Dragons of War - Rising Storm

Chapter 29 (1/2)

After leaving Omega I raced through the mass of dragons and humans alike to find anyone with the authority to give orders. I needed to find my group but in the confusion, I could hardly recognize anyone's faces.

I found Luke on a high rock, and almost slapped myself for missing him before. I raced up to him but there were 50 dragons all demanding his attention. When I finally got through and he noticed my bright color, he jumped up and called out to me.

"Jaya, where have you been?!" Luke called out above the group telepathy. "When you weren't at roll call last night we thought you might have been another deserter!"

"A deserter?" I questioned, the possibility of Dragon Warriors running away sent a sickening feeling to my stomach but after only a moment of thought, I realized how easy it actually would be for them. To just fly away and leave it all behind. I had even thought about it, but how many had actually done it?

"You need to find your team leader Jaya, you're heading out soon and they will debrief you!" Luke sent me the mental image of a black dragon with brown horns and right away I knew I had seen them around before, but I had never spoken to them.

Luke's attention shifted to the next dragon and I was lost to the crowd. I shimmied my way out of the thick mass of bodies and whipped my head back and forth, looking for that black dragon. When I finally found him, I saw a few other familiar bodies with him.

They were one of the few groups that was still grounded and not running around in a panic. There were a few others with them, their team leaders clear and in a group.

When I walked up to them I saw Fred, Kevin, Howard and a few others I knew. Off in one of the other teams, I saw Aaron, Omega, Jen, and more I knew.

They were all here, I realized with horror. All of the dragon Warriors in the colony. At least, all the ones that could actually fly.

The black dragon whipped his head around when he caught sight of me and called out to me.

"Jaya right? I am Metta, take your place in the group, we are leaving in ten!"

He turned back to his comrades and I turned towards the faces I knew and joined them.

"Jaya, everyone thought you ran away!" Fred called out and rose from the ground to meet me.

I stopped in front of the group and looked them over. There were so few of them left that I knew. Yet we were the last group to have been created. How many others had fallen before us? How many would remain after this?

My heart sank into a pit of tar with the thoughts.

"Jaya?" Fred questions.

My head shot up and I looked him sharply in the eyes.

"What if I told you all the only way to win would be to fight with everything we had?" I asked.

"Pfft, haha!" Kevin burst out. "What the hell do you think we've been doing this entire time, child? Not all of us are as worthless and weak as you!"

Fred snapped his head around to say something to him, but before he could I stepped forwards.

"If your heart was in this fight you would've been helping us train, not use us as stepping stones for your ego," I snarled at him.

My change of attitude clear, the others around us looked towards me with alarm, but Kevin rose to his feet, the expression dropped from his face.

"You wanna fight kid?" He asked in a low tone.

"Yeah, but I'm not here to waste my time on you," I slid past him and I heard a hiss behind me.

"Jaya, what is going on?" Fred questioned, and when I turned around and saw the curious eyes of the dragons behind me, I knew I needed to say something.

What was it that Lewis had told me? Hope?

He was a fool to think hope would motivate a dragon.

A pile of rocks in front of me, I scrambled to the top and turned to the gathering in front of me. Most had returned their attention to the mess around us, but a few still watched, the curiosity only growing.

The me I once knew, never would have stepped up on those rocks. She never would have climbed them. She never even would have become a dragon. What changed? What made me make that sudden choice? What had turned the once silent girl into someone who addressed the crowds?

A single action. Choice. 

"Not a single one of you thinks more of me than the child who shouldn't be here. I'll tell you something about that, though," I said in an open communication. I saw dragon heads turn, and when I saw Metta's head turn, I thought for sure he would chase me away. But I kept going.

"I chose this life. I chose to be a Dragon Warrior, with every fabric of my being, because to me there was nothing more empowering than having the ability to tear away at the very beast that had taken everything from me. When I finally turned though, I saw something I could hardly believe. It was dragons that still believed they were human."

"What a way to motivate the masses, I must say," the voice a familiar sound in my head, I knew it was Devini and with shock I whirled around and saw him standing high on a rock pillar above my head.

"And with that, I tell you all, move out!" He called out, his eyes locked with mine.

Dragons all around fluttered into the sky. The air was so full I could hardly breathe but Devini still watched me and I was locked in place.

"Fly with me," he called out privately and then took to the sky.