The night was restless for Beau and Connor, the wraith's words still haunting their minds. Connor was worried that the wraith could possibly know of his experiments, of his attempts at breeding a golden dragon, of the events that so many years ago lead to Beau's birth as a gold dragon and Artha being destined to be his rider. Beau, instead, was worried by his behavior, taking a deep introspective look at what he said, at what he had done that could have driven the wraith to say what she said, trying to understand what truly was that made him act like that.
Eventually, they both let things go. Connor concluded that the wraith had simply made a really good guess. Beau decided that the wraith was right about him, that he didn't want to admit that perhaps there was more to Geeld than met the eye.
The morning began quite slowly, especially for Connor and Beau, both of them having missed a lot of sleep due to their worries.
Soon enough, the stables were as busy as they been in some time. Artha and Beau were on the race track practicing while coached by Connor, Kitt and Parm where checking on the gear, while Lance was busy tending to their dragons. It was almost midday when Lance had finished brushing the dragons and cleaning the stable, or at least he though he was done until some noise came from the stall where Geeld was.
"I can't believe that we've overslept!" The wraith growled as she paced up and down the stall's limited space, her lengthy tail occasionally bumping into the door with a resounding thump. "It's not like we did anything intensive! We simply had the worse argument in our lives, no biggie..."
Geeld was sitting on the hay, watching with curious eyes as the wraith kept pacing. They still hadn't switched places, Geeld still only a mental image in the wraith's eyes, with the latter still being in control of their physical body.
"I was sleepy." Geeld chirped, causing the wraith to roll her eyes.
"Right..." She sighed.
The black dragon was about to walk over and sit beside Geeld, when the stall's door opened. Right outside the door was Lance, who had a most regretting look in his eyes as he eyed the wraith. She couldn't help it, her head instantly turning towards him, driven by her instincts. She looked in his eyes, noticing how frightened he was it occurred to her that she was still in Geeld's physical body.
"Whatever... Your turn, Geeld." The wraith said, shaking her head before turning to Geeld. "Make it count."
Without waiting for an answer, the wraith returned to her corner of Geeld's mind, the deep purple of the scales and the tail spikes reverting to Geeld's normal golden form. Geeld gave her body a slight shake before turning to look at Lance, which already looked relieved at seeing Geeld instead of the wraith.
"Good morning, Geeld!" Lance announced, taking inside the stall the bucket and the brush he had put near the door way.
"Hi!" Geeld rumbled, trying to smile.
"Could you turn around so I can brush you?" Lance asked as he held up the scale brush in his right hand.
Geeld looked at him for a moment, but then she understood and turned, facing the doorway. Before she could notice, Lance had already set himself to work, beginning from her legs. Admittedly, Geeld was never brushed before, and now that she had a body that big she really had picked up a lot of dirt and soot. She thoroughly enjoyed the treatment, slowly beginning to purr as Lance began brushing her side. The wraith observed amused, the boy proving very talented at tending dragons, taking a more careful approach as he brushed over the scraped scales and the bruises that Geeld had gained the day prior when she had a side-crash with Beau.
"You really like this, don't you?" Lance asked. Geeld nodded slowly, but the wraith could see something in the kid's eyes as he eyed at one of the bruises that was visible under Geeld's golden scales.
Before either of the two personalities could react, the boy pinched at one of the bruises, causing Geeld to yelp, jumping sideways until she bumped into the opposite wall.
"THAT is for what happened to Fracshun." Lance stated as he crossed his arms, watching as Geeld curled herself up whimpering. "I really don't know what to think about all of this 'split personality' deal, but I know what I saw. You hurt Fracshun."
The wraith was fuming, glaring at the kid with a most macabre wish to just bite his tongue off, only to realize that the one truly hurt here was Geeld. She turned to Geeld, who was still curled up against the wall. Her golden eyes were fixed on Lance, confused on why he decided to hurt her.
"Listen, I'm sorry." Lance sighed. "But Fracshun's my friend, and I really don't like it when someone hurts him, or any of my friends for the matter."
Geeld looked down, ashamed that he was somewhat right. It was the wraith who hurt Fracshun, and that's because he was her friend, and she couldn't do anything more than shout at the wraith to stop.
"I don't really know what happened last night, but you- sorry, I mean the wraith, really shook up my father and Beau." Lance said, bringing his hand into one of his back pockets and taking something out. The wraith was about to take control of Geeld's body to defend her, but stopped when she saw what he took out of the pocket. "I've been thinking, that most likely whatever the wraith said didn't come from you, and you know why?"
Geeld looked up to him, and recoiled slightly when he suddenly held out his hand. Feeling nothing happen but the wraith starting to chuckle, Geeld opened her eyes. She watched in awe as she saw a candy bar in his hand.
"Because you're a friend." Lance said, unwrapping the candy and presenting it to Geeld. The golden Pack-class cautiously uncurled and approached the kid, who held the candy in front of him. She kept her eyes on him, Lance presenting her a cheek-to-cheek smile.
As she finally got close enough, she craned her neck toward the candy. She started to bite on it, slowly at first, but picking up speed as she saw Lance still smiling.
The wraith was silently grateful that she didn't have to step in, but she still wanted to teach that kid a lesson, soon or later.
In Paynn Citadel, meanwhile, Word was analyzing the broken wraith gear that Moordryid brought him back.
"Impossible." He muttered, disbelieving the results that appeared on his many screens. "How could it possibly have happened?!"
He looked over his shoulders at the black gear that rested on the work table, a number of cables and sensors attached to it as its lights emitted a faint and flickering glow.
"Apparently, I underestimated you, whelp." He growled at nobody in particular.
Turning around, Word approached the device and looked down to it. He needed a new plan, a way to take the wraith back.
"Gold and black draconiums are far more incompatible than I originally thought." He mused. He recalled that one time when he tried to poison the Dragon of Legend with his only vial of black draconium. His anger rose when he also remembered how that dragon and its rider then humiliated him and thwarted his plans for the umpteenth time as the golden dragon absorbed the black draconium and only became more powerful because of it. After that, he tried and almost succeeded into enslaving both the Dragon of Legend and the Dragon Booster to his bidding thanks to an ancient trap from the times of the Draconium Empires and a special custom-tailored human wraith gear. That plan failed as well when the gear was overwhelmed by a combination of the heroes' mental efforts and a meddling person he still couldn't track down to this day.
He sat down, grabbed his tools that lay scattered near the gear and set to work on the device.
"If these corrections are right, there will be no escape for you ever again, my wraith." He hissed as the soldering tool rewired the device. "Now that I know what happened, your mind will be only mine to control."
Minutes passed as he worked, but his focus was broken when suddenly one of his monitor lit up with a message from one of his informants at the Dragon City Precinct. Word stood up, and headed to the monitor with barely restrained anger, but once he read the message he hurried back to the table to finish his work. He could not afford to waste any time.
Lance had long since finished looking after Geeld and returned into the house to play his vidd games.
Geeld wasn't too keen on leaving the stall, which had been left open by the kid, and the wraith was of similar opinion.
"Alright, we can't simply go out and say 'Hey! I'm sorry for last night!' ... We need a plan." The wraith grunted as she paced up and down.
Although to Geeld's eyes her dark twin was out of the stall, physically the wraith was actually nowhere. It was strange for Geeld to think that only her could see her wraith-self when she was in her body, and similarly the other way around. To her, it didn't make much sense.
It was then that sirens could be heard in the distance. Many sirens. Alarmed, Kitt and Parmon left the workshop and hurried to the center of stable's courtyard, having noticed that the sirens were indeed getting closer to the compound. Artha and Connor too interrupted the training session and hurried back to the stables. As everyone finally gathered at courtyard, they saw the tell-tale red and blue glows coming from down the street as the sirens raised in volume due to the direct line of sight.
There were about five agents, among them Captain Faier himself with his Energy-class dragon Cuffs.
"Something the matter, Captain? What's going on?" Connor asked as he approached the senior policeman.
"I'm sorry to barge in like this, Connor." Faier said, his authoritative voice tinged with discomfort. "We know that in you keep in your stables the 'Alpha' of that pack of wraith dragons that attacked a gear market place no more than two days ago. Where is it?"
Connor was taken back. He thought he had carefully hid all of his tracks so that no one, not even DCS, could guess who was that took the wraith, or rather Geeld.
"Connor, I know that recently you've had your fair share of trouble to deal with, but the dragon that you're concealing is very dangerous and must be placed under a very tight security." Faier insisted as Connor simply glared at him. "I'm not implying that you can't handle a dragon, but a wraith like that..."
"A wraith like that is gone, Faier." Connor interceded, trying to hold his ground in front of the officer. "When the gear was destroyed, the dragon was freed of its hold. I've been keeping it here under observation to make sure that she wouldn't hurt herself or anyone else."
"And while your charity is much appreciated, our reports from witnesses tell that it was no common wraith. Again, I'm sorry, but I have to do this." Faier said, before turning around to his men and giving his order. "Split up and search the stables for any sign of that wraith!"
Geeld and the wraith had heard everything, and while Geeld wasn't sure of what these people wanted, the wraith seemed to have a good enough idea.
"Oh no." She breathed. "We must find a way out of here."
Geeld wanted to ask her, but as she was about to, an officer and his dragon appeared by the doorway, and immediately shouted their call to their colleagues.
"Here! I've found her!" He shouted, his dragon already placing himself in front of the door to bar Geeld's only escape.
"Surrender! If you don't resist, there will be no harm done to you." The deep blue colored Magma-class growled at her.
"Scales!" The wraith cursed. Geeld was completely distracted by the dragon in front of her to think about the wraith in her mind, who took the initiative before she could react. "Sorry, kid. It's for both our sake."
The policeman and his dragon looked on in horror as the golden dragon suddenly began turning of the same shades of black and deep purple typical of the wraiths. The wraith roared at the Magma-class, who backed off ever so slightly, but just enough to be thrown off-balance and to the ground several feet away by a powerful mag-blast coming from the wraith.
The other officers were rapidly approaching, skidding to an halt as they saw the wraith dart out of the stall and heading for the racing track that surrounded the compound. Immediately, they set out after her, splitting up, one group right after her and the other going the opposite direction down the track.
The wraith-Geeld ran as fast as she could, her form almost a blur as she zipped by the obstacles left over from Artha's training. She dodged the first few just barely, but as she picked up the rhythm she was able to move with an unsettling grace between them, not loosing a single beat. The officers and their dragons behind her were far less lucky, a first officer on a Sky-class being thrown to the ground by a rotating gauntlet, while the other was just barely clinging for dear life onto his Psy-class' saddle controls.
They about reached halfway through the track when the other group of policemen came into the wraith's view. Admittedly, she underestimated them.
It was a critical moment for the wraith. She couldn't go back, nor she could keep going forward. Her mind almost worked in automated fashion as it calculated the odds, when she noticed a side-lane with some mag-racks with some gear. White Aero gear and Blue Speed gear. Not exactly what she needed, but her mind nonetheless counted those in. Time was short, and eventually she decided to just go along with it.
The mag-pit was very rapidly approaching. The wraith-Geeld took her chances, and turned at the last second into the mag-pit's service lane. She magged the gear and kept going, always at the same speed, always at the same rhythm as her feet bounded on the reinforced pavement.
When she returned on the track, the two officers who were in front of her had already stopped and resumed their run in the opposite direction, side-by-side with the other officer that was already pursuing her earlier.
To her luck, that day the track had not been configured for high jumps that would require gear like Red Thruster or White Grappel, and instead featured a number of stiff curves both to the left and to the right among a number of pillars from a road above it. The wraith's eyes darted left and right, looking for a good place to make use of the gear she just burrowed. A number of crisscrossing roads was located not too below that part of the track. It was perfect.
The policemen were gaining ground fast, readying their wrist-mounted green trapping gear. Just as they were about to fire, a tight turn to the left appeared in front of their pursued dragon. The officers readied to turn, returning their hands to their saddles, but then the unthinkable happened. Instead of following the turn, the wraith simply bounded off the track's safety wall, disappearing below. They all skidded to an halt, and rapidly approached the wall to look down. Faier was the last one to look down, but he could see just like his fellow officers what happened.