So, this is going to be a kinda hefty fic in terms of content and it will get reasonably dark in some moments. This fic will consistently deal with themes of violence, abuse (mental, physical, and sexual), weaponry, swearing. All of these happen "on-screen" at various times but I try not to be overly graphic.

If this is something you're interested in, welcome to the journey of this fic and happy reading!

Don't forget that you can find me on tumblr: we - are - all - of - legend - now and that my ao3 account is wearealloflegendnow (even though I haven't posted there yet)!

~TLL~

Rose barely dared to breathe. She could be fairly certain that there was no one around yet but she didn't want to risk revealing her hiding spot, though she was aching to stretch her legs and warm her gloved fingers.

There was barely any moonlight tonight. Even most of the streetlights were out – likely broken by someone on the dragon's side, anticipating the Huntsclan's presence here tonight. Rose kept scanning both the sky and the street, listening for the sound of wings or the rhythmic Clan marching. She thought of the others like her, lurking in nearby alleys or on their own shadowed balconies, waiting for the moment when the fight would begin and they would reveal themselves.

Rose's stomach clenched in anticipation. It seemed to her that the love of violence had been bred into her and though she was old enough now to understand the truth and consequence of it, her bloodlust remained an indisputable part of her. She loved the thrill of the chase almost as much as she loved catching up to her prey.

Finally, she heard the sounds of boots in the snow. She shifted ever so slightly, her ear piece crackling awake, connecting her and her sibling-in-arms to one another.

"Hold position."

Rose knew that but she also hated being told what to do. She harnessed her flare of temper, imagining it flooding through her body and warming her.

The Huntsclan team marched on, seemingly unaware of things lurking in the night, but Rose knew that wasn't true. No one in times like these would dare to move around thinking that there wasn't something out there to get them. She heard the flap of wings in the distance and she noticed how the Clan's shoulders tightened. Though every Clan member was trained to fight, not all of them were warriors and, with a supply crew of this size, Rose knew there wouldn't be very many actual guards interspersed.

But it was a very important supply and she knew how the dragons needed it to be taken out.

The Huntsclan hesitated at the intersection, knowing how vulnerable they would be in the crossing and Rose wanted to chastise them, march out in front of them like they were schoolchildren and asked them what the Huntsmaster would think of hesitation. It was not the time or the place and she held her position until the Clan took the step forward.

"Now."

Rose didn't need her earpiece to tell her that. She had felt the storm in her bones and she leapt over the balcony railing in one easy swoop, landing behind the Clan member she'd clocked as a guard the minute she saw him and driving her dagger into his back. He stumbled and roared and Rose wished that she didn't have to resort to the dagger. She slit his throat but it was enough to get the rest of the Clan to turn and look at her.

She knew what she looked like to them, dressed in red and gold, and she revelled in that too. She was the first of her companions to make it to the Clan's level because she was the fastest, the best. They rounded on her like she was the single usurper and she didn't care about the ones that fled with precious cargo, because someone else would catch them. There was one who thought he was being sneaky but Rose got the upper-hand and made short work of ridding him of his Huntsclan staff. It wasn't as good of a weapon as she wanted but it was what she always did because it was much better than the dagger she used to disguise herself.

With the staff in her hand, no one stood a chance.

"Blush, no risks!"

It was her codename. They were all shades of colours. Rose didn't care. She didn't care about risks because the heat of the moment had taken over everything. It was her everything.

"Cadmium, escapee on your left!"

A Huntsclan spear shredded against her cheek and Rose felt blood pool underneath her red ski mask. She bounded after the Huntsgirl who had done it, making sure that she was in a snowbank, to never move again. She pulled the stolen staff out of the girl's chest and whirled around, bounding after the others. Even the strongest guards were running from her craziness and she thrived on that too, pursuing them through the New York streets. This what was she was here for.

Even though her lungs were bursting from the speed, she felt more alive than she had in the past week.

"Cobalt, hold your position!"

"Cobalt requesting reinforcements!"

"Amethyst coming for Cobalt. Inbound from the west."

Rose wished she could yank the earpiece from her but she was good at tuning out the distractions. She shattered the window of a deli throwing a Huntsguard through it.

"I know you," he gasped.

"Doubt it."

They were the last words he'd ever speak and Rose didn't care a whit about them. She cleaned off the spear on the dead Huntsguard's shirt and turned to survey the city, inhaling as if she could smell her prey. She bared her teeth even though no one could see under the ski mask. She was a hunter. She had always been a hunter.

"BACK UP! BACK UP AT - OH, FUCK!"

Rose turned around. Cobalt. Cobalt wasn't one to sound the alarm without good reason.

"HELP!"

Rose ran.

"Fuck, someone, anyone!" Then, abandoning code names and sense, Cobalt screamed, "American Dragon down! American Dragon down!"

Rose ran faster.

(-.-)

Rose tossed her stolen Huntsclan spear into the corner on top of all of the others. The small shop that served as the headquarters for the resistance had, inexplicably, become familiar to her. She burst through the fake storefront and into the back room. She was the last to arrive but that was because, as much as she tried to hide her true nature, her compatriots knew that she was more of a fighter than they were. That life had chosen her, whereas their hands had been forced.

"Blush."

Rose shook Spud's hand. It had somehow become ritual for them to greet each other by codenames and shake hands after a mission, though Rose wasn't really sure how. She had enough of a superstitious bone in her body, though, to always complete the ritual.

"Cadmium," Rose said, and then she turned to the couch.

Fu Dog was sitting over a cauldron. "Trixie, wrap the bandage tighter."

Trixie looked positively ill, her cheeks flecked with blood that Rose was sure was not Trixie's own. Trixie was more defensive than offensive, usually assigned protective detail. Rose just hoped it wasn't dragon blood coating Trixie, because that would defeat the entire purpose of why they were here.

"Haley," Rose said, crouching by the girl's head, "how are you feeling?"

"Like I'd rather be anything but the American Dragon," Haley said but with enough of her usual sense of humour that Rose wasn't as worried as she'd been when she walked through the door.

"Well that's what you get for drawing the short straw," Rose said and ruffled her hair.

"Rose," Trixie said, "diner or wait for the cute café to open for breakfast?"

Rose checked her watch. She could have breakfast today. It was early.

"Ooh, I want the cute café. Those little chocolate breakfast cupcakes!"

"Spudinski, I wasn't asking you."

Rose definitely didn't have enough time to wait for the café to open. "I need hashbrowns so I vote for the diner."

"Do you think Gramps will let me off the couch? I want a milkshake," Haley said.

"Haley." As if Haley had summoned him, he was here.

Rose took a step back behind Spud and Trixie when Lao Shi, the Chinese Dragon, slithered through the shop door and transformed into his human persona in one fluid motion. Rose wasn't so big that she couldn't admit that Lao Shi intimidated her. She felt like, no matter what she did, Lao Shi saw through her.

"I'm okay, Gramps," Haley said, struggling to sit up, but both Fu Dog and Trixie were on her in a flash.

"What were you thinking?"

"Trixie was in trouble, I had to help."

"You're not strong enough!" Lao Shi exploded. "What if we had lost you? What would we do without you?"

"I'm training as hard as I can, Gramps!" Haley shook off Trixie's hands. "It's war out there! What am I supposed to do? Let more people die?"

"It means nothing if you die," Lao Shi said, getting in the teenager's face. "You should know better than that. I can't … You can't … Nothing matters in this war if the American Dragon does not live."

Lao Shi whipped away from them and went to leave the room but Haley tripped forward, grabbing him by the shoulders. Rose saw the way that she grimaced when her bandages pulled and she wondered what exactly had happened out there.

"I'm sorry," Haley said. Lao Shi still didn't turn to face her, seeming to hunch over more. If Rose didn't know any better, she would have said that the old man was crying. "But, Gramps, I'm not Jake. I'm not."

"Who's Jake?" Rose whispered to Spud.

Spud looked startled. "It's … Don't worry about it."

Rose glanced at Trixie but she wouldn't look back at Rose. She looked to Fu Dog next – he was usually the most expressive – but he wouldn't look at her either. Since Haley had said the name, there was a different feeling in the room. She saw the way that Lao Shi embraced Haley but only for a second. She saw the way that his eyes watered, even though he wasn't the type of man who would let anyone see such a thing. She shifted uncomfortably as Lao Shi stared her down.

"Who is Jake?" Lao Shi asked. "Rose, you've been with us for long enough. You've been trusted. You've saved our lives and we've saved yours. You are a member of this inner circle."

Rose was honoured. "That means a lot to me."

"It means you should understand what we're fighting for and against."

"For freedom," Rose said. "Against the Huntsclan."

"It's not that simple."

Spud and Trixie and Haley all took seats. Rose promptly sat on the couch by Spud. Was this story time? Was this why she was here? She nearly stopped breathing as Lao Shi opened an ancient book – one of the ones that Rose had often looked at. As he did, images appeared in wispy blue outlines above the pages and Rose leant in, watching the countries of the world form on the spinning orb. Dragons danced above the world, flying around and fighting with one another. The globe stopped spinning above the United States.

"You don't inherit a dragon title," Lao Shi said, "not in a biological sense."

Rose nodded. "Yeah, otherwise Haley would be the Chinese Dragon, right?"

She'd made good marks in most of her classes; she wasn't stupid.

"Correct. Choosing a successor is a thing of magic, really. We do not get a say. Our Council does not vote. There is a ceremony involved when a dragon retires the mantle but, in the rare occasion a dragon is killed, the next in line dragon simply feels the knowledge. The magic of being a country's dragon, of being a protector, is a force and a strength all on its own. It makes you more."

Rose wasn't sure if Lao Shi meant that the duty brought about a strength in dragons or if magic literally made them stronger because they were a country's dragon. She watched the globe and the dragons. It was not the point of the story and it was not the time to ask.

"Haley," Lao Shi said, and the image of Haley's dragon appeared, taking the place of the globe, "is the second American Dragon. She inherited the title from her older brother when he was killed in action."

The images shifted.

"We fight for Jake," Lao Shi said. "My grandson."

There was a different dragon image now and it took all of Rose's strength not to react. She dug her fingernails into her arms and tried not to move. She had practice in keeping herself a blank slate but she didn't know what to do when she didn't have the answers she wanted right in front of her. Rose couldn't remember the last time that she didn't know what to do.

"I'm not where I should be," Haley said softly. "Jake was always better and stronger, even though I always acted like I was. The Huntsclan killed him. I watched it happen."

"You watched the Clan kill him?" Rose asked. Find out something more, that's what she could do.

"Well," Haley said, "they kidnapped him. They took him. We tried everything to get in and we failed. One morning, I woke up, and I felt so heavy. I knew Jake was gone and I knew that it was my turn."

Trixie wrapped her arms around Haley.

"Spud and I were Jake's best friends –"

"Are," Spud said, not looking up from his hands. "It doesn't end, Trixie."

"We used to help him out from time to time, magical community stuff, you know, but we couldn't just stay on the sidelines and watch when it all escalated."

"It's sick! Who do they think they are, anyway? What did magic ever do to them? It's not like most people even knew until they started on their B.S.," Spud exploded like Rose had never seen before.

She had to get out of here. She was starting to sweat. She never sweated. She pretended to check her phone.

"Crap, my dad's been calling me." Rose jumped to her feet, knowing that she couldn't just run away from this conversation. "Lao Shi, thank you for sharing with me. I promise, I'm going to fight for you, for Jake's memory."

"You are an invaluable part of this team." Lao Shi nodded solemnly at her. "You have saved all of our lives. Thank you."

"Haley," Rose said, hugging her, "take care of yourself, okay? I'll see you soon."

"Breakfast rain check," Trixie said, fighting to stay casual.

"Absolutely," Rose said.

She walked calmly out of the shop and to the storage locker that served as the only space that she could call her own and her transition point. She tossed the bag containing her red and gold robes into the corner, thinking she was going to have to clean them soon. She dressed in the outfit of her other life and then she took off running, dashing through the streets. Master hadn't missed her yet but now she had things to accomplish before he did.

Rose still didn't slow when she was in sight of the Huntsclan building. She avoided the main entrance, circling around to the one that was special, just for those with high ranks. Outside, she paused, and drew herself up, inhaling deeply. She squared her shoulders and walked in, down the dark hall, and emerged into the lobby. Lower ranking Clan members bowed as she walked past and scrambled to stay out of her way. Rose strode forward, even the sound of her footsteps sounding authoritative. She got into the elevator and scanned her Huntsmark and the elevator descended into the restricted areas.

The doors opened and Rose stepped out. Even though the Huntsclan had state of the art security, there were still two physical guards posted outside of the door to every wing.

"Scram," Rose said to the two in front of Sector 1.

Even though it was their sole purpose in life to stand in front of that door, they fled the moment she gave the order. Rose glanced around but all of the other guards were specifically not looking at her. Secrets were not kept in the Clan and if she came back here, she would have to find an entrance that didn't involve the guards. For now, one visit wouldn't reach Master.

Rose scanned her Huntsmark and entered Sector 1.