How do you hide something so big? Something so stubborn?
Avi the Summoner of Dragons was being hunted. She wanted to rush through the forest as quickly as she could to get away from her pursuers but she had a heavy burden weighing her down. A very young and cocky dragon called Burning Blaze Dragon.
Unlike the other dragons in her arsenal, Eidolons who could be called from their plane of existence, this creature was of this world. She could not summon it back, although she had knowledge on magical spells that gave her the ability to do so. The dragon was just too stubborn. It wanted to fight. But doing so caused it to be badly injured. A giant javelin was lodged close to the root of its neck, causing it terrible pain. Avi supposed there must have been a tracking device in it, for their enemies were always so close.
They were nowhere to be found now but that gave Avi no reason to be calm. It had been happening for hours. Whenever she found a moment to rest, Albert Weiss, the Naralian Dragon Hunter and his team of mechs were always there to interrupt them, taunt them, and cause more harm to the young dragon.
At this point, Avi knew they must have been toying with her and Burning Blaze Dragon. Allowing them to remain two steps ahead to give them a false sense of security. She could have easily summoned one of her dragons — Sanctity of Dragons. Or Blaster, Dragon Ruler of Infernos. White-Horned Dragon, any of them would do — but the hunters launched drones from their giant mechs that somehow prevented her from doing so.
Anti-Magic technology. Just like that boy Jaden warned her about. It was just as she feared.
Suddenly, rockets, big and small, rained down from the sky and peppered the mountainside where they stopped to rest.
Avi covered her ears and screamed. Burning Blaze Dragon shielded her from the falling debris with his flaming wing. Their patience must have run thin. Now they were coming in for the kill.
"Please!" Avi begged. She held up a magical stone so she could capture the dragon's essence and send it back to the safety of Parthontogaxx - the Dragon Realm. The home of his mother, Safaani, the Dragon Goddess.
The dragon snarled at her. It did not want to go anywhere. It wanted to fight.
"Don't do this!" Avi shouted. "You're not impressing me! You're not proving anything by dying. Don't give these horrible men the satisfaction of killing you. Fight with us. We need you."
Bright lights flooded the mountainside. She heard laughter thundering from all around her. Avi held her hand over her eyes. The lights were still bright, but she could make out the silhouettes and the neon lights of the CUIRASS mechs flown by the Knights of Emerald Fire. The one in the center was an old model, but built strong, fitted with custom plates of armor the pilot added himself.
The old, grizzled voice of Albert Weiss boomed from the mech's megaphone. "There you are, little lady. You didn't think you'd just escape us, did'ja? There was only one way this was gonna end."
Avi tried her best to get the dragon to comply with her wishes. Still, it did not listen to her. The dragon used his long tail to whip her off the face of the mountain and into a pond in the middle of the forest. Avi hit the water with a loud and painful smack. She quickly recovered and swam to the surface in time to see the mechs swarm Burning Blaze Dragon and kill him in the most barbaric and brutal way possible. They stuck javelins all over its body. A young pilot in a black and red mech used a lasso of steel to tie the dragon down as his companions shot it, stabbed it, and stomped on its head with their mechs. They beat the life out of him. The dragon was a strong creature. His beating was agonizingly slow.
Albert Weiss used the claw of his giant mech to grab the dragon by the throat and crush it. He then threw the body into the forest where it landed next to the pond. Avi saw the mechs soaring towards the corpse. It would only be a matter of time before they found her, too. She swam out of the pond and darted into the trees.
"Where's the Dragon Summoner?" Albert shouted.
"Who cares?" said one of the CUIRASS pilots. "We got the dragon and our cores are running low on energy. We'll get her another day."
"Shit! King Forrest was going to pay us extra to get her. He really wants to add her to his harem."
"Who the hell doesn't he want to add to it?" said the pilot in the black CUIRASS. "Quite frankly, I don't care. Let's just get what we need from this dragon and get out of here."
Albert agreed and stuck a cigar between his teeth. He lit it and said: "Right-O. Drinks are on me tonight, boys."
The right arm of his mech turned into a flaming chainsaw. Avi covered her ears from the loud and terrible buzzing it made. She wanted to close her eyes. She wanted to look away from the horrible sight. But She couldn't. Too great was the horror. Too great was the shock. The chainsaw came down and cut the dragon's head off like a burning knife through butter.
"Pop smoke!" commanded Albert. "Let the choppers know where to come and pick up the head. And you two, secure the body. There's a smith I know who will pay us a ton of gold to make armor from this thing."
Avi finally found the push she needed to move her feet and get out of there. She whispered one last apology to the dragon and ran out of there as fast as she could, disappearing into the forest.
Bandit Keith - Silmorok Prison, Domino City
Not even a second before he dug into his mashed potatoes and peas, the door to his prison cell opened. Two guards came inside, shoved a black sack over his head, handcuffed him, and led him out, walking him down to Goddesses-knew-where. The other inmates pointed and laughed at him. Some even said they were taking him to death row. Keith Howard didn't care. After his family collapsed, he had nothing left. Nothing except his intellect. That and Barrel Dragon.
From under the hood, he heard a set of doors opening. The temperature in the room was cold and…soundproof. The clanging of prison bars, slamming of doors, and excessive cussing from his fellow inmates were nowhere to be heard.
The guards took the black sack off his head. The room was almost dark and was made of steel and stone. The fluorescent lights on the ceiling gave off a dull and gloomy glow that made it look like someone covered the world in a dark greenish-blue filter.
One of the guards suddenly smashed his baton in Keith's stomach, then he and his partner stripped him down to his briefs before sitting him on a metal bench.
Keith had to sit there for two hours before his guest finally arrived. He didn't need to turn around and see who it was. He had a feeling he knew that the person who came all this way just to see him was the man he tried to kill a few days ago. Perhaps it was the obnoxiously expensive cologne that gave him away. It was a strong scent that only pompous rich boys would wear.
"I've got to say, I'm impressed," Zane said.
He walked to the wall in front of Keith and stared at it to avoid looking at him. He was dressed in a leather jacket and dark denim jeans, shiny black shoes, and a silver chain with a glowing ornament hanging over the black shirt he had underneath his jacket.
The clothes he wore made Bandit Keith chuckle. Typical. Coming in here to this dank and dreary prison with his expensive clothes. It wasn't for style, he was sure of it. Zane came in here with those clothes to show how higher he was on the ladder than Keith was.
"You've created some pretty powerful stuff. Of course, I can't expect anything less from the Howard Family." Zane finally turned around and leaned against the wall. He took off his sunglasses, finally looking Keith in the eyes. "I get what this is all about."
Bandit Keith let out a grizzled chuckle and looked at the floor. "What's this all about?" he asked.
"What my father did to your droid factory in the Battle of Karfina. Your father. Your brothers and your sisters. Wrong place, wrong time. Come to settle the score?"
"Yeah. Revenge had something to do with that. And I guess you couldn't stand the fact that someone else was leading Termnnia into a better tomorrow."
"I get it. Look, I'm sorry about what happened to your family in the Gate Wars. I really am. But they made a choice. They sided with the Confederacy and took arms against the Alliance."
"We could have taken them had your father not cowardly dropped a bomb on our castle," Keith said. "My family was the way to lead Termnnia into the future."
"So paving the way into the future means aligning yourself with a usurper to the Diamond Throne?"
"Usurper? Diamond Throne? Don't bore me with your politics, Truesdale. While the Confederacy was keeping up with the modernization of warfare with our machines, your friends in that puny alliance were still running around with armored ponies and those bucket heads you call knights. Swords and shields were the way to go once-upon-a-time. I have nothing against it. I have a long line of revered and distinguished knights in my family tree. But that was a long time ago. The people of the West need to evolve and the two Feldian Princes promised to help my family evolve it."
Kieth looked away and laughed, then he looked back at Zane. "House Howard was the most dominant family in the West. Even the Dragonhearts feared our machines. We had cannons mounted in the mountains outside of our castle fortress; each of them powerful enough to blow their Clear Wing Synchro Dragon right out of the sky. And they knew it, which is why they left us alone."
"I seriously doubt they did," said Zane. He crossed his arms and stood one leg up on the wall. "I'm sure revenge wasn't the only reason why you came all the way out here. No, I bet Antilles Dragonheart gave you a big share of the pie if you joined the Confederacy in Southern Emboldor. How much did he pay you to make their armies stronger and keep the REAL heir to the Diamond Throne away? How much did he pay you to take ME out?"
Keith chuckled again. "I get it. You didn't come here because you wanted to have a simple chat. You came here because you want to know if the Dragonhearts had anything to do with what I've done. HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! Man, talk about obsessed. Did Yugi Muto put you up to this? Heh. Anything to make Antilles look like the bad guy."
He wiggled his fingers around. "Ooooo. He's like the boogeyman to Yugi Muto and the rest of your friends. Anything goes wrong, they blame him. Well, he didn't. I did this of my own accord. I had to show you the TRUE power of House Howard. Destroy you before you destroy yourself."
Zane narrowed his eyes. He didn't know what Keith meant by that. But he didn't care. "We're going to find out, sooner or later, Bandit Keith. When Antilles is found guilty of masterminding the chaos that has plagued our continent, I assure you, you're going to hang right next to him. That way you can suck each other's dicks in the Center of the Thirteen Hells."
He put his sunglasses on and shouted: "We're done here!"
The metal door buzzed and swung open as Zane got up to leave.
"This is bigger than Antilles Dragonheart, Zane."
Zane stopped. He had a feeling Bandit Keith was going to clarify what he said earlier. About 'destroying' himself.
"The balance of the world is changing, kid, and you're one of the key players in tipping the scales. But I assure you that the scales are going to tip to a world of chaos and destruction. You think because you put on a shiny superhero suit and fly around with three mechanical dragons that you're suddenly Norman the Conqueror himself? Your technology is going to consume you, Zane. Just as it consumed my family. And I'll be there when it happens. You can count on it."
"I'll probably be a thousand years old by then," Zane said to him one last time and stomped out the door. "Have a nice life."
