The Problem With Progress (A futuristic WoF crossover fanfic)

'''
Note: This is set in the distant future, around a couple ehh...pairs of decades later. 40 years sounds good. Yeah. 40 years from present-day Pyrrhia.
Secondary note: This story's a WIP, pal, so don't expect everything to stay the same.
'''
Prologue
Location: Pathfinder city, border of the Kingdom of the Sea, Pyrrhia.
Time and Weather: 8:16 P.M., dark and stormy, like all good stories start.
'''
Sabertooth
~Rawr, I’m an outlaw! Are you proud pa? Wanna go toe-to-toe in a showdow-DRAW!~
'''
Sabretooth was a dragon of what some would call ‘questionable ethics.’
He grinned at the thought.
As if he was supposed to know what that meant, ha!
The SandWing-IceWing hybrid didn’t care. Sure, he skipped out on school to pursue a life of adventure and danger. “Everyone has their price,” he always said.
Although, this job, in particular, wasn’t exactly up his alley in the “moral” category.
He gripped a strap of his backpack tightly. 
His mission was simple, in a sense. But the real question was a question of his own ethics. If he wanted to really go through with it.
Though now, he supposed there was no doubt about it.
Tonight, he would be stealing the egg of an animus.
The dragon who’d hired had told him to be very discreet, so he hadn’t allowed his apprentice, Swallowtail, to come along today, and instead told her she got to relax instead of train that night.
Strangely enough, the parent of the animus egg lived in a seemingly unprotected home in the middle of Pathfinder city. Yeah, that was the name of the city. He found it weird how it had been named after the founder.
It was no matter though. He would be back in the Scorpion Den by daybreak to collect his pension.
The tram he was riding in slid to a stop. His stop.
Letting go of the railing on the inside of the tram, he stepped out into the rain.
'''
Minutes later, he was gliding through the storm toward the home of the NightWing animus.
He’d done minor amounts of research, all leading to the fact that the animus, Adamant was her name, would be an easy dragon to steal from. She wasn’t very well-known, and only a select few knew of her capabilities. Unfortunately for her, someone she’d trusted with this secret hadn’t been very quiet, and his employer had found out somehow.
Sabertooth tilted his wings to the side, aiming for a balcony above Adamant’s apartment.
He touched down onto the soaked concrete ledge.
The lights of the city shone luminously and eerie in the background. Rain smoothed his IceWing spikes against his neck, not from the force of the rain, but some strange instinct.
He knew being a hybrid could be confusing, but decided to leave the questions for later. Time was slowly burning away.
Sabertooth put a pair of night-vision goggles, which had an interesting backstory. They mimicked a SeaWing’s natural night-vision abilities and were near-flawless. Although, he suspected there were some blind SeaWings out there in order for the research to have been that successful.
Leaping down onto Adamant’s balcony five feet below him, he flicked them on.
A sliding glass door was secured in front of him. Upon testing it cautiously, he found that it was only locked. Not rigged to explode, or turn him into a ferret. 
Not that he’d been afraid of that happening or anything.
Grabbing a bobby pin and a screwdriver out of a pouch strapped over his chest, he began to work on the lock.
He wasn’t worried. Adamant was afraid of her abilities, her power. She had hardly used it, and stuck to the footnotes of anything important she was involved in. 
Her current job was as a waitress at a local bar, and she usually worked double hours, or so he’d been told by his mysterious employer.
By the time she got back, he’d be on the fastest train to the Scorpion Den.
The lock clicked out of place, and he slid the door open triumphantly.
He slipped in quietly, the night-vision revealing a small living room.
Pillows sat arranged around a table in the kitchen and a small leather couch was put against the wall nearby. A coffee table sat in the center of the living room, with a decoration of a basket of scented pinecones.
An extinguished scented candle rested beside a digital reading tablet, and a half-eaten mango sat not far away from both.
He slunk effortlessly through the NightWing’s apartment, his gaze flicking corner to corner for a possible nest.
She was single nowadays since her mate had apparently ditched her for another dragoness.
Sabretooth didn’t think much of this. SeaWings were all slippery to him anyway, no matter the face.
He entered her private room to see an unmade bed, along with something in the moonlight on top of it….
No.
That wasn’t possible. 
There were three eggs. He’d been told there was only one!
What was going on?! Was this a trap? The wrong house, maybe? Wait, no. There was Adamant’s picture on the wall, showing the NightWing laughing with a SandWing. Probably a close friend of hers.
He filled his lungs sharply, then flicked his barbed tail. It didn’t matter much. He’d just grab one egg and only it’s mother would be the wiser.
Sabretooth crept alongside the bed like a Velociraptor circling its prey.
A mottled blue-and-black egg sat inbetween one speckled silver-and-black egg and one sapphire egg.
He grabbed this one, having a good feeling about an odd one out.
Sabertooth flashed a smile before he slid the locked glass door closed and dove into the storm without a trace.
'''
Chapter 1
Location: Unknown
Time and Weather: Unknown, unknown
'''
Leopardshark
~Why can’t everyone just be NICE for once?~
'''
Leopardshark wasn’t ordinary.
He knew this. 
How could he be ordinary?
There wasn’t much to him, he never met his parents. Although, he had a sinking suspicion he didn’t actually have any…
It didn’t really matter much to him anyway. If they’d cared for him, they probably would’ve come looking for him.
Looking for him where you may ask?
The answer to that question was still a mystery to him, even after just hitting his eighth hatching day.
The other dragonets were the only ones who seemed to notice. There were five of them, down underground. Somewhere. None of them knew, nor would the dragons outside the glass say anything to them. 
They had no knowledge of why they were there, but they were used to it.
“Happy Hatching Day, Leopard!” A bright-orange SkyWing said.
Leopardshark usually went by Leopard, it was easier than his extended name. 
The SkyWing’s name was Cascade, and everyone knew well not to get too close. He was a Firescales dragonet, A.K.A. bad news.
The other dragonets had similar special traits, like their resident SandWing, Rainia. She apparently had a rare trait in her blood that allowed her to perform insane feats of brutality and strength when she was enraged. Though most of the time, she was the quietest dragonet in the group.
Or the MudWing-SandWing hybrid, Garter. He was very resistant to fire, and still had the traits most SandWings had without losing his MudWing size, making him very special indeed.
Next came their SeaWing-RainWing hybrid, Virga. She was able to turn invisible, breathe underwater, see in the dark, and had a powerful tail, just like a normal SeaWing. The downside was that her scales sometimes had a mind of their own and changed random colors.
And last was himself. He ...actually didn’t know what was special about him. He was just there. 
It was weird, sure, but he wasn’t able to think much of it.
Besides, it was his hatching day! He should be excited! 
Leopard smiled and dipped his head. “Thank you so much, guys. You’re just ...all of you are great.”
Garter raised an eyebrow. “As if you knew very many dragons besides us anyways.” he chuckled.
He shrugged, grinning. “I guess you’re right about that.”
Virga elbowed him. “Now all we need is a real cake! And the presents! Hm. Maybe some streamers, but I doubt we’ll actually be able to get any of them and-”
Leopard shook his head. “V, it’s fine. I don’t need all that fancy stuff anyway. You guys are good enough, in my opinion.
Cascade barked out a laugh. “Alright, you gotta admit that was pretty sappy.”
Leopard hung his head, laughing. “Yeah, I guess so.”
Their room was covered in passive grey walls, with only one window, which happened to be the door.
A small panel in the wall dispensed the food and drinks they wanted when they needed it, and occasionally, each of them was taken away to do something the other dragons outside called “testing”.
According to what the other dragonets said, they were always tests of strength, speed, and combat abilities. But the case was different with Leopard.
He was always assigned some kind of puzzle or a timed reaction test. One test, for instance, had him memorize ways to save a dragon’s life at a certain in-depth and descriptive level.
There were multiple jokes about this already.
“Maybe you’re super-smart!” Virga suggested, gulping down a whole salmon. “Or maybe a...dragon with super-healing powers!”
Leopard shook his head. “I don’t think they’d have me do reaction tests if I was just a healer.”''
“Are they giving you injections too?” Garter inquired over his pile of mangoes.
He took a bite of his cooked rabbit and shook his head. “You have injections?”
Garter, Rainia, and Virga all nodded slowly.
Leopard glanced at Cascade, who shrugged helplessly. “Hey, don’t look at me, I’d melt the needles!”
He sighed and proceeded to poke at a small cupcake Virga had gotten him. It was vanilla, with white frosting and a small sliced strawberry on top.
He carefully unpeeled the paper cup and nibbled a small corner into the small cake.
Virga was busy bothering Cascade, asking if his scales were capable of effective paper disposal, and Garter was talking to Rainia as they stared out the window.
He finished the cupcake and sighed, wiping away his mouth.
Happy hatching day for me… he sighed internally. One more year in the underground lab.
'''
Location: Quicksave’s office
Time and Weather: 6:15 P.M., indoors.
'''
Quicksave
~Mm, yessss. *evil cackling*~
'''
Quicksave stared at the computer screen confusedly.
What were they doing?
The test dragonets were throwing their own version of a hatching day party. Why?
That didn’t make sense at all! Their literature had been carefully inspected-
She frowned. 
Unless someone missed a spot, she thought bitterly.
Whatever. It didn’t matter anymore.
She was due to sell them tomorrow to her endorser, and all but the SkyWing would be gone.
Although, her animus subject was yet to actually discover his powers, which was surprising in the terms that he hadn’t yet. There’d been close calls, such as particularly rough guards dying on the spot, or objects attempting to float through the glass.
But nonetheless, she had succeeded in letting the animus think he was perfectly ordinary.
The endorser happened to be based in the NightWing’s old home, which had been re-built to fit into their new modern age. Gone were the times of Darkstalker, castles and tribal feuds. The new era had presented them with many things to utilize: Gunpowder, electricity, glass, even gas-powered motors.
(You know because Pantala had glass before Pyrrhia.) 
((Hm. Actually, I’m pretty sure there’d be an established trade route from Pyrrhia to Pantala by now. Huh.)
And so came their ...assignment. What she was here to do, was making money, and care less about the consequences and what they did. Now, for the past nine years, she’d been raising remarkably rare dragons for use in war, and selling them in secret. It had started when the SeaWing queen, an old friend of hers, asked her a favor: To somehow get her a Mind-reading NightWing. Apparently, she wanted to try and put this ability into SeaWing genetics, and had to start somewhere.
And so she delivered. The specifics of who she had to betray didn’t matter.
Tomorrow, she would be stupid rich because of it.
'''
Chapter 2 
Location: Unknown
Time and Weather: Unknown, unknown.
'''
Leopard
*yawns* i’M nOt TiReD
Chasing Shadows
'''
The sliding hiss of the opening door snapped him awake. What time was it?
The overhead lights flicked on, causing him to blink wildly. The others jumped up to attention, except Cascade, who pretended he was still asleep, though not very well. A small grin trembled on his jaw, which he was trying not to reveal.
Rainia blinked, then frowned as the MudWing dragon shook his head at Garter, pointing to Leopard instead.
What do they want me for?
He groggily clambered to his talons, then followed the strange dragon away sleepily.
They walked past other chambers like the one he and his friends were being kept in, though they were all empty.
Eventually, they winded a corner and entered the testing room.
The room had a mirror on one side of the room, as well as a table in the center.
He figured this room was made specifically for him, as his friends had described their training rooms to have been much bigger than his, and filled with training equipment made specifically for them.
Virga had described a room with a large aquarium of water which filled half the room, which was allegedly three times the size of their own room in which they lived.
Her aquarium was filled with obstacles, mock dangers, and areas where she would have to avoid camera detection by changing the color of her scales.
He hardly knew anything about Rainia's training but remembered Garter saying something about unleashing her anger, which she was apparently failing at.
Garter’s had something to do with smashing through walls and receiving injections for something.
(HE’S ON ROIDS, ARREST HIM)
Cascade’s was pretty guessable: Burning through solid steel, fighting robotic dragon mockups and turning them into slag heaps…
The door slid closed behind them.
The strange dragon motioned for him to sit down in front of the table, which had three items on top of it; a glass box filled with water, a plastic NightWing action figure, and a dagger.
Leopard frowned, then sat on the floor, wrapping his tail around his legs.
“Um, why are we up so early?” He asked, tilting his head curiously.
The dragon didn’t respond, sitting down on the opposite side of the table.
“Tell the water to appear outside the box,” he ordered.
Leopard blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Just do it.”
Leopard hesitated, then said aloud, “Um, water, appear outside the box.”
Instantly, the clear liquid appeared on the table, spreading out and leaking across the metal surface.
Leopardshark blinked.
“How did I-”
The dragon in front of him smirked. “You’re an animus.”
Leopard frowned, then shook his head. “No. That doesn’t-” his breathing accelerated. “That’s not possible! There's not a single way...”
The MudWing grinned. “Ah, but it is. Tell the action figure to come to life.”
He instantly recalled one of the many weaknesses of an animus' abilities. “But what about my-” 
“Do it.”
Leopard inhaled sharply, then said, “Tiny dragon, come to life.”
The tiny NightWing shivered, then shook out its tiny plastic wings.
“Oh, hi!” She squeaked, her tiny white painted eyes looking up at him brightly. “What’s your name?” 
“I’m Leopardshark.”
“Neat! My name's ...huh.” she tilted her head, before blinking curiously, as if the memory she was searching for simply didn't exist. “I don’t think I have a name.”
Leopard couldn’t help but smile warmly. “Can I keep her?”
The MudWing shrugged, nodding half-mindedly. “Sure, I guess.”
The tiny NightWing looked happily confused before Leopard enclosed her in his talons.
“Now, using your mind, melt this dagger into a puddle of liquid metal.”
Leopard frowned.
I guess uh, Dagger, melt yourself completely?
The dagger began to redden, then bubble. The steel started to sludge out and seep everywhere with dangerously radiant energy.
The MudWing smiled. “Alright, that’ll be it. Thank you for your time.”
They exited the room, but not before Leopard set the tiny NightWing on his shoulder.
“What was that about?” she asked as he followed the MudWing back to the room where his friends were probably sleeping.
He smiled. “I’m an animus.”
She looked down. “Oh, cool.” Then, “What’s that?”
Leopard frowned. “What’s what?”
“An animus,” she asked. “What is it?”
He yawned. “I’ll explain later, little one. I need to sleep.”
“Oh. Okay.”
The glass door slid open, and Leopard slunk in silently, avoiding Garter’s snout and stepping over Virga’s long tail before curling up on his mattress in the corner of the room.
The miniature NightWing climbed onto his head and let out a high-pitched sigh before Leopard closed his eyes and let sleep suck him into the void.
'''
Location: Unknown
Time and Weather: Unknown, unknown
'''
Leopard was roused from sleep as a familiar voice cried his name distantly.
Wait.
That wasn’t distance, it was…
“Leopardshark, help me!” a tiny voice pleaded.
His eyes shot open, and his talons went to the top of his head.
The tiny NightWing was gone.
He jumped up and spun around to see Garter hanging the NightWing upside-down and poking her cautiously.
“How do you know his name?! ANSWER ME!” He yelled.
The NightWing quailed and covered her eyes, trembling.
Virga stared at Garter, looking unsure of what she was supposed to do.
Cascade sat in the back of the room with a small frown, and Rainia was squinting her eyes as she tried to go back to sleep.
“HEY!” Leopard barked. “Let her go!”
Garter dropped the NightWing on her head, before she squeaked indignantly and scrambled away.
She hid behind Leopard’s foreleg before she poked her head out and hissed with her forked plastic tongue.
Garter narrowed his eyes. “Why are you defending that thing? It could be spying on us!”
“She’s not!” Leopard snarled.
“Oh really? Prove it then, tell us who sent it, and why we should trust it at all!” He demanded, lashing his barbed tail accusingly.
Leopard growled, crouching lower to the ground to shield her further. “I made her, idiot. Now leave her alone.”
Garter’s expression fell into confusion, as did the other dragonets. “You...made her?”
Leopard sighed and picked up his miniature creation, nodding.
He’d seen this coming and he still wasn’t looking forward to explaining everything to them.
“She’s magic,” He explained hesitantly. He opened his talons and displayed her for everyone to see.
Garter’s eyes widened slightly, before Virga poked her head in front of the NightWing, staring down at the plastic dragon with newfound curiosity. “Woah! What’s her name?”
Leopard frowned, then rubbed the back of his neck with the opposite talon. “I uh ...haven't named her yet.”
The plastic NightWing turned in a circle, facing him. “You can call me whatever you like,” She said with a toothy plastic smile. “I won’t mind.”
He blinked in surprise, then smiled. “I would, but I don’t exactly have any in mind. I don’t even know how a normal NightWing would be named.”
“How about Moonwatcher?” Virga suggested.
Leopard laughed. “Yeah, no. We’re not getting yelled at for naming dragons after canon characters, thank you.”
Virga frowned, pouting. “Fiiiine.”
Garter remained silent, staring at the floor intensely.
Leopard kept trying to think of a decent name for a tiny NightWing. Well, one that wouldn’t be insulting, anyways.
He stared at her curiously, looking for any defining features on her body.
And then he found it.
“I got it. You can be called...uh..”
“Voidshadow sounds cool!” Virga commented.
Leopard shrugged. “It kinda sounds uh, edgy?”
“Eh, we’ll work on it. I guess just Shadow would be better.”
He grinned. “Shadow it is then.”
Shadow beamed. “Yay! I like my name!” She paused. “What’s a shadow?”
Virga’s eyes widened. “Wait, how much do you know?”
Shadow frowned, then stared down at her claws. “Not much?” she mumbled shyly.
Her eyes seemed to sparkle. “Can I teach you stuff then?”
Shadow opened her mouth to answer, then looked back at Leopard questioningly.
He blinked. “I’m not against learning,”
Shadow broke into a joyful smile. “Whoopee! I get to learn stuff!”
She hopped onto Virga’s head before the RainWing-SeaWing hybrid bounded toward the small bookcase in the corner of the room.
Garter watched as the two left, then narrowed his eyes at Leopard. “Explain yourself.”
“What?”
“How did you bring that toy to life? Since when did you have any special abilities we didn’t know about?” he demanded. His nostrils flared while his tail curled behind him unwound itself slightly.
Leopard gulped. “I….I don’t know. They told me about it last night.”
Garter’s eye twitched. “Told you what?”
Cascade spoke up. “Told him what, that he’s an animus?”
Both Garter and Leopard glanced at him in awe. “What?” They asked in unison.
The firescales SkyWing frowned. “Wait, you didn’t know?!”
Leopard blinked wildly, before Garter hissed, “He’s an animus and you knew?”
Cascade looked more surprised than both of them. “Why are you yelling at me?” he pointed at Leopard accusingly “He’s the animus, and even he didn’t know! This is on both of you!”
Garter fixed his eyes back on Leopard. “Yeah, why didn’t you know?”
Leopard put his claws up innocently. “I didn’t know until last night, I told you!”
“Likely story, animus!”
“What in the moons is that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know, you tell me!”
“If I could, I wouldn’t have asked you!”
Rainia interrupted them. “Will both of you idiots SHUT UP? It’s FIVE. F-I-V-E. FIVE in the morning! Not all of us want to get involved in your pointless, brainless, fruitless arguments that make no sense whatsoever!”
Cascade smirked and flicked his fiery tail as if to say, Told ya it was on both of you.
Garter and Leopard hung their heads. “Sorry Rainia,” They apologized in unison.
The SandWing sniffed, then strode back over to her corner where she slept by herself, before curling up and shutting her eyes once more.
Garter glared at him. “I blame you for that.” 
Leopard gasped lightly in disbelief. “Blame me?! You started yelling at me, why should I be punished?”
The MudWing-SandWing snorted. “Because you didn’t tell us you were an animus.”
“We went over this, I didn’t know I was an animus!” Leopard complained.
A growl sounded across the room as Rainia opened one narrowed and furious eyelid.
Garter gulped, walking away quickly.
Leopard rubbed the back of his neck anxiously before walking over to Virga and Shadow, who was reading a book about the events that transpired forty-two years before they’d been born, at the Jade Mountain academy.
Shadow stared down at the illustrations with curious and intense fascination as Virga read the caption out loud.
“Not long after the school was built however, one of the students began to experience strange visions of the mountain crumbling apart, the ground shaking and a storm tearing the school to pieces. This student was Moonwatcher, the first Mind-Reading and Prophetic NightWing in nearly two thousand years.” Virga said, but not before Shadow began leaning so close to the page that she was forcibly closing Virga’s eyelids.
“How’s it going?” Leopard asked.
Virga turned around, gently repositioning Shadow off of her eyeballs. “Good. I think she might need a lesson on what hurts dragons though.”
“Yeah, ouch.”
Suddenly, the glass door slid open on the other side of the room.
Three dragons dressed in lab coats stood outside.
“Everyone except for the SkyWing, come with us.”
'''
Chapter 3
Location: In a plane,....somewhere…
Time and Weather:  5:34 AM, Raining. Or pouring, whichever you prefer.
'''
Leopardshark
~” I get airsick really easy guys.”~
(Alright, alright, before y'all start yelling at me about "why would they need planes or trains, they have wings?", just consider this: Would you rather have to hire an entire team of SkyWings to carry a dreadfully large load like something such as artillery, explosives, or mining equipment? Or wouldn't it just be easier to strap it into a big 'ol flying machine that requires only a crew of two? Yeah, that's what I thought. Trains are simply just faster than flying with wings that need rest every few hours for three to four days straight, it's a known fact.)
They had been herded down the hallways, leaving Cascade behind in the cell.
Leopard began to wonder what was going on.
Are we being released?
He shivered with excitement at the thought.
He stared at everything they passed on the way. Paintings, offices, strange whiteboards with peculiar equations he didn’t understand, suspicious dragons glaring at them through the window, even soda cans.
Virga had thankfully tucked Shadow away under one of her monochromatic wings.
Their path split into a metal-walled hallway, which ramped up steadily. Since it was slightly narrow, he had to enter in third, not counting the scientists. 
The interior of the room was encircled by arched girders that outstretched across the oddly round ceiling. Seats with loose and unfastened straps were bolted into the walls as if someone might need them to hang on.
What is this place? He wondered, stepping over a large crate that was partially embedded in the floor. Virga shot him a sympathetic expression as if to assure him that Shadow would be fine, then waited in one corner of the room.
Two of the scientists exited back out the door, leaving only one to remain. 
“I would recommend buckling up,” He said, facing away from the group. “It’s going to be a rough ride into the NightWing kingdom.”
Ride? What the heck did he mean by that?
Suddenly, the room lurched forward. Raina immediately strapped herself in with her nimble talons, Garter quickly following suit.
Virga seemed to tense her wing muscles nervously, then started to carefully strap herself to the wall, making sure she wasn’t crushing Shadow.
He snapped out of his trance, beginning to realize he was supposed to be strapping himself in as well. Leopard wrestled one of the thickened fabric straps from the wall, fitting it over his shoulders uncomfortably.
“What’s going on?!” Virga cried.
“Long flight,” Raina muttered, narrowing her eyes to the ground.
Leopard started to fasten himself in place.
Lights flickered on, their beams blinking and shivering until eventually becoming stable as a low while seemed to erupt outside the walls, causing the straps to vibrate in rhythm.
They were on a plane.
Turbulence shook the plane into a reverberating shudder, causing him to grip the nearby girder nervously.
The rain seemed to impact the aircraft angrily, sounding more like nails and screws attacking the craft instead of water. 
Large, booming eruptions of sound occasionally shook the cargo bay, before a loud explosion seemed to respond below, further away.
“We’re flying low over the SeaWing capital of Pathfinder. The storms are just too dangerous for us to avoid the SkyWing shelling,” said a voice behind the cockpit door.
Shelling? Leopard asked mentally, his eyes widening. Such as artillery?
A ripple shuddered the side of the plane across from him, where Garter and Raina were resting. Rainia stared blankly back at Leopard, while Garter lay slumped against his own straps.
“I think...I think that was a shell. Craven?”
“Probably nothing. If the SkyWings thought we were a threat, we’d surely know about it-”
The plane convulsed, throwing Leopard into his securing straps.
“You were saying?” The first voice accused.
“Shut up. Help me get this bird stable!”
Warning alarms droned, as the cargo bay lights flashed red.
Garter’s head jerked up before he rubbed his eyes sleepily. “Wha…” he yawned. “What’s going on?”
“We’re hit,” Rainia said bluntly, wrapping her talons around her security belts.
The plane convulsed a second time, and the pilot screamed.
“Craven!” The other voice cried. 
“It’s in...my arm!” The pilot moaned through the door.
Shadow’s head peeked out from under Virga’s wing, her painted eyes blinking curiously. “What happened to him?”
Virga’s scales literally paled as her expression further turned to worry. “It’s nothing, he probably just...stubbed his...claws.”
Shadow frowned. “I hope he’s okay.”
Leopard stared at the floor, listening to the suddenly audible whistle of the wind, coming from under the cockpit door.
Their plane had already been hit by SkyWing artillery shells. Twice. He figured the place could only take so much before it fell to pieces.
Its passengers included.
He began to unbuckle his straps.
“Leopard,” Garter asked slowly. “Is the altitude getting to your head?”
“Not even,” Leopard said with a grin. “We’re flying low.”
Leopard tried unbuckling the second strap, but it refused to budge.
No matter, I could just- He stopped himself, shaking his head. No. Using his powers to free himself was a terrible idea.
“Shadow?”
“Mmhm?” The tiny NightWing asked.
“Could you come help me with this latch? My claws are too big.”
Her miniature teeth glinted red in the warning lights. “Sure!” He heard her plastic claws clatter over the metal-plated floor until he felt the plastic dragon scaling up the side of his left hind leg.
He smiled as she began to fiddle with the latch, until-
“MAYDAY, MAYDAY, I repeat MAYDAY! This is Stingray craft zero-three-five-seven-niner, we have been hit by hostile SkyWing artillery fire and require a clear landi-”
A low whine was soon the only sound audible after another explosion sent the cockpit door flying off its hinges.
“I think we should get off,” Garter mumbled, wincing. 
“With nobody controlling the plane, the autopilot should kick in. But judging on the fact of the cockpit being on fire-” Rainia said.
“The autopilot is obviously not working,” Virga said, nodding toward the flames licking out of the cockpit door.
The Stuka scream outside of the craft got louder, signaling the oxygen becoming thicker as they neared the ground.
“Either we abandon the bird, or jump.” Rainia finished, obviously acknowledging what she said had came down to only one conclusion.
Leopard tilted his head. “I don’t think that’s a very good-” Before he could finish, his entire world went dark.
'''
Cylah
“I WILL SLAY YOU, KYAN REYLAV!”
'''
Cylah shuddered as a second tremor shook the soaked dragon city.
They’re getting frequent now.
The evacuations had begun little under an hour ago, forcing her into hiding even longer.
Why was she hiding? It’s really simple. She wasn’t supposed to be here.
Not legally, her as a species wasn’t technically supposed to be there. She was human.
Well…
Rain drummed steadily on her feathery red wings protruding from her back, which she had tented over her head. It often made her frustrated on how many shirts she’d had to cut holes into just so she’d feel comfortable.
She’d managed to hide out in a deserted alleyway within the city. Hardly a soul ventured though her hidden passage, which was made it so perfect. The path was stacked to the brim with rusted crates and 
It didn’t matter. She was still mostly human, and that’s all the dragons would care about before they either ate her alive or killed her. Maybe both, in that order. 
According to the recovered records, after her mother and father had assisted the Lightsheen and LSSF in their liberation of the dragons from the USCM’s Project Acquisition, they had settled down in Pyrrhia for a few years. The weirdest part was the tech that had originally transformed her parents into dragons did not change their physical age, meaning they were much more mature as dragons then they were human. This wasn’t even what shocked her though. Normally, one would assume that Byron and Terri had stuck around for a while so that their mental state wasn’t harmed by their brains being too old for their bodies.
So instead, they had a compromise.
They would stay in the dragon’s world for a few years, (which was more than fine for her father) mature to seventeen and sixteen, then travel back to their home in Flux Eclipse Beta, a planet her mother had grown up on.
The rain continued to pound the cemented streets outside the alley she’d hidden inside of, the rivulets of excess water pouring from the rooftops to the streets and into storm drains. She’d not been able to bring many supplies with her and for good reason…
'''
A few weeks ago.
Flux Eclipse Beta, Terri’s childhood home.
'''
“Honey, be careful,” Cylah’s mother warned, watching as her father stepped on top of the balcony overlooking the house.
“I-I can always get a new one, Dad,” Cylah called, blinking at the drone crashed into their thatch roof.
“No, no, I have this under control.” Her father reassured them, grasping for the drone with his outstretched fingers. She watched as he leaned forward, grabbing the drone, before tottering backward.
Her mother chirped nervously, nibbling on her talons with her beak.
Byron fell off the balcony with a laugh, before his body blinked out of the air and suddenly appeared a couple of feet ahead of them, with a cheeky grin on his face.
Terri smiled, not in sharing his humor, but in the relief that he’d not been harmed.
Cylah often took note of her mother experiencing fear with every slightly dangerous thing her father did, including riding that old hoverbike with faded lettering she swore said “USCM”. She remembered that, upon asking about it, her mother’s eyes went dark and angry, before she told Cylah to never ask about it again. She reluctantly had obeyed. Someday she planned on asking her dad, but she feared she’d be received with the same result. It didn’t matter at the moment anyway.
'''
Four hours later
A crashing noise from downstairs is what woke Cylah. She first doubted she’d heard anything, and the noise was just a byproduct of whatever strange dream she’d been having before she heard the sound of someone moving down the stairs. Her father, perhaps.
She tossed the covers away, her wings unfurling from her back as she sat up. Her PJs weren’t very confining, but she still had fears of tripping and falling down the stairs constantly.
Pushing open the door, loud noises broke the temporary silence, sending her stumbling backward in terror.
Gunshots.
Byron cried out from downstairs, before a laugh that pierced her bones replied gleefully. 
Cylah stood back up, grabbing the practice Kendo katana from beside her door and rushing to the stairs. The door to her parents' room was right beside the staircase, she swung the katana in surprise when someone tapped her on the shoulder.
A set of yellow talons caught the katana mid-swing, which belonged to her minorly annoyed mother.
“Stay up here,” She hissed, pushing Cylah back toward her room.
Cylah staggered, then used the sword to catch her balance. “No, I wanna help!”
Her mother narrowed her eyes and shook her feathered head, before hurrying down the stairs with...was that a lever-action rifle in her hands? Why was she glowing, like she was on fire?
Cylah stood silently for a moment, pondering if there was anything else her parents wanted to hide from her.
More gunshots rang out, as Terri let out a fierce Avian battle cry from the next floor, accompanied by a gleeful laugh.
Silence followed.
Cylah leveled the sword, then growled inside of her throat.
She charged for the stairs, skipping all but the one at the top as she used her wings to slow her fall.
The downstairs living room was wrecked. The couch was flipped over, with several bullet holes in it, along with some of the chairs on fire. A patch of the wall was frozen solid from what looked like an icy blast. And at the center of it all, were her parents’ bodies. Byron laid face-down, with Terri flopped limply over his back. Cylah held her breath, staring at the in dumbfounded disbelief before she saw their chests shakily moving up and down.
Unconscious. Thank the gods.
Where was their attacker, though? She couldn’t see anyone but Byron and Terri in the room, as far as the moonlight allowed her.
Cylah set the katana level with her forearm. “SHOW YOURSELF! SHADOWS ARE FOR THE WEAK AND COWARDLY!”
A chuckled resounded throughout the house.
“Ahhh...I see they had a little girl too. How quaint. You will all share the same fate then.” A male voice said.
Cylah grinned. “Riiiight, sure. The only fate we’ll have is watching you bleed to death.”
“Fiery temper, idle threats...your mother was like that too. Apples don’t fall very far from the tree…” The voice laughed again as if he’d made a clever joke that only he understood.
“Come out here and face me when you’re ready. Enough hiding in smoke and shadows should keep you thinking about what could go wrong.” She declared, circling vigilantly around her parents’ unconscious forms. Her wings were outstretched and flared, the opposite of her stance; close and coiled.
She yelped in surprise when a blade extended from the shadows of the darkened kitchen, before resetting her poise and gritting her teeth.
A tall man stepped from the darkness, with pale skin and sharp, vampire-like features. His blade was the color of obsidian, appearing once perfectly curved, but now chipped and jagged, evidence that her opponent had faced many an enemy and prevailed. He bore black gloves, trenchcoat, and boots, the only exceptions being his oiled leather pants and charcoal-gray fedora.
He was grinning when she stared into his face. His teeth were blinding white daggers of unseen assassins, jagged and unusually clean.
“Hello, little one,” he said. Although, he didn’t speak through his mouth, as it remained in a menacing grin. The vibrations continued to emanate from the walls around her.
“Who are you?” She growled.
“Ah, I see. No manners, your parents taught you?” He chuckled again, but it sounded as if his mouth were shut when he did so. “How about we fix that?”
The shadow-wreathed man rushed forward, Cylah only barely managing to parry his dulled blade. “Gahh!” she gasped, pain coursing through her right shoulder. She thrust the katana forward before the practice blade was cleaved in two by the dark man’s blade.
Cylah let out a cry of despair before the man kicked her square in the chest, sending her to the ground. Something streamed down her cheeks, though she was unable to tell if it were tears, or blood.
“You fight decent, little bird. But I remain victorious.” He rumbled. “You asked of my name.” The shadow sheathed his ruined blade in a midnight scabbard. I shall bestow it to you, whether it may serve you any importance or not. I am Kyan Reylav. And should you defeat me…” Kyan paused humorously as if considering the possibility. “...I shall set your known family members free. If you shan’t defeat me when our paths cross again...I will not allow such mercy.” 
Cylah choked on her tears. “Where are you taking them?!”
The man turned his back toward her, darkness encompassing her vision.
“Only time will tell.” The moon disappeared from her point of view, before Kyan Reylav and her parents became no more.
'''
Cylah had woken up alone, her house a pile of ash, save where she was lying. The only things that had survived: Her mother’s spear and an old-fashioned physical-projectile handgun called a Glock 19; a relic of her father’s.
The only thing she recalled was they had something against the USCM. And she intended to find out.
'''
Present-day.
Cylah waited patiently in her alley for the eternal waves of dragons to subside, as tremors and explosions shook the city. She knew it was artillery fire, but couldn’t tell where it was coming from. The explosions were somewhere east of her, however. It seemed improbable that the shells would be going over her head, so the shelling troops had to be somewhere to the north or south.
It didn’t matter anyway. She didn’t want to find them. Blue, green, gray and white dragons hurried away from the explosions while the sounds of sirens headed the opposite direction amid the confusion.
I just need to get to their records, She thought. Despite Kyan leaving her without a home and family, he’d actually helped her. In a morbid, creepy kind of way. He said he was taking away her “known family members” as if there were more members of her family than just her parents.
Her only link to any such family was here, on this planet.
They lived here for a few years. Maybe there’s someone human that stayed behind.
Gunfire rattled outside, followed by the screams of many, some being instantly silenced gruesomely. The gunshots died down before a low whine seemed to shake the ground from the skyline.
She stared up into the rain from her secluded alleyway.
Above her, coated in fire, a cargo plane was plummeting from the sky.
'''
Chapter 4
Location: Pathfinder City
Time and Weather: 8:49 PM, Storming.
'''
Leopard
-_-*ODST theme blasts*-_-
“Leopard!” 
Guh..?
Everything felt as if were on fire, once Leopard gained consciousness.
His bones felt like molten iron, singeing his muscles and organs.
“Leopard!” The voice yelled again.
Leopardshark opened his eyes...and screamed.
He was barely an inch away from plummeting from…wherever he was, where was he?
“Oh moons, ohhhhh, this isn’t good,” He muttered, slamming his eyes shut. Vertigo sent his mind swimming through a mental sludge of fear and terror.
As his bodily pain started to fade away, he realized one of his wings didn’t feel quite alright.
“Leopard, are you alive?” The tiny voice continued worriedly.
“Shadow?” Leopard asked, turning his head toward her voice. He stopped once he realized that whatever he was lying on didn’t like that movement, as it shuddered and threatened to hurl him into what looked like Pathfinder city below.
The plane crashed, He realized.
“Oh, thank fate!” The tiny plastic dragon trilled, suddenly dropping onto his head. “You’re okay!” She hesitated, before asking. “Um...are you...okay?”
“Yeah, I think so.” He lied. “Where are we? What happened?”
“Still in the plane.”
“Where’s everyone else?”
Shadow paused. “I...don’t know.” Her feet shifted on his head. “They weren’t here when we landed,”
He trembled. They had to be alive. There was no way that they’d gotten this close to experiencing the outside world only to die in vain.
The sound of rain still remained at the edge of his hearing, as he attempted to stand up.
The remaining piece of the fuselage groaned fearfully, as the entire part of the demolished plane tilted dangerously toward the open air.
He made it to his claws, bending his knees in terror. “S-shadow?”
“Mmm-hmm?”
“I’m scared.” He tittered. 
She patted his head. “We’ll be fine. Um... Try flying over there,” She said. Her talons came into view at the top of his vision, motioning toward a small opening into what looked like...office cubicles?
We crashed into someone’s office building, He thought, finding it more amusing than strange. 
The instant he tried extending his wings, the air in his chest vanished, heaving out in a surprised choke. He struggled to get his balance, the pain from his seemingly-injured right wing forcing him to dig his claws in and endure the pain as he snapped his wings shut.
He laughed darkly before gasping for air. “Let’s try flying later. Landing might send the whole thing down,”
I hope I didn’t break one of my wings,
Carefully, Leopard slowly made his way toward the gap inbetween the shredded aluminum, the plane threatening his life all the way with its pained screeches of metal against metal. 
Dribbling rainwater had pooled in parts of the plane, mixed with tufts of ruined seats.
Leopard reached the gap, sucking in his gut as he attempted to fit inside. A jagged shard of metal jabbed into one of his shoulders, a gasp escaping his mouth after pushing past it, carving a sizable divet in his scales. He could already feel the warm blood fleeing outside of his body, running across his scales.
His corresponding leg brushed past the jagged piece without damage, but once he felt it was safe his talons immediately shot toward the wound.
Leopard groaned as Shadow sprang off his head. The tiny dragon landed on the glass-strewn carpet before looking at his shoulder and tutting with disapproval.
“What?” Leopard asked, turning his head to lick the gash.
The petite dragoness snorted, but he knew well that nothing would come out of her tiny nostrils. “Stop hurting yourself. If you were patient…” She trailed off, staring at his gash and lashing her tail worriedly.
Category:Literature
Category:Fanfictions
Category:Fanfictions (Unfinished)
Category:Fiction
Category:Wings of Fire
Category:Warriors
Category:Semi-cannon
Category:Fanfictions (Semi-Canon)
Category:Warrior Cats