided or not, the fact that this society exists, or will exist, or could've existed." "I mean, it's true." Vulture said.

"We live in a society."

Swordfish turned away from the conversation, trying to block out any sadness he would feel about never being able to return home. Tonight was going to be fun. Anthony and the others wanted to show them some of the foods of this time, and what a night out on the town was like. They were all looking forward to it.

"Well, I do have to get going." Bai said. "I am here for work after all. See you at dinner." Bai turned and began walking away. Swordfish stared after him for a bit before Vine grabbed everyone's attention. "Train!" She yelled, pointing to the tracks that ran parallel to Dundee Street for a bit. The dragonets took to the sky and got closer to the tracks.

The trains fascinated all of them. Their engine sounds, their impressive length, the way they showed off the technology of this time. As Swordfish sat suspended in the air, he wondered what was going on inside the train. Obviously, dragons couldn't fit into them easily. So it was most likely humans in there. Swordfish wondered what they thought about. What was their perspective on all of this? This wasn't weird and amazing to them, it was just another day.

As the group turned away and began to fly back to Lothian Street, Vine spoke up. "Anyone want to race back?" Swordfish and Blizzard sighed. "No." Blizzard said. "You just want to show off how good you are at it." Vulture joked, and Rattlesnake chuckled. "So is that a no?" Vine asked Vulture. "Yeah. That's a no." Vulture replied, and Vine snorted. "You're just embarrassed about what happened last time you raced."

Vulture had flown right into a sheet that had been drying on a clothesline between two buildings and got his head tangled up in it.

"Hey! That was Anthony's fault! He should've warned me about it!" Vulture protested. "He knew I was looking to see where Blizzard was." "Yeah, what was he doing?" Vine asked. "Probably staring at Marie." Blizzard said quietly, and they all laughed, getting a look from a nasty looking Grasswing flying by.

Swordfish smiled and stared out over the city they were flying through. Maybe… this place won't be so bad. Maybe one day I won't miss Pyrrhia. He thought back to life in Pyrrhia. Constant threat of war. Angry dragons. Evil Queens. His family, and marrying Typhoon. The demons, and being hunted by Adnachiel. Maybe… I already don't miss it.

Swordfish looked over at Rattlesnake. There's only one bad thing right now. His mind flashed back to the other Swordfish buried beneath the tree. It's that this isn't my world. I don't belong here.

. . .

It had just started to get dark when Michael came around. Swordfish and Vine had been watching Vulture draw in a blank book he had bought from a shop. Blizzard was lying in a corner in the shade, trying to cool down. Rattlesnake was just watching the sun go down, fidgeting with the earring.

Swordfish had told them as much as he could about Hamza and his relics. Swordfish had not told them everything about Rainfall for obvious reasons. Rattlesnake had told them once that Savanna had given her that earring. It occurred as weird to Swordfish that Savanna had the Necklace of Eclis, and a replica of the Earring of Sola. Just how much did Savanna know?

"Hey." Michael said, and the dragonets looked up to see him standing there. "They're waiting for you guys." Rattlesnake put her earring back on. "This is just a replica right?" She suddenly asked Michael, showing him her ear. Michael looked startled. "Yeah… That's not the real Earring of Sola. It can't be. It was meant for human ears." Rattlesnake slowly nodded. "Let's go." Michael said, and the dragonets began following him through the city streets.

Many of the other refugees were still awake. A Skywing tried asking Swordfish something in Dieautish. Swordfish shook his head and said "Je ne parle pas Dieautish." The Skywing walked away, muttering something.

Eventually, they got to the building where Marie lived. It was a longer walk than Swordfish expected, but he didn't mind seeing these streets when the sun went down. "Come on, it's out back in the yard." Michael said, and he walked around back. The dragonets followed him back.

In the yard, there was a table with various food items Swordfish didn't recognize. Anthony, Marie, Bai, and someone else were already there. "This is my friend from the army platoon, Gabi Sitz." Marie introduced. Gabi had short blonde hair and a clever look to her. "Hello." She said loudly.

"Alright so we have Roasted Chicken, cornbread, and blueberry pie." Marie said. "Blueberry!?" Vine asked, delighted. "I haven't had fruit in so long!" Since they arrived in the past, the dragonets had been eating things like bread and lettuce.

"Well… it's not exactly…" Bai began but Anthony cut him off, smiling. "Shh. Let her eat a piece." He said quietly. Marie showed Vine how to cut a piece of pie, which the dragonets watched in curiosity. "I've never seen a fruit like this…" Vine said before putting it into her mouth.

Vine stopped. Her eyes blinked multiple times. "What… what is this…?" She asked softly. "Pie." Anthony said, smiling. "Fruit baked into a crust with other ingredients." "WHY DIDN'T WE THINK OF THIS!?" Vine asked loudly. "Calm down Vine." Rattlesnake said. "THIS CHANGES THE FRUIT GAME!" Vine said, ignoring Rattlesnake.

When Vine calmed down, Swordfish tried some of the chicken and "cornbread." It was delicious. Of course, Swordfish was used to eating his meat raw and underwater, but it was still good. The "cornbread" intrigued him more.

Bai asked questions about Pyrrhia, which he wrote down in a book. Gabi listened in intently, as she didn't know about any of it. "You mean, you passed through the Necklace of Eclis? The stories about Hamza are really true?" Anthony nodded. "They must be." He said.

Swordfish was talking with Michael when he noticed Blizzard was looking around nervously. "Blizzard? What's…?" "Shhh! everyone be quiet!" She suddenly said. The dragons and humans fell silent. Swordfish heard the sounds of something loud and crashing. People and dragons screaming.

Anthony got up and ran around to the front of the building, and everyone followed him. Suddenly a small Skywing sped past them, but Gabi yelled out loud enough to get her attention. Swordfish recognized her as the Skywing he almost hit in the race. "What's happening?" Vulture and Bai asked in unison.

"They're… here…" The Skywing gasped. "Who?" Anthony asked, and she looked up at him. "Conwell…" She said under her breath. And then she looked him right in the face. "Black Star." She said quietly. "They've come to take us dragons and kill us. They're attacking from the abandoned areas of Verlassen. I don't want to go. I don't… I DON'T WANT TO GO TO THE CAMPS!" And then she flew away as fast as she could.

Suddenly, a carriage bolted by. "EMERGENCY!" Someone on top yelled. "ALL OLD MONARCHY SOLDIERS REPORT TO THE NEAREST BASE!" The carriage was followed by armored dragons flying by with humans in uniform riding them. "We've got to go." Gabi said. "Why are they attacking Arnia? Don't they know that's suicide?" Michael asked. "I don't understand either." Anthony said, staring in the direction of the attack. "Hey… I know you're only dragonets, but can you get us to the base and then to the battle?" Marie asked, shaky.

There was silence. "Are… you asking us to join a war?" Vulture finally asked. "No? Yes? I don't know." Marie stuttered. "We need to get there fast though. Dragons are going to die, and any people who try to protect them will die too." Rattlesnake suddenly spoke up, a look in her eye. "I'll do it." Vine and Blizzard nodded in agreement. "I'll just… get out as fast as I can." Vine said. Swordfish looked at the three dragonets. He imagined all three of them getting their brains blown out by shotguns, or wrapped up in dragon snares and captured, and then sent to a Black Star death camp. Swordfish sighed in resignation. "I'll do it." Because you might die.

Everyone turned to look at Vulture. "There's only four soldiers here." Michael said in his deep voice. Bai wasn't a soldier. "You don't have to come if you don't want to." Vulture was shaking a little bit. Swordfish remembered how bad he was at fighting. How easily the Darkists were able to subdue him. And these were trained military soldiers with advanced technology and weapons.

Suddenly, another loud noise came sounding from the battle and Swordfish turned to see smoke rising from the buildings. "I'll come." Vulture said shakily. "I'll watch from above." They turned to Bai. "I should probably get going." He said, casting a worried look at the rising smoke. Bai turned and ran in the opposite direction.

"Alright, remember that these are not your typical opponents you may have faced in Pyrrhia." Michael said. "This is an organized militant force with guns and other technology you probably have never seen. We aren't asking you to fight, but if you drop us off there, they will try to catch and kill you. They hate dragons with everything they have." Swordfish remembered the story of Axton Lloyd and his anti-dragon ideas. The death camps all survivors would be sent to, where they would work and perform labor, and eventually be sent to die in "The Burning Rooms." Rooms that would fill with fire and burn them alive.

"We need to get going." Gabi said darkly. Another boom sounded from the battle. Swordfish sighed and lowered himself for Michael to get on his back, but Anthony got on instead. Michael got on Vine instead. Gabi went on Blizzard and Marie on Rattlesnake. "Let's go!" Marie said.

Blizzard took the lead, being the fastest along with Vulture. Gabi directed her towards the army base and the others followed. Swordfish kept glancing in the direction of the battle, the black smoke rising into the air. The sounds of dragons and guns rose along with the smoke. Eventually, Gabi directed the group down toward a large stone building. There were already dragons and people swarming it. A flag with the Old Monarchy crest was flying above it.

The dragons landed on special areas on top meant for landings. The soldiers got off their backs quickly and ran down steps leading to the armory. "You five!" Said a voice. The dragonets turned to see a large Aniwing coming towards them. He wore an army armband with the Old Monarchy crest, along with other symbols, meaning he was a dragon with some level of command. "Fresh out of school I presume?" Vine was about to say something when the Aniwing cut her off with a grim laugh. "Straight out of one hell and into another, huh?"

"We're… not from this place…" Rattlesnake said. The Aniwing looked confused. "Then… where are you from? Why are you here?" "We're just… helping our friends get to the battle." Rattlesnake said. "And we're from… far away."

The Aniwing looked at her. "Well, call me Lieutenant Wraith." He said. "And even if you're heading into that place, you'll need those." Wraith pointed to a stone armory with strange weapons and armor. There were other dragons there, gearing up. Some were old, some were Swordfish's age. Some were in between.

The dragonets headed over to the armory and began putting on things they didn't even know how to use. They struggled with the armor, which covered their entire backs, the top of their tails, and even turned into a helmet on top, which conveniently covered the spot where the shotguns were most effective. The other dragons were talking about how grateful they were about the "new design."

Swordfish strapped on one of the mobile rifles to his right forearm. "How do I use this thing?" Swordfish asked a Seawing. The Seawing turned and looked at him. "Are ya daft? Ya point it where ya wan' it to shoot, and pull the trigger." The Seawing pointed to a mechanism on the bottom near Swordfish's claws. "And when ya can't shoot no more, ya reload here." The Seawing showed Swordfish a mechanism on top, which was empty right now.

Swordfish saw Blizzard putting something on both of her forearms. They weren't guns, they were metallic, black things that covered her entire forearm. They had some sort of mechanism on the inside of the arm. Blizzard was being shown how to use them by a Rainwing. Blizzard had a look in her eyes Swordfish hadn't seen before. Honestly, it scared him just a little bit.

When they were all bearing strange weapons from another world, the dragonets met up again with the humans, who were wearing the traditional Old Monarchy uniform, armed with rifles, and bullets and knives at their waists. Swordfish saw the uniform and tried to shake off the memory of the dead Old Monarchy soldier in the King Burkhardt Bank, who had been killed by Black Star soldiers.

"You are aware that you may have to end a human life. This is war, whether you're really participating or not." Anthony said. Swordfish didn't answer, but Vulture and Blizzard both nodded grimly and slowly. Swordfish tried to imagine him ending another life, even if it was a human. Of course, he had hunted before… but these were humans. They were like dragons.

Swordfish got down so Anthony could get on his back. The humans got onto the dragons, and Swordfish felt Anthony shaking. He was scared too.

The dragonets took to the sky, and along with them, so did other dragon soldiers, all carrying humans. Swordfish was about to witness the combined powers of dragon and human. The Old Monarchy soldiers took off toward the battle, where the fires raged, and Swordfish heard the soldiers yell out a scream. A battle cry.

A little bit of a shorter chapter this time. It just felt like a good time to stop, and it leaves me more room for the coming battle, and some time to collect my thoughts.