How dare someone break into Master Paynn's citadel, the wraith thought.
Without waste of time, it powered its attack gear. First it activated the red fireball launcher gear that was placed just above its shoulders. As two salvos of two small balls of super-heated red draconium flew through the air, the intruders barely dodged them, causing the balls to collide and scorch the wall on the other side of the hallway beyond the door. Before the wraith could activate its other combat gear, the intruders darted away. Without wasting time, the wraith magged the last piece of gear it required and sprinted out of the armory, chasing the intruders.
Interfacing with the citadel's internal sensors and calling other wraiths in reinforcement, the wraith sprinted along the halls in Paynn citadel without loosing a beat. This was thanks to the last gear it magged, black control gear, which accompanied the wraith's leg movements, giving it increased acceleration and recovery.
Before long, the wraith caught up with the intruders, which were heading towards a sealed exit.
Excellent, Master Paynn will be most pleased of their capture, the wraith thought as it came into sight with the intruders.
"Surrender, or be destroyed!" The wraith roared at the intruders, giving them no peace as still it pursued them. Seeing as they kept going, the wraith activated it's stealth gear, concealing it from sight as it kept speeding. The wraith kept following them, the intruders not slowing down in the slightest.
As they finally reached the closed exit, the wraith received it. Master Paynn orders to stop, the wraith idly thought as it slowed down and stopped. Unfortunately, the exit was not closed as it was supposed to be, and instead had a large hole in the sealing plates. The wraith could only watch as the intruders sped out of that hole.
Word was furious. The exit that should have been sealed shut, instead sported a hole large enough to let the intruders out of what could have been a perfect trap.
Slamming his right fist on the desk, he left a rather prominent dent into it.
Taking a breath to steady himself, Word summoned the wraith that found and pursued the intruders. Within a minute, the wraith appeared in the laboratory.
"The intruders have escaped." Word idly mused as he stood from his chair. Turning around could see how the wraith's apparent calm and emotionless posture was disrupted by a twitching of its legs. "Perhaps, I should punish you for such failure."
The wraith stood still, silent.
"But I won't." Word stated, crossing his hands behind his backs. Pacing around his desk, he reached for the wraith, standing in front of it.
"No?" The wraith rumbled, tilting its head just slightly.
"I won't punish you, for someone else's failure. Besides you did very well in chasing the intruders for as long as you could, until you were ordered otherwise." Word said, and with a finger he reached for the comm console on his desk.
"Personnel office, I want the workers responsible for the sealing of Auxiliary Access 4 in my laboratory. Immediately." Word said, releasing the button before anyone on the side could reply.
As he waited for the workers to arrive, he ordered the wraith to stand aside cloaked and in the darkness.
A quite few minutes later, the workers arrived. Six workers, of which four were the construction workers, and the other two where the engineer who made the project and the other was the team leader that coordinated the works. They all wore work uniforms, except the engineer. All six, however, were wearing Paynn's incorporated logo on their shoulders, and their clothing was of tints of matching shades of those of the citadel's own.
"Gentlemen, I guess you will all be wondering why I called for you." Word said sternly, standing in front of his desk, peering down to the employees.
Silently, they all nodded in unison.
"Just to be sure, have all of you worked at the sealing of Auxiliary Access 4?" Word continued. They all nodded. "Very good. You're all fired."
At the last word, the men's faces went pale, the engineer almost fainting as his legs started wobbling.
"Go now, and remember to sign the required forms on the way out." Word dismissed them with a wave of his left hand, before gesturing for the wraith to come forward. "And also remember the consequences if you break your silence. The dragon always watches."
Word watched as the men all visibly trembled as a low growl filled the air as he touched what to them was nothing more than air with his gloved right hand. His face was brightened by a cold, malicious grin as the wraith uncloaked and the men scurried away, running out of the lab, almost pushing each other off the narrow bridge that connected the laboratory's center to the exit.
"Remember, my wraith queen. Fear is a weapon like no other. It is a weakness in those who do not control it, and one must learn to exploit it." Word said as he kept stroking the wraith's snout.
"Yes, Master Paynn." The wraith hissed.
Artha, Kitt and their dragons had just reached Penn Stables, but their hearts were still racing fast. Wyldfyr's more than the others'.
"Wyldfyr, are you ok?" Beau rumbled as he saw his red friend taking deep breaths.
"No." Wyldfyr whined.
"Kitt, Wyldfyr's not looking too good." Artha said as he noticed Wyldfyr's absent eyes, his deep breathing and the way Beau looked worriedly up to him. "I'll take the camera to my father and Parm, you go to the stables and try to calm Wyldfyr down."
"Ok, take here." Kitt said as she handed the camera to Artha, who had already descended from his saddle. As Artha walked to the house with an accelerated step, Kitt jumped down from Wyldfyr's saddle, and then lead him towards the stables. Beau followed close behind.
"Wyldfyr?" Beau whined, but getting no response he moved forward and nudged the Magma-class's shoulder. That snapped the red dragon out of his daze, startling him and as a result startling Kitt as well.
"Beau! Wyldfyr's already on the edge as it is!" Kitt snapped at the red and blue dragon.
"Sorry." Beau rumbled, looking away slightly abashed.
"That... thing." Wyldfyr whined.
"What thing? You mean the wraith?" Beau looked up to him, raising an eyebrow in curiosity.
"Yes. I... I felt like I already knew who it was... who she was..." Wyldfyr rumbled, absentmindedly, his breath having steadied to a normal rhythm and his heart having returned to a normal pace.
"What do you mean?" Beau asked.
"I... I don't know." Wyldfyr whined.
Connor was doing some paperwork in the house's living room, while Lance and Parm were playing some Battleground Dragon. Earlier he told them that as long as Artha and Kitt wouldn't call them, it was better to busy themselves with something else.
Suddenly, Artha slammed the door open and entered, holding a camera in his hands.
"Artha, what's going on?" Connor said, a bit annoyed by his son's rash behavior, only to then notice his steely expression.
"Dad, Parm, you need to look at these." Artha said, holding out the camera he carried.
Parm took the camera from Artha, and in no time connected it to his portable computer. As he browsed the pictures taken by Kitt, Connor gasped in shock.
"What is it, Mr Penn? Do you recognize that gear?" Parmon asked, looking up at the shocked man.
"Yes, I do. That red gear on the shoulders is red fire-ball launcher gear, extremely powerful and highly destructive. I haven't seen it in use in many years." Connor explained, still staring at the picture of the wraith. "The other red gear is red side-venting gear. Helps the dragon's strafing maneuvers. You don't see it in normal races because only highly experienced riders and sufficiently trained dragons can appropriately control its thrust output."
"Hmm, fascinating." Parmon mused as he started his own analysis. "Red fire-ball gear, red side-venting gear, then... purple tandem gear and blue speed gear. That's... impossible! The amount of energy and control required to handle such an amount of gear is far beyond a normal wraith dragon's mental capacity! The psi gear that controls the dragon would fry!"
"But it isn't a normal wraith dragon, Parm!" Lance pointed out, indicating the spikes and the glowing lines on the dragon's body. "A normal wraith doesn't have those."
"You're right." Parmon noted as he watched the details of the wraith's body.
"Artha, what exactly happened in there? Where's Geeld?" Connor asked to his son, clearly worried by this turn of events.
Artha told them, from where he and Kitt convinced Moordryid to help them intrude Word's citadel, to their escape form that same place.
"Since we run out of it, Wyldfyr was in some sort of shock. I really don't know what to make of it. I've never seen him like that." Artha finished.
"I must talk to Wyldfyr, where is he?" Connor asked.
"In the stables with Kitt and Beau." Artha answered, and they all left to check on the Magma-class.
"Wyldfyr, you look like you've seen a ghost." Cyrano rumbled, both the large Bull-class and the young Fracshun having come to see of their common friend.
"I... I'm afraid it may as well have been..." Wyldfyr whined. He was trembling, wincing every time that wraith's image flashed in his mind.
Just then, Connor arrived in the stables, Artha and others in tow. Kitt had been brushing Wyldfyr's scales in attempt to relax him, but the effort didn't bear any fruit.
"Kitt, Beau, everyone, I need some time to talk to Wyldfyr. Alone." Connor stated, attracting everyone's attention. Kitt was just about to protest when Connor raised his hand. "Don't worry, Kitt, he'll be fine."
With a bit of reluctance, Kitt left, after she gave a neck-rub to her dragon, who despite the gentle motion stood still and silent, watching down to the floor.
When everyone left and was a sufficient distance away, Connor closed the stable's door from inside. The man approached the catatonic dragon, which yelped as Connor touched his shoulder.
"Relax, Wyldfyr." Connor said, trying to reassure the startled dragon by moving his end so that it came to rest on the dragon's cheek. "Now, tell me everything."
Wyldfyr was confused at first, but then gave in as Connor simply smiled. The dragon's speech was mostly growls, whines and some hissing, but to Connor it was a bit more intelligible than that.
"That... wraith... She looked familiar." Wyldfyr began. "When we first saw her stepping through the hallway, I dismissed the feeling as a déjà vu, since all wraiths are more or less the same. But... when she noticed us, when she looked at us... As she called us intruders... for a moment I thought for a moment that it was Geeld... when we were running, she called to us to stop and surrender, her voice sounding so different, yet the same as Geeld's..."
"It's okay, Wyldfyr." Connor whispered, Wyldfyr's eyes becoming wide open as he realized that Connor had pretty much understood most if not everything he had just said. "Wraith dragons are something terrorizes even me. What was about this one that scared you so much?"
"The voice... I remember when Geeld cried, asking of her parents... And that wraith, her voice, it was the same, yet so... altered, evil, uncaring..."
"You're afraid that Geeld could have been turned into a wraith?" Connor asked, patting Wyldfyr's snout as the dragon nodded. "Word is a cruel man, true. But if he indeed turned an helpless whelp into a wraith, I doubt I could ever forgive him that. And do you know what else I doubt?"
Wyldfyr shook his head.
"I doubt that the wraith you and the others encountered was Geeld." Connor answered his own question, Wyldfyr's head tilting on one side. "Until we know for sure, Geeld's still somewhere in Word's citadel, and at some point in the future, soon enough we'll get her back."
Connor looked in Wyldfyr's eyes with determination, the dragon returning the look with still frightened eyes.
"But what if she is a wraith... What if she is that wraith?" Wyldfyr whined as Connor kept looking into his eyes.
"Then we'll save her." Connor stated, his determination unfaltering. "We'll save her, because we can."
Meanwhile, the others were talking to each other.
"So, Parm, what do you think it is? That wraith, what do you think about it?" Kitt asked.
"Well, for one, the amount of gear its carrying is disproportionately excessive. All that gear requires an incredible amount of energy just to keep it magged, let alone use it. Not to mention the weight, which would ultimately cost the wraith a lot of stamina and speed." Parmon explained. "Second, Artha said that the wraith followed you by its own initiative, right?"
"Yes, it did." Kitt mused. "But when we reached for the sealed exit we busted to get in, the wraith stopped, it didn't follow us..."
"Perhaps Word ordered it stop." Lance suggested.
"Yes, exactly. Word must have been expecting that to be a dead end, and wanted to trap you in, but the plan didn't work, because you guys busted in right from there without him noticing! But it is strange that Word didn't properly secure all of accesses to the citadel." Parmon said, getting the usual bored looks from pretty much all of the present.
"Well, I most certainly wouldn't want to be in the boots of the ones that he's gonna fire for that." Artha joked, although it only resulted in everyone rolling their eyes at him. "What?"
"Anyway, we must get back in there and find Geeld!" Kitt announced, her enthusiasm hitting a new height, only to nose-dive as it occurred to her how Wyldfyr was after that encounter with the wraith.
"You're thinking about Wyldfyr, aren't you?" Artha asked, noticing her frown.
"Yes, I'm not lying when I say that I'm worried about him." Kitt said, crossing her arms and looking back at the stable where Connor and Wyldfyr were. "The only time I've seen him scared like that was when I saved him so many years ago when he was still little. It's just not his thing to be scared like that, if at all."
Everyone nodded. Wyldfyr might have been a Magma-class with a unique temper, but he never crumbled into a trembling heap of scared dragon like he did after escaping the wraith.
"Don't worry, Kitt." Parmon said, trying to sound reassuring. "After all, Mr. Penn is a world-renown dragon breeder and stable owner. He's a Dragon Priest and a former Elite-class racer, too. Not to mention that he's Artha's and Lance's father, and he raised both Beau, Fracshun, Cyrano, and their parents as well. He'll know just what to say to Wyldfyr to calm him down."
A few minutes of wait later, the stable's door opened, and from it came both Connor and Wyldfyr. Kitt felt relieved to see her dragon of a much better mood, his head high with that confident step he always showed. Connor was beaming as well. Looks like having a little talk helped both of them, Kitt thought as the two walked towards them. As Kitt began walking, Wyldfyr shot forward, almost causing Kitt to tumble as he stopped just right to rub his snout in her hair.
"I see someone's doing great." Kitt teased as she rubbed her dragon's neck, which let out a rather surprising purr.
"So, what did Connor tell you?" Beau asked, trying to get Wyldfyr's attention.
"Hey! I want to know too!" Fracshun complained.
"Well..." Wyldfyr began as Kitt let go of his neck. "Let's say that it's something between me and Connor."
"Ooow, not fair..." Fracshun whined, head low as the other dragons chuckled.