Author's Note: As of June 27th, 2016, the entire fanfic has been rewritten. That means this chapter, all that came before it, and all that follow it now contain different content that they did previously. You are strongly encouraged to go back and reread the entire fanfic from the beginning, as the revised continuity may confuse you if you jump in part of the way through.
"The good news is that we've managed to stave off attacks and keep the enemy occupied in the first sector. We've beat their machines to a bloody stalemate near the doors, and it looks like that's where this conflict is going to be for a while. Luckily Glaian's gathering of all the humans into the one camp has made collecting energy extremely efficient, and we should have enough for the dream to reach the Sun and reach full power once it's active. Now all that remains is to cover the Black Wastes with the dreaming and finish the pylon network so that the conversion can begin." Lorimar finished giving her report on the progress made in the last two months. The entire Dragon Council seemed extremely impressed with actual results. Vokelle was naturally the first to state the obvious.
"How long before we cover the Black Wastes exactly? Do we have time enough before the unrest breaks the crystal in Hoken Guard?" He was always the quickest to point out the flaws in any plan.
"The thing is, in order to accelerate the expansion, Mon'Yaran had to lower his output to the prison significantly, which could put projections for the Councilman's release way ahead of schedule, though the expansion and construction of the pylons necessary to complete the plan will be done in a few weeks with the extra boost."
"This is an outrage!" Shouted Quimrath. Normally he was the composed one, but months of Lorimar drip-feeding them half-truths and carefully shrouded plans had finally overwhelmed him. "You're telling me that dragons, good dragons, my brothers and sisters, are dying to defend this stronghold, when the object of most value here isn't even needed by the enemy?" He was furious. Lorimar attempted to diffuse that fury.
"They don't know that they don't need it to free him, so the more resources they throw at us, the less they can throw at Phoncible's resistance, and the more hope the people can have, boosting morale and slowing the Councilman's release, giving us more time to complete the plan and set up the final catalyst. It's how we've always done things."
"And yet this course of action, of placing all of the real work on the Crown and the people of Atheia, has nearly cost us everything twice! Once when the Pawans defected and awakened the Locust, almost destroying Mon'Yaran's strongest power source, and again when the same conflict awoke a Nightmare Entity within our own ranks that almost collapsed our entire network! How can you be so sure you can entrust the final stages of the plan to a bunch of simpleton humans and a broken lab experiment?"
"First of all, the awakening of the locust was necessary. It exposed traitors within our own ranks like the Nacht and it eliminated some of the major weapons from the Councilman's arsenal for when he eventually reawakened. Second, though many of my brothers and sisters died at his hands, the Nacht's involvement was also necessary, for it gave us an excuse under the treaty not only to put the Spark back together, but to retain possession of it and use it to undo the seals on the Locust's former prison, allowing Mon'Yaran to expand and our plan to continue. Lastly we can trust them because the Nightmare Entity will not be doing our work, the Spark will. It will just be using his incomplete soul as a vessel and an amplifier so that it can act as a complete catalyst."
"Speaking of which, how is he progressing?" Asked Korin. Throughout the meeting, Korin kept mostly to himself, preoccupied with thoughts about the war, so this sudden outburst surprised Lorimar.
"He's progressing smoothly, and is almost ready to rejoin the fight. My only concern is that, if he were to discover his true nature too soon, he might reject the soul layer filling and breakdown the entire plan altogether, which is why it is imperative we keep him away from the Councilman until the process is complete." The council finally seemed satisfied with the report. Lorimar felt she was no longer needed.
"Gentlemen, I must now take my leave. Mon'Yaran calls me back to him, and I cannot ignore one of the King's summons. Just keep the enemy away from the key until I return with instructions for the next phase of the plan." Lorimar, dissolved herself into small organic particles and floated away on the slight wind blowing in from the entrance. As she left the chamber however, she failed to notice a figure in the corner of the outside room. It was Taneal, pretending not to listen and contemplating everything she had just overheard. Out of the shadows a small red dragon approached her. She whispered to it.
"Tell Red it's worse than we thought. They seem to be moving around a lot of pieces for a big plan. I'll need a few more days, but I'm close to finding out what their true goal is. Also, at this point, I'm having a hard time deciding who is the lesser of the two evils. I'll have more when they next meet." It committed everything she said to memory, and slinked back into the shadows to deliver her message. She hoped it reached him before things took a turn for the much, much worse, and they all ran out of time.
"Admiral, it has been two months since the supposed death of the President, and we've received no transmissions from any member of your government other than you in that time. We are forced to believe that Glaian has cemented total control over your country, and more importantly your armed forces, and we should be talking to his administration now instead of yours." Said the Rhumenese Councilman on the Security Council of the United Human Federation, an international peacekeeping body of nations from the two human inhabited continents. This coalition was meeting with Admiral Satranik Haenkos at a summit to deal with the Glaian problem. They were currently meeting on the Wadralian "mainland" of Atea, the largest island in the many island chains and atolls that span the Wadral Sea, and capital of the Wadralian Democracy. The meeting, called by called by Admiral Haenkos after it became clear fighting would not cease any time soon, was supposed to establish a coalition force to help retake the Bone's lost territory, but quickly descended into petty squabbling, bureaucratic politics, and nonsense. The Admiral was not happy.
"The President is dead. Zachary Holdsten, the Vice president, is dead. Aaron Findrel, Daniel Deyavara, Julius Freeman, and the rest of the cabinet are all dead. The Speaker of the house is being publically executed tomorrow, the President of the Senate was yesterday, and the Attorney General and the Chief Justices have all either gone missing or been slotted for execution in the next week. And on top of that, we've lost most of our military commanders, including General Victor Bone. I, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and highest ranking military officer left, am next in line for the presidency, so I'd appreciate it if you took me seriously. I am the ruler of my country, or what's left of it, and I need your help. We've managed to hold onto the coastline, and the large industrial centers we have there have prevented them from deploying their new plasma weaponry, but we're barely scraping by. If you can spare fifty thousand troops, several hundred fighter jets, and as many high impact explosives as you can get your hands on, we can retake the Western Provinces and drain their supply lines, backing them into a corner and giving us the advantage again." Only the Wadralian ambassador and the Rhumenese Councilman were present at this hour, the rest of the Council was at recess, and she thought now could be a good time to speak privately with the representatives of her only two real potential allies.
"I'm sorry, Admiral, but we cannot spare so many forces to gain nothing but renewed Bone dominance of the Eastern hemisphere, especially when my country is just recovering from the devastating attack on our power grid. We would prefer to settle things with this "Glaian Nagratek" outside of the battlefield."
"You know he won't see it that way. Letting him control the Continent is exchanging a peacekeeping force for a belligerent madman. He hates humans, and he won't stop with conquering the Bone provinces. He'll come after everything, burn your cities and your countries to the ground in spite for what the Wadralians did to his clan in the war. If he is allowed to get back on his feet after exhausting so many resources so quickly, the might of his armies will more than outmatch the entirety of the Federation's armed forces, and you know it."
"I won't be taking orders from the self-proclaimed "ruler" of a nonexistent country. If and when he comes for us, you can be sure that we'll put him in his place. But we'll not put the lives of our troops on the line on foreign shores to help repair your wounded pride. I'm going to fetch the rest of the Council so we can end this pointless summit as soon as possible." With that, the Rhumenese Councilman walked out the door to the assembly hall.
"If you don't help me now, you'll be signing your own death warrants!" She shouted after him. "Prick." She muttered under her breath.
"With all due respect," interjected the Wadralian Ambassador hesitantly, "Wadralia would love to come to your aid, but our people won't support another foreign invasion into that death zone. Our forces won't be able to stay there long-term, and our people won't like sending our troops to a land they can die in just by standing and breathing long enough. They'll need something to rally behind, a motive we can sell them on before we can start to send troops and supplies. Now if you can make certain guarantees then we could…"
"I can't make any guarantees. My country has nothing it can offer you but a chance to strike this enemy while they're down."
"I can think of something. In the accord to end the Wadralian War, signed a thousand years ago, we agreed to cede to you the Cartonal Islands and the Je'iorad Atoll, our staging posts for the invasion. For years now the current administration has been negotiating for their return, since you seem to lack a use for them other than preventing a nuclear attack that isn't coming. If you return them to us, we can get you all the help you want. Our people want their lands back, Madam President, and they'll go wherever they have to and kill whoever they have to in order to get them back."
"It's true we have no real use for them. We moved all of the counter-missile batteries from the islands weeks ago to turn back the plasma cascades Glaian was using to wipe out our troops we had stationed farther inland. In fact they're the only things keeping him from entirely destroying the Western coastal divisions with conventional missiles. That having been said, I can't just give you back your islands. Glaian could use a move like that as ammunition against us in the media, claiming "we're bowing to human demands and repeating mistakes and showing weakness" and all that other bullshit." She thought for a moment, and hit upon a grand strategy. "But if you offer humanitarian and military aid to us "out of the goodness of your hearts", then we could decide to "reward your kindness" by returning the islands. Then we both look like the good guys, Glaian's claims get undermined, we get our country, and you get your islands." The Ambassador thought this over for a moment.
"I think that could work. I'll contact my superiors about it and see what they think, but I'm more than confident they'll jump at the chance to get back lost territory and make themselves look better for re-election. You may be getting human aid after all." He said before walking out the same door the Rhumenese Councilman had used. Admiral Haenkos was left alone with her thoughts, which kept drifting to the events of the past two months surrounding the President and Glaian. He hadn't been sighted since his big speech in Argus City, so she began wondering where he'd disappeared to. As if by magic, the answer presented itself. She got a call on her cell. It was her assistant.
"Talk to me." She said as the flicked open the phone and held it to her ear.
"Madam President, there's something coming in on every broadcast station in the country. You need to see it immediately."
"I think we're getting it here too." The large screen in the center of the assembly floor flickered to life. "I'll have to call you back." She hung up that phone and turned her attention to the screen with Glaian's imposing face on it.
"They must have hacked a large number of telecomm satellites to reach as many people as possible." The Y'threni Foreign Minister announced as she walked through the doors with the rest of the presiding body of the UHF. She turned to face the screen just as Glaian was about to speak. "Now let's hear what the man of the hour has to say, shall we?" The room fell silent as Glaian began his speech.
"People of the Great Nagratek Empire, I appear before you after two months of silence to bring you an update on our ongoing struggle against our natural enemy. Across the deserts of our ancestors we have found a previously undiscovered group of humans, and with them the wellspring of human wretchedness. And as I speak we are rooting it out and destroying it here in the heartland of human aggression. But we cannot do it alone. They are moving forces against us, invisible forces. A devastating new weapon that could destroy everything we know and love. A power, one that you cannot see or hear or taste or touch or feel. A fundamental energy that infects the mind, pries open the deepest rooted parts of our instinct, and renders us docile, pliable, waiting to be conquered. And it is expanding toward our territory at an ever accelerating rate." The camera panned out, showing the ruins of a destroyed city. Kneeling behind Glaian was a man wearing a green hood pulled down over his face with his hands bound in front of him.
"This man," Glaian continued as he approached his captive, "is one of their instigators. A Dreaming Master, they call him. His thoughts, his dreams, fuel this… field knocking on our door, threatening our way of life and our independence. But no amount of prayer can save him now." He pulled out a gun and wrenched the man's hood off, revealing an old man with a long white beard and golden nose and ear rings. His eyes stared at Glaian with a desperate defiance Satranik had never seen before in a person. Without a word Glaian put the gun against the man's head and pulled the trigger, scattering his brains across the ground. The camera panned back to Glaian.
"Luckily, my men and I came prepared. We removed that primal part of our brains that the humans prey upon from our bodies, and now stand against our ancient enemy unmatched and unstoppable. And we urge you to do the same. Their weapon has no counter effect, no way of reversal. Except for despair. Driving the humans who feed it the power it needs to expand and conquer to the depths of despair, so that their dreams might become nightmares, and their power rendered useless. But we may not be able to stop it from reaching you, my beloved people, before we can cut the head off of the proverbial snake and show the humans the depths of our wrath. Which is why I am instituting a mandatory government program. Each and every citizen is to submit his or her self to a surgical operation to remove this accursed weakness from their bodies. Only when we have purged away the lies of the humans and the House of Bone will we be able to move forward as a species. Do what I ask, what is right, what is necessary, and together we will strike back at the humans who have kept us oppressed for over a thousand years!" He shouted into the camera before it cut out. The whole group was speechless.
She couldn't believe it. Weeks of planning a counterattack, devising strategy after strategy, carefully plotting weaknesses in the enemies lines, and he was just going to focus all of his resources on brain surgery rather than fighting her forces? Well fine then. He just handed her a golden opportunity to destroy him. All she needed was a bit of human help. Before she could suggest this stratagem however, the Wadralian Ambassador hit her with a curveball.
"I can think of one other guarantee you can make to the entire UHF." He said after everyone overcame the shock of what they just saw. "If Glaian's claims are true, and there really are lands where humans can live on your continent, then we'll have to demand that you turn them over to our governments for colonization."
"Well that went much better than expected." Archibald mused as he and Glaian made their way back to ruined building that served at their headquarters. "You probably convinced most of the people back home."
"But most isn't good enough." Retorted Glaian. "If even one Bone gets their "dreaming eye" wrenched open by the human's "dreaming" like you say they could, then who knows what our enemies in that mountain stronghold of theirs could unleash."
"You know not everyone is going to go for it. To some, especially Admiral Haenkos, you probably sounded insane." As they entered the building, Archibald momentarily detached his newly constructed robotic hand and shook his wrist out.
"Which is why I made it mandatory. And when I defeat her forces, I'll force her surviving men to undergo the same process. She'll thank me when she sees what the humans were trying to accomplish here."
"Speaking of the humans, why gather them into camps like that? It only makes it easier for Phoney's resistance force hiding up in the mountains to free them."
"That was the whole point. I'm trying to sow chaos, throw the humans into despair, and you cannot have despair without hope. They will hold onto hope until their dying breaths, until finally, as they expire, they will know the depths of hopelessness. And when they do, we will generate massive amounts of negative energy, maybe even open up that crystal cell we found. And when that opens, we'll finally have some answers to all of our questions."
"Speaking of the cell, I should probably get going. The science team and I were going to head over to the prison/temple complex and see if we couldn't observe anything more about the chrysalis now that whatever's keeping it shut seems to be weakening."
"Safe travels my friend. And before you leave, could you send in the new generals? I wanted to brief them on their assignments personally and to assure myself of the skill level of the ones who will be combating the legendary Admiral Satranik Haenkos."
"Sure thing." Archibald said as he left the building. They had set up in the former Dragon Temple on the western side of Main Street, just outside of the palace gates. He took one last look at the ruins before he headed over to the former Merchant's Guild Tower right across the street to fetch the new generals when he thought he saw a flash of light. He decided it was nothing and continued on his way. Up at the ruins of the palace courtyard, a bone white hand burst through the rubble.