!. Just to clear things up, In the prologue, I called one of the characters moon. This WAS intentional. I was just re-reading it and it looked like a mistake. Whoops. Just a heads up though, in this story, there will be a lot of things that may look like a mistake but are actually not. So unless it's like grammar that makes no sense or a typo, it may not actually be a mistake.

A/N. Hey everybody! I just want to let you know now, This fanfic, if everything goes according to plan, Is going to be VERY long and VERY violent. I plan to make it 5 parts long instead of 3 because it simply divided itself better that way. Parts 1 and 2 are mostly going to be filler and set up so it will probably take a while to get started so be warned. If the fluff and filler aren't your thing, I'll include a summary of the story so far at the beginning of part 3 so even though I advise against it, you can skip to there if you wish, Once i get around to writing that part of the story of course. Bear with me as I inconsistently update this fanfic and I'll see you in the next author's note.

PART 1: The scorching undergrowth

Chapter 1

2 years after book 15

2 years ago They were sent on a terrifying mission to cross continents, Uncover the secret weakness of an eldritch plant god, destroy said eldritch plant god and then return home. Simple, really. But in the moons following their last big prophecy escapade, Everything on the continent felt easy, felt at peace. There were some territorial disputes between queen Coral and queen Morhen but that's nothing new.

He kind of (Emphasis on kind of) liked the big adventure. Sure they were terrifying and he felt like he was about to die at every waking moment but he found himself daydreaming of him and his friends teaming up to fight a grand evil would certainly be better than just another day of non-special outclaw work.

Qibli loved Thorn and he loved his fellow outlaws but when there's no dreamy nightwing to come sweep you back to jade mountain or to the lost night kingdom or the lost continent. It got boring

Very boring.

It was just one of those days. Guard wall, switch position, dream about non-specific nightwing classmates, When a dreamy nightwing came to sweep him off to jade mountain. Although, it wasn't quite what he was hoping for.

"Qibli?" Said a young female voice from behind him.

"Hey, Ostrich." He replied. Ostrich was now big and tough enough to help guard the main gate of the stronghold; and if he was correct, Today was the day she was on guard.

"There's a nightwing here looking for you. She's from Jade mountain." his heart skipped a beat when she said that. Even though He and Moon haven't officially started dating yet, It's clear they both wanted to.

Qibli was so excited. Not just because going to jade mountain meant that he would see moon and all the others again, but also meant that he could break out of the routine that haunted him. Even while walking down the halls of his palace he couldn't stop glancing at the tapestries and thinking about how many times he walks past them on a daily basis.

Sunlight glared through the open windows lighting up the palace. It was the kind of light that looked beautiful but would burn your scales if exposed to it for too long. He remembered back to when he was a dragonet and he had no one to tell him when to hide from the sun. He remembered frantically trying to find someone who could tell him why everyone was packing up their market stands in such a hurry. Cobra obviously never put any effort into teaching her dragonets how to be safe and his siblings would have been overjoyed to watch him shrivel up on the sands.

He was broken out of his memory once he realized they were approaching the courtyard.

His heart beat with excitement as they turned the corner. He could finally see m -oh.

"Qibli!" Exclaimed the nightwing who certainly was not moon as she bounded over to him.

"I had a vision you would be here! Starflight told me you would be here as well but I saw it in my visions first!"

"Hi Fatespeaker." Qibli said, trying to put as little disappointment into his voice as he could.

"It's so good to see you! It's been forever since you left Jade mountain. How have you been?" He was initially confused on why the nightwing was acting all buddy-buddy with him until he remembered that she was just like that with everybody.

"Good." He replied with a shrug, Still very confused on why she was here.

"The rest of your winglet, well, it's actually just Kinkajou, turtle and peril at this point, misses you! And I'm sure moon and winter do too!"

He sighed. He didn't like brushing his friends aside to be an advisor at the stronghold but after his encounter with the othermind, he wanted something more stable, something that would hopefully keep him out of trouble. A decision he very soon regretted.

He didn't want to be rude to her but he felt like it was reasonable to ask. "Fatespeaker, Why are you here?" He hoped he didn't sound too rude saying that.

Luckily, it didn't look like she seemed even slightly offended.

"Oh! Starflight has been working on something and he needs some extra pairs of capable claws to help him out. He also seemed to think you would be interested and I think you would be too."

A project? What kind of project? He wanted to ask several more questions but the way Fatespeaker had phrased it she sounded like she was being intentionally vague. He doubted he could get a lot more information out of her.

"Really? You needed a dragon to help you out and you flew a third of the way across the continent just to ask me? I'm flattered."

"We thought that this might be a subject that you may have a decent amount of knowledge in. And besides, It would be a lot easier to convince an old friend than test our luck with our less reliable students."

He wanted to say yes. He wanted to leave this boring stronghold and go back to Jade mountain. He wanted to see his friends again. He wanted to be important again.

But he couldn't. He had made a commitment to his queen. "I can't. I'm an advisor to Thorn here. I can't just leave to go to Jade mountain with no warning."

"Oh we already checked with Thorn, she's ok with you coming to help."

"Really?" He asked with a hint of sarcasm. "When did you have time to do that?"

"We dreamvisited her before we left. She explained she had plenty of other advisors and you could leave for a while. She won't be lost without you."

Ouch. But fair. The queen had told him many times that he didn't need to be at the stronghold working 24/7 but he always thought that would be like abandoning his queen. I guess she does have other advisors.

"And you can't tell me what this job is because…?"

"It's a surprise! And I wasn't really paying that much attention when Starflight explained it to me. But from what I heard I'm sure you'll like it"

He barely needed to think about it after hearing her say that thorn wouldn't mind.

"Absolutely I would like to help." He was excited. T had been so long since he got to do anything interesting.

"Wonderful! I knew you'd want to help. Some of your old winglet is back at the academy so we shouldn't keep them waiting should we."

He nodded. Did they even want to see him still? Sure he responded to the letters they sent him but he hadn't seen any of them in… how long has it been? At least 6 months, probably more. Did they hate him now? Had he been too obsessed with helping his queen he didn't take enough time to be with his friends? He brushed these thoughts aside. He would know if they still cared about him soon enough.

"Good. let's get flying" She spread her wings and lifted off into the air. Qibli swiftly followed.

I wonder what this mysterious task is.

It was midday when the school came into view. The jagged fang like precipice pierced through the sunlit sky above them.

It was a relatively cloudless afternoon. Now that they were out of the desert, the sun was no longer scorching his scales. It was now a comfortable warm feeling instead. The air smelled fresh and he could distantly smell mountain goats as well.

"Almost there" Fatespeaker sang. He could see the shapes of dragons, Sandwings, Skywings and Icewings, that he didn't recognise flying in the distance. Must be new students he thought to himself. Other than Kinkajou and Turtle, he wasn't sure how many or who the dragons who still remained at the academy were.

As they approached the academy, he recognised the main entrance hall. He could see the bronze gong and some flower decor strung around. Hasn't changed much since I left. He thought.

"He we are," Fatespeaker exclaimed as they landed down on the smooth stone floor of the entrance hall. He had forgotten how big the cave was until he was standing in it. The smooth stone walls towered around them and the bright white lights gave the cave a clean look.

"This place looks familiar somehow." He joked. He could feel the anticipation in his claws. He was excited to see whatever Starflight wanted him for.

"Wonder why." Fatespeaker responded. "I'd assume Starflight is in the library where he usually is." She continued."It's just down this corridor, if you remember." She walked down one of the branching tunnels that lead deeper into the academy.

There were a few faces around that he didn't recognize. He counted 8; 2 Mudwings, 3 Icewings, a Rainwing and 2 Nightwings. All of them looked young. They were definitely all new students.

As he walked through the cave he remembered all the different rooms that each branching tunnel led to. He knew the one they just walked past led to the prey centre and the next one on the right would lead to the music cave. He remembered that moment with his winglet in the music cave. As a sandwing, music was a big part of their culture and just getting lost in the music as he played the drums felt so good. His thoughts were interrupted by a shriek of surprise from somewhere further down the hallway.

"QIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIBLIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!" Cried a female voice that was rapidly approaching. He barely had time to process what he heard before he saw a blur of color and felt something hit his chest so hard he flipped onto his back. When he looked up, he saw the grinning face of a rainwing pinning him to the floor.

"Kinkajou!" He Yelped. He was glad to finally see one of his friends after so long. The rainwing was looking at him with excitement and she was wondering why he was here. Kinkajou had definitely gotten bigger since he last saw her, though not by much which was a bit odd. I guess this answers the question if his friends still wanted to see him.

"Where have you BEEN? We haven't seen you in FOREVER! You BETTER have a REALLY GOOD reason for ABANDONING your BESTEST FRIENDS!" Kinkajou screamed in his face while still grinning ear to ear. Even though she was obviously joking, the words still hurt. He really had just abandoned his friends hadn't he? He really was an idiot.

"Important royal business. You wouldnt understand." He joked, masking his guilt. His joke earned a scoff from Kinkajou who responded with an insincere growl. "You're not even a royal. You're an advisor. Very different things."

"Barely." he shrugged. "How have you been?"

"Perfect, but it would've been better if YOU had STAYED!" She lept off of Qibli giving him a moment to catch his breath.

"How has the rest of the winglet been? I'm sure you've been keeping contact with the rest of them."

"Of course I have! Turtle and Peril work here with me, Winter is still learning about scavengers down in Sanctuary and Moon delivers messages between here and the rainforest so she can see us and her mother all the time. She also works as an advisor for Glory which makes sense giving her precognition. She's in the rainforest at the moment."

After hearing that last part his wings drooped slightly but of course Kinkajou caught that. "Sorry." She added quickly

"It's ok." He said as cheerily as possible. "Where are Turtle and Peril Right now? I'd assume they'd be swarming right now if they knew I was here.

"Teaching." She responded. "Their class is almost over. I'm sure we can see them after that's over." Almost as if on cue, The gong in the entrance tunnel rang signaling the end of class and, judging by the time of day, the start of lunch.

"Come on!" Kinkajou cried as her scales shifted back to their natural yellow and pink.

He looked over at Fatespeaker, not knowing how urgent his meeting with Starflight was, but once she realized he was looking at her she smiled, signaling that it was fine if he went off with Kinkajou to catch up with his old winglet. He would get around to Starflights task eventually. But for now, he needed to recement his place in the friend group.

"I'm coming! Wait for me!" He called after Kinkajou as she sprinted further down the tunnel. She stopped and turned to grin at him for a moment, giving him barely enough time to catch up before she resumed running down the halls towards an unfamiliar cave. As he approached the cave's entrance, out of breath, he read the sign next to the entrance. Teachers lounge. No students please. That explains why he hadn't known what this cave was before he thought to himself.

The teachers lounge was smaller than he expected. It was a medium sized, decently lit, round cave. Cheeky decoration hung from the walls and a few comfortable looking chairs and sofas were spaced out in the corner. In the centre of the room, there was a large wooden table that had some documents of some kind splayed out on it. On closer inspection, they appeared to be various attendance lists and class rubrics that he didn't understand. The room was unoccupied other than him and Kinkajou who had made herself comfortable relaxing on one of the large couches in the corner.
"So are we just going to wait here for the others to show up?" He asked with curiosity.

"Yep." Kinkajou responded from her spot on the sofa with her eyes closed. "Other than Webs, Me Turtle and Peril are the only ones who really ever use this room anymore. The dragonets of destiny like to hang out in a different cave during their breaks which makes sense, They are practically siblings. Still, with only four dragons ever really using this room, It can feel pretty lifeless. And besides, it's a good place for our group to hang out. Webs doesn't even come here much either. He spends most of his time in his study.

He remembered the old grouchy history teacher. It didn't surprise him that he liked to spend his time alone. Although he did feel slightly bad for him, Being an outcast from the dragonets you helped raise would probably be pretty painful. But he didn't have time to think about that for long because he could hear several pairs of talons approaching the cave.

First was the webbed clawed emerald seawing. Turtle had grown significantly since he saw him last. The seawing who two years ago emitted an aura of shyness and unimportance now appeared to have changed to be more confident, yet that shyness was still there. His eyes lit up when he saw Qibli. He was glad to see the seawing was happy to see him. He really had worried too much about whether his friends would want to see him. Of course they would want to see him. They were his friends.

Following closely behind the seawing, he saw copper scales and he could smell a hint of smoke in the air. Although they had gotten closer the months following the defeat of Darkstalker, Peril never really clicked with Qibli, Moon and Winter. Peril had made friends with Turtle and Kinkajou as they stayed at Jade mountain as teachers but he never really had the time to get close to her. Still, it was nice to see more familiar faces. As opposed to the excitement from Turtle, Peril had a look of confusion when she saw him but she still looked happy to see him.

"Qibli!" Screamed the seawing as he bounded over to him. "How have you been? I was starting to think something happened to you while you were with Thorn. It's been so long since I've seen you last." The sewing spread his wings and wrapped Qibli in an embrace. Over the moons following the war on Jade mountain, He had grown quite close with the seawing prince. Apart from Moon and the prickly icewing, he was probably the one he missed the most while he was in the desert.

"Turtle! He responded while still held tight in the embrace. "It's so good to see you! I was just visiting to help Starflight with a project and I wanted to see my old winglet. How's life as a teacher now?"

And so the group got to chatting. Turtle and Kinkajou explained their new life as teachers at Jade mountain. They talked about all the things they did and told funny stories about their experiences. Peril talked about her new job as the "Battle teacher" or whatever they called it here. Because the dragonets of destiny didn't want to promote violence here at the academy, Peril primarily taught self defence to the students here. They figured whatever battle strategies they'd want to learn their queens would teach them. Peril also did the work blacksmithing all the training weapons they use. After they were done telling their stories, Qibli told them all about his work at the stronghold. How he had become an advisor for Thorn, how he had overworked himself working as a guard as well as an advisor and he told them all about the mysterious project Starflight wanted his help with. It felt so right, so normal to just relax and just talk with his friends again. He really missed this.

He knew that soon enough he would have to say goodbye but for the moment, He wanted to enjoy every moment of it.

It was a dreary day in the rainforest. The cold rain pattered down onto her scales as she sat overlooking a clearing. On the grass down below, she watched a happy-go-lucky hybrid run around picking up let out a long sigh. Over the past couple months, her life had become monotonous. She never stayed in place long enough to get comfortable and the time she spent with her friends at Jade mountain or the time she spent as a royal advisor here didn't feel too special anymore. The dragonet down below was now lying down underneath a tree eating his strawberries with a satisfied grin on his face. Over the past couple years, she had come to peace with the fact that the Darkstalker was gone forever. She could see clearly now that the Darkstalker was truly evil, no matter how charming and sweet he could be at times. He had murdered too many dragons on his first and second chance on pyrrhia and he would not get a third.

She shuffled on the tree branch she was sitting on. Over the past couple weeks Moon had been getting visions. These visions were strange. They weren't vague but useful prophecies or flashes of events that would happen in the future, They were more like brief glimpses into the future. A future she wanted to avoid at all cost. It was difficult to describe exactly what she saw but she knew from the terrifying images she knew she wanted to do everything she could to prevent it from happening. Which is why, ever since she saw that in one of the brief glimpses into the future her friends getting hurt, she had decided it was time to leave the rainforest and meet up with her friends at Jade mountain. She knew that they would help her stop whatever was going to happen. She planned to leave for the school in two days. But until then, she just wanted to enjoy herself.

"Peacemaker!" She called out. The young dragonet whipped around to look up at her. "We should head back to the village. Hope might get worried if we don't get you back soon."

"Ok!" The dragonet called back as he gathered his strawberries in his talons and started running back in the direction of the village, not bothering to wait for Moon.

Moon sighed and started gliding in the opposite direction Peacemaker had run. He was old enough by now to know his way back to the nightwing village alone, she was sure. Moon headed towards the rainwing village instead to see if queen Glory had any letters for her to deliver to Jade mountain before she departed.

Even though she knew it was the RAINforest, the climate of the jungle had shifted from bright sunny days with occasional rain to almost nonstop downpours that left the less structurally sound huts broken. That combined with the lack of sun left the rainwings in quite a bad mood. She hoped to be just in and out of the queens pavilion, she was not in the mood to be yelled at. From what she had heard, the sea and mud kingdoms were also being hit hard with the seawings were suffering frequent tsunamis and the mudwings weren't quite pleased at the fact that their swamps were overflowing.

As she entered the village, She saw the wreckage of at least 15 different structures, no doubt caused by the recent weather. The rainwings who had lost their houses had to stay in the different communal areas of the rainforest. Most decided to stay somewhere near or around the healers Pavillion but some chose to seek shelter elsewhere. Some stayed with close friends and some even chose to stay in "Darkstalkers prison" as they called it.

The normaly cheerful and happy rainwings seemed to have lost their upbeat personality in these recent conditions. As she looked around, most of the rainwings looked sad, depressed, desperate, and some even looked downright angry. Even though the rainwings had become less peaceful since Glory took the throne, they were still mostly had a easygoing lifestyle and this dramatic shift was no doubt extremely difficult for them.

As she approached the queens Pavillion, she noticed how busy it was. Dozens of dragons crowded outside the doorway frantically looking for their queen for help. Glory stood in half in half out of the "throne room", trying her best to keep things in order. Normally moon couldn't hear Glorys thoughts but under the stress of keeping her entire village from collapsing, some of her thoughts were sliding through. Moon could hear that Glory desperately wanted to help rebuild and storm proof the village but she, nor anyone else knew where to start or how to go about it.

She landed down on the wooden flooring of the main pavilion and tried to look for anyone who could tell her what's going on and what she should be doing. She spotted deathbringer trying to keep things under control alongside Glory but he was obviously busy. She saw Jambu off to the side away from the crowd not appearing to do anything. Bit one glance at his mind showed that he was just as confused as she was. This was backed up by him noticing she was looking at him and giving her a shrug.

Finally she spotted Grandeur. The old purple raining was perched atop the overhang above the Pavillion. He stared down at the crowd with narrowed eyes. From looking into his mind, she could tell that he would not give her directions if she asked. He was too busy making sure Things didn't get out of hand. He was ready to step in if things did get too heated though.

Well that was just great. She didn't know what she was meant to be doing and all the dragons who could help her were busy. She supposed that if she wasn't meant to be doing anything then she could just do what the others were Doing and watch.

The swarm of rainwings didn't seem violent. They weren't even trying to cause a mob. They were all simply desperate and scared and wanted their homes back. But in reality, their huge freakout would not make anything better and in the end would just waste the queens time.

Eventually she figured that she would not be needed here and the queen most likely didn't have any messages to deliver to Jade mountain so she decided to just leave.

She set off for the nightwing village. Moon wanted to spend the rest of her time in the rainforest with her mother, Secretkeeper.

When she got back to their hut, her mother was not there. She was probably off doing something else of importance. She would most likely be back before dinner.

Moon stretched her wings and layed down on her bed. She might as well take a nap if there was nothing interesting happening. She closed her eyes and slowly and peacefully drifted off to sleep.

Almost immediately the visions came. She was deep underground where no sunlight could reach. The only light came from torches that lined the cave walls. She turned around a surveyed her surroundings. The cave split off into multiple directions, some which appeared flooded. The air smelled faintly of blood and she got the feeling that you get when interacting with animus magic. Something about these caves was very unnatural and it gave her a bad feeling.

The world suddenly shifted and she found herself in a different cave. This one appeared much bigger. It was enormous, in fact. She couldn't see the ceiling of the cave and most of the cave walls were out of sight as well. Despite being underground, there was a forest of trees and a lake. The only way she could was explain the trees was animus magic which she confirmed by feeling that same animus magic sensation. Suddenly, Out of nowhere she felt roaring wind and a blizzard of snow fell onto her. She could barely see through the spontaneous snowstorm.

The wind raged on and she could hear trees in the forest falling, yet she couldn't see them through the white.

Just when the cold was becoming unbearable, the world shifted again. She briefly caught a glimpse of what looked like a massive underground river before the world shifted again. Her mind was getting flashed with so many images in such quick succession that she couldn't discern what any of them meant. A weird metal arch, a wooden theater that was overgrown with huge plants, what looked to be the stars themselves and many more things she couldn't quite make out.

Finally the rapid-fire of visions froze on a cave filled with treasure. If it wasn't for the fact she could see that it was in a cave she would have thought it was in a royal treasury somewhere. Stacks of gold piles filled the outskirts of the room while the more important looking trinkets were scattered haphazardly more towards the centre of the room. Finally, on a pedestal in the centre of the room, lied a single mask. It was a white dragon shaped mask, not too different from the ones she'd seen dragons occasionally wear for a variety of purposes, but this one looked distinctly unique. For one, it was quite old, it looked cracked in several places as well as just generally dirty. Secondly,it looked sinister somehow. The face of the mask itself didn't appear sinister. Ot was just a feeling in her gut she got while looking at it.

Just as she felt herself start to slip from the vision back to the waking world, she glimpsed something familiar looking out of the corner of her eye. She looked to see what it was and right as she did, she was forced out of the vision and back onto her bed in her hut. She stared off into the now dark rainforest outside. If she wasn't mistaken… had she really seen.. Anemones weather controlling bracelets? They looked exactly like them, yet it wouldn't make sense that they would be in a random cave filled with treasure and other random stuff.

She sat there, deep in thought, contemplating the visions she had just had. She didn't know what they were or what they meant, but something deep inside her told her that they meant something bad was going to happen, and she had absolutely no idea how to stop it.

A/N. Hey everybody! Thank you all so much for reading this first chapter! If the writing or pacing seem off, it's because this is my first a big story. Again, sorry if the chapter was very boring, I promise it will get more interesting later. As for the moment, I don't have a set schedule when I plan to release chapters, but I hope I can get chapter 2 out before the end of February. Fingers crossed. Again, thank you so much for reading and I'd love some reviews, especially some constructive criticism. I'm very new to this so if you see something that you think I should fix, don't hesitate to tell me!