Freedom

Chapter 4

"My aaarm!" Hoatzin yowled.

Crayfish was comforting him as much as he could, telling him that medics would heal him and he is okay now. Pearl and the rest of the group kept flying, surrounding Hoatzin and Crayfish.

Pearl started to hear wingbeats behind her as they flew over the mountains. She turned her head and saw two dragons were chasing them, wearing silver and black armor.

"Uh, guys? We're being followed," she said out loud. They looked back and also saw what she had seen, making nervous expressions.

"We have to go faster," Opifex worried.

"I can't go faster!" Hoatzin whined.

"Just try, or we'll get caught," Opifex urged, which made Hoatzin wail.

Pearl beat her wings as hard as she could, trying to outrun the guards, but quickly got exhausted and slowed her pace drastically.

"Pearl, we have to keep on moving," Snowdrop told her.

"But, I'm so exhausted," Pearl panted.

"Just a little more," Snowdrop pleaded.

But just as she said that, three more guards came up from the mountains and headed directly towards them

"Oh no," Opifex groaned.

"What do we do? Do we just let ourselves get caught or try to run away?" Pearl asked in a panic.

"I don't think running away could save us. They're faster than all of us, and there aren't very places to go to, up here in the mountains," Crayfish explained. "I think we have one choice, and it's to give ourselves in."

"We'll be put in prison! And I'll be put back in that dark, horrible place!" Hoatzin sniveled.

"I'm going to convince my mother to let us go if they lock us up," Snowdrop retorted.

Opifex sighed. "Should we just... Give up?" He asked, sounding very disappointed.

"I think it's our only choice," Crayfish answered, seeming saddened.

Pearl saw that they all felt let down, and she understood why. They just helped Hoatzin escape, wanting freedom for him. And then the guards found them, making them meet their inevitable downfall of that freedom they only just now got.

And so, the five of them came to a halt, waiting for the guards to grab them and bring them back to the underground bunkers of TaSO. The guards didn't take too long to reach the dragons, but they spoke to them and flew them down to a dark cave with a secret latch that opened only when you entered a passcode or showed a TaSO ID card. And there they were, back in the TaSO station, known as "Cloudpoint".

Hoatzin was taken to a medic while the other four were dragged down to a fancy-looking dungeon, when one of them spoke up.

"Hey, I'd like to have an audience with the founder," Snowdrop barked at the guards.

"The founder is not available at this current moment," one of them said.

"Why not? She always has time for me," Snowdrop demanded.

The guards started snickering at her statement.

"I'm not kidding. I'm Floe's daughter, Snowdrop. The founder's daughter."

She's the founder's daughter? Pearl thought.

But then it started to connect. Snowdrop kept mentioning that she could persuade her mother to get out of trouble, and Crayfish told her that she shouldn't worry right after freeing Hoatzin. As the founder's daughter, she could get anything she wanted, and could get out of trouble easily.