Robin slowly woke up, blinking a few times as a strange, but still somewhat familiar sound entered his ear.

A month had passed since the dragon had attacked the town and Gamma had become an official member of Blue Wave Harbor.

While his memories still hadn't returned, he has shown an astonishingly high amount of skill and knowledge when it came to mechanics and science.

He was so smart that he was even offered a job as a teacher, but he refused, taking a job as a mechanic instead. He had also made himself quite popular amongst the people, as he did his job with a lot of love and not for the money, which resulted in affordable prices, while also being contactable 24 hours per day as he didn't mind being woken up to fix a broken roof late at night.

In fact, Robin had never seen someone who enjoyed his job as much as Gamma did. He had even offered up some of his free time to not only repair but also expand the playground (much to the joy of the children) which had been in quite a bad shape as most workforces were needed to repair houses that were destroyed by dragon attacks.

That motivation however had quickly turned out to also reveal is's negatives alongside a few things that were less enjoyable about the new local mechanic.

It came in the form of loud hammering noises that could be heard across the street where he lived.

"GAMMA!" he could hear a neighbor shout. "IT'S TWO IN THE MORNING, STOP WORKING AND JUST GO TO SLEEP ALREADY!"

"Don't even bother, he probably can't hear you through all that noise…" someone else said.

Robin fought his way out of bed, slowly heading for the door.

"I'll talk to him…" he said sleepily once he was outside. While he didn't enjoy the rob of night rest, he didn't want his new friend to be beaten up by an angry mob either.

He had to knock three times, each time a bit louder, before Gamma finally heard him, stopping the hammering.

"Come in."

Robin did as told, jawing.

"You look tired…" he observed. "Want some coffee?"

"Well did you look at the time?" he replied giving him a blank (and tired) look.

"What do you mean?" he looked at a mechanical clock that was hanging across the room. "Oh, I have been working for that long? Wow, the time is racing these days…"

"Yea, it's two in the morning and you're keeping the entire neighborhood awake… again."

"Oh, sorry…" Gamma placed his tools aside, looking embarrassed. "I didn't mean to do that…"

"Well, I forgive you, but you might want to apologize to the others too… once they're properly awake of course."

He nodded while packing his tools away. "Will do."

Robin had only heard it half, already heading back towards his much-anticipated bed in the hope of maybe getting a few more hours of sleep before his shift in the morning.

In his tired state, he almost missed the hissing from a nearby bush and the rustling that came with it.

When it happened again, however, his mind successfully picked it up.

Due to years of experience working as a guard, Robin was immediately on high alert, his tiredness blown. He however realized that his panic wasn't necessary, as judging by the size of the bush, whatever was making the sound was too small to be a dragon, calming him down a bit.

The way it rustled however interested him as it sounded like someone was struggling with or over something.

He picked up a nearby stick and moved the branches apart revealing, to his shock, a dragonbite viper that was entangled in the branches, desperately trying to get free.

Robin was quite surprised by the discovery, watching the viper which had noticed him by now, struggling even harder to get free.

The feeling of surprise was quickly replaced by uncertainty. The most poisonous snake in the world, here in his village, where it could potentially bite someone and kill him or her… Speak of luck that he had discovered it, and not some random child who could've been bitten.

He pulled his knife to end the viper's life, causing its eyes to go vide in fear, thrashing around while biting the air. It failed, however, and didn't get free.

"Alright, hold still…" he mumbled, lifting the knife.

To his surprise the viper did exactly that, closing its eyes while shivering fearfully.

Taking a closer look, he finally noticed how small the dragonbite viper was, probably barely juvenile judging by its size.

"Who am I kidding…" Robin mumbled, watching the viper child who was anxiously waiting for the in his eyes inevitable death strike. "I'm the one who's about to kill a kid…"

He sat there for a few seconds, knife still in hand, before making up his mind.

Quickly grabbing the snake's head in a way that it couldn't bite him, he used his knife to cut through the branches in which the dragonbite viper had entangled itself.

It started struggling again, as the panic resurfaced, but slowly stopped once it realized what Robin was doing and proceeded to stay still instead. With wide eyes, it watched how Robin slowly but surely freed its lengthy body… well watched as good as you can when someone was holding your head in an iron grip.

It took a bit, but Robin managed to completely detangled the snake's body, and picked him up (while still holding the head at a safe distance), carrying it towards the gate of the town.

Once outside he carefully laid the viper down on the grass, making sure that it was a fair distance into the forest, to ensure that it didn't get near town again.

Taking care to keep the head for last, he uncoiled the slithery body from his arm, resting it on the ground instead. "Alright… Please be grateful and don't bite me…" he mumbled, taking a deep breath, before quickly letting go of the snake's head, and pulling his hand back.

It didn't bite him and instead watched its savor with a curious look that had a slight hint of awe.

Robin took that as a good sign. "Alright, you're free now. Please stay away from town in the future, alright?" he said, leaving. "Weird little guy." he thought, chuckling.

It was then, that he felt warm scaly skin rub his leg.

Looking down he saw that the viper was rubbing its head against his leg, nuzzling him in an almost adorable manner. He chuckled, both in amusement as well as nervousness, but allowed it.

"Alright, that's enough…" he said after a while. "I'm tired, and just want to go to sleep… Was nice meeting you kid, we might meet again in the future…"

With that, he headed back to the village.

—000—

The little dragonbite viper watched the human leave with mixed emotions, still processing what just happened. Ever since his parents had disappeared this particular human had been the only one who had been remotely friendly to him.

His tongue flicked out, taking in the scent of the human, making sure to remember it so that he could identify him should they meet again. The human didn't turn around as the viper watched him leave and eventually disappeared into one of the many stone constructs.

He continued to look at the now-empty town, before finally turning away, and slithering into the forest to find shelter.

After a bit of searching, he lay down under a rock ledge where dragons couldn't see him. He knew that he could take them on and that they feared him, but getting woken up by one of those giant lizards wasn't something he desired.

Listening to the sounds of the forest he rolled himself up, but despite his comfortable position, sleep was a long way from coming.