Chapter 59: Getting to Sundown
Atlas and Akil landed on a wide cobblestone street that was big enough for 6 lanes of cars plus a divider. They went down through the city lanes. There were weird glances at those two, because one had no collar and the other one did. The magi looked around for any dragon who appeared knowledgeable, hoping to get whatever information about Sundown from them. As they continued through the city lanes, they saw Mrs. Merryweather, who was carrying a basket of food she just bought from a grocery store, was having a conversation with another woman. The maid said, "So my charge, Kathia, is planning on building this city for humans only and her father's company will be there to help create the place."
"Really now?" the other woman sounded intrigued. "Is it going to be better than the one we're in now?"
"I think so," the maid replied. "She plans to make it modern and have the laws we used to have before Windfall. Its name is going to be Sundown." That was when Atlas was slightly stopped by Akil, so that the two dragonesses would listen in on what the women had to say about the place they were looking for.
The woman replied with interest, "Sundown, huh? Well me and my family should move there once they finish build it. I want to get away from all these damn dragons."
Mrs. Merryweather advised, "You should; that place will be much freer than the one here."
Atlas thought to get in to the conversation herself, but she must do so as a human so that these women will not withhold any information from a dragoness. She told Akil, "Be right back." She went to the back of a barber shop behind her and changed into her human form. Once disguised, she came back out and walked towards the women who were still continuing their conversation about Sundown. Atlas put on a friendly facade as she held her hand up and greeted, "Hey girls, I just heard y'all say there's a human-only city that's being built."
Mrs. Merryweather nodded to the brunette, "Of course! A girl I'm working for is using her father's company to build such a place. She and everyone else with her wanted to get away from all the nasty dragons running amok here."
Atlas felt insulted and angered by the maid's comment on her race that her eyebrows furrowed for a bit. But she quickly smiled wider in an attempt to hide her feelings. "I know how she feels. I want to get the hell out of here, too. So you mind telling me where it's at?"
The maid answered, "Well I can't say where it's exactly at. but I do know that it's somewhere in the woods far from Cypress, I mean Windfall. Maybe once the city's finished, Kathia, my charge, will let me know."
"Okay, guess I'll have to check the news. See ya," the Solomese replied before leaving. She walked down the street instead of approaching her daughter, so as not to make a bad impression on the women who may see her. Using telepathy, she told Akil, 'Looks like these humans were not much help at all. We are going to have to scour the whole forest outside just to find where Sundown is.' She could see this search being very difficult to do as Sundown could be anywhere regarding the distance in the surroundings, whether it'd be north, south, east or west.
The greenish-orange dragoness thought back, 'Well that is annoying. I guess it is best if you might wander around for right now, looking for anything or overhearing anything about this location. I will stalk around for a bit until I find something on my end; maybe.' She began to wander around for a bit, looking for anything of interest.
'This could take all day,' Atlas thought. All she knew for now was that Sundown was far away from Windfall, but it could be anywhere in the woods. Trident Mountain was far away and she could start from there, but what if the place was not on its side of Windfall? She could be wasting time like this. Guess they might as well look around aimlessly, searching for humans who know where Sundown is. Atlas walked away down on the sidewalk, almost reaching the corner of the block when she soon got a smart idea. Teleport directly to Kathia, the one in charge of Sundown's construction. This was the fastest way possible to getting to where they needed to go. But of course, the woman needed to know what Kathia looks like first before she could warp to her. Going back to Mrs. Merryweather, who shared farewells with the other woman and left her, Atlas stopped before her and asked, "Hey, I forgot to ask."
"Ask away," the maid said.
"You got a picture of Kathia? I need to know what her face looks like, so that when I see her, I'll ask her where it is." The true human probably did not have one on her, but it was worth asking just in case.
The maid replied with a soft frown, "Well I am trying to save my cellphone battery for when Kathia calls, now that the city has electricity banned." She smiled again as she continued, "But just for this moment, I'll let you take a look." She took out her cellphone and touched the photo app to bring up the digital album on screen. She showed the picture of a girl to the Solomese woman and said, "This is Kathia; red hair and everything. Take a while to study if you will."
Atlas stared at the picture for a short while, taking in all the details of this girl and absorbing it into her memory. After she was done, she appreciated, "Okay, I've seen enough. I'll be going to look for her now. If I can't find her, I'll try again another day. Thanks!"
Mrs. Merryweather replied with a friendly smile, "You're welcome. Have a good day!" The maid turned off her cellphone and left.
The Solomese woman walked away and went over to Akil, "Okay, I've just found out what the human in charge of Sundown looks like. I'm going over to her now. Can't bring you since she's a dragon hater. So you're just going to have to wait here until I bring back this Luco guy."
The daughter cautioned, "Be careful, our mission come first; nothing else right now. Do not try to be a hero."
"Got it," Atlas replied. Then she closed her eyes and pictured the crimson red-haired girl in her mind. The woman was not going to like being in a presence of a racist, or even a bunch of them considering that the founder is going to be with others of her kind. But for the sake of this mission, she was going to have to learn not to let any kinds of anti-dragon sentiments get under her skin. Atlas used her teleportation spell to warp over to Kathia, creating a bright flash in her place before disappearing out of Windfall.
Kathia's group ran through the woods for about fifteen minutes before they came to the dragon's crash site. There was a large amount of destroyed trees and torn up earth with blood splattered around the area. Surprisingly, there was no dragon in sight nor any trails of it to follow. Kathia and Azera looked around for the wounded creature and suspected that it, being a white, must have healed itself to regain the energy to move. Looks like they were going to have to run and chase after it. The mercenary told her, "Kathia, the white dragon may be wounded. But if it was able to leave from here after that impact, and with minimal traces of it leaving, it's mobile and may still have the strength to fight. But even with that, it would eventually succumb to it wounds without help." He stopped for a second and crossed his arms. "But that raises a new question, what did that much damage to this dragon? Something is not sitting right with me at all, Kathia."
The girl responded eagerly, "Who cares about that? We have a target practice to hunt." The girl wanted some blood to feed her weapons; she was going to do whatever she can to find and kill the dragon. She looked to the rest of her party and raised her sword high in the air, "Come on everyone, let's go look for that dragon!" The humans, except for Azera, marched through the woods as they wandered aimlessly to look for the dragon.
The party fanned out and pressed on for half a minute until Azera yelled, "Hey Kathia, I found an unconscious man over here who been badly wounded."
Kathia and her students stopped and turned to see what the man found. Azera was holding the bush to the side to show an unconscious man who had been badly injured. The girl said, "Oh my, sounds like he's going to need my help. Hang on, I'm coming!" She jogged her way over to the man the mercenary found. Then she froze when she recognized who the victim is. It was the shape-shifting dragon, Axle. Kathia was at loss on what to do. She could leave him alone to die and then attempt to make him her first zombie. But how was she going to explain to everyone here and now that this "man" was a dragon in disguise? No one has ever seen a dragon with the ability to change forms. If she does nothing, everyone will get mad, criticize her negligence and even abandon their support for her.
One of her students asked, "Kathia, is something wrong?"
The girl snapped out of her thoughts, looked to him and lied, "Oh nothing, I was uh... examining his injuries. That's all." She looked back to Axle and frowned. She might as well save his life since people were waiting. She knelt down and held her hands above his wounds, channeling healing magic into his body. Kathia would move her hands over to the next wounds whenever she was done with one and continue on to the others. After she had gotten all of them, she stood up and looked at her neat job of repairing a body. Hopefully, she would never have to do this for a dragon again.
Then Azera asked her, "Um Kathia, may I speak with you privately?"
"Shoot," Kathia responded. Then the man started to walk away from the group. As she began to walk with him, she told the students, "I'll be back, guys." They stopped over by a few trees, about 30 or so feet away, which was out of the reach of the people's ears. There she asked him, "So, what's up?"
Azera looked at her for a moment before he asked quietly, "So, it's clear you kind of know who that is, or what they are, am I correct?"
"Yes I do," the girl answered. Her eyes glanced at Axle as she continued quietly with distaste, "He's a dragon."
The man told her, "I really do not care on what you really do to him, but I need information from him that could be of some use to..." He stopped as he looked behind Kathia.
"Use to what?" the girl asked. It took a few seconds before she noticed that he was staring at something behind her. "Azera, what are you looking at?" She turned her head behind her to see what or who it was.
The man answered, "Just a snake in the distant catching prey. As for the information, it's based on Spinx and some history of Shadow Wind."
"So you need him alive for interrogation, huh? Okay, I'll let him live for now. But after he turns back into a dragon, he's dead." She will not be doing the killing herself though. Instead, she will make her students hunt him. Hopefully, none of them would be hesitant in killing a peaceful dragon like she had been. It would be a shame to lose the only good dragon in this world, but her students need the experience to become better dragon slayers. At least, he can still protect humanity as her zombie dragon; that is if the zombification spell does not fail. Then suddenly, a bright flash appeared before them in a second before a Solomese woman appeared in its place in the next. Kathia looked at her in great surprise, wondering how and where did she come from. Purple clouds fumed around the woman as they spread past the girl and mercenary. The redhead coughed as the smoke got into her lungs, making the air heavy to breathe.
Atlas stared at the girl, keeping her cool as she tried to not to let her disgruntlement show. She asked, "You're Kathia, right?"
With the fumes cleared and gone, the girl was able to breathe properly again. Which means she could answer without any trouble, "Yeah, how did you know my name?"
Atlas answered, "I met your maid in town today. I wanted to get away from the dragons and see if I could find someone I know here. Know anybody named Luco?"
Kathia answered, "Luco? I don't know any Luco." Seeing as how the woman magically appeared out of nowhere here, the girl decided to take this chance to learn a new useful spell. She smirked eagerly and tried to bargain, "But if you can teach that spell you used just now. I'll help you look for him." The ability to warp would be incredibly useful. She and her students can use this to get to anywhere they want to, and even ambush dragons for the kill or make quick getaways.
"What?!" The woman looked at her in astonished dismay. No way was she going to teach that racist her spell, not even if it was to help her find Luco. "I can't do that!"
"Why not?" asked the girl, upset with the answer. She wanted that spell badly and she wanted to learn it now.
"Because it's-" Atlas paused when she noticed a certain silver-haired man with her. Azera, the man who she saw fighting Spinx back at Trident Mountain. It looks like he was fine and dandy again since the aftermath of the battle. The woman did not think that she would see him again.
"It's what?" Kathia asked, wanting to know the reason why.
Azera looked back at the woman for a second before turning his head; it seems like something had caught his attention. "I think it's best if we started to head back now," he said as he turned to start heading back. He stopped for a bit and headed back towards the students to retrieve an unconscious body of Axle. He picked up Axle and then went back on his way to the camp.
Atlas's eyes went a bit wide as she was very surprised to her friend here. She thought, 'What's Axle doing here?' And how did he get here in Solomos anyway? He should have been back in Solomos with the Vulture Horde where she left him, but here he was now.
"Tell me!" the woman heard Kathia demand, snapping the shapeshifter out of her thoughts.
With Azera leaving for wherever, Atlas took this as a good chance to make an attempt to end the conversation and escaping having to teach the dragon hunters. She told her, "Well you heard him, you all got to go."
The girl was not buying it as she insisted, "Not until you tell me how you got here, missy. I want to know the spell now and I will learn it."
The woman still refused, "Don't be ridiculous, I'm not going to teach you the spell. I just can't do it."
"Yes you will!" Kathia told her.
Her students joined in on getting the secret magi to teach them teleportation. They all demanded loudly, "Tell us!" "Teach us!" "I want to get to places faster!" "Why won't you teach us?" "I'll do anything to be able to warp around. Name your price."
Atlas was feeling the pressure coming from all these humans. She wanted to get out of this, get away from all these people. But if she did that now, then she would not be able to find Sundown or Luco. She cannot go back empty-handed; she needed to complete the mission. She thought, 'Think Atlas, think. How do I get out of this?' She started running a list of ways to escape this madness.
Kathia smirked and coerced, "If you don't teach us, then I won't help you find who you're looking for." It was the woman's loss if she did not want to cooperate and give her what she wants.
What could Atlas tell them? What would her response be to deny them for good? "I can't teach you because...uh..." She twiddled her thumbs and glanced sideways before continuing, "Another person warped me here. Yeah, I can't do that, because he's the one with the magic, not I." Yes, that was a good lie. That's the one she should say to them.
The girl asked eagerly, "Really? Where is he?"
The woman lied, "He was just walking down the street when I met him. So I don't know where he is now or where he's going." She shrugged her shoulders. Thank TJ, that human fell for it easily. The woman was not sure what else she could say if the lie was not believed.
"Shoot!" Kathia grumbled with her fist swung down fast beside her. "Guess I'll just have to send a ghost to find him." To the woman, she said, "Okay I may not have gotten the spell, but I'll see if this Luco guy is in the camp." She told her students, "Come on, everybody, let's go." The humans followed after Azera on the way back to Sundown. Atlas felt relieved that her trouble was over; now she can just focus on finding Luco and then get out of here with him. But she may have to save the last part until later once Axle wakes up. The woman had a few questions in mind she wanted answers.
((Note: This section is almost canon to the RP.))
"What do think, Bolz?" Minerva asked about the moonlight dragon fountain. "Doesn't it look marvelous?" The town fountain was one of Windfall's most popular tourist spots. It was circular shape with a large statue of a moonlight dragon sitting in the middle of the fountain. Vine dragons surrounded the moonlight dragon. Smaller dragons were carved into the face of the fountain.
The electric dragon agreed with bright eyes and a smile, "It sure does."
The woman said, "It gets more beautiful at night. You see those light crystals on it?" She pointed to the little shards decorating the fountain. "They glow brightly when it's dark. You should see it when the night comes."
"I'll keep that in mind," Bolz noted.
Ronan asked his girlfriend, "So where to next, Minerva?"
Minerva answered, "I suppose we could go to the City Hall. I have to go to the water magic class today and I want to show him the magic classes they have there."
Bolz's eyes lit up with interest as he asked, "Wait, you have a City Hall that teaches magic?"
The woman nodded, "We do. Well we only had them recently like three days ago, so it's pretty much a new thing." The electric probably found this to be unusual. If he did, she would understand as city halls usually were not known for running magic lessons.
The electric smiled, "That sounds very interesting! Are they still taking new students?"
She answered, "I don't know. We'll have to find out when we get there."
Bolz replied, "Okay, let's go check it out." Ronan helped his girlfriend onto Drake's back and then the two dragons flew off to the City Hall.
The horde was going about their business, eating their foods and conversing with each other, when a flash appeared at the edge of the village. They saw Aeolus, Hewey and their new batch of recruits. Danielle and Kylie scrambled out from behind one of the adults to see the new clan. The whiptail asked, "Who are dey?"
"I dun know," Kylie replied.
The horde looked at the other horde curiously as they were eager to meet their new comrades. Aeolus said to his horde, "Vulture Horde, this is our new recruits the Puma Horde. They will be integrated in our horde to provide us their needed abilities and healing." He turned his head to the toxic-tailed dragoness and continued, "This is their original leader, Lady Muckspit." The dragoness stepped forward to show herself before the Vulture Horde. Then the disaster looked to Hewey's children next, "And these are Hewey's offspring, Peachy and Vanillia. Just like their father, they are healer dragons. So we can benefit from having more dragons to heal our wounds." After introducing the rest of the Puma Horde, the leader told them, "Get yourself acquainted with your new comrades. Afterwards, we will train them at the replica sector to get them familiar with a part of Shadow Wind's territory." He walked off to one of the caves to rest inside and plan on how to convince the cassare village to join the horde. They were a distrustful bunch from what he heard from Sargoth, so he needed to be more than charismatic to get them on his side.
The refugees continued to trek through the forest as Azera looked in all direction ahead of him. It took some time before the camp came back into view. The mercenary kept going as he yelled, "Hey Kathia, come up here please."
Kathia's pace increased to catch up over to his side. Then she asked him, "Yes?" She wondered what was it this time. It was probably about Axle she guessed.
Azera looked at her with the corner of his eye. He briefly said, "You might have to increase security around the camp, if we are going to find out what Axle knows, as he might not want to speak." Then he sighed a bit. "And we are going to have to take precautions with him as well. Something just seems off around him and I do not know what."
The girl replied, "Alright, I'll let Roderick know so that we can keep him here." It sounds like Axle was going to be a tough cookie to crack, if the man wanted to learn some secrets from him. But at least with the refugees trained to fight, they would at least be able to contain the dragon here. Fortunately, this is a white dragon; it should be easy to keep him prisoner, right?
((Note: This section is not canon to the RP.))
Minerva and her friends stood in front of the City Hall as she told Bolz about the place, "Here we are. This is where the City Hall is, the place for all your governmental needs. Come on, let's go see where the classes are."
"Coming," Bolz replied as he followed her inside. Ronan and Drake stayed outside as usual as they did with places that did not concern them. They went to the place where the classes were held. The electric dragon looked in wonder at the different sets of students, each being taught by a teacher in the ways of their element.
Minerva asked, "You see all this? That's the place for the classes. I learned a bit of water magic from my teacher, Gynast." He noticed the water dragon teaching some higher level magic here in this place. It looks like he was teaching either intermediate or advance magic. She continued to Bolz, "I'm in the beginner's class, so I can only come here on Tuesdays and Fridays."
Bolz noted, "So that means you'll be back here tomorrow then."
She nodded, "Exactly!" Today is Monday after all.
The electric inquired, "So where do I sign up for the thunder class?"
The woman answered, "You don't need to sign up. The classes are free here. You just got to go to the class before it starts, so that you can learn."
Bolz smiled, "That sounds convenient!" He glanced away before asking, "So how long until the next class starts?"
An Aquarian crimson flare came by and answered, "You'll have to wait until evening." They looked down at him as he continued, "If you're looking to do lightning magic, then you'll have to wait until five o' clock."
Bolz confidently replied, "Well then, I'll just have to return here at that exact time. No biggie."
"You could do that," the crimson flare replied. "But the classes being taught today are advance level. Tell me, how good are you with your powers?"
The electric glanced up for a bit as he began to describe his powers, "Well I can shoot lightning bolts as well as breathe them out. I can even power up electronics and recharge them. And I can even zip by pretty fast with my own electricity."
"Is that all? No other magic spells or anything?"
"That's pretty much all I have."
The Aquarian advised, "Sounds like you're over the beginner level. I would suggest taking the intermediate classes to see what they have to offer first. If it turns out there isn't much, then take the advance classes."
Bolz replied, "Gotcha." When the Aquarian started walking away, the electric called, "Hey wait."
The Aquarian looked back, asking, "Yes?"
"When are the intermediate classes?"
The Aquarian answered, "They're on Wednesdays and Saturdays, the hours are same like the other classes."
Bolz nodded, "Okay thanks!" After the red pygmy left, the electric asked Minerva, "So what's next?"
The woman ran the map in her head to think of the nearest place to go after the city hall. Since the city hall was very much close to a certain area, she suggested, "We could go downtown. It has my favorite theater there." That is if the place had not been destroyed by the riot.
Bolz smiled, "That sounds nice. I bet they have all kinds of shops there."
Minerva said, "They do; it's the perfect place for businesses after all." They went out the city hall and rejoined Ronan and Drake, who both looked as if they had been watching their surroundings for a while. She told them, "We're going downtown, it's right next to the city hall."
"Hop aboard," Ronan said before he helped her up onto Drake's back. The desert dragon took the lead as Bolz followed behind.
Minerva told Bolz the shops as they went for the theater. She pointed to each of them, "This is the barber shop and that right there is the cheesecake shop. And there's my favorite clothing store!" The last part was beamed with an enthusiastic love.
Note: So about the Kathia healing Axle part, you and I know that this is OOC for her. But I wrote that in the RP anyway because I'm hesistant in trying to kill other people's characters. Sure I'll fight them, but auto-killing them is against the rules and I don't want to break the rules. Now I could have kill Axle here in this slight AU, but then that would have led to some major changes to the story in the future, which I try to avoid doing. So, that's why Kathia is sparing Axle for now. Besides, he's a main character and integral to the current plot we have right now. Also, I updated the previous chapter in regards to Aeolus's reaction about Casper's prophecy. I made it so that any future events that an oracle dragon sees is no longer 100% guaranteed, but only possibilities.
Also, I noticed a contradiction in the previous chapter where Aeolus planned to recruit the cassare village first, but he goes to the Puma horde instead. So I fixed the beginning section to have him plan to find healer dragons first. I also updated the gender of the lightning class teacher to male in Chapter 21, so that it fits with Psyduck's 4th giftstory. And I unbolded all the words in Chapter 57 and changed the last part into Aeolus training some dragons in human shapeshifting.
Differences from the RP:
- RainbowTheAlbinoServal's last post was on page 137 of our RP thread, very close to the bottom. This was before Minerva, Ronan and Drake went into the urban parts of Windfall. So Bolz was written into the fanfic to be consistent with Minerva and friends showing him around.
Facts that might not be mentioned later:
- Kathia building a human-only city that excludes dragons makes Akil disgusted.
- Azera knows who the unconscious victim is, but he's keeping that information to himself until he finds out what the hell just happen.
- He also notices a creeping black spot on Axle and feels his breathing being irregular and shallow when he's carrying him.
- As the group is returning to camp, Azera knows that something is stalking him with almost no sound or visable movement.