Eric
Gage had just finished strapping down the final piece of the raft when Eric finally noticed something was wrong.
"Hey, uh, where are the lizards?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.
"You mean the dragons, right?" Moria replied, leaning up against a nearby tree. "I dunno. If it was just the merc missing I'd say we're set, but knowing my- I mean, according to Milo's records he's usually not taken kindly to leaving one behind." She replied.
"My" what? She's hiding something. This means more to her than just another operation, it would seem.
Maybe our target's a bit more important to her than I thought.
Gage slid the raft to the shore, giving Moria a silent thumbs-up.
She calmly strode over to the raft. "I guess they're not coming. This mission's more important anyways." The raft was fashioned together with four large tree trunks, each about the width of a person, and tied together with straps, some nylon rope and carabiners, as well as some Flex Tape.
(Oh yes I did.)
When she stepped on, the raft dipped into the sand and muck slightly, and Gage silently continued carving away at a small Lodgepole sapling as he sat on the raft, making sure they had a way to steer further down the river.
"Well?" She said expectantly. "Gage didn't bring a red carpet, if that's what you're on about."
Eric shook himself. "Oh. Uh, sure. Yeah, I'm coming." he said, striding over and narrowly avoiding slipping into a muddy pothole.
The raft's opposite end dipped into the water as Gage stepped backward to make room for Eric, who stepped on quickly to avoid falling in the muddy ground the raft was secured with.
Moria flinched. "My suit's picking up some stuff. We better move now. You know, before something unfriendly shows up."
Hm.
"But it could be Leighton and Milo's friend." Eric pointed out, wiping water droplets off the barrel of his S&W magnum.
Moria's helmet tilted toward the weapon. "Why do you even bother with that thing? It's practically prehistoric".
He didn't respond, making sure it returned to his side gently.
"Because there's hardly any altercation that can't be solved with a good old .500 round to the skull."
"But plasma and energy weapons can cut through armor a whole ton faster than a glob of metal," She countered.
"And there's shields that can hold those back, but not much to stop bullets." Eric shot back.
"Well there's kevlar, and heavy (bois) powered armor." She commented.
"Which are now uncommon, due to the majority of weapon sales being energy and plasma weapons, also making a drop in kevlar sales due to energy weapons being able to cut right through them, which also means firearms won't be expected by most opponents these days."
She stopped what she was doing, looking up at the sky. "Shut up."
"That's not a very-" He retorted, being cut off."
"No. Seriously. I hear something."
He slowly reached for his gun when she finished.
Scanning the treeline, he saw nothing so far. Assuming that they were being stalked, he decided to continue.
'Act like nothing happened' he mouthed.
Moria nodded. "It was probably nothing." She lied. "Let's just get this piece of improvised driftwood moving." She stepped off the raft, leaving one metal foot planted firmly on shore, pushing the raft deeper into the swirling water.
The raft lurched forward, the logs knocking together and dipping deeper into the water as Moria stepped on, her head turning back to stare at the forest behind them.
"Now we wait." She whispered.
As if on cue, the woods began to tremble, the trees dipping and swaying, songbirds squawking indignantly as if to avoid some inconvenience they'd encountered.
The sound of the ground rumbling hollowly echoed to their position, sending an ominous shiver down Eric's spine.
A roar erupted from the forest, followed by a snarling reptilian head, covered in dried blood and sand, it's scales a pale shade of the sapphire blue it had used to be.
Ohhh this is gonna suck.
Moria unslung her rifle, pulling back the slide. "Lock and load, people. We're about to have company."
Eric pulled out his magnum, grumbling. "You couldn't have gotten any more cliche, could you?"
Gage blinked, quickly jabbing the pole into the water to avoid a large flat boulder in the center of the river.
Moria turned to Gage. "I would say we need your help with the hostile, but I need you to keep us in one piece while we make sure it stays that way."
He nodded, readying his pole.
The dragon scrambled toward them, it's movement sporadic and full of errors, as it's entire foot on some legs had bent almost 180 degrees and the creature had still continued it's path of savagery and destruction as it's claws ripped into the earth during its attempts to reach them.
"Fire on my mark." Moria commanded.
Eric rolled his eyes. "Screw that, I outrank you." He squeezed out a .500 round, which impacted the dragon in the kneecap.
He knew where it hit, only because of the explosive bloody mist that erupted from one of the front forelegs as the dragon tumbled, ignoring the pain and continuing it's path while (Gross-out alert!) using it's remaining clean white stump of the knee to keep going, as the rest of it's foreleg had been severed from the sheer velocity of the bullet.
(Seriously, these things go right next to Desert Eagles. Or higher, actually….)
((And really, EWWWWWWW IT'S WALKING ON IT'S SEVERED BONE I REALLY WANT TO BURN OUT MY BRAIN NOWWWWW))
Gage looked back at the other two's target, his eyes widening and turning away, looking as if he might puke.
Moria cursed under her breath, squeezing out two volleys of burst fire rounds, the 9.5 rounds impacting the pale blue scales of the dragon and coating it with blood.
She continued her methodical shots, the rounds either entering in through the throat, the shoulders, or near the head.
Eric ignited two more rounds, only one hitting it in the tail.
"It's getting too close, and these bullets aren't doing shit!" He yelled, sliding in bullets that were about the length and width of baby carrots.
Moria tossed her rifle away, the black metal sliding across the slick logs of the raft.
"Well I guess I'll have to try something else." She replied, cracking her knuckles.
Eric blinked. "Hold on, you're not really going to-"
He was cut short as she leapt onshore, sprinting toward the dragon as the raft bobbed from the power displayed in her leave.
"Aaand she's doing it." he grumbled, setting his magnum's iron sights back on to the dragon.
Moria let out a battle cry, drawing both her plasma submachine guns and firing both at once as she slowed from her sprint to a walk, the blue discharges of plasma soaking into the dragon's scales, leaving dark burn marks and a scent of burnt fish in the air. (I may have laughed at this for some reason.)
The blue dragon screeched, the gills on the sides of it's head flaring with an agitated red on the inside as it swung it's massive tail at Moria, who leapt over it in a skyward somersault. She landed with a shoulder roll, barely avoiding her attacker's gnashing jaws.
She tossed aside her steaming plasma weapons, taking a defensive stance as the dragon rose up on it's back legs, using it's wings to carry it forward in an attempt to slam down and land on Moria, who quickly scrambled under its body to the other side as it hit the ground, where she grabbed ahold of it's tail and began climbing up onto it's back, ignoring the unrest in her nerves from the sudden impact.
Snarling and screeching, the dragon whipped around, snapping at Moria and instead missing, either over her head or too far to the right on each strike.
Eric fired again, the other shot hitting it in the back leg, crimson now coating the underside of its tail. It flipped itself over, rolling onto Moria as she let out a yell.
Oh crap.
"NO!" A black shape plummeted out of the sky, grabbing the savage dragon by the throat and tossing it off of Moria like a bean bag.
Another dragon?!
Eric fired again, the shot impacting the black dragon in one of its wings.
"AAAAHHH SON OF A BITCH THAT HURTS." He screamed, falling away from Moria and clutching the wound.
Waaiiiitaaaaminuuutee…..
(Kazoo kid: Who ARE you?)
"OwwwwowwwoowwwwwwOWWWWWW!" He continued to moan, finally sitting up and wiping the blood away, then wiping away his tears. "This….hurrrrrts….Anyone have some painkillers or somethi- OW AGAIN!"
His last cries were due to the scarred dragon returning to combat, this time attacking the whiny interloper dragon instead of Moria.
The blue dragon pinned the black one to the ground, it's head reared back to strike at his neck.
"Just my luck, another infected lizard attacking me." The black dragon cracked through gritted teeth.
Eric decided to deal with the savage dragon first, squeezing out another .500 round.
Blood exploded out of the dragon's eye socket, it's body going limp over the wisecracking black dragon.
He shoved the corpse off of himself, still clutching his wing.
"Nice shot-ow. SPEAKING OF SHOTS," He said, staring down at Eric.
"-WHAT'S WITH THAT?"
Eric holstered his magnum. "Uh, what?"
The dragon raised an eyebrow. "You heard me, Big Iron."
"I didn't exactly understand the question."
"DIDN'T UNDERST- WHY DID YOU SHOOT ME, GENIUS?"
Eric rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment. "Uhhhh sorry?"
"Sorry's not gonna get me flying again, sheriff."
Moria stepped in. "Ahem."
Eric looked away, counting how much rounds he had left.
Only twenty-two. That's pretty meager. I hope we find Milo soon.
(OH BOY, I DO WONDER, WHERE EVER COULD HE BEEEE? *taps chin over-enthusiastically*)
Moria was clutching her arm, from what Eric assumed was the pure weight of her previous opponent.
"Thanks for the assist, but I'd like to know your name." She said, her helmet looking up at the dragon.
He rolled his eyes. "Right. As if it wasn't obvious."
She punched his leg. "Just making sure."
Eric's eyes widened. "Wait, you know this guy?"
"Well yeah. He's Milo."
Milo waved shyly. "Hi."
She recognised him instantly by his voice. Interesting.
Eric scratched his chin. "Just out of curiosity, HOW do you two know each other?"
Milo dipped his head, wincing at his own pain. "Well uh…"
"Siblings." Moria said regretfully.
Eric sighed, shaking his head. "Just my luck. You're not the only one who came here for a brother." he said, grinning at the coincidence.
(I really liked the idea of both of them having the same ulterior motive, but at the same time not even knowing it.)
Gage had stopped the raft on a small sandbar, thus why they weren't floating away.
"Milo….could you uh….be human again, or something?"
Milo shook his head quickly. "Nope. Stuff got broken. I'm supposed to be getting to the Rainforest with some friends, but Jake told me about you guys and-"
Eric wiped his forehead, frowning. "Wait, Jake and Leighton wandered and found you?"
"Yeah, but well, uh, not just me." He grinned.
"Who..?"
"Um. A couple native dragons. Some friends-turned-dragons. Nothing else really."
Moria sighed. "This...complicates things. The New Republic needs your knowledge of the stronghold codes, but on the other hand, I know you really haven't exactly cared much for anyone else except those close to you."
"Mm. Yeah. Howard's the director now, by the way."
"Wait, what!?"
"Yeah. Davidson stepped down."
"Typical. I guess that explains why their soldiers fight to the last man now, not retreating like they used to." She muttered, crossing her arms.
"Yeah…."
Eric sat down, crossing his legs. "So uh, do we keep going down the river?"
Milo glared at him. "Well yeah, especially since flying's out of the question." He grumbled, taking a fresh rag from Gage and using it to wipe most of the blood away from his wound.
"I think I'll need one of you guys to dig this thing out, actually…" He muttered.
Moria shrugged. "I think Gage would, if you asked nicely."
Not much later….
Milo's huge white teeth were clenched shut from the pain, a low whine escaping his throat as Gage worked the .500 round out of the muscles of his left wing.
"Oh stop your bawling, you big baby." Moria grumbled. "We need you to heal up that stupid wing of yours anyway, who knows, it might actually be useful for something."
"Geeee…. I-OW!...Wonder…..maybe, I dunno….AH!...FLYING?" He growled through his teeth.
"Maybe." Moria replied, obviously grinning under her helmet.
Eric tossed out the brass shells from his revolver, thumbing in new unused rounds.
"Which way is the Rainforest here anyways?" He asked, jerking his thumb at the raft.
The noise of metal clicking against metal told Eric that Gage had just reached the round.
"...Downriver." Milo managed.
Blood flicked onto Gage's face when he pried the bullet out, the small copper fragment falling onto the wet sand.
"Ahhhh-hhh…" Milo sighed, shivering.
Hmm. We were just about to head where he was going, so why couldn't he come along?
He eyed the raft skeptically.
It WAS about the size of an SUV, but even with that much room, Milo's body ALONE would cover the whole thing, and he'd still have to get at least his tail wet.
But what if we…
Huh.
Well I SUPPOSE that could work.
If he didn't whine about it so much, anyways.
And if the weight of Moria's armor doesn't worsen our situation with his mobility to the point of where he can't walk.
"Alright." He sighed. "We're going to the Rainforest."
Milo's ears quivered slightly. "Really? But how? Sure, it's not far from here, but walking that far could take, I dunno, days?"
Eric rolled his eyes.
"You're not walking there, genius." Moria snapped. "You're riding on the raft."
"Wait, so you're walking?"
"No."
Milo frowned, standing up. "I'm beginning to think I won't like where this is going."
Eric shrugged. "Probably not."
Within minutes, Milo was curled up on the raft, his talons all tucked in tightly to his chest, and a significant extent of his tail trailing in the flowing river.
"I'm getting soaked now. And this water's cold. Are you sure about this, is this such a good idea?" He whined.
Moria sighed, climbing onto the black dragon's back as he winced from the weight. "You've only been touching the water for two minutes, stop complaining."
He forced a grin. "Gee sis, put on some weight while you were gone?" He said, obviously referring to the weight of her armor.
"Eh, just a thousand pounds extra." She replied.
"Yup. I can tell." He sighed laboriously.
Eric picked up his shells he'd tossed out earlier, sliding them into his pockets with grunt.
Can't let anyone know we were here. Those people from the village are no doubt not very happy we were there, and they'd have at least collected and inspected the shells from our previous visit.
Gage scrambled up next to Moria, in which Eric slowly followed, eyeing the trees again.
He felt watched.
Hunted.
As if something, or someone, was busy documenting their existence.
And honestly, I'm going to have to ask Milo if they were followed.
He thought, the fast-flowing river carrying them away from the shore as quick as his thoughts ricocheted around his brain.