"…and that's it." Sparrow finished, nervously waiting for the queen's response. Two weeks had passed since the SandWing had been attacked by the scavenger and she had decided to warn the queen.

Originally she had wished to get to her as fast as possible, but upon seeing her brother's condition, she had decided to wait until his injuries had all healed up. That week and a half had been the most stressful days of her life, her paranoid mind always expecting the scavengers to show up again and finish what they'd started.

Then after her brother had finally been back on his feet she had started the journey to the SkyWing palace, dropping Stratus with a friend of hers. Despite putting more and more distance between herself and the home of the metal scavenger, it still hunted her dreams, always caring that weapon with it, the projectile traveling way faster than she could ever fly, coming closer, closer, and closer, ready to rip her into pieces. She luckily always woke up before the impact.

It took her four days to finally reach the palace but when she did, it had been quite the relief. Now that she stood in front of her queen, however, she wasn't so sure anymore, feeling the unsure glances of the queen, her advisers, and even the guards rest on her.

She silently kicked herself for not considering that her story sounded quite unbelievable, but now it was too late as she had already told her everything and would probably be considered insane for telling the queen herself that a scavenger off all things, a being that most dragons considered nothing more than pray could pose a lethal threat to dragons.

Sparrow nervously watched as Queen Rubi slowly picked up the strange spear she had brought with her as proof, carefully inspecting it. She extended a claw to touch the tip, before quickly pulling back with a soft hiss. A drop of blood dripped onto the stone floor.

"Well…" she finally started with an unsure tone, even though her expression didn't show it. "That was certainly an… interesting story. I… will need some time to think about it." She placed the spear back down. "Please come back tomorrow. I will have made a decision by then."

"Thank you, your highness." Sparrow replied with a bow, before respectfully leaving the throne room. She was surprised that this went so well as she had almost expected to be kicked out after the first sentence. Maybe, just maybe this would work out after all.

—000—

"This feels weird…"

Robin looked down at himself, inspecting his new armor. Gamma had finally finished that so-called Enforcer-Armor and made it public. It was composed of three layers. The internal one was a suit out of leather that covered his entire body except for his hands and head. It was surprisingly cozy and had he worn normal civilian clothes he likely wouldn't have noticed a difference.

Above it, he wore a set of trousers and shirt, both out of chainmail. It was surprisingly thin and a lot more flexible than he had expected, feeling more like a wool sweater minus the warmth, than you would expect from a piece of protective clothing.

Finally came the outer layer made out of metal plates, boots, gloves, a helmet, and surprisingly, a backpack. The chest plate was a combination of multiple smaller plates that covered his chest and belly separately, allowing for more flexibility. His upper and lower arms and legs were protected by each to metal half tubes on front and back, while his knees and elbows had their own covering. A collection of four plates covered his back, all of them neatly positioned one above the other.

The boots were unsurprisingly (considering that Gamma made them) also modified and from leather with a covering out of metal fiber. The underside had spikes in them, although they were quite blunt.

Afterward came gloves which were out of some kind of study fiber, flax if he remembered correctly. A thin metal plate protected the back of his hand, shaped in a semicircle so that they don't come in the way of his fingers.

The finger knuckles were from iron to allow better punches. Robin had chuckled when first seeing it. Couldn't Gamma go simple for once? Normal gloves would have worked perfectly fine.

Finally came the helmets. Yes, helmets as in plural because Gamma of course thought that one wasn't enough as ridiculous as it sounded.

He had told the same to Gamma, but unsurprisingly the crazy technician wouldn't listen, only telling him that they were dealing with dragons, meaning that you had to go in 200% percent if you wanted to survive. Robin had reluctantly excepted the explanation, not being able to counter the argument.

The first one was a small skintight helmet that resembled a gray skull minus facial features. The metal equipment was quite thin and designed in such a way that you could somewhat modify its size in different ways by turning some screws. This allowed it to be adjusted to fit tightly onto the wearer and with the addition of a strap that went beneath the chin, it was guaranteed to no longer to fall off. To finish it off there was a surprisingly study crystal visor covering his eyes, and a metal facemask covering his mouth and nose. Despite all of this his vision wasn't impacted and he could still breathe normally.

The second helmet was designed to fit over the first one and had a more traditional design and feel.

It was from thick metal, comparable to his chest plate, and covered his entire head. It was composed of mainly three welded together parts. The first was the bent piece of metal that covered the back and top of his head, followed by the second piece, which was two parallel running plates that went along the sides of his head, before they bent inward, meeting each other at an almost 90° angle in front of his mouth, covering the lower part of his face. Finally came the visor, which was a half-round piece of crystal that bend across the upper part of his face, followed by a small metal grid out of rods in front of it. A small amount of space was left between the top and bottom of the visor to allow fresh air to stream in.

Two round metal plates at the left and right side of the helmet, approximately where his ears were held the three parts together.

He was pretty sure those plates were somewhat modified as his hearing was only minimally impacted. The same couldn't be said for his vision which was why he currently wore only the internal helmet, the external one hanging from his toolbelt by a handy little ring on the helmet's back, one of the few modifications that Robin actually considered useful.

Said toolbelt in addition to a surprisingly sturdy backpack that he currently wore finished the armor set, and he had been like always the first who Gamma had asked to test it out. Well at last he wasn't alone with it this time.

"You're right, not your traditional armor that Gamma made here."

Robin looked up finding Jimmy across from him, inspecting a manikin wearing an identical set like the one he did.

Gamma had been serious when he told him that he planned to fight back against dragons in a more personal way than shooting them from behind city walls with balistas.

Gamma had hung up posters around town, offering a job in an anti-dragon taskforce. This was the second big project he had started on this month, and the first wasn't even completed jet, and that didn't even include project Armory which he started months before that. The excavator should however be operational by the end of the week from what Gamma had told him.

He turned back to Jimmy. "So, how many people have come for the job?"

"Well…" the young guard replied uncertainly. "Not counting me… one more person." he replied pointing at someone who was currently resting on a chair looking around the workshop.

"Wait!" Robin said surprised. "There are only two volunteers?"

"Maybe three. Gamma told me that he was also trying to get a medic to join…" Jimmy replied with an unsure smile. "Although that probably doesn't make a real difference does it?"

"No, it doesn't. I was hoping for at last… five to ten times as much."

"Well, not many people are particularly fond of fighting dragons…"

"I still expected that more would show up…" Robin sighed. "Including me, Gamma, and a possible medic means that it will be a task force of four or five people against half of dragonkind…"

Jimmy chuckled nervously once he realized the situation. "Oh god, this will go well... I assume me leaving now is no longer an option?"

If you have feedback, questions, ideas or others, feel free to comment. :D