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“Wow. That cat is insane,” Garden breathed.
Everyone was fairly exhausted, and the horror in their eyes matched what Chara felt. The entire dragon kingdom, hidden in the clouds and filled with dragons moments before, was demolished to a million bits of crushed rock and debris, as well as the huge bodies ridden all over the ground. Pinwheel was long gone, having flown away in his sudden dragon form to wherever he wanted to go. Chara guessed he was off in search of his brother. She lifted her nose to scent the air, which reeked of blood. She could hardly pick up any other scent.
She then turned to the others. “We have to search this place. I want to make sure we aren’t missing anything important,” she panted, then added, “I know you’re all tired, but we are not finished. We have to get Invincible and Pinwheel back now. We will all sear-,”
A faint chirrup came from somewhere among the crumbling stone pillar.
Everyone paused, including Chara, looking at the direction of the sound. A light-shifting noise came from it as if there was something moving in the debris.
“Scar. Owl,” Chara whispered. “Come with me to investigate what’s among that pillar. Everyone else, stay hear and be ready if you’re needed as backup.” They nodded, and Scar and Owl followed Chara to the pillar, and it was clear now that something was hidden in the stone.
Chara was about to step in the debris when two pairs of eyes peered at her from a hole in the wall. Chara gasped, and the other two tensed, bristling.
Those are dragon eyes, Chara thought.
Before she could move, two shapes- no, two tiny shapes- scrambled out from behind the pillar and looked at the group, their gaze unreadable. They were young, Chara could tell. Two females, one black and one white, the black one having violet eyes and the white one having gleaming, forest green eyes.
“Honestly . . . they’re kind of cute,” Garden observed from behind Chara.
Chara didn’t know what to think. A quarter of her agreed with Garden, another quarter was worrying about Invincible, another was worrying about Pinwheel, and she was also thinking about how Pinwheel would react to this if she interacted with the young dragons in any way. Her brain seemed to freeze.
Finally, after a long moment of silence, Owl mewed, “Yeah, they’re kinda . . . adorable?” Owl’s comment snapped Chara back to Earth, and she shook her head.
“We have to take care of these hatchlings. I’m not the kind of tiger . . . I don’t think any of you are the cats who would leave something as small and helpless as these two. We must take them,” Chara said.
Lichen stepped forward from the group, looking at Chara with a spark of anger in her one eye. “We can’t take them! They may be little, but they’ll grow up to be the little demons- or should I say dragons that I’ve encountered?! Not including Pinwheel’s reaction when he sees us with them.” Lichen’s tail lashed, and the patrol kept silent, still inspecting the female hatchlings that were now sitting as if trying to be in a polite manner and gazing at them.
“Not if we teach them not to be the dragons they were hatched upon. If we raise them, they will simply grow to be the good kind of dragon. I think we should take them. It’s not like those two have another option; this place is completely abandoned. They won’t last another day alone. I’m not going to let them die, and I’ll figure out how to explain this to Pinwheel . . . whenever we find him.” Chara turned back to the hatchlings, ignoring the patrols’ glance exchanges, studying them.
“They obviously have to have names,” she said, pointing at the white female, who had floppy ears, gleaming white horns, and the brightest type of green eyes Chara had ever seen. She looked smart and gentle and looked at Chara as though she knew what she was doing. “That one should be named Puraegi.”
The white hatchling straightened as if she noticed she was being addressed, and she chirped, “Hrffooyay!” 217Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTiA6sEhi0J
Chara smiled. “Is that supposed to be “hooray?”
She then looked at the black hatchling, who had a strong aura. Chara could tell that she could very possibly be a fierce fighter, once she comes of age. “This one should be Apex,” Chara said.
Apex looked at her with unreadable violet eyes, and then lifted her wings and reared on her hind legs, letting out a squeaky roar. The group gasped and took a step back, while Chara stepped in front of the two hatchlings, feeling a slight touch of emotion for them.
Puraegi and Apex. I’ll take care of you, little ones.
Chara’s smile lifted, and she crouched, nodding her head from the hatchlings to her haunches. “On?” She wondered if the hatchlings would understand her gesture.
Puraegi caught on quickly, climbing her way onto Chara’s back with small, yet sharp, claws. Apex followed her sister, and Chara stood up cautiously with the new weight on her back.
“Alright. We need t-,”
Something suddenly roared in the distance, coming from the sky where Chara was, and she thought she saw shapes in the distance until it became clear; something was in the distance.
The whole patrol went still as the shapes came closer, and they didn’t seem to stop coming from over the horizon. There were hundreds- no, thousands- thousands and thousands of shapes flying in an impressively aligned order.
Chara looked to the front, and as she glimpsed five starry shapes that stood out from the rest, as well as a deep black figure in the front flying straight toward her, she realized who it was automatically.
“INVINCIBLE!”
She screamed with joy, forgetting about the hatchlings and starting forward as Puraegi and Apex tumbled off her in a flurry as she kept racing to the edge, where the shapes were getting closer and closer, and the leading black shape put on a burst of speed. A delighted roar became audible, and Chara could see those handsome gleaming eyes of Invincible.
“Chara!” He eventually reached her and crashed into her, and as they rolled on the ground, Chara had never felt more happy and relieved and surprised about anyone in her entire life.
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