- Chapter 2-

"Hidden! Do something!" Xavier screamed.

Hidden let out a frantic, panicked roar. His talons were glued to the shuttle's steering stick as he wildly jostled it around. It had little effect.

"I'm trying," he growled in his frustration, "but this thing won't listen!"

Xavier felt his breath rapidly escaping him. He gazed ahead at the vortex tumbling around them, then at the shuttle's dashboard when the view became too nauseating. There wasn't much point anyway, the Salvation had long since flown out of sight.

"HOLD ON!" Hidden hollered, loud enough to send the air rushing back into Xavier's lungs and snap him to attention. He had just enough time to brace himself before the shuttle slammed into the edge of the vortex.

A violent shockwave lashed through the ship, throwing the two headfirst into the dashboard. Xavier groaned, struggling to lift himself up after such a blow. He thought he heard a voice speaking to him, but the incessant ringing in his ears made it impossible to pick it up entirely.

"Emergency landing…calculating route…brace for impact."

Impact…?

His head was still spinning, making it difficult to discern where they were. He spotted a few trees and what looked like mountains through the windshield, but it was too dark for him to make out clearly in his dazed state. Hadn't it been morning just moments ago?

At least the shuttle's stopped spinning…

He glanced to his side and saw Hidden lying unconscious on the dashboard next to him. Was he…? No, he was still breathing.

Looking back ahead, Xavier beheld a towering wall of stone which was quickly overtaking his view. The shuttle had aimed itself straight toward the base of a waterfall gushing out of the side of it. Xavier suddenly realized what the voice had meant by "brace for impact".

He shielded his face – it was the only thing he could think to do in the mere seconds left before the shuttle plowed straight into the cliff face – and awaited his imminent demise.

There was a splash, followed by the piercing whine of metal grinding against stone. Xavier was relieved at the fact that he hadn't been pulverized into RainWing soup, though that relief was short-lived.

BANG! The shuttle whipped around one hundred and eighty degrees, slamming Xavier into the dashboard yet again. His vision went dark, his consciousness drifting away to the sounds of crackling electricity and dripping water.

"…Xavier? Xavier, wake up!"

Xavier moaned. His eyes crept open, seeing a familiar face hovering over him. Hidden stared down at him anxiously, shaking his shoulder to get his attention. He woozily lifted a foreleg to shoo the SandWing's talons away.

"Where did…what happened?" he mumbled. He tried to raise his head from the dashboard only for a searing pain to dart through it. He grunted, lifting a talon to his temple. The crash had probably given him a minor concussion, if just that. He couldn't help but worry a little that it was something worse.

A quick glance around the cockpit showed that it was relatively undamaged, aside from a dislodged panel that sparked every so often and the gouges that he had dug into his own seat. Hidden stood next to him, looking uncharacteristically worried but otherwise unhurt. Then again, he had always been a bit better at ignoring pain than Xavier.

"Are you alright?" he asked, offering a talon to help Xavier up out of his seat.

Xavier grumbled incoherently in response. His tail slammed against the back wall of the cockpit as he shifted himself around, and his stomach began to rumble in a very unnatural way.

I need to get out of here…

He lifted a shaking foreleg to the door at his side, missing it a couple of times before he was able to secure a grip. His legs felt like noodles, and his vision was still spinning.

"Uh, Xavier? Do you need me to…?" Hidden began as Xavier flung open the door and tumbled out of the cramped cockpit like a ragdoll. He managed to drag himself a couple of meters before collapsing into a slew of dry heaving.

"No…more…hugh…crash landings…"

He heard Hidden hop out of the shuttle and step up to his side. The SandWing offered him a talon, but Xavier ignored it and remained on the damp ground for a while longer. Once the heaving had stopped and his vision finally settled, he picked himself up on trembling legs and had a look at where they had crashed.

The space was dark and humid and filled with a musty, earthy scent. His tail bumped into a small stalagmite jutting out from the floor, his wings brushing against a few more. He heard the faint sound of rushing water not far away. The ground was wet and covered in a shallow bed of small pebbles; Xavier squeezed a few in his claws, feeling cool water trickling just beneath them.

"Xavier, are you alright?" Hidden asked again.

Xavier nodded. "Yeah, I think so. My head hurts, but I think I'm fine otherwise."

Or you've suffered a serious head injury that will result in permanent brain damage if not immediately treated.

"Just…getting my bearings," he continued. He gazed around at the cavernous space yet again, spotting a flickering light from the direction of the rushing water. "The shuttle must have known there was a cave back here and flown us into it. Not sure why it couldn't have landed us in a more open spot than this, though."

"Maybe it was trying to find someplace to hide?" Hidden suggested, before shaking his head. "No, why would it do that? There's gotta be some other explanation…"

"I'm just glad it held up during the crash," Xavier remarked. The two turned their attention to the wrecked craft. "Mostly…"

Even if it had managed to stay relatively intact, the shuttle was still a sorry sight. Its once shiny silver hull had been scratched and dented nearly beyond recognition. A small trickle of smoke snaked up from one of the thrusters mounted to its rear. Its wings, splayed out on either side like the limbs of a dead animal, had received the worst of it. Their ends had been sheered raw exposing their internal wiring, and as the two dragons walked around to the other side of the shuttle, they were met by a worryingly large gash torn into the one on its left side.

"It must have slammed into one of the stalagmites and gotten spun around," Xavier guessed, remembering the final jolt that had knocked him out cold. He shuddered at the thought of how close of a shave it had been.

Hidden nodded, looking far less concerned with the situation than Xavier was. "I'm surprised it wasn't torn right off. This thing's gotta be ridiculously sturdy to have survived a crash like that!" He glanced over at the rest of the dilapidated shuttle, letting out a thoughtful hum. "I wonder if it still works…"

With that, Hidden hopped right back into the shuttle and began fiddling around with the controls. Xavier simply stood to the side and stared at his friend as he yet again toyed around with something that he did not understand.

Hasn't he learned his lesson? his mind wondered, thinking back to the SandWing's botched attempt at flying the shuttle mere moments ago. What if he messes it up even more? What if he damages the shuttle beyond repair and we end up trapped in whatever world this is? If we aren't already…

"Hidden, what are you doing?" Xavier asked, a twinge of irritation leaking into his voice.

Hidden glanced over at the RainWing from inside the shuttle's cockpit. "Trying to get this thing running again. what does it look like I'm doing?" he casually explained. "It's the only way we know of to get back to the others."

Xavier pressed further, his irritation beginning to rise. "Do you even know what you're doing? What if you break something?"

The shuttle let out a raspy sputter. A few sparks flew from one of the engines, but little more. "Come on, this started it up before!"

"Hidden?"

"Maybe if I take apart the dashboard, I can find some way to hotwire it…"

"Hidden!"

Hidden paused, turning to Xavier yet again. The RainWing's scales had flared into a smattering of reds and oranges, with a few twinges of light green scattered across his wings.

"Can't you just stop for one second?"

"But I…" Hidden started, but Xavier cur him off.

"No, Hidden! I don't care what plan you have or how much you think we can fix this. If it wasn't for your recklessness, we wouldn't have crashed into this moons-damned cave and probably lost our only way back home!" Tears were beginning to well up in Xavier's eyes.

Hidden turned away from the shuttle's dashboard, looking a little crestfallen. "I was just…I mean…I'm sure we'll be able to find our way back!" he replied. Xavier wasn't having any of it.

"That's not enough! You can't keep getting us into trouble with your crazy schemes!" Xavier was clenching the wet stones beneath his claws. His breathing was becoming more and more erratic, and he felt his body beginning to shake a little. "We should never have gotten into that shuttle."

"But we got rid of Numawani, right?"

"And we should never have gone to JSI either! We wouldn't be in this mess had you not insisted we stick our snouts where they didn't belong!"

Hidden looked like he was about to respond, but he bit his lip, his eyes unable to meet Xavier's. He sat himself down on the seat next to him and buried his head in his talons.

Xavier's whole body was shaking now, and he was beginning to feel lightheaded. He turned away from Hidden and the shuttle and marched over to the entrance of the cave.

The ground grew wetter the further he went. By the time he'd reached the entrance water had risen to completely cover his talons. A small ledge of stone jutted out beneath the waterfall and cast a light spray of droplets all about.

Xavier crawled up onto the ledge and sat himself down, letting the waterfall pelt right onto his head. He imagined the water washing away all of his worries and fears, something his dads had taught him to do in the shower back home. The thought of them brought him a little comfort, but that was soon replaced by the crushing realization that he now may never see them again.

Tears were streaming down his face now, spilling out almost as quickly as the waterfall and drifting away into the waters of the stream. He didn't know how long he cried for, and he didn't really care. When the last of the tears had fallen from his face, he felt like a heavy weight had been lifted from him. The rage from moments before had been all but washed away now.

He thought back to Hidden in the shuttle. He'd rarely seen the SandWing so upset, usually he was the one who bounced back the quickest from any kind of blow.

Maybe I was too hard on him. He was just trying to get us home, after all.

He shook his head. That didn't change the fact that Hidden's negligence and lack of foresight had gotten them into this mess to begin with. Still, they couldn't afford to be fighting with each other now, not when they were still so far from getting home.

"Can I sit here too?"

Xavier turned to see Hidden standing behind him. It seemed like he'd recovered a little since Xavier's outburst, but he still lacked the exuberance that he normally carried with him.

Xavier nodded, and the SandWing sat down beside him under the waterfall. The two sat in silence for a while longer, simply listening to the gushing of the water above and below. Ahead of them stood a lush forest of towering spruce trees. Jagged brown mountains loomed up to their right, piercing through a sea of grey clouds that bathed the landscape in a night-like darkness.

"So, do you have a plan for how we're gonna get out of here?" Xavier finally asked.

Hidden sighed. "Well, I thought we could find a way to fix the shuttle, but…" His statement was followed by a sharp bang from further inside the cave. A thin trail of smoke snaked its way past them, cementing why that idea wouldn't work out.

"So what, we just sit here?" Xavier asked.

Hidden shrugged. "There's a chance that the others could find a way to us. Ricky is a pretty good driver after all."

"He hasn't piloted a giant interdimensional spaceship before…"

There was silence yet again as the two struggled to think of anything they could conceivably do. Eventually Hidden stood himself up, clapping his foretalons together and staring out at the landscape before them. A renewed optimism was radiating off of him like the warmth of the sun.

"Did you think of something?"

"Not exactly," Hidden replied, "but we definitely aren't going to accomplish anything sitting around. We might as well figure out where it is we've landed, right?"

Xavier nodded. It did sound better than doing nothing. Still, after all the trouble they'd gotten themselves into in the Mud Kingdom, Xavier wasn't feeling especially optimistic that they wouldn't face the same here.

"I think there's some kind of city over there," Hidden continued, pointing over at an area of clouds far in the distance. Upon closer inspection Xavier could just barely make out a scattering of lights shining through the blanket of grey. If there were such lights here, perhaps there was a technologically advanced civilization! They might even know how to fix the shuttle and get them back home!

Or they'll capture or kill you the moment you fly into their city. If it's even a city at all, and not a colony of bioluminescent monsters with a hunger for dragon meat.

Sometimes even Xavier was baffled by the outrageous scenarios his mind dreamed up.

"Welp, there's no way to know unless we go there!" Hidden concluded. He spread his wings and readied to take flight, but then stopped, turning to Xavier. "I mean, unless you're cool with that too."

Despite his worries, Xavier agreed. "We don't exactly have any other options," he admitted. "Still, someone should stay with the shuttle in case Ricky and the others do find a way to locate us. Or someone comes to steal it. Or…well, you get it."

Hidden nodded. "I'll be back soon, promise!" he said before lifting off into the air, casting a shimmering spray of water in his wake.

Xavier sat watching him slowly shrinking into the distance when a feeling of uncertainty began to fester inside of him. Did he really want to wait here, all alone in a strange world? What if Hidden got himself into trouble? What if he angered the dragons at the city in his eagerness and…

"Hidden, wait up!"

Xavier sprung from the waterfall, flapping his wings as hard as he could. Hidden continued soaring off ahead of him, completely oblivious to Xavier's call. The RainWing grunted, straining his wings to flap faster and faster. He was just beginning to catch up to Hidden, when a bright bolt of energy shot across the sky, striking the SandWing right in the chest.

Hidden's body seized up and plummeted into the trees below.