"How long is this going to take? I'm starting to get sick," said John slowly, his hand resting on his stomach, his face tilted a slight green as he tried to hold back to, what was most likely, a load of vomit.
"This will not last long, Knight," said Darsin slowly, his wings beating slowly to keep the height he was currently flying at, as they drew nearer and nearer to Astor City.
Emmet was oddly quiet throughout the majority of the trip; once they had entered the Astor Realm, he felt this oddly…unnerving feeling in the depths of his gut. He couldn't sum it up in words, but it was just…unnerving.
He couldn't think of any other word to describe it. Just…unnerving.
"Hey, Emmet…you OK?" asked Wyldstyle slowly, resting her hand lightly on her boyfriend's shoulder, and leaning forward slightly so that she could look at him directly; a concerned expression playing across her face.
"Yeah…Yeah. Probably just…flight sickness," said Emmet, lying quickly as to not worry Lucy; he didn't her to think something bad was going to happen, if it turned out that he had just a bad feeling in his gut.
Wyldstyle nodded a little, a slightly unsure look playing across her expression, before she slowly leaned back behind Emmet again.
The construction worker let loose a small sigh of relief once Wyldstyle had pulled back.
Darsin flew closer to the Astor Agency centre, his wings remaining at the steady flapping rate, pushing his body through the air at a constant speed. He slowed, however, the nearer he got.
"Hmm…" he said slowly, his eyes slowly narrowing as he looked down to the ground, slowly coming to a stop so that he was hovering in mid-air.
"What's wrong?" asked Emmet, leaning forward a little to get closer to Darsin, putting a hand on the dragon's scaled and armoured neck for support.
"I sense something…a presence…I thought twas long gone…" grunted Darsin lowly, the sound rumbling through his body, going right through the figures on top.
"Can you remember it? What it is?" asked Emmet, worry in his voice; they already had to deal with Anti-Builder.
He didn't want them to have to deal with another ancient evil.
"We need to investigate…" said Darsin slowly, his voice starting to strain a little, trying to hide the faintest strand of an old being, tired of battle, as he began to fly again; still heading towards the Astor Agency.
Emmet was silent, letting Darsin take them to wherever this source of newly detected evil was.
"What's that?" asked Laval after a few seconds, leaning forward and to the side a little, pointing out towards the ground.
The others, including Darsin and John, both looked down to see what the King was talking about.
From the ground, rapidly approaching the flying Dragon, several small, long shapes were moving towards them.
Missiles.
"Hold on!" said Darsin, before his wings flared out as far as possible before he tried flying faster, moving in random directions to try and make it harder for the missiles to hit.
Darsin wormed around in the sky wildly, a few of the earliest rockets shooting pass them, missing Darsin's body by mere feet. The exploded off a few seconds after they passed, massive explosions going off on all sides of Darsin.
The figures sitting on his back were holding on for dear life, at the sudden changing of direction ever five seconds. Though with all forces that they were experiencing, something was going to give eventually.
And that something was John.
Having already been struggling to hold in a mouth load of vomit, and the combination of the rapid movements and forces weren't helping much either, John had only had over his mouth to hold in the vomit, and the other hand was barely holding on to the back of Darsin's neck.
But eventually, he couldn't hold on anymore and, with a panicked yelp, John's hand slipped off from the weak grip on the scales and was set flying across the sky for a few minutes, before he started dropping like a rock.
"Ahhhh!" said John in panic, flailing his arms about wildly as he tried to do something.
"Darsin!" shouted Emmet, pulling himself a bit further up on the Dragon's back and trying to get his attention, pointing rapidly towards the ever falling Knight.
The Dragon's deep blue eyes turned slightly to see the falling form of John, before he looked down at the ever approaching missiles.
With a heavy sigh, and a bit of smoke simmering out of his nose, Darsin flicked his tail to the side ever so slightly, and angled his wings down, before he began a nose dive towards the ground; directly moving towards the rockets.
Why John deciding to let go and start falling down in the midst of the approaching missiles, Darsin didn't know.
He was getting too old for this.
Folding his wings a bit closer to his sides, Darsin began to pick up speed rapidly the faster he moved towards the ground; the remaining figures on his back holding on with both hands for dear life.
The wind, combined with the ever pressing threat that one of the rockets may hit Darsin, wasn't helping their hold either.
"I need one of you to reach out and grab him!" ordered Darsin, his eyes narrowed to focus on the ever falling John, trying to narrow his profile to avoid any of the missiles hitting him.
Emmet started to move up Darsin's neck to try and get a better position, but Laval managed to climb his way around the other two figures flawlessly, most likely because of the help with his feline abilities, and managed to get himself onto the top of Darsin's head while still having a good grip.
Narrowing his eyes slightly in determination, Laval slowly crawled atop Darsin until he was as far as he could go without falling off of Darsin and joining John in his free fall.
Reaching his hand out as far as he could, Laval focused on John as he waited for Darsin to pick up enough speed so that they could catch up with John.
"Almost…got it…" said Laval between grit teeth, straining to reach as far as he could to get a better chance of catching John.
The two of them picked up speed, the rockets continuing to fire at them, getting closer and closer to them the closer they got to the ground.
With a final bit of straining, Laval reach out one last time and managed to grab onto John's arm, saying, "Gotcha!" With a quick, powerful tug, Laval managed to pull John back onto the back of Darsin.
"Thanks friend," said John, his voice shakily, and looking a bit pale.
"We are fighters; Warriors. We look out for one another," said Laval, patting John's shoulder reassuringly as they began shifting back to Darsin's neck.
Though before they could move much, Darsin let out a loud, deep screech of pain.
One of the missiles had hit him directly in the chest, the explosion sending a shockwave throughout his body. Including the figures.
Before he could recover from that strike, another missile hit home; this time, nearer to the top half of the body.
Seeing as they were close to the ground, and the fact that Darsin had been wounded by the missiles, they didn't have enough time nor height for them to recover.
"Hold on!" shouted Emmet, tightening his grip around Darsin's neck as the ground suddenly looked a lot closer than it had before.
Thankfully, with his last ounce of strength, Darsin managed to manoeuvre them so that they were flying over a long stretch of road.
Not a second later, Darsin's wings gave up and they headed to the ground. The struck the ground, making a deep groove in the ground as Darsin's body moved along the long road, knocking out several street signs and overhead lamp posts.
Emmet and Wyldstyle managed to hold onto Darsin's back through the majority of crash landing, though Laval and John were knocked off during the first impact, sending them flying into the side of a few passing buildings, leaving dents and smashed windows.
When the body of the Dragon finally came to a stop, Emmet and Wyldstyle were finally flung off; though since they were close to stopping, they managed to get to their feet with minimal injures.
"Where's Laval and John?" asked Emmet, his face a bit scuffed up as he looked around; one hand holding his other arm as he looked around.
Wyldstyle shook her head a little, slowly turning back and approaching Darsin's head; his breathing was shallow and slow, his eyes closed and a bit of smoke simmering out of the top of his nose.
"Darsin?" Wyldstyle asked quietly, gently resting her hand against the Dragon's scaled nose; his breathing steadily slowing down.
"Young one…" breathed Darsin weakly, his eyes slowly cracking open a little to look at Wyldstyle as he forced himself to speak. His voice was strained with a tint of pain, though he tried his best to cover it up.
Though Wyldstyle wanted to try and do something to see what was wrong with Darsin, aside from the obvious missile injures, she didn't have the time.
Not a full minute after they had crashed, several SUV's, with black tinted windows, black paintjob, and sirens, drove down the road at high speed on either side of the downed Dragon, breaking hard on either side. Making a curve on either side of Darsin.
The doors on either side of every SUV's slammed open, and several figures, each armed with body armour and weapons that Emmet saw on the figures at the Astor Agency, piled out, orders being shouted out from the higher ranks.
Pretty soon, Emmet, Wyldstyle and Darsin were surrounded by these armed figures, all aiming their guns at them.
"Wow, wow! We're friends!" said Emmet in panic, raising one of his hands up to try and calm the situation down.
Wyldstyle backed up a little, looking around for an escape; she would have been totally fine with her Master Building ability, but now…she felt very vulnerable.
After a few seconds, several transparent green canisters were thrown at the group, thick green smoke billowing out of the canisters, surrounding the two figures and reducing their range of sight to zero.
His coughs turning rough and painful, Emmet looked around wildly; the smoke was so thick that he couldn't even see Wyldstyle, who was barely a few feet from him seconds ago.
Within a few seconds, his coughing and eye sight getting steadily worse, Emmet collapsed to his knees, seeing blurred figures slowly approaching him.
His head landing on the ground, Emmet slowly turned his head around slightly to catch the last image.
A figure standing in front of him, a black trench coat billowing in the wind, coming into contrast with his white shirt underneath.