Ch. 4 Run & Hide

Present...

"Losing my mom made me lose trust in dragons. I thought that my mom's dragon could actually save her, but I was wrong." Artha adds while he and Kitt were sitting. "We never did find out who those guys were or who they were working for."

Kitt comments as she rubs his arm, "Sorry about your mom, Artha. I didn't know."

He adds as she retracts her arm, "It's not your fault. It's just so hard to think about, you know."

He looks at her, "Every time I have that memory of her, my heart feels like it's breaking."

"It's hard to get over such a traumatic event such as that," she adds comforting him.

"I know," Artha replies.

Kitt asks, "What happened to her dragon?"

Artha answers, "My dad would take Striker out every day to her grave site and she would lay beside it, releasing a sad roar for a good few hours. Then a year later on the anniversary of my mom's death; we lost Striker. My dad took her to visit my mom's grave and he took his eyes off of her for a second, but when he tried to move her to go back home. She didn't respond to anything he was doing, but when my dad went up to her body; that's when he knew that she reunited with her master."

"Artha..." Kitt frowns and looks down, "sorry about..."

Artha waves his hand, "It's not your fault."

He smiles slightly, "Though after that, Beau would try anything to make me laugh or smile; however, all I did was push him away further from me. He really is a good friend."

Kitt responds, "Sure is."

She stands up and helps him to stand up, "Come on, let's see if Parm and Lance are finished with their chores."

"Definitely," he nods and they go look for them.

Few minutes...

The gang is gathered around and laughing about the good times.

Until Parmon states, "Yeah, but we need to think about getting some cash in so that way you can do well in the academy."

"Ooh! Oh! Oh! I have a pretty drac idea," Lance states as everyone looks at him.

Lance suggests, "Why don't we look for Stewardd?"

He adds, "He and his Keepers crew are very good at building effective new gear from spare parts and junk. All we need to do is find him, bring him here and give him all of our junk for him to fix and make new stuff."

Parmon laughs, "Oh Lance, that's... That's..."

He stops laughing, "Actually, not a bad idea."

Lance smiles, "Guess that means I outsmarted you, Parmon."

"Well I...," Parmon retorts, "You know there is a flaw with your plan? Where are we to find them, hmm?"

He adds, "If I'm not mistaken, but isn't the Keepers crew a secretive group. So how are we to locate them?"

Kitt replies, "Aww, I think Professor is mad because he didn't think of the idea first."

Artha smiles, "Well, guess we can try to find the Keepers crew."

Parmon comments, "It's normally Stewardd that finds us and that's because we were lost to begin with."

"Still, let's see what our friend in the Keepers crew can help with. After all," Artha points out, "I do need some better gear."

Parmon crosses his arms over his chest, "Don't use my words against me."

Everyone laughs at Parmon as he sighs, "This is going to be a great night."

During that moment...

"You really have outdone this time," Motural smirks as he stands, "I feel like a new man."

Rebekah claps, "Good, that was what we're trying to do; even though, technically you are a new man."

Dalesilverson shows on his monitor two pictures; one was an old body scan of Motural and the other was his new one. "Astonishing. Look there appears to be no rejection of any of the organs in the body. No conflicts with the internal systems, nothing. This is simply amazing."

He asks, "Did you add the mag-abilities like I said so."

Both look down and Dr. Dalesilverson admits, "We couldn't find a way to make you have mag-abilities like the dragons. It's just not possible for humans to do such a thing."

"Fools!" he hollers at them both, "I asked for a body with the abilities of a dragon, and yet you say I can't see my goal to fruition?"

"I'm sorry my master," he apologizes, "but we tried everything and nothing seemed to work like that."

Motural makes a fist, "Finally, I can make my own army and make my new order. But I still need more power."

BBBBBZZZZZZZZZ!

"Hmm?" Motural looks around, "Why are the alarms going off?"

Rebekah runs to the monitor that Dalesilverson was on and opens a new window, "Um...Uh..."

Motural asks seriously, "What the matter? Tell me what's going on this instant?"

"It's about the D-drones that were acting up..." she stops as she bites her lip.

Motural states bewildered, "What about them?"

"It seems that some of them have escaped," Dalesilverson states looking at the video feeds.

He adds, "Those were the ones that we register as highly aggressive thanks to the chemical compounds we made; the ones you (pointing at Motural) order us to make and then inject to them to see any reaction."

Motural growls, "Anything else I should know?"

Rebekah nervously looks at Dalesilverson as he nods and she states, "There's more than that."

She brings a picture up onto the monitor, "This was a drac-spider before ingesting a small segment of D-drone." A little brown spider-like dragon on its web.

She shows a second picture, "This is what it looked like after the consumption of it."

The picture showed a brown giant hydra-like creature with the back end of the spider and Rebekah notes, "Guessing that the wildlife got in contact with the segment of DNA and it underwent a metamorphosis into this new being. My guess is that this can go viral, spreading quickly as wildfire."

Dalesilverson states, "It was impossible to think that outcome of this magnitude could happen."

"You idiots!" he yells. "My life's work is to defend and make a new order and you're saying that I involuntarily made creatures that could cause a war!"

He adds, "Why am I finding about this right now!"

Rebekah answers quickly, "Probably because we didn't want to worry you during your ailing period of time. You were sick and the problem was minor."

He punches his fist into a wall, "Minor! You call this a 'minor problem'! This is unacceptable! The two of you will handle this outbreak before it gets worse, got it!"

"B-but we aren't trained to-" Rebekah gets interrupted.

He orders, "You two will get rid of these monsters immediately, understood!"

"Yes sir," both state simultaneously as he continues, "Good, we have to fix this mess before anyone else catches wind of this and traces it back to my work. Now, both of you have to make this priority one. Pack up your equipment and take some D-drones with you so that you can have a successful mission."

They leave and he mutters, "Let's just hope that this contamination hasn't gotten worse."

Back with Artha and gang...

"I can't believe that we snuck out in the middle of the night and going through the sewer system," Parmon complains as he was following the rest. "Don't you know how bad it was when we got lost down there? And now you want to go during the night. Are you crazy!"

"Listen," Artha counters, "we've been pretty lucky so far finding Stewardd down there. I think we still have that good luck with us."

Parmon comments, "Don't you remember that you almost got all of your energy drained down there by the Muhorta because it was a trap. Or am I the only one who remembers that."

"But," Artha points out, "I managed to get out of it."

He smiles, "Of course, I did have some help."

Then Artha whispers into Beau's ear and he nods as he falls back.

"All I'm saying Artha," Parmon continues while Kitt and Lance were ahead of them, "is that sooner or later, your luck is going to run out. You shouldn't keep pushing it, you know?"

…

"Artha?" he asks as he stops and turns around, "Artha?"

He turns back around, "Lance... Kitt..."

They stop with their dragons and turn to Parmon and Cyrano.

Kitt asks, "What's wrong Professor?"

Parmon states, "Where's Artha and Beau?"

She replies confused, "Weren't they behind you?"

He comments, "Not anymore."

He gulps and he brings Cyrano closer to the others, "You don't think they have gotten captured, do you?"

"Aw, stop being such a big hatchling," Kitt comments seriously. "Artha is just trying to scare us."

She turns to the sewers and yells, "But it's not going to work!"

They hear the statement echoing throughout the sewers and Parmon looks at her incredulous, "Are you trying to get attacked down here?"

"Professor," she speaks, "there is nothing down here that can hurt us."

Lance suggests, "Except the Muhorta."

He adds, "You'll never know when it'll strike until it's too late and has its tentacles around you."

Parmon retorts, "Lance, that's not true. They can't even fit down here in these sewers because-"

He gets cut off by a roaring sound and he immediately stutters, "th-they're t-too b-big."

Lance asks nervously, "Then what made that roar?"

Parmon replies scared, "Pr-probably a-another dragon."

Kitt rolls her eyes, "My heroes."

She jumps off Wyldfyr and walks a few inches away from the group as she mutters, "I swear I always have to..."

She looks between the path they have taken and pulls back, "See, there are no other things down here."

Unbeknownst to her, some tentacle-like thing gradually goes around her leg.

"Artha," she screams, "I'm going to really put the hurt on you if you don't come out!"

Lance and Parmon jump off their dragons and walk over to Kitt, just to make sure that everything was good. But when they were about to reach her, the tentacle-like thing around her leg tighten and pulls her as she screams, "AH!"

"KITT!" both scream as they run after her, but when they make the turn...

They don't see her anywhere.

"Parm," Lance goes behind Parmon, "I'm scared."

Parmon gulps, "I-I know, so am I."

"BOO!" someone screams behind them, which made them jump and hug each other while they were screaming with their eyes closed.

They stop as they hear someone laughing.

They open their eyes and see Artha laughing, "Gotcha."

He laughs some more as he grabs his belly, "Man, I can't believe that it actually worked."

"B-But," Parmon asks as he still hugs Lance, "Where's Kitt?"

"Here," she replies annoyed as she jumps off Beau.

She walks up to Artha and punches his shoulder, "Ow."

She replies, "You're lucky that's all I'm doing to you for doing something like that."

She turns to Lance and Parmon, "You do know that you two can stop holding each other now?"

They turn to each other and immediately break the hug as they dust their clothes and fix them.

Lance states, "Artha, that wasn't funny. When we get home, I'm telling dad about what you did."

Parmon asks, "I'm more curious on how you did it?"

Artha points to Beau as he raises his wrist-com and has Beau to roar in it, but it sounds different when it releases the roar. "I had Beau roar into my wrist-com and then I alter the sound to make it sound like the Muhorta."

Parmon inquiries, "Then how did you make Kitt disappear?"

Artha points to Beau's chest where there was a grappling hook and they disguised as a tentacle.

"Enough fun and games," Parmon states clearly annoyed like Kitt and Lance were, "I don't want to stay here any longer, so let's find that crew."

They all hop back onto their dragons' back and continue their venture through the sewers.

After a short while...

Kitt stops the group as she looks around, "Guys, do you hear something."

The rest shake their heads no as they pass her and Wyldfyr, and then they look to Artha, "What?"

Parmon jumps off Cyrano and states, "Artha, are you trying to make us scared again."

Artha protests, "That wasn't me."

"Oh. Ha. Ha," he mocked laugh as he walks further away from the group, "you are funny Artha."

"No seriously," Artha states, "it's not me."

"Artha, you should know that I don't like to be-"

Rrrrrroooooaaaaaarrrr!

He stops after hearing that roar. Artha moves his light up and they see some monsters hanging upside down.

Parmon stutters, "M-M-Mo-Mon..."

Artha then shines his light directly upon Parmon and there was one of the monsters. It opens its eyes and looked directly at Parmon as he screams, "Monster!"

Artha screams, "Look out!"

Artha jumps off Beau and runs towards Parmon, tackling him to the ground before the creature landed on Parmon.

It turns toward Kitt and Lance with the dragons.

Lance asks, "Is this for real or is this a nightmare?"

Kitt gulps nervously, "I'm afraid that those things are real Lance."

The creature walks over to them as Artha helps Parmon stand up, "Thanks, Artha."

Artha extends his jack-stick, "Don't thank me yet."

While Parmon takes out his blocking-staff as he puts his back by Artha's.

Artha then gets pushed by another one of these creatures as he uses his jack-stick to push back its mouth, "What are these things?!"

He knocks it back with his jack-stick and Parmon thrusts back another creature with his blocking-staff.

Parmon explains somewhat intrigued, "They're... They're humans, sorta."

He adds, "It's like a hybrid of human and dragon. They are really interesting though."

Beau and Cyrano mag Artha and Parmon back to their saddles while Kitt uses Wyldfyr's boosters to see two running and Lance used a mag-staff to blind some.

He asks Artha, "So, Artha do you have a plan?"

Beau and him jump over a creature as he hits another one by the head, "Yes. I have a plan and it's very simple. RUN!"

They follow Artha as they run away from the group of creatures that begin chasing them.

Meanwhile…

Dr. Rebekah and Dr. Dalesilverson were exampling the sewers.

"Location: Alpha"

"Clear. Beta?"

"Also Clear. Charlie?"

"Clear. No signs there either."

Back at the lab…

Motural goes to the computer and orders, "Patch me to Lisa Rebekah and George Dalesilverson."

"Yes Master," it replies as it searches for their location.

"There they are," he states as he places an earpiece on him and opens the com link video. "Open communication channel now."

Few seconds later…

Dr. Rebekah and Dr. Dalesilverson were about to venture; when a holographic picture of their Master appeared before them.

He states, "You two do remember your orders right?"

He says it before the two of them could even say it, "Is to contain and eliminate the defected group immediately. There can be no evidence remaining. Is that understood?"

Lisa comments, "B-but how are we to do that sir?"

He retorts, "Burn it. Burn it all."

Lisa and George chorus together, "Understood sir."

They prepare the guns and walk through the pipes. They stop as they were a roaring sound. Lisa looks over to George and he mouths, "Must be one of them."

They follow the lone roaring and find one of their D-drones standing in front of a dead end.

Lisa states coldly, "Initial Protocol Alpha."

They both aim their guns at the D-Drone and send fire hitting the lone D-Drone; its pained cries echoes throughout the sewers as it was burned alive.

They stop as its burnt corpse falls into the water and it disintegrates.

George comments, "One down and a bunch more to go."

They turn back from the dead end and continue their search for the rest of the D-drones.

Meanwhile…

Artha and the gang were running away from the creatures.

Lance asks, "Do you think we lost them?"

Parmon answers, "Yes. I'm sure of it. We should be perfectly safe here."

Boom!

Something falls from the ceiling and whips Parmon and Cyrano to the side, "Or I could be wrong."

The beast emerges from the water and it was a giant drac-worm. It opens its mouth to roar as it swings its tail at Kitt and Wyldfyr. They jump over the tail and dodge the attack, but then they run to it. Kitt extends her blocking staff and hits the giant drac-worm to the side, sending it flying into a wall. She nods to Wyldfyr who mags her at the beast. Kitt thrusts her staff through the drac-worm and it roars one last time before some green goo falls out of the hole and lands all over her and Wyldfyr.

"Eww. That was so gross," she states as she wipes the goo off her body, "and it would take a lot for me to say something like that."

Parmon examines the body carefully, "Look at the physiology of this. These spike teeth in its mouth are exquisite. However, it is also very gross and yet interesting. But still very gross."

The gang gathers behind him as he explains, "This is remarkable. It's some kind of mutation."

"Wow," Lance comments excitedly, "Like how monsters mutate in the movies!"

They all look to him and he shrugs, "What?"

Parmon looks back to the body while Beau looks behind them. Artha sees Beau staring behind them and he looks there too. He hears some sound and asks, "Um... Parm, what's that sound?"

Parmon quickly runs back to Cyrano while Lance holds his mag-staff and states, "Guys, I got to tell you; I've seen many monster movies and this kind of scene that's happening right now never ends well."

They stand with their dragons as the sounds were approaching them.

From out of the darkness, they see a clearly mutated person. His upper portion was human, but below his waist was a dragon. He roared loudly as the gang stared at him in awe.

"Help...Shawn...Me," the creature spoke brokenly.

Kitt comments astonished, "Please tell me that thing didn't just talked to us."

Artha replies, "It did talk. Sure, it was broken up; however, it talked."

Parmon adds, "It must've gain intelligence. Who knows what it might do next."

It slowly trudges to them and Artha brings his jack-stick out to fight, but Parmon injects. "No, wait a minute Artha. We should try to talk to it. If it can talk to us, then it might be able to hear what we have to say. Maybe we don't need to fight it."

"Parmon," Artha comments as he looks back at the creature, "It's a vicious mutated creature with a human sticking out of it! Do you really think it would want to have a small talk!"

The creature hears the comment and roars as it starts to glow.

"What's going on?" Kitt asks nervously.

"It's going to mag-push!" Parmon hollers as it fires a beam straight of him and Cyrano. But Artha blocks it with his mag-shield he and Beau make and yells, "I don't think it's friendly!"

Meanwhile...

Motural was communicating with Lisa and George through a holographic screen, "What are your results?"

Lisa states ecstatically, "We've encountered thousands of carriers and deviations. It seems like the D-drones DNA is going up the food chain down here."

Motural asks seriously, "Is this containable? Traceable even?"

George replies, "Well...we need to study more specimens to actually the gravity of the situation we're in. Also, to see how it is spreading from creature to creature."

Motural speaks, "Maybe you didn't hear me the first time: Is. This. Containable!"

Lisa and George look to each other and they look down to the floor.

"Is it or isn't it?!" he hollers at them and they cringe.

George states, "We really can't say actually."

Lisa adds, "We really don't know."

Motural growls at the two of them, angrily.

During that moment...

The creature wraps a tentacle around Wyldfyr's tail and tosses both him and Kitt to a wall. Then uses its other tentacle to wrap around Cyrano's leg.

"Hey! Let go of him!" Parmon yells as he reads Cyrano's draconium levels and notices that they were depleting rapidly. "Hey, I said let go of my dragon!"

He hits it with his blocking staff and it cries in pain as it retracts its tentacle. The creatures then uses its mag energy to mag-push Parmon and Cyrano to a pipe. Lance uses his mag-staff as a tentacle falls down towards him. It picks both him and Fracshun off the ground and the tentacle pushes them both under water.

"Lance!" Artha yells as he looks to Beau.

"Beau," Artha quickly informs Beau his plan, "Once I grab his attention, I need you to mag both Lance and Fracshun out of the water. Okay?"

He nods understandingly and sends Artha off near the creature, "Hey!"

The creature turns to him as he hits it with his jack-stick, "Fight me!"

It roars as it sends another tentacle at him, but Artha jumps over it and attacks again with his jack-stick the creature. The creature then releases his tentacle and runs straight for Artha. Beau quickly mag-pulls them both out of the water as he and Fracshun cough up sewer water.

Artha turns to Beau as Beau nods to him and Artha understood.

He nods in return as he turns to the creature and walks slowly, "Whatever you are, you're going down right now!"

Artha grabs the Gold Draconium Amulet around his neck and raises it into the air, "Release the Dragon!"

He yells as he places it into the armlet and in a flash of golden bright light; he transformed into the Dragon Booster and Beau changed from red and blue to Black and Gold.

Beau mag-pulls him back and Artha goes on his saddle and then he turns to Lance, "Are you okay Lance?"

"Yeah," he states disgustingly, "Except I taste sewer water."

Artha laughs lightly as he turns his attention back to the creature. He focuses both his and Beau's energy and sends a big mag-ball of gold energy towards the creature. It slammed against the sewer wall hard and slumped down into the water.

Artha sighs in relief as he and Lance jump off their dragons and go to Parmon and Kitt. "Guys, you okay?"

Kitt replies, "Yeah, just a bit dizzy."

Parmon states, "No life-threatening marks on me. So I have to be good."

Everyone laughs as Lance helps Parmon stand and Artha helps Kitt to stand. They laugh a little until Parmon looks back to the creature. "Guys! Watch out!"

They turn to see the creature up and had fired its tentacles at them. Parmon pulled Kitt down as the tentacles went over them. Artha deflected one with his jack-stick and saw that one of them was heading for Lance.

"Lance! Move!" he hollers but Lance was frozen stiff. He sees it approaching closer to Lance and Artha jumps and spear tackles him out of the way, but gets scratched on the leg. "Ow!" he cries as Beau, Cyrano, Fracshun and Wyldfyr combine their energies and mag-push the creature to another wall, keeping the energy flowing.

"Ow, my leg." Artha hisses as he rubs his leg.

Lance rushes over to him and asks concerned, "Are you okay Artha?"

"Yeah," He replies as he looks at his leg, "just a scratch."

Lance lightly smiles, "Thanks again Artha for helping me."

Artha comments, "Don't mention it. After all, you're my brother. I'm supposed to watch your back and you watch mine."

Lance nods with a smile.

They hear the creature roar and turn around again as it makes a mag-shield, it looks at them and then retreats.

"We should probably be leaving too!" Parmon yells still a little frighten.

Lance comments as he stands up, "Are you kidding me? We have to find that thing."

Kitt replies as she helps Artha stand up, "Just let it go."

Artha states, "We should regroup first off and try to figure out what exactly is happening here."

He adds, "I don't think we've seen the last of these creatures."

They continue going through the sewers while hoping not to encounter another monster.

Few minutes later with Lisa and George...

Lisa was reading the sampled she had gotten from one of their deceased creatures and mutters, "This is not good."

George looks to her, "What? What is it?"

"It's just as we feared," she replies as she looks to him, "the D-drones somehow mutated these creatures and the infection area is still increasing."

"Meaning?" he asks.

"It's going to get worse," she states, "A lot worse."

Rrrrrrrrrghghghghghgh!

George and Lisa look around as they hear something.

Then a holographic image of Motural appears before them, "Status report."

"We've eliminated at least 80% of the infection," Lisa informs him.

"But?" Motural asks disapprovingly.

George answers, "The more we destroy, the more they seem to appear. The infection area is increasing."

"I thought I told you to eliminate the problem!" Motural yells.

"We are sire -" George states, but is interrupted.

"Watch out!" Lisa pushes George out of the way as a mag-stream passes them.

"Was that..." George asks.

"Could it be?" Lisa questions.

Both turn and see the same mutated creature Artha and the gang fought.

"Stupendous," George states, "Master Motural, do you see this?"

"What is it?" he asks.

"I don't know," Lisa states, "something we had not seen before and just appeared out of nowhere; however, it used mag energy."

She asks Motural, "What should we do with it?"

"Subdue it and bring it back here for further analysis," Motural commands.

"Yes, sir," both state as they aim their guns at the creature.

Motural whispers with a faint evil smirk, "looks like I've finally found my perfect specimen."

Lisa and George set their guns on stun and fire at the creature as it roars echoed throughout the sewer system.