Chapter Text
I was driving through a tunnel on an interstate, I was making good time too, until all traffic stopped. Me, being a part of penndot, I turned on my emergency amber, and rolled up to where everyone stopped. In place of the tunnel opening, there was a large expanse of desert, nothing but sand in all directions. Lucky for me, I was heading to the dunes as it was, so I pulled off my off-road tires and put on my paddle-tires. I put my emergency gas cans in the cab strapped to the harnesses I had for them in it, and rolled into the seemingly deserted land.
After driving into the desert for about 10 seconds, a large sand colored dragon with a tail barb -much like a scorpion’s stinger- landed right in front of me. I read Wings of Fire, so I knew it was a Sandwing, but the Sandwing and I were relatively the same height. I opened the door on my pickup, and the Sandwing growled menacingly. I stepped out of my truck and walked about 20 feet to the left of it, and the Sandwing pounced. The Sandwing tackled me to the ground, and I pulled my multi-tool from its sheath. I knocked the blade cover off of the hatchet blade, and took a swing at the dragon. I landed a hit right on its leg, and I hacked at it again, this time hitting it in the chest. The blade cut through the scales as if they were made of rotten wood. I hacked at the dragon again, and hit it where the wing connected to the shoulder-blade, and the dragon screamed. The Sandwing immediately grabbed its shoulder, and I kicked it off of me. I grabbed my first-aid kit from my truck, and used the hammer in the glove-box to knock the Sandwing out. I wrapped the wound I inflicted on the dragon, and threw all of my stuff into my pickup. Soon I was on my way, or so I thought. A bunch more Sandwings tracked me down, and right when I ran out of gas, they wrapped ropes around the front and back of my truck, picked it up, and flew me and the truck to the Sandwing capitol. When I first saw the Queen’s Stronghold, I realized that just randomly exploring land that wasn’t where it was supposed to be was a mistake, and was probably going to be my last.
I just hoped that the time-frame was still inside that of the three arcs. I was starting to get really hot, and then I realized that I still had gas, it was in the second tank! Excited, I switched the feed to the second tank and turned the key, the engine started after about 4 revolutions. I quickly turned on my air conditioning, and sat back, somewhat relaxed. I realized I had left my amber light on, and turned it off. After flying within 100 feet of the Stronghold we were making a sharp descent, I realized that my truck would slam into the ground hard enough to blow the entire truck apart. I started to panic, and the dragons seemed to understand that if they just let me slam into the ground, everything would go horribly wrong. They pulled up at the last few seconds and released my truck from about 3 feet off the ground. My truck touched down and I slammed on the brakes, stopping relatively quickly. The dragons landed in a circle around me, and started pushing the truck along, I shifted into first gear and slightly opened the throttle. They were walking me through the Stronghold, when we got to a staircase, and I knew that if I tried driving up them with my paddle-tires, I would shred them to bits. I put the truck in neutral, set the parking brake, and hopped out. The dragons tensed, they probably didn’t like me getting out of the truck. I went round to the back of my pickup and hopped into the bed, pulling the straps off of one of the 4 off-road tires that were there, and dropped it over the side of the bed. I pulled a 3 foot breaker bar, and a jack. I used the jack to lift the left side of the rear axle off the ground, and the wheel was off in just under a minute. I finished changing out the tires and just before I opened the door of my truck, a long, pointy object went sailing right past my face. When I looked to see where it came from, I saw a Sandwing with a bow and an arrow in the process of being knocked. I yelped and scrambled into my truck, I threw it into reverse and dumped the throttle, peeling out in reverse. I then performed a perfect j-turn and started speeding off. I got out of the Sandwing palace, and started to speed through the desert, and found the plains. I was driving through the plains for a while, when I found a forest, I plunged into the forest. I almost instantly found a cliff, and barreled right through it.
I opened my eyes and found my tires on asphalt. Then the front end of my truck found an abandoned car. I jumped out of my truck and inspected the car. It was covered in dust and had a fresh bloody handprint on the hood. When I looked at the license-plate however, I called 911. It was the car of a person who went missing a while back, about 4 months in-fact. The police arrived about 10 minutes later. I already pounded the hood into place, replaced the radiator, and put coolant into the new radiator. As the police were investigating the car, I finished my shitty repair of the grille, and thought of something.
Before I could act on my hunch, several loud thuds could be heard as well as some hostile growling. I jumped into my truck and turned the key, it cranked but it wouldn’t start, and I started pumping the gas pedal. The truck still wouldn’t start. I snatched a gas can from its holder in the cabin, and poured the whole thing into the primary gas tank. I got into my truck, switched the feed to the primary, and got it to start. I shifted into first gear, and was ready to peel out just when a Sandwng’s head poked through the portal. “RUN LIKE HELL!!!!!!” I screamed, smashing the throttle to the floor, burning a ridiculous amount of rubber in the process. About thirty cop cars passed my truck by the time I hit 105 mph. I hit 110 and threw it into 5th, then 153 and threw it into 6th, then I topped out at 204 mph. A Skywing landed right in front of me and I slammed on the brakes and layed on the horn, but there was nothing I could do, I slammed into the dragon at about 167 mph. Blood coolant and engine oil exploded all over the windshield, something really heavy landed on the back of the truck, and I lost control, flying into the ditch and flipping end over end several times before coming to a rest on the wheels. I kicked the door open, grabbed a first-aid kit and full size hatchet, and ran over to the dragon I hit. I bandaged all of the life-threatening injuries first, and I ran out on the last one. I saw a gold bracelet on the dragon’s wrist. I was just about to take it off, when I saw the color of the scales. Copper scales, orange-ish blood, 100 degree scales, I knew who this dragon was. She was Peril of the Skywings. I knew I screwed up when a sea-green dragon with bioluminescent scales landed right in front of me.
“It always starts and ends with what you’re running from,” I said to myself. The Seawing looked at me like I had grown an extra head. “Oh,” I realized, “you can understand me, great. You are Prince Turtle of the Seawings right?” “How do you know who I am?” he asked. I started to back away. “HEY! WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING?!?” he screamed at me. “Please don’t kill me,” I whimpered. “And why should I not?” he asked. “I didn’t mean to hit her.” I said, with a little more confidence in my voice, “She dropped down right in front of me, I tried to stop, but she landed too close to me for me to stop.” suddenly there was a groan from the ground. The Seawing Prince shoved me to the side and went to fuss over Peril. He started to nuzzle her, and she nuzzled him back.
I made a break for it. I made it back to my truck, hopped in and hit the key. The vehicle started and drove just fine, so I took off. I knew of an old overgrown side road that would lead straight to my weapons base, so when I found the road, I went flying down it. When I got there, I parked the truck and ran inside of the base. There, I snatched my Remington-700, and 1000 armor piercing rounds, as well as 4 blanks. I just barely managed to get myself hidden before all of the dragons came crashing down in the small clearing. I quietly loaded the 10 round magazine, the blanks being the ones that would fire first, and pulled the bolt back. Then I pushed the bolt forward and pushed the handle on it down, locking the bolt in place, then I pulled the trigger. The resulting sound threw them into a panic, and I bolted another blank into the chamber, firing that one off as well. I fired the last 2 blanks and took aim at one of the dragons. I bolted an armor-piercing round into the chamber and shot one of them in the lower-leg, causing even more panic. I shot one that whizzed right next to the leader’s head. “RETREAT,” the captain yelled, “RETREAT!!!” “What about this crazy contraption,” a dragon said while pointing to my truck, “should we take this thing with us?” I shot him in the butt. “SOMETHING STABBED ME IN THE ASS,” he yelled, “I THINK THERE’S ANIMUS MAGIC INVOLVED HERE!!!!” I walked out of the tall brush and said, “oh no, there’s no magic involved, just science.” a dragon chucked a spear at me, I dodged it and accidentally dropped the gun, it went off blowing the dragon's brains across the clearing. All of the other dragons froze in fear. “that shouldn't have happened,” I said. I grabbed my gun, walked over to my truck, got in and drove slowly away.
They followed me the whole way back to my car repair shop. It had been closed for about 2 days at this time. I opened the garage door and drove my truck to the lift, parked it, and opened the hood. All of the gaskets melted, there was no oil, and the camshaft was almost a flat cylinder. The timing chain was pretty much done for, the cam-gear was almost fully stripped, all of the pushrods were bent. The lifters were pretty much destroyed, the piston rings were gone, and the rod bearings were all completely gone. It was a literal miracle that the thing still ran. I went to my desk to order the parts, and then I felt breathing on the back of my neck. I went to reach for my desk drawer to grab the G-18 that was inside, when a sea green talon grabbed my hand. I slowly turned to face the Seawing prince, and when I was looking at his snout, he promptly slapped me across the face. It took me a few seconds to process what had happened after my head snapped to the side, when I did, I realized I had been slapped by a dragon. I felt my cheek and found a couple cuts on it, but then I realized that my jaw was dislocated. I was able to reset it, but it really hurt to do so. “That was my revenge,” he said, “you are now under Seawing protection.” I sat there, looking stupid for a moment, before coming to my senses. “Say what now?” I asked. “Are you stupid?” Turtle asked me. “Yes,” I replied. Then I heard a wrench hit the floor. I immediately grabbed my G-18 from its drawer, and ran into the main workshop area. I saw a ripple in the air, and I immediately jumped onto the Rainwing’s back. I grabbed a large hunting knife from the bench it was on, and pressed it up against the Rainwing’s throat. I saw another Rainwing out of the corner of my eye trying to find a good position to shoot me with venom. “I wouldn’t do that if i were you,” i said, “it would end very badly for your friend here.” Then, the Rainwing decided to show herself. And when I saw who it was, I went pale. “If you’re Kinkajou, then… there’s no way. I'm so sorry, please forgive me your majesty,” I said, jumping off of the Rainwing I was threatening. Glory, the Rainwing Queen, appeared in front of me. She looked like she was about to melt me into a puddle. Then, out of nowhere, Turtle came to my defense.