"There were dragons when I was a boy.
Some say they crawled back into the sea leaving not a bone or a fang to remember them. Others say they were nothing but folk tales to begin with.
But maybe one day, a time may come where the dragons will return...
After the other pair of guard dragons landed on the outer rim of the caldera entrance, they detached their mecha's flight packs and made their move.
They followed Akio and Amari through the tunnels that led deeper into the nest. It took a good while to get through because of the dead ends and small entrances. After that while, they reached the rim of the inner entrance.
It was like stepping into an alien world unlike anything previously imagined. The immense cavers were filled with skyscraper-tall stalactites and stalagmites, which were covered in bioluminescent crystals, fungi and hard coral. Ahead laid more pools and waterfalls that cascaded down deeper into the caverns.
This view simply took the breath away from the three humans.
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"[Its...Its beautiful...]" Alice was heard breathing out on the radio. "Magnificent. Utterly magnificent." Dr. Elias said from beside Henry as he began to take photos and videos of the place. "(~Heh. Looks like someone seems to be amazed~)" Amari observed from the mindlink. When Henry turned his mecha sideways to face Amari, he noticed that she had a glow pattern on her fur. Even Akio had his own scaly glow pattern as well. "Wow. You two are literally glowing!" Henry said. "(~What are you saying? You two are glowing too.~)" Amari said. She was right; some of the neon-colored segments on the mecha frames were exposed to the same light effect, causing them to glow too. Alice noticed this and was just as admired as Henry and Elias were.
"I think it's enough time of admiration. Let's find the old monitor and get these three monitors installed before anyone realizes we're here." Alice said later as she unpacked one of the monitors from her mecha storage container. "Right." Henry said as he got his tools ready.
They continued to walk with great caution, careful not to attract unwanted attention while searching for the old monitor beacon on their radar. During their travel they came across what appeared to be pillared nests filled with glowing eggs, their transparent shells revealing the dragon baby inside. Tiny glowing dragons covered the ceiling, looking like stars clustering against the blues and greens of the bioluminescent cavern walls.
One of the few tiny dragons that left the ceiling came close to where Henry and Alice's mechas were walking. It hovered in front of them while also approaching, looking very cute. Henry moved his mecha's hand in front and reached out to the extremely-small glowing dragon with a mechanized finger. To their surprise, the tiny dragon simply perched itself on the metal finger as if it were not afraid of the huge mecha. Henry brought the hand a bit close to the visor to admire the small creature. Indeed it WAS cute on closer inspection. After a few seconds, it lifted off once again into the ceiling to rejoin its cluster buddies.
"Got that recorded." Elias said from Henry's side, smiling. Afterwards, they continued to travel in the direction where the beacon was on the radar until they reached the near section of their destination. Just as they were about to arrive, Dr. Elias suggested "I think I may need to go out for closer study. This may be the only opportunity there is to learn more about their home." before he opened the hatch. "Wait! Don't go out yet! We don't know if the environment is—" Henry said worried before he realized that nothing happened to them after a few seconds. "If any of us haven't had paid attention to the instruments about the biohazard and radiation levels here, we'd already be dead. And yet, the instruments say it's safe here...I'll go collect samples while you two install the monitors." Dr. Elias said after he got down from the mecha with his equipment. "You're going alone?" Alice asked, and Elias replied "Akio can come. Is that ok with you?" while turning towards the night fury. Akio nodded as he let out a positive growl in agreement and nuzzled Elias's had with his snout. "Ok then. But be safe out there and return to us as quickly as possible." Henry said, then closed the cockpit hatch to continue walking to the old monitor location. ——————————————————————————————— The "old monitor" that the three humans were searching for was a small black metal box, the size of a timberjack egg. It was surprising to Amari that no dragon had ever noticed such small thing left inside their midsts for a long time. And now they were about to replace it with three new ones it seemed.
"(~These "monitors"...what will they do?~)" she asked to Henry through the mindlink, who was installing some sort of tools onto the hand of his metal giant. "(We are installing these so that we get an alert when you guys come out. That way we start getting prepared for an attack.") Henry answered. "(~I hope we no longer have to fight. Dragons versus humans...It has to stop some day.~)" Amari said, coming close to Henry and nuzzling his hand while purring. Henry paused for a moment before saying "(Yeah...I hope so too. With this experience that we had and what we've learned from each other, both sides will understand once we tell them.)" and continuing to install the last two tools.
After that he got inside his metal giant and went over to the monitor to start removing some sort of metal nails from around it. When the last nail was out, Henry picked it up and placed it on his box shaped storage bin. Later he and Alice installed the new monitors in another side of the pillar nests, where it would be least expected to find. "Let's install the third monitor a bit deeper." Henry suggested, and Alice agreed. "(~Come. I'll lead you to another place. But after you finish I have to go to an important place.~)" Amari said on the mindlink.
