Chapter 5

Flint was frozen in place. She couldn't move or even comprehend what had just happened in front of her. Hunter was alive and kicking in front of her a second ago and then got knocked out by a few of the dragon's spikes.

What is in those spikes? Does it knock dragons out? Wait didn't Hunter say Prancer looked this way as well? These dragons must be able to make their prey go unconscious to make bringing them back easier. It would explain why no trail would ever be left by them or their prey after they catch them.

Flint then realized that there were two other dragons behind the original Deathwing. They both were Deathwings as well, one of them older than both of them and the other seemed to be Flint's age.

"Get the other one," the Deathwing in front of her said.

Run, RUN! Her brain kept saying but she froze in place. She couldn't look away from Hunter's limp body in the Deathwing's claws. Come on Flint move! MOVE! But Flint couldn't. She couldn't run away from her friends and leave them with these psychotic dragons. The oldest Deathwing started to approach her and extended its claws out at her but that's when Flint heard a scream come down from one end of the tunnels. Tulsi came charging into the cavern and knocked the Deathwing into the wall.

"Get away from her!" Tulsi yelled.

"Tulsi, where have you been?" Flint asked, surprised.

"Running away from Deathwings!" Tulsi said. "Now come on and help get our friends back!"

"Wait, Tulsi, you should know that…" Flint couldn't finish before Tulsi slashed at the Deathwing and got stabbed by their spikes.

"OW… Flint?" Tulsi asked, wobbling over to her and collapsing in her arms, "why is the.. the room spinning." She then fainted in Flint's arms.

Flint looked up at the Deathwings in front of her. "I WILL KILL YOU ALL!" she yelled.

Both of the older Deathwings started laughing. "Oh… Oh… please stop, you're hysterical. You just saw what happened to your friends and now you want to attack us? Please give it your best shot," and the Deathwing stood there, waiting for Flint to make her move.

I can't attack them, Flint thought. The spikes are all over their body. She looked to their head. Well there are no spikes on their head but by the time I went to attack there, they would stab me with their claws. I am completely powerless in this situation.

"That's what I thought," the Deathwing said and then Flint felt a sharp pain in her neck. She turned around and saw that the younger Deathwing snuck up behind her while the older Deathwing distracted her and stabbed her with their spikes.

"Why you…" Flint said and then fell to the cave floor.

Flint couldn't move her body or open her eyes but she heard everything that was going on around her. She heard the older Deathwings congratulating the younger Deathwing and then she felt herself get picked up and thrown into some sort of sack. She couldn't hear if the others got thrown into sacks as well but she did listen in on the Deathwing's conversation.

"More dragons near our territory," a Deathwing said.

"This makes five in the past year," said another Deathwing. "Remember the Webwing that was here at the beginning of the year. We tried to catch him as well but he disappeared before we were able to catch him."

"I know, that was weird," a Deathwing said. "Luckily these dragonets we were able to catch but it makes me wonder. What is going on up there that these dragons from all three different tribes are down here."

"Who cares," another Deathwing said. "Their problems aren't our problems. We have to deal with all the problems down here."

Flint felt them drag her around for the next hour and then felt herself get flung through the air and hit the ground. At that point she had regained control of her body. Looks like the paralysis is temporary. She wiggled out of the sack that she was in and looked around at where she was. It was pitch black and she couldn't see anything but heard rustling around her.

"Hello?" a voice called out that was Hunter's.

"Hey who's that?" another voice said which was Tulsi's.

Wait, I know how we can see each other, Flint thought and shined her fluorescent scales as bright as they could go. The cave lit up around her and she looked around and saw Hunter, Tulsi, and Prancer all where she was. As she looked further out, she saw that they were surrounded by what looked like bars which enclosed them in. They were impossible to squeeze through so Flint went over to where her friends were lying on the ground.

"Are you all good?" she asked.

"Yeah," Prancer and Tulsi said at the same time.

"I'm fine," Hunter said. "Where on earth are we?"

"In our territory," a voice said from the darkness of the cave. Flint saw the Deathwing step out of the shadows and into the light that Flint's scales shined.

"Who are you and what do you want with us?" Flint asked.

"Us?" the Deathwing said. "I could tell you but then again your tribes have probably painted us in the ways they wanted to."

"Like being murders and kidnapping dragonets?" Prancer said.

"Oh we have Mr. Smarty over here," the Deathwing said. "You all were very dumb for coming down into our territory. Please tell me, what made you do that stupid decision? Did your tribes want to get rid of us again?"

"What are you talking about?" Hunter said. "Don't you know what's going on up there? Webwings and Cavewings are at war and have banished the Drillwings to the surface."

"Really?" the Deathwing said. "Well it serves all of them right, after what they did to us."

"Wait, what did they do?" Flint asked.

"Anyway," the Deathwing continued, ignoring Flint's question. "Let's get things straight. We aren't Deathwings. We know what your tribes paint us to be but they have our names wrong. We are Spikewings.

Makes sense because of their spikes.

"Down here is where we live," the Spikewing said.

"Why are you telling us all this?" Hunter said.

"Oh because we will probably kill you in a few days, maybe a week if you are entertaining. You know how rare it is for us to have an interaction with a dragon from one of your tribes. We might as well enjoy it before we get rid of you."

"Why… would you do that?" Tulsi asked.

"To make sure you don't go running back to your tribes about where we are living so that you could try to wipe us out like before.

"Before?" Prancer asked.

"Since you've seen this place, we can't allow you to live," the Spikewing continued, again ignoring one of their questions.

"We wouldn't tell anyone, we're wanted fugitives right now by both the Webwings and Cavewings," Flint said.

"Oh, please stop that," the Spikewing said. "I heard enough lies over my years to know which ones are true or not."

"I'M NOT LYING!" Flint yelled and slammed her claws at the iron bars in between her and the Spikewing.

"Hmmm," the Spikewing thought, not the least concerned about what Flint just did. "Maybe we could use you in our little game Cavewing."

"Is it called me ripping you to shreds because I would enjoy that!"

"No," the Spikewing said. "We will put you in our arena to fight until you die. Don't worry, at least you will give your friends some extra days to live if you last long."

"I'D NEVER FIGHT FOR YOUR ENTERTAINMENT!" Flint said.

"And what are you going to do about it?" the Spikewing said.

"Hmmmmm…" Flint said angrily.

"Exactly," the Spikewing said. "You are powerless," and then turned around to start walking away.

She stopped and looked back at them. "By the way I'm the queen of this tribe, Queen Helen. I do hope you enjoy your last few days alive, I know I will," she said and then walked away into the darkness.

"Great!" Flint said and smashed a rock under her talons. "We are trapped in here, waiting to be executed, I'm going into an arena to fight for their amusement, and we are all here because of you!" Flint said, pointing at Tulsi.

"Don't start this again," Hunter said. "This is no one's fault, if we start blaming each other then we won't be able to work together to try to get out of here."

"How are we going to get out of here?" Flint asked.

"I'm not sure yet but yelling and screaming at each other won't help us figure it out."

"I don't think you heard me the first time," Flint said. "There is no way out of here!"

"Well if you act that way then there won't be a way out!" Hunter said.

"Argh, keep dreaming!" Flint said and then walked away from Hunter.

Was I too hard on him? Flint thought. No, he should know how helpless our situation is and who is to blame because of it. He also deserves it for what he tried to pull off back up there. Who does he think he is? I care about Prancer, not him. She felt a small part of her body get hurt when she said that to herself but she ignored it and continued on. She saw that Prancer was by himself by one side of the cage so she decided to go over there and talk to him.

"Hey Prancer," she said, walking up to him. "I'm glad to see you're okay."

Prancer seemed to be off in his own little world, looking at the ceiling, before he shook his head and looked at her. "Oh hey, yeah I'm okay, I'm glad they only decided to paralyze me."

"What do you mean?" Flint asked.

"Well, I heard them talking while they dragged me here. From what I heard, they can have their spikes do a whole bunch of things. They can have them be deadly, paralyze their prey, make us sleepy, and probably more that we don't know about."

"Wow," Flint said. "Listen Prancer, I'm sorry for not being able to protect you from these dragons when you needed it."

"It's okay," Prancer said. "It seemed like you had something else on your mind at the time. Are you okay talking it out with me?"

Flint looked at Tulsi who was scared and standing in a corner of the cage, trying to make herself look small. Should I say my true feelings to him? What if he doesn't see me the same way? What am I thinking, he would care about me as well. But does he care about Tulsi as well? ARGH I DON'T KNOW!

Flint didn't think she was ready to explain herself to him yet. "No, sorry I need some time to think."

"That's okay," Prancer said and brushed one of her wings with his own before walking over to Hunter.

I may not have been able to save him from us being captured but I promise that I will do my best to save him from being executed. She looked around the cage at all the other dragons. No matter the cost.