The College Drag, Part 33

I slept for about an hour till my stomach woke me up. It was half past two o'clock and I hadn't eaten lunch and was unconscious for breakfast. I shambled my way to the kitchen upstairs and began to root around for anything to eat. I was so hungry that I would just find something to eat and then just eat it then and there. Leftovers from Mom's meatloaf a few days ago, devoured. A microwave bowl full of macaroni casserole, emptied. A foil full of frozen hamburger patties, ripped open, flash fried with dragon fire and chomped. Once I have meat in my belly, I felt better but I was still hungry. I stiffed the air to find another food source and my snout picked up something. I just sniffed my way closer and closer to whatever it was, walking out the door and towards the barn. I was in a half daze and still a little light headed from being sleepy. When I walked in the livestock pens I found Buddy, Buster and Reggie just resting in their pen. I just sniffed around to find where the food was, but I kept being lead back to their pen. My stomach growled a bit when I looked at Buddy and then it dawned on me.

"Oh my God," I said aloud in horror, "I sniffed them out for food."

I ran back to the house and into the kitchen. My stomach kept telling me to go back and get more meat, but I didn't listen. I grabbed and entire bag full of apples and just started eating them.

'You will eat them and you will like them.' I screamed at myself in my head as I chomped apple after apple.

After I had eaten all the apples, I ate a few pears. I started to feel sick to my stomach, like I had eaten too much too fast. I probably did. I slumped down onto the floor and let myself drift to sleep. When I woke up, I was in the upstairs living room on the couch.

"You went on quite a binge there." Mom said, "You ate all the leftovers, apples and a number of pears. If you were hungry, all you had to do was say something."

"Mom, I have a confession to make." I said fearfully, "I went to the barn and I was drawn to eating the goats."

"You didn't did you?" she replied in shock.

"No," I quickly said in return, "I ran back to the kitchen and ate all the fruit I could to drown out the urge."

"Well you did miss a lot of meals and you were injured." she said, thinking it over by the looks on her face, "Your body was probably was just trying to get what you needed to survive, just keep yourself fed and you'll be fine."

"You aren't worried that I'm slipping even more?" I asked.

"You caught yourself and then did the rational thing." she said with a smile, "You're just going through a hard time and need some time to heal. You're just fine. But I still want you to talk to a psychiatrist."

"I know Ma." I said, "I'll get around to it."

"I figured you'd say that and I know how long it takes you to get around to anything." she replied, "I set up an appointment for you this Friday with Dr. Houston."

I bolted straight up when I heard that.

"You already set up an appointment for me?!" I asked.

"Ethan, I know you don't like the idea of seeing a psychiatrist, but they are there to help you live a better life. You need to lose some of that emotional baggage and let me tell you, you have a lot of it."

"I like my emotional baggage." I replied in my defense, "It keeps me grounded and probably is the reason I still hang onto my life after, you know, this."

"But its eating away at you and it will one day destroy you." she said, patting my knee, "You have to let some things go in order to move on with your life."

"Ma, I'll go this once." I replied, "But I don't think I need to."

"You'll feel better, trust me." she said as she left me alone on the couch with my thoughts.

'I guess once wouldn't hurt.' I thought, 'All they ever do is sit there and nod, scribble on a blank piece of paper and tell you that it's all your parent's fault.'

I just laid back down on the couch as Mom started to cook supper. I felt better; I checked a few of my lighter wounds and found them half way healed. I went to Sam's room to see if she had that CD.
"Sam, you in there?" I asked as I knocked on her door.

"What do you want Lizard." she replied through the door.

"I came to get that CD, I want to take a look at it." I said.

The sound of rustling came as she got out of bed and came to the door. She opened it and handed me the CD.

"Have fun." she said as she slammed the door in my face, inches from hitting me on the end of my snout.

It was normal for her to be cranky, so I could tell she was still tired and sore from our escape, but I still had a few questions.

"Sam, I was wondering." I said, talking at the door, "How did you really find me?"

"The mind link, I told you." she replied.

"Ha ha." I said with mild amusement, "I know that's a running gag on the airsoft fields and I've played along just to screw with the little kids and gear whores that don't know us that well. Come on, we both know every time something like this happens its more than likely dumb luck."

"Fine if you won't drop it." she grumbled, "When we got to Mom at Siloam Springs, I started to search the woods for signs of dragons. I found a foot print and followed the direction of it and found a patrol. We tracked them for awhile, sneaking deeper in till we heard a lot of screaming and roaring and found that hole, the rest you know."

"So you just tracked me down just with your tracking skills?" I asked.

"Yeah, I just wanted to mess with your head and possibly lighten the mood with that running gag." she replied, still with her door shut.

"Well, it's still scary that we do seem to match up tactics without saying anything." I said, "Time attacks perfectly without radios and finish each other's sentences."

"We're brother and sister and have lived in the same house for seventeen years." said Sam, "We just have grown up together for so long that we just know what the other is thinking. Even with you being a dragon, I can see your tells. You still laugh when you're nervous. You crack a joke when things get too serious, mostly a bad pun. Your hands never can stay still for too long, you're always moving them. Your eyes wander around when people are talking to you; you only briefly make direct eye contact. You straighten your pants when you feel uncomfortable and kick the ground when you feel like you're being ignored. All of these tells are still there. My advice, never play poker. You don't have a poker face; you smile when you have a good hand, but have a nervous smile and let out small, choked giggles when you're bluffing. When you lie or are confronted on a lie, you nervously smile and look at your feet. The draconic face you have now only makes the tells more obvious with the over exaggerated facial expressions you do to compensate for that muzzle."

"So I guess I'm not a good liar then." I asked, finding out she was right as I nervously smiled.

"I can always tell when you lie, it's written on your face plain as day." she replied, "Even with that dragon face of yours, the tells are still there."

"Well I guess it makes sense." I said, "I should stick to being honest then."

"It suits you better." Sam said, "You're a lousy liar and far too trusting with people. You've walked away burnt on more than a few occasions because you trusted someone that didn't deserve it; I just hope that you won't get into trouble over it one day."

"I'll try to be more careful with who I trust." I replied, remembering the occasions I tried to be nice and ended up suffering for it.

"Well, I'm getting some rest." she told me, "You go and find out what's on that disk."

"Okay then, sleep well Sam." I said to her.

I didn't get a response, so I get went to the office right next to her room. The office was my old bedroom when I was upstairs, Mom and Dad finally got it sorted and the Hewlett Packard was the perfect computer for the job. It would have all the latest technology to crack any encryption that they might have used on the files.

"Time to make that network forensics class worth the time and effort." I said to myself as I booted up the HP.

I like the HP for its power, my two little IBM Netvistas that are four years old and run Windows 2000 were so clunky and outdated that the only reason I still had them is because I couldn't afford to get a better computer. 512 MB of RAM just doesn't cut it, especially when it's so clunky that I could double click the My Documents folder, go make a sandwich, get a glass of Kool-Aid, eat it all, file my claws, wash my hands and then go back downstairs and finally see the outside edges of the window as it slowly and painfully tries to open the folder. The poor processor is just grinding away at the effort.

"Ah, speed." I said with a smile as the HP just breezed through the start up in moments when the IMBs take ten minutes to fully boot up.

Once the HP was fully booted up, I put in the CD and opened it up.

"Good God, their filing system is horrible." I said as I looked through the chaos of their folders, "Things not in order of importance or even alphabetical, just tossed in there like a dead fish. Sam's file structure is cleaner than this."

Mom has long said I'm anal retentive when it comes to technology, particularly my filing system. My file structures are clean and organized, it's a simple matter to browse through descriptively named folders to get to the files I need. I have cold storage folders for things I no longer use very often and those are carefully laid out to make sure I can find the file I need if I should ever have to go and get it, but forget the exact name of the file.

This file structure drove me bonkers. It was miss matched and the folder and file names made no sense. They would be just a few letters or numbers, all random like someone had a very low grasp on the English language or they took a deranged cat with explosive flatulence and rolled it across the keyboard to name files. I tried opening one of the word documents and got an encryption screen.

"Password huh?" I said with a smirk, "This shouldn't take long."

I had a disk that had a bunch of hacking programs on it that I got from my Computer Forensics class when I was studying for my AAS degree in Criminal Justice. I was happy I kept it. I just loaded up the password cracker, targeted the file I wanted to open and let it do the rest.

"Brute force password cracking." I said to myself, "You gotta love it."

I let the program work and it didn't take long for the file to pop open and all the information in the file was revealed to me. I just set the password cracker on a list of other files to open as I read the first one. It was pretty boring stuff on the first one, mostly about shipping of supplies down the tunnel systems. It was interesting about the number of entries and the various names of the places they shipments came from.

"A large amount of iron ore came though there a few days ago." I mumbled, "Heading to a place called Drylock. I wonder where that is and why did they need so much iron ore?"

The next few files painted a picture of a lot of trade and shipping, ranging from heavy weight things like logs, plywood, iron ore, sheet steel and concrete mix too lighter stuff like food, fabric, radio equipment, television equipment and other essential and luxury items. I looked over a manifest and said,

"They have quite the little operation going on here. They've got lines to get pretty much anything they need, but how are they getting in the first place?"

I read many strange names on the files, mostly dumb dragon names that I guess they thought made them sound more like dragons then human. Made sense from their point of view I guess, suddenly the dragon is far less terrifying when you find out his name is Mervin or something like that. But I tended to get stuck on trying to pronounce those names I'd end up just coming up with a quick version of my own just to speed up the process of going through all those files. A few files down the list and I spotted something odd.

"Justin Reynard." I said as I saw a very human name in the mix, "I wonder what makes you so special."

I did a key word search and found his name along with quite a few other human names in the files as well. I searched for any image files and found a number of them. The dragons had kept a record of what these humans were for.

"So that's how they get these things." I breathed as I saw the connection between all these different elements.

A number of dragons would be sent online to find people that wished to be dragons. MySpace, Facebook, Blogger, YouTube, Yahoo, MSN, AOL, Skype and even Deviant Art all had dragons from the Hierarchy prowling around on them for potential candidates to become dragons. But there was a catch, they had to stay human and help supply the Hierarchy for things it needed. Once they had proven their devotion, the Hierarchy would send a dragon to collect the person and they would be brought in to be turned into a dragon. The dragons had PayPal accounts it seemed as well, tunneling underground so deep had given them a lot of gold, silver and other precious metals and stones to work with. They had a set up going that allowed them to cash in those things and supply their errand boys with the funds they needed. I had a thought that one might just see it as free money and take a bunch of it, but I found a file that told me they had a way of dealing with people that stole from them.

"Human worker number 294, Withers, Daniel A, was withdrawing more funds from the account he was given access to then he was allotted." I said as I read aloud the report of the incident, "A reconnaissance and observation team was sent to his area to determine the cause. They reported that he was buying expensive items such as a new car, television and was in the process of buying a very high end house. He was flashing money, reportedly stating, 'I lucked into such a good deal with a bunch of reclusive freaks, that they pay me to get stuff for them because they told me they were dragons. All I had to do was say that I wanted to be one too and they told me to prove to them that I was willing to go through with it by getting them stuff they needed. I'll suck that bank account dry and live it up with the rich and famous because of a bunch of weirdoes in their parents' basements.' The order was given to capture him and bring him into answer for his crimes. During the trial, he stated that he didn't know that he was working for real dragons and pleaded for a second chance. He was sentenced to becoming a battle dragon and the procedure was carried out on March 18, 2006. Battle Dragon 178, known by his handlers as 'Major Poopy,' was sent to the Grock's Fire facility for advanced training shortly thereafter."

I was shocked to read that, but not surprised. I let out a low whistle and said,

"These guys are strict."

I went through more files to find out that they have been at this for quite a while. The files dated back to only 1995, being copied from their originals and transferred to newer systems as technology advanced, but there were a few files that were retyped from hand, or claw, written documents that dated all the way back to the late 1800s. Most of those were just old and boring stuff about how humanity was on the verge of destroying itself and how they should attack now to easily take over the world. Battle plans and things of that nature were in those old files as well. Each case had the same reason to not go through with it, too risky and not enough dragons to get the job done. They had a few running censuses going.

"Late 1800s had just over one thousand dragons worldwide." I muttered as I looked over the information, "1900, one thousand five hundred, 1920, two thousand. That holds steady for a while till 1960 and 1970 when it jumped to four thousand. The hippies weren't the only ones into free love it seems. 1980 is goes to five thousand, 1990 is jumps again seven thousand six hundred and the last census at 2000 says eight thousand five hundred and seventy eight dragons total worldwide. Seems like a small number to me."

I looked for a reason for the shallow number of dragons in the world and then I found the reason. Some of the files talked about raiding parties on other clans of dragons out there.

"The Hierarchy isn't the only large group of dragons. The census is for Hierarchy dragons worldwide." I said to myself, "June 12, 1998. Raid on Drakes Brotherhood clan successful, much needed females and territory acquired. New transport site under construction, prepare for incoming tunnel from new shipping center. Many raw materials are here, this was worth the effort and the losses."

'These guys sure are a strange bunch.' I thought, still reading more of the files, 'They've built so much and yet it's all going for an all out assault on humanity.'

I found a particular image file that immediately got my attention. It was more current layout of their bases and how they were set up to do what they planned on doing the whole time.

"They've set up these shipping centers as supply depots for when they mobilize their forces." I said, still in shock as I looked over picture on the screen, "They've picked off these little clans because they sat on ground they wanted.  There's a network of these depots all over the country."

I stared in shock at all the little red dots and red dash lines that crisscrossed all over a map of the United States. That tunnel entrance we saw in our escape was just one of hundreds all over the country, all set in strategic locations. Near military bases, state capitals, refineries, ammunition plants, anti air defense platforms, airports and other important installations and heavy population centers. Every major city had at least two depots near it. It was both horrifying and amazing to see, a true wonder of tactical genius on the part of the Hierarchy. Some large circles that where in the middle of nowhere I figured to me underground cities, I was sure I was right when I saw the name of one near Boulder Colorado was Drylock.

"They can retreat underground and pop back up anywhere they want to like evil, scaly moles." I said, just in awe at the shear amount of time, effort and planning this must have taken, "They've got the place wired for sound, but they must realize that they don't have the numbers to win."

I looked into what other things they were up too, but found very little worthwhile. But there was one file about a plan B.

"Huh, I wonder what this is?" I asked myself as I opened the now unlocked file, "Horknor says, 'If we can't beat humanity, then we must eliminate humanity from the equation. I say we should step up production of the stones and then seed the major population centers of the humans all at once. Their government won't know what hit them. Humans are too curious for their own good and it is very likely that a great many of them will fall victim to that drive and become one of us. When the population swells to such a high level, open conflict will be inevitable. Humans will hate and fear the new dragons and they well be forced to defend themselves, thus doing the very work we desire them to do. When all is said and done, the remaining humans will be killed and dragons will rule the planet as we were always meant to. Humans will react very predictably when under this kind of attack. No matter how hard the resulting dragons will try to be accepted if that is the path they take, they will fail just because the shear amount of them. Humans will see that they are being exterminated and react as any lesser creature would, attack. It'll be the last one they ever make.'"

That alone scared me even more then I already was. They were coming up with so many different ways to bring about the end of humanity that I didn't know which way was worse. I had learned a lot about the Hierarchy from those files. I made a copy of all the opened files and stored them in a folder on my flash drive to store on my personal computer to study later, then I went downstairs, started my secondary computer, hid the disk in my bedroom closet and when my computer was finally on, I saved the files into a folder buried deep in my hard drive.

"There," I said as I deleted the files on my flash drive, "That should be safe enough. No internet connection on this computer and so out dated that it's sad; no one would ever look there. I'll give the disk the proper authorities when I figure out who to trust.'

I decided to take it easy for a bit till I was back on my feet. I laid down on my bed and just thought about all I had found out. It was scary really. A group of hostile dragons were out there getting set to try and take over the world. The only saving grace we had was they didn't have the numbers to do it, at least I didn't think they did. 2000 was a long time ago and a lot can happen in eight years. About an hour and a half later, the smell of cooked food got my attention and I went upstairs to see what Mom had made for dinner. The smell of honey baked ham with all the seasonings drove me bonkers as I climbed the stairs. My jaws hung open and my tongue hung out of the side of my mouth. The closer I got to the kitchen the more my mouth watered. By the time I got to the top of the stairs, I needed a rag. Mom was there just pulling the golden ham out of the oven. I snatched a rag and wiped my jaws dry.

"You look hungry." she said as she noticed that my eyes were tracking the ham, "Well it'll be ten or fifteen minutes till diner is ready."

"Awe." I groaned, my stomach growled.

"Have an apple." Mom said, returning to her cooking.

I just got an apple out of the bowl and ate it. My stomach growled again that second the fruit hit it.

"Best I can do for now." I said as I walked into the living room.

I laid down on the couch, checking my wounds a bit. They were a little more healed, but still tender. I felt my right wrist suddenly get a lance of pain in it. I snarled and grabbed it. I just worked out the cramp.

"I guess the .500 has more kick to it then I thought." I muttered, "The adrenaline must be wearing off."

I just massaged my aching wrist to relieve the pain as my sense of smell drove my stomach nuts from Mom's cooking. Finally after fifteen minutes of sore muscles and stomach pains, Mom said,

"Dinner's ready."

I didn't need to be told twice. I shot up and zoomed into the kitchen. I grabbed a plate and cut off as many slices of the honey baked ham I thought was my share. I could eat the whole thing, but that would be rude, so I just ended up eating a quarter of it for starters. There were vegetables and twice baked potatoes there as well; I put some of them on my plate to round out my meal and to avoid Mom saying anything about it. Sam and Dad came in a little while after me; I was just finishing up putting my meal together when they just started. I went to the dining room and sat down with my plate, silverware and glass of milk. All of it just looked and smelled delicious. Again, my stomach grumbled about not being fed yet, so I just started to cut the slices of meat into bite sized chunks and put them in my maw. Mom's honey baked ham is a pleasure to eat, it's one the best meals she makes. When she does make it, I take my time with every bite. This time though, I got an urge to just chomp it all down and take the rest of the ham for myself. I suppressed it as quickly as I could and just returned to enjoying my meal, but it did startle me a bit. Mom, Dad and Sam joined me at the dinner table.

"You sure look like you're enjoying that ham." Sam told me as she sat down and just began to eat.

"You should have seen him wander up the stairs," Mom said with a laugh, "His tongue was hanging out of his mouth and he was drooling."

"You're ham is very good Ma." said Dad, "You could put it out on the heat pump and I lay you odds that there'll be five or six dragons coming out of the woodwork to eat it."

"I was wondering, about that comment you made to that silver dragon." Mom said, "What did you mean by that?"

"Oh, he was trying to turn me into one of those battle dragons that attacked us yesterday." I replied, still more focused on the ham then the conversation.

"WHAT?!" she yelled.

"That hole he had in his chest was made by a jewel." I began, swallowing my food to speak properly, "The jewel is a variant of the stones, but instead of turning a human to a dragon, they turn a dragon into a more primal version of itself. He fell on the one he tried to use on me."

"Oh honey, are you okay?" Mom replied, very upset.

"I'm fine." I said, just shrugging it off, "He didn't get the job done so it doesn't matter."

"It does matter." she shot back, "You almost were turned into a beast. That had to be a terrifying experience."

"It was, but I wasn't so its fine." I replied, "Nice to know that you have a line there."

"What line?" she asked, looking puzzled.

"The line of what is a beast and what isn't." I told her, cutting off another slice of ham, "When Zeus brought up a lizard he caught from the woods, you wiggled and said it was disgusting. You even recoiled when it moved with its slithering walk. I came out and caught it in an ice cream bucket and let it go in the woods. What's so different about me now then that lizard you were so disgusted by?"

"A lot Ethan, a lot." she fired back at me, "That little lizard is an animal and it acts like an animal. You don't, you have manners and a sense of reason and restraint. It walks with a slither, you don't. You know I don't like snakes. You used to scare the hell out of me when you were little and come up to the house with a garden snake in your hand. You'd grab them by the head and let them coil around your arm, bring them right to me and say, 'look what I caught ma.' I'd scream and you'd just laugh as the snake would just try and get away. I never understood how you never got bit."

"I'd grab them by the head and hold it where it couldn't bite me." I replied, "To let it go, all I had to do was flick my wrist and centripetal force would force the head out and away from me. The snake would just flop on the ground and book away."

"For a kid, you sure know a lot about wrangling snakes." Dad said, "Reminds me of what me and Ron would do."

"You and your brother did tons of stuff like that." Mom replied in a huff, "It's a wonder why you two aren't dead."

"Well, still." I said, returning to my meal, "It's nice to know that I'm not a disgusting lizard or reptile to you Ma."

"You are my son." she calmly replied, "Nothing could make me stop loving you."

"Thanks Ma." I said, my muzzle had a nice, warm smile on it.    

The rest of the time at the dinner table was just some random talk about what was going on in our lives. I just continued to eat, trading off the ham for the other things on my plate to make it last. I had gone back for seconds on the ham and by the time the last bit of juicy ham was sitting there on the plate by itself, I was just so stuffed with it that I didn't think I could eat one more bite. I poked the fork into it and with a shaking claw, I put it my jaws. I chewed it up and swallowed it and it was like a little bell went off.

"You okay man?" Sam asked.

"Honey? You feeling okay?" Mom asked me as well.

"I'm just," I replied, letting out a little hiccup, "I'm just full is all and I'm a bit sleepy."

"Ham makes you tired." Dad said, "Go lay down and you'll sleep like a log tonight."

"Okay then." I said as I slowly stood up and started to walk towards the stairs, "I'll see you guys in the morning."      

So after dinner, I just went down stairs and fell asleep. The next thing I knew, I heard a loud thump. It shook the whole house like an earthquake. I rolled out of bed and looked around the room. It was night out, my clock read 11:45 P.M. A deafening draconic roar came blasting from outside.

"COME OUT HERE AND FACE ME DRAGON!" it bellowed.

I reached under my bed and got my revolver. I pocketed a box of ammo and went upstairs.

"Some guys just don't take a hint." I growled to myself, putting rounds in the revolver's cylinder.

When I got to the top of the stairs, I could see a huge blood red and black dragon in the backyard. I just opened the wood door, but not the screen door and shouted,

"You know what time it is?! People are sleeping!"

"You killed your own kind!" he shouted back, "You killed dragons that are working for our future, a better future! I will make you pay for what you did!"

"They brought the fight to me!" I yelled, "They could have left me alone and there wouldn't have been a problem, but no, they had to go pick a fight and they lost! Tough luck, now get lost!"

"You let a human kill our leader!" he roared, "You should have fought him yourself!"

"I did kill that prick!" I snarled at him, holding my revolver up so he could see it, "Put a round right through his big fat head!"

"Wait, you won in a fight against our leader?" he said, his tone changed dramatically. He looked surprised at what I had said.

"Yeah, I use a revolver to fight. I like it better." I replied, just answering his question.

"According to our rules of dominance." he started, "If a male kills the current dominate male, then that male takes his place. That would make you the dominate male of our section clan now."

I stood there bewildered. I didn't know they operated on that kind of mentality. I knew they liked to be old fashioned, but there is a line there.

"So you guys have to do as I say now huh?" I asked warily.

"You're the dominate male now." he said, sounding disgusted by the words, "You are in charge of all the dragons under our section clan. That means you also inherited the job of doing the bidding of the Higher Council of Masters of the Hierarchy clan."

"Oh no, I'm not joining your little group of dragons bent on world domination." I growled back at him, "As far as I'm concerned, I just popped a bad guy and I'm moving on. You guys can sort through what you want to do now, but I'm not going to be involved with the Hierarchy. No way, no how."

"Wait, you can't just refuse." he replied, growling a bit, "You have to lead the clan now; you earned the right to lead us into battle against the humans."

"Not something I want to do, nor am I ever going to do." I shot back, "You like the job, it's yours. My advice, just go home. Humanity will grind you guys into paste if you go through with those plans to take over the planet."

"Our leader told us we had to serve our masters and that meant we could never leave." said the big red dragon, sounding very confused, "That humans are weaklings and will be easily conquered. You're telling us to get out, to leave the Hierarchy and the safety of the clans."

"To tell you the truth, I'm not sure those clans are the safe way to go these days." I replied, "I'm sure there's family and friends you want to see and most likely other dragons in your 'section' clan want to go home as well. As far as I'm concerned, you live your life like how you want to. It's up to you guys to do what you want. Humanity knows about dragons and a system is going into place to allow us to live like normal, or as normal as it can get for us, in society. Now's a chance to cut and run, I'd take it if I were you."

"You are the strangest dragon I have even laid eyes on." he said, "You gain control of a section clan to call your own, lead it into battle and you turn it down to live among humans. I haven't been in human society for twenty years. I don't know if I can go back, much less like this."

"You never know." I said as I started to close the door, "I'm sure there's a job you can do. Big guy like you could work on bridges and skyscrapers, set I-beams by yourself. Or maybe something else, you never know till you try."

"I wonder if my parent's even still care about me." the big dragon said sadly, his head drooped down.

I held the door open a little bit and said to him,

"The love of a parent is something that doesn't fade away. They'll love you and be glad that you're back. Just give them a bit to sort themselves, break the news to them slowly. A phone call might help."

"I'll tell the clan what you have told me and I'll see to the ones that wish to return to society." he replied, "For the time being, I'll watch over the ones that wish to remain in a clan, but I think it's time we enter the world again. I'll set up a new den for us to live in. While digging the tunnels, we found a gold vein. That should pay the humans for a bit of ground to call home and begin to set up a half way point for dragons wanting to return home, but are unsure of how to go about it."

A smile formed on his muzzle and so did one on mine.

"That sounds like a very good idea." I told him, "Go for it man. I never did catch your name."

"My clan name was Grador." he replied, "But I think I'll go back to my human name. It's Brendan, Brendan Kenster."

"Well nice to meet you Brendan." I said, still with a big smile on my muzzle, "I wish you luck with your half way house for wayward dragons."

"I always wanted to help people." he said. His face was livelier and his eyes had a sparkle to them, like he just found something he was dreaming of for a very long time, "Call me silly, but I always wanted to be social worker and help people get back on their feet. I guess my dream didn't die when I became a dragon; it gave me a new chance to make it come true. Thank you. I came here to kill you for ending what I thought was our future, but you gave me hope for an even better future. I don't know how to thank you."

"There's no need." I said, opening the door up a bit more to see him better, "That dream was still in your heart this entire time, you just needed a chance to go for it. You came up with the half way house idea on your own, that was all you. So go out there and make it happen. Best of luck to you."

"I think this is a dawning of a whole new future for us." he said, "One where we don't live in fear or under harsh rule, forced to prepare for a war against humanity."

"Yeah, about that." I asked, "What do you know about that?"

"Not much I'm afraid." he replied, "All I know is the Higher Council of Masters plans to launch an all out assault on humanity and we were supposed to be ready when the order was given. From the talk, we were just about half way to completion when you blew our cover."

"So you guys are under powered to do the job?" I inquired, fishing for details.

"As far as I know, we do not have the strength to best humanities collective military might." he told me, "I think this might end up for the best. No lives lost and we all live our lives again. No harm done."

"Well let's all be on our best behavior and make a good impression shall we?" I said, "No need for any misunderstandings."

"Indeed." he said back to me, "I'll do my best. With luck, I might just be able to make this work."

"I want to tell you something." I said in a serious tone, "You can fly around and call for Arnold. He's a rebel dragon that might be able to help you. He's fighting against the Hierarchy and he might need a place to send dragons that want to go home or can't fight for some reason. You two might be able to help each other out."  

"Thanks, that's really nice of you." Brendan replied, giving me a big smile.

"Not a problem." I replied and returned the gesture, "Now I really need to get some sleep, you take it easy and good luck. Oh, one more thing. What's with all those eggs?"

"Those are our children." he said, sounding a bit surprised that I asked about that, "They we're to be raised as dragons without a hint of humanity on them, pure dragons. I now that I think about it, that sounds like a very bad idea."

"You think?" I asked, a little surprised at that answer I got.

"When a hatchling reaches a certain age," said Brendan, "They are taken away from their parents to be raised and trained to be the very best dragons they can be. When they return after five or six years, they aren't the little kids we knew. They stand stiff as a board and follow any order without question. I knew a little hatching a long time ago. His name was Ekote. He was a funny little hatchling, always playing games and jokes. There was a smile on his cute little face pretty much all the time. He liked to walk on two legs better then all fours. He said that it made him feel better, like a human. He went on about humans and how he longed to see the human's world of wonders. His parent's would tell him stories of their lives as humans and he would just listen so intently to every word. When he turned four, they came and took him and fifteen others away for training. I didn't think much of it at the time; it was just the way they told us it was. 'For the good of all dragons' they said as they flew off with all of them. When Ekote came back, a full grown young dragon, he was very different. So much so that his parent's didn't even recognize him as their own son. He was mean, ill tempered and hostile. He'd get into fights; slashing and clawing other dragons that even hinted at his old self or one's that he saw never trying to walk on all fours. After he came back, I never saw him upright. He was always walking on all fours and he'd snarl and growl and any dragon that walked on two legs. One fight I saw him in he bit the neck of a new dragon that had just come in. The dragon's only offence was saying he wanted to go home. Ekote roared back at him 'You can never go home. The humans are our enemies and we will feast upon their flesh by the thousands. Their world will burn and we shall reign over this world forever more.' When I saw what they had done to that sweet little hatchling, it was the first time I begun to question the values of the Higher Council of Masters and whether they were truly trying to save the world from destruction or simply hastening it."

"That's sick." I said, my stomach felt like it was moving around, "Taking children away to be raised like that. That's just horrible."

"Now that I've seen it from this new perspective, I say I feel the same why." he replied, "I've been so blind the past few decades. I just wanted to live without fear that I believed them when they told me that the only way to do that was to destroy the human's control over this planet. How could I be so stupid?"

"Don't be so hard on yourself." I said, trying to be comforting, "You see it now and it's not too late to turn this thing around for the dragons that you know."

"I must act fast." he said, "If I'm to get everyone out, I must do it before the pure dragons move in to fill the void of power. In the current chaos, I can get them all out."

"You might need some help." I said, opening the door, "I'll come with you and lend a hand, or claw."

"There'll be a lot of dragons that don't like you there." Brendan cautiously told me.

"If they want out, then they're going to have to deal with it." I said, "I'll get some more ammo and I'll be right back."

I turned around to head back downstairs to see Mom and Dad standing in the kitchen and they looked upset.