Note: Thoughts have been changed from "Thought" to 'Thought'

"You're still on with this?"

Robin was watching Gamma work on some kind of box integrated into the wall. They were on the inside of the excavator that was rumbling in the background, the area they were in being illuminated by some lanterns.

Gamma was quiet for a while, continuing his work. Just when Robin thought he wouldn't get an answer Gamma looked at him. "Want to know a secret?" He didn't wait for Robin to respond. "I made a way to big jump in technology. The Excavator is so advanced from everything else I created before it that it malfunctions regularly due to unprecise engineering that happened during production."

He whipped the sweat off his face, before continuing to wrench around inside the box. "The only reason why this is even operational in the first place is that past-me left behind solid instructions." He nodded towards his diary which was currently open at a page he presumed showed the inside of the excavator. "Nevertheless way too many mistakes were made. The excavator only runs at 20% efficiency. Still yields a lot, but with all the time and effort put into it it should be way better to make up for..."

*Clang!* *Hissss…*

His rambling was disrupted by something breaking, followed by a plume of hot steam.

"Agh! Cursed spectrum!" Gamma hissed, shaking his burned hand out. Then he took the welder from his belt, before walking across the room where he pulled a lever. The steam ceased escaping.

"As I wanted to say, we need to get the excavator to at least 60% efficiency if we want it to pay back all the 900 tonnes of materials put into it back in a somewhat decent time…"

"How did you get so many materials anyway?"

"A lot of orders in all kinds of villages, towns, and a few cities all over the place in the last couple of months." he replied. "It's a good thing we live at a harbor, or this would have been impossible without the trade over sea routes."

"That explains some things."

Suddenly a hissing could be heard above them, followed by a rattling.

"There we go." he said satisfied. "Up and running, we should be good here for a while…"

Robin looked up, but couldn't see what was happening up there as it was out of the radius of the lantern. "Uh… what's running?"

"One of the conveyor belts. It was broken."

Robin squinted, trying to see more, but finally gave up. "Let's go back to the team. We need to prepare for a dragon attack…"

"You say that as if a dragon is about to head over here."

"We build a giant excavator that makes noise and moves, they will show up eventually…"

Gamma simply chuckled shaking his head.

"Normally loud noises are like a beacon to predators, attracting them, but make it loud enough and they run in fear."

—000—

Sparrow was flying across the landscape, nervously glancing at the ground below. While multiple weeks had passed since the scavenger attack, she still felt like a nervous wreck when it came to even thinking about them. She still remembered almost having her head blown off by that strange weapon and the unnerving scavenger with the strange smell and unnatural armor that covered its entire body.

Honestly, she still hadn't made up her mind to this day when it came to deciding if it was an actual scavenger or some kind of monster that pretended to just be one.

Alright, now she's probably just paranoid… probably.

Her thinking was interrupted by the SandWing guard who accompanied her.

"I don't want to be rude and all." he started in a strict, but gentle tone. "Especially considering how scared you're right now, but I'm not really the hugging person."

Sparrow's cheeks flushed with embarrassment upon noticing that she was flying so close to him that she was more or less lying on his back and she quickly gave him some personal space.

"Sorry…" she mumbled, looking away.

"It's alright." the guard replied with a chuckle.

"I never caught your name by the way…" she finally said, in hopes of both changing the topic as well as distracting herself from returning to the place she was attacked.

"I'm Summit." he replied. "And you're Sparrow correct?"

She nodded carefully. "Well nice to meet you then." he replied. "By the way, I have the feeling that we're getting close to the place where the scavengers have attacked you. What exactly did they look like?"

'Aw come on. I wanted to avoid that topic!' her mind screamed, but all that left her mouth was "Uuuh…"

Summit waited patiently for her to continue.

"Well, it wears a strange set of armor that covers its entire body. The armor is made out of a metal that I couldn't recognize, due to its strange color… It also had some strange weapon, that fires some kind of explosive… thingy…"

"So the scavengers figured out how to weaponize explosives? That's a quite interesting development…"

"What do you mean?"

"That you weren't dealing with the usual scavenger attack. This is something new."

"THAT'S WHAT I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO TELL YOU THIS ENTIRE TIME!" she snapped.

"Alright, alright calm down. I believe you." he replied with a chuckle. "No need to shout."

Sparrow was about to reply when she noticed that Summit was no longer focused on her. Instead, he looked forward at a point in front of them.

Doing the same she saw that a SkyWing had caught his attention. A SkyWing who was flying towards them at an alarming speed.

Summit went into a battle position but dropped it again when SkyWing got closer. They could identify the dragon as a male by now, and unlike expected he didn't look hostile at all. Instead, he looked uttermost terrified, his eyes so wide that she was surprised that they didn't simply fall out of their sockets.

"Are you okay?" Summit asked the moment the other dragon came into earshot.

No reply came, and the dragon continued flying as if the Grim Reaper himself was after him.

"Hey! Can you hear me?" Summit flew toward the dragon, while Sparrow nervously watched from a few meters distance. 'That panic… I've seen that before…'

When still no reply came he carefully grabbed the dragon's shoulder when it speed past him.

"AAAAARGH!" the dragon suddenly screamed, his expression and tone pure terror. "It got me! It got me…"

Then the dragon fainted mid-flight.

Summit let out a surprised gasp, being pulled down by the sudden weight, his wings flapping frantically to stay airborne with the unexpected passenger.

Sparrow only watched in shock how the two were tumbling towards the ground below. Then her mind finally registered what had happened and she quickly flew after them to help Summit with the unconscious SkyWing.

Together they managed to land safely, carefully placing the limp body between them into the soft grass.

"Thanks." Summit said with a huff, his wings dropping in exhaustion.

He looked at the unconscious SkyWing. "Although I'm afraid that our mission needs to be delayed…"

Sparrow simply nodded, not sure if she should feel relieved or fear. She was pretty sure she knew the reason behind this SkyWings panic.

After all, there was only one creature she knew that had shown repeated success in driving dragons to terror…

Sorry for the long wait. School has been busy lately…

As always feel free to leave a review. :D