The commotion over the ship grew louder with each passing second, the air in the ship becoming heavy and thick as the ship slowly descended towards the planet, a sudden drop causing Richard to gasp as the landing gear touched the dark rock, the ship’s engines slowly dying as they cooled and relaxed after their journey. Sighing softly and releasing his straps, Richard slowly stood up and got used to the new gravity, slightly less than that in Protegra.

Stepping forward, Richard felt no resistance in their air to his feet. Putting his heavy boot back down into the metal floor, Richard looked puzzled at his own feet, wondering what was happening; it was as if he did not tire from walking whatsoever. Lifting his arms into the air, hovering near his face, he felt no weight to his thick glove that normally dragged his hands to his sides. He felt more powerful, faster, and even smarter as the air around him cooled and eased his muscles, his eyes taking in more vivid colors than he thought possible in his dreams in his bed in Protegra’s castle.

“Kira, stand up; doesn’t it feel like...” turning to look at her seat, Richard only caught a glimpse of her tail as she dashed out of the room. Gasping and dashing off behind her, Richard did a sliding run around the corner towards the exit door, seeing Kira smile at him as she bounded off the ship. Smiling softly to himself and going after her, Richard ducked under a heavy barbell being carried from a room as he hopped off onto the smooth stone ground of the planet.

In the distance, mountains climbed towards space in otherwise flat land, an entirely pale purple sky visible across the horizon, the landscape otherwise simple and boring. “Quite the place, huh,” Richard asked as he stepped towards Kira, looking around cautiously as if danger would appear from nowhere in particular. “For some reason, I get a bad feeling here… as if we’re being watched.”

“Watched? But there’s nothing in sight,” Kira said, turning around to look at him with a relieving smile as laborers hauled boxes of equipment from the ship’s hold. “Richard, you’re just worrying too much. We don’t even know if any life is on this planet, much less hostile ones,” she said, speaking louder as more ships came in for a landing behind them, her voice becoming a shout to be heard over the engines around her.

“You’re probably right,” he called back almost directly into her ear, “But it’s just something I really can’t seem to shake. Just watch yourself, okay Kira? I don’t want you to get hurt out here.”

“That’s because you’d have to answer to my dad,” she teased as she pushed him playfully, the engines around them finally quieting down to a whisper, their ears ringing as they stepped forward, trying to get away from the others so they wouldn’t be bothered. “So, where is the rally point all the troops are supposed to meet at?” Kira asked, looking over at Richard, whose eyes were squinted to look into the distance, a bright sun making the sky around it almost white.

“I think Tetra told me it was about 30 miles north of here. With all our equipment, it should be about 2 days walk from where we’re at now; of course, with our ships landing here, we’re gonna wait until the soldiers have more time to get closer to the rally point, so we’re not the only ones there.”

Nodding gently, Kira looked over at him with a slightly puzzled expression. “So, what are we gonna do until then?”

Smiling gently over at her, Richard turned to face her, looking into her eyes as he waved his hand across the open valley. “Your dad told me that each of the enlisted people here, including me, are carrying cartography devices so that we can map the area; the soldiers on their own are using them to transmit data to us, and some folks that are around these ships piece it all together. Other than that, it’s basically going to be lots of drab old work, trying to get these soldiers to move inward, seeing what needs to be seen of the area. Essentially, you’re free to do whatever you please, Kira, but you know that it’s my duty to follow you wherever we go.”

Smiling happy, Kira took his hand, yanking him forward and hopping backwards so she can look at him as she spoke excitedly. “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go look around! There has to be something here, right?!” She laughed, turning around and running forward, expecting Richard to catch up. His heavy armor not even slowing him down as he grabbed his halberd in both hands, Richard lowered his head and forced himself to dash to keep up with Kira’s amazing speed, neither of them noticing a large black dragon’s eyes watching them run into the distance as he stepped of the ship, looking around at the skyline, seeming almost familiar to his weathered red eyes.


On the other side of the planet, a proud creature of silver and green looked up, grabbing his heavy manual drill in both hands as he watched something appear from miles up. It was small, but metallic, almost cylindrical except for a parachute that burst from the back, trying to slow the strange device down. With his carefully trained eyes, the dragon took more and more vivid images into his head, noticing quickly that the device had two doors welded onto it, as if it was made to store something; it was as if someone could be inside it. His mind a blur of possibilities, he smiled to himself, realizing that there was only one choice; it was time to begin.

It was only after one moment of thinking that he felt a heavy, sharp pain in his back, looking in fear behind him to see a young man, his smooth pink skin giving way to a set of hostile blue eyes, a cap shielding his otherwise bald head from the warm sun. Grabbing the energy ray tighter in his hands, the boy barked orders at the dragon that was at least twice his size. “Since when did I say you could take a break? You oafs don’t get breaks unless I tell you so, is that clear?”

Turning around fully to face the tiny human, nodding gently so as to get his complacency, the elder dragon waited patiently for him to turn around, slowly opening his palm to summon the energy contained within his heart into physical form. Reaching back with his arm, he threw it into the sky, silently floating upwards, as more and more people stopped to look; even the human taskmasters lowered their rifles to the sides as the watched it travel into the sky, another pod nearly touching it as it plummeted into the ground.

The orb finally slowed down in the air, hovering in place a moment before starting to grow, an image of the very conjurer visible for all to see. Though he didn’t have to speak a word, all the dragons slowly dropped their weapons, their natural adrenaline going through their blood, making their eyes glow softly with focus as their taskmasters looked among the dragons, finally the prey. Fumbling with their weapons to try and charge them to their maximum power, the humans’ final moments were seeing dragons from all over flying at them, extending their claws to strike.


Hopping up a hill, Kira turned around and looked down at Richard behind her, struggling to keep up with her, even though he still felt no fatigue from running. However, it had been 3 miles since they last stopped for a break, and Richard wanted to take a look around before trying to tackle the mountain. “Come on, slow poke!” She called down to him, laughing playfully and climbing further up the dusty ground.

“I’m coming, Kira, but you have to slow down first!” he returned, finally reaching her and softly tickling her side to get in front of her, feeling her grab his foot and drag him to his back as she climbed ahead of him again, both of them scampering to the top at the same time, Richard’s legs swinging over a rock and sitting down, Kira sitting right next to him as they looked back along the landscape, the landing site now barely visible to them. “Wow… we really made all that progress?” He asked quietly, the surprise in his voice apparent.

“We sure did! It feels so easy to move really fast up here,” she said, poking him in the shoulder and smiling over at him, putting her hands behind her for support and looking into the distance before she realized a miniature dilemma. “Say… Richard, aren’t you afraid of heights?” She asked, turning to her side to look at him. Instead of seeing his cheek as he looked into the distance, Kira’s eyes were met with Richard’s, as she saw his expression change to surprise, looking forward again as quickly as he could, making Kira smile softly to herself.
Reaching for his cheek and pulling it towards her so that his face rotated to look at hers again, Richard’s hand reached for Kira’s smooth, soft shoulder as their visions locked into the other’s eyes, lost for a brief moment with only each other, their minds connecting for the silent message to move closer. Dropping his halberd onto the rock behind them, the blade preventing it from rolling out of Richard’s grasp, Kira felt his other hand reach for her cheek, softly stroking it with her thumb as she slowly rubbed her other hand against his waist, her eyes slowly closing as she pulled towards him, his body now close enough to exchange warmth with hers.

It was only a high-pitched, terrified scream that broke them from the moment, Richard’s ears picking up the noise and turning quickly to look, the skin of his cheek almost brushing Kira’s lips as she opened her eyes, a stern and determined look splashing across his face, melting the warmth of his expression. “Kira, stay here; I need to make sure everything is okay.”

Sighing softly as Richard stood up, Kira rose to one knee and craned her neck to look over the nearby stone from where it came from as Richard used his hands to climb up it, his tail wrapping around the center of his halberd, raising to his back, reaching his hands around and spinning it around his body to carry it on both hands, ready to strike at any moment as he hopped downwards and out of Kira’s sight, making her quickly stand up and follow him, peering over the rock as Richard eyed a creature unlike one she had ever seen before.

It had the same shape and build as the cat standing above him with a halberd to his chest, but its skin was a gentle pink, the blood within his body splashed across his injured body, a deep slash of four claws across his chest, another near his abdomen, as if he was slashed by all 5 fingers of a very large hand. His faded green eyes and gentle face groaned in pain as his body became totally immobile, as Richard kneeled down and looked at the wounded creature. “Can you understand me?” he asked, the creature below him looking up at him with wild eyes, totally rendered in fear as they exchanged looks.

“What in the hell are you?” it asked weakly, his voice shaken and collapsing as his lungs seemed slightly crushed by his damaged ribs.

“I should ask you the same,” Richard replied coolly, looking carefully at the sustained injuries of the weakened creature. “What did this to you? Was it a wild cat, or…”

“Wild cat,” the man laughed, his voice echoing through the hills as he sudden sharply coughed, blood gushing from his trembling lips. “That’s you! What I was attacked in would eat you for breakfast… a dragon!”

“A dragon, huh?” Richard asked, unsympathetic. “Did you get his riddle wrong when you were trying to save the damsel, too?”

“You son of a…” the man struggled to his side, Richard just noticing in time as he felt a bolt of electrical energy surge through him, sending him stumbling back to the ground, grabbing his side and looking down at it for a wound, finding no injury on him as he looked up at the human in anger; it was as if the man had hit him with a cattle prod, the pain still surging through his blood and making his mind a haze of fury at the foolish creature.
However, the creature looked up on the rocks above Richard, a bit of fear in his eyes as he watched a green pulse of energy meet the center of his chest, the power enough to shatter his final energy and to fall back onto the rock, dead in front of Richard, the pistol in his hand a strange version of the one Richard had once had, now in the hands of the person who fired the shot to kill the wounded animal.

Slowly approaching him with his halberd forward, Richard slowly pushed the pistol out of his relaxed fingers, sliding it into his empty holster at his side before kneeling onto his stomach to check the creature’s pulse, feeling no resistance to his knee and he searched him over. “If this man was right, Kira,” Richard said without looking up, knowing full well she was the one who just saved his life, “Then it looks like it’s time to head back to the ships as quickly as possible and tell everyone, so they can warn the soldiers in the wilderness.”

“Good idea,” she replied, hopping down the rock after Richard, landing next to him and looking him over for a wound. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he sighed, turning to look at her with a serious expression, his mind rushing with adrenaline unlike he had ever felt before; throughout his life, he never once had to fight someone to protect Kira, and when he did, he had to be rescued by her; his mind rushed with ways he could make it up to her, all of them involving protection from the unknown threat around him. “But, we should get going before any of those dragons find us; from the looks of it, after this thing was hit, he probably didn’t get a chance to move anywhere; it’s like they left him for dead,” Richard said quietly, looking into Kira’s eyes before softly smiling. “Let’s go, okay?”

Smiling gently in reassurance and hopping back up the cliff side towards the landing site, Kira turned around and grabbed Richard’s hand, letting him use his other hand to support each step up by pressing the metallic end of his halberd into the rock below, neither of them noticing the strange cloud in the distance that seemed to be rapidly approaching them.