=== Back to Stanley ===

He grabbed his radio and looked back at the figures with the infrared camera.

"We're back," Michael announced, stepping into the room and scaring Stanley half to death.

"SHHH!" Stanley hissed at him.

"What is it?" Michael whispered, "And why do you have our IR camera?"

"There's... something out there," Stanley responded.

"There's probably a lot out there," Robert unhelpfully added.

"They're alive and moving," Stanley said, "and I think they could be dragons."

The figures had moved closer; Stanley could make out that they were, at the very least, larger than a human. A moment later, he could even make out what seemed to be wings.

"Lower the volume of your radios in case someone says something," Stanley told the others before doing the same and speaking into his own, "There's contacts coming from the north."

"What's that? Something about contactors?" a man on the radio replied.

"Fuck," Stanley said, switching from the IT channel to the emergency channel. "There's con-- probably dragons coming from the north. I can see them with IR--at least eight of them."

"Copy that. Multiple potential dragons reported visible on IR coming from the north. Raising general alarm level to three. Investigation pending," the emergency coordinator responded.

Stanley wished he could switch his radio to the security channel, but their radios were designed to not allow that. He had to settle for looking at the infrared camera view to see what was happening.

=== Back to Unrelenting ===

Unrelenting and the other five NightWings ran as fast as their legs could carry them.

Stupid Unrelenting. Stupid! Why didn't I ask Darkstalker to make it so we couldn't be heard either? Flying would make this so much easier.

She didn't know why, but she found her blame directed at herself for the oversight instead of Darkstalker. She refocused on what they were doing. They had managed to catch up with the others faster than she had anticipated. It soon became evident why.

Uhh...

"What's that smell?" Viperslayer was the first to ask the rest of the now-reunited group, swinging his head around to look for the source of the new smell.

"I don't know... I've never smelled anything like it. It's acrid as hell, though," Unrelenting stated, a grimace forming on her snout.

"Is that what live scavenger smells like? Why would that be a delicacy?" Revenge asked.

"I seriously doubt it. I've never read anything describing it as this." Courageous replied.

"I doubt you read anything about them building anything beyond their little dens out of twigs and whatever else that those are clearly not made out of." Unrelenting countered, gesturing towards what the scavengers had built. "Nor about them living with big, rumbling beasts that work with them... Speaking of that, maybe that's what the smell is."

"I don't see any of those around right now, though," Darkclaws remarked.

"I can hear one. Maybe it's in one of the scavengers' little buildings. That's where-- wait, never mind that. The whole reason we're here is to stop you three." Celestial pointed a talon at Viperslayer, Brilliant, and Revenge accusingly. "What the hell did you think you were doing."

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

"We're hungry. I, personally, have elected to never be hungry again after the shit we went through with on the island," Revenge shot back.

"Well, Celestial should be back with the fruit soon," Unrelenting said, "and you're risking revealing yourself to the scavengers if--"

"So fucking what?" Revenge cried. "They're prey! They don't have a brain to figure out a few of them are missing!"

"Quiet!" Unrelenting snapped back, wincing at the amount of noise she had made.

To her relief, Revenge did quiet down, but the night was still not as quiet as before, barring the rumbling of the beast somewhere in one of the buildings.

There was a distinct sound of many small footsteps creeping around them. Unrelenting would have noticed them if she weren't focussed on a louder, and much more recognizable sound approaching.

Oh no. You stupid moronic bitch.

There were two possibilities. Either some random dragon was flying overhead, or...

"Hey, why didn't you wait for me?" Celestial shouted down to them as she prepared to land--with a bag containing much less fruit than would be expected from the amount of time she'd been gone. "I wanna see the scavengers up close too--"

Just then, several blinding rays of light appeared and aimed towards where Celestial was hovering.

"AHH!" she screamed and covered her eyes, dropping the bag... and her enchanted banana.

Just a fraction of a second later, Unrelenting was met with a deafening bang and another scream from Celestial. With her eyes unable to see past the beams of light and her ears ringing, Unrelenting couldn't get herself to think or act. That was true of most of the NightWings, and what followed happened almost as a blur to her.

Celestial dropped from the sky in pain, her wing bleeding. "ARGH! CURSE THE LITTLE PREY DEVILS!"

Celestial then snarled and lunged forward, joined by Brilliant and Revenge shortly after, both of whom had seemingly also dropped their bananas. Their charge, however, did not last long.

That bang from earlier happened again a hundred times over in a few seconds. She reached to cover her ears. The three charging dragons stumbled and fell soon after, but Celestial barely registered that. She was immediately concerned with several points of stinging pain scattered around the edges of her wings.

It took a moment for her to regain at least some of her composure, after which her eyes locked onto the crumpled bodies of Celestial, Brilliant, and Revenge slumped over on the ground.

A-are they... dead?

The next thing she noticed was that there were now scavengers standing a few wingspans away pointing sticks or clubs or something at them. At this point, though, she was too terrified to even think about how unthreatening they looked.

Wait... they see us? M-me?

She then realized that she had dropped her banana. Looking behind her, she saw that the others had also dropped their bananas... and most were bleeding in a few spots on their wings, as she now saw that she was as well.

Hang on. Behind me...

I'm the one in front.

Celestial then turns her head back to the scavengers, now chattering amongst themselves, aiming their club things at them.

No, mostly at her.

Oh no.

Her heart racing, she found herself doing what she never expected herself to do in front of scavengers--she whimpered, lowered herself to the ground, and shut her eyes.

By the grace of the moons, that was seemingly the right thing to do.

She kept expecting death, but it never came.

The others, seeing Unrelenting do that and being just as terrified as she was, started to do the same. Whatever thoughts of how ridiculous it was for a dragon to do that were overwhelmed by pain and fear.

Eventually, Unrelenting built up the courage to open her eyes and peek at what the scavengers were doing. Most of them, of course, were still aiming their mystery weapons at them.

However, a couple of them were holding up a banner of some kind. Yet another round of shock--this time thankfully not causing her to fear for her life, at least--hit Unrelenting when she saw that there was a message written on that banner.

The message was short and clear.

"Surrender now to live. Please do not resist."

=== Case and James shortly therebefore ===

"James, you did not need to spend time working a Star Wars reference into one of the signs' messages," Case commented, glancing at his coworker.

"I didn't put a Star Wars reference in it."

"Yes, you did."

The two members of the company's ad hoc task force on dragon research bickered as they approached the area where the security team was confronting the dragons. When they heard shotguns fire, however, they decided it was time to pick up the pace.

"Well, it sounds like we'll be using the more aggressively worded sign."

"Yup." Case panted as they jogged towards the commotion.

"Y'know, on second thought, I'm not sure this is the safest assignment."

"Just go."

"Fine."

When they got there, they were met with an unexpected sight. Three dragons appeared either dead or unconscious, and the rest were cowering in what they assumed was fear.

They held up one of the signs they had brought, James illuminating it with his phone's flashlight, and waited for one of the dragons to see the sign.

"Well, I suppose a thirty percent loss rate isn't terrible given the circumstances. I guess," Case whispered to James.

"Assuming this goes smoothly from now on."

Both men take a step back at the thought.

Then, the dragon closest to them opens its eyes, and its gaze soon falls on the sign.

Case and James, along with the security team, hold their breath in anticipation of the dragon's reaction.

//You didn't think I was going to leave you without a cliffhanger when I continued writing after Unrelenting's POV, did you?