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Chapter 8.

“Sir, is all this really necessary?” A brown haired man in a green draconium armor suit by the name of Ronn Saddler said into a vidlink, on the other end was one of the managers of Scalesheen corp.

“Reports from the last raid said there was a lot of mag energy discharging going off, that means dragons. The CEO wants all our breeding facilities locked down tight, we couldn’t afford losses like that in the first place. Now get to work.”

“Yes sir.” The man replied even as the other end cut off the connection. He put the green full helmet on his head and went over to his bull class dragon. He was part of Scalesheen’s independent security force, and he’d been called in along with his squad to reinforce the defences of this, one of several of the company’s other breeding stables.

<<>>

Compashun, along with Payshance and Wydgett, crept forward to look out over the edge of the roof of the building they were on, to overlook the Scalesheen breeding building, the number 1, apparently, from what their guide was telling them. The rest of the group was hiding in the alleyways behind them.

“We here now, other breeding pen. That big place, lots of dragons inside, but lots of people too.” Wydget whined. “Oh, too many people, they see! They see us if we go…”

“Calm down Wydgett…” Compashun crooned, nudging him with her snout. “You don’t have to go anywhere near there, but I do need your help still.”

Wydgett had agreed to help them almost instantly once Compashun told him their story. The thought of being locked up for a lifetime alone incensed him, even if she hadn’t told him about the egg stealing.

“What Wydgett do to help?” he chittered.

“When we escaped, all the lights went out, then dimmer ones came on, and our stall doors opened. We’re not sure how it happened.” Compashun explained to the light green male.

“Oh!  Power go out.” He snorted.

“Power?” Compashun trilled quietly.

Everything work on power, it like when we mag. Things no get power, things no work."

“Then why did the other lights come on?” Payshance said, even though she was still keeping an eye on the street ahead of them.

“Emergency power.” Wydgett elaborated. “It useful, help when main power go out, so can see where walk, get to safer place, but can’t do much.” He continued chittering.

“So how do we get the power to go out again?” Compashun asked in a low rumble, her mind working overtime.

“Stop power from getting to breeding pen.” Wydgett snorted, as though it should’ve been obvious.

“Wydgett…” Compashun trilled, prodding.

“Power come from generators, generators push power through wires, wires meet at ‘transformers’, branch to other wires, go to buildings.” He explained, sounding haughty at his superior knowledge. Payshance nodded slowly, taking it in as best she could.

“Alright, now where’s… whatever it is that supplies this place with power?” Compashun asked in a low rumble.

“Um…” Wydgett grunted thoughtfully. “Nearby, am sure. There many power transformers for each sector.” He continued.

“Good… Payshance, get together some of your best pack females, say five or so…” Compashun said to her second in command. “Wydgett, I want you to lead her and her group to whatever is supplying this place with power. The rest of us are going to attack that place the moment the lights go out.” She said, looking out over the force of bull class dragons that were guarding the entrances to the building.

Payshance nodded to Wydgett, who turned and followed the larger pack female. Compashun looked out over the opposition they’d be facing for another minute, and then turned to go rejoin the group down below.

<<>>

Ronn rode his dragon around the building’s periphery in an easy circuit., his bull class dragon, Rokkur, snorting every so often. The dragon was bored, he knew how large and powerful he was, and backed by two dozen other such bull class males, there wasn’t much likelihood that anything would try this place. Still, he was outfitted in some of the best gear dragon city had to offer; green ramming gear, a pair of red thrusters if he really had to move, and a fair allotment of brown battle armor.

They were making a round past the front entrance when a loud bang was heard a few blocks away, followed almost immediately by the lights flickering out and casting the area into near pitch darkness.

“Blast it, Lights!” Ronn shouted, even as he and the others were turning on the ‘headlights’ mounted on the front of their saddles. In a moment they were searching the darkness for anything moving, hoping to catch whatever crafty culprit had done the first heist, and was now trying this tactic a second time.

A moment later, a blue energy class dragon walked out of the shadows… shortly followed by several more… then by a number of pack class dragons…

The entirety of the shadows beyond their spotlights seemed to be moving towards them… and growling.

“Commander…?”

Ronn gritted his teeth. “Don’t let them through!” he shouted, before clicking on the Ramming gear, firing a warning shot from his ramming gear in the general direction of the advancing mass of dragons. The ones in the front leapt out of the way, but the ball apparently hit one of the ones in the back, because it squealed as the thing sent it flying backwards.

With one of their number hit, the rest of them became at ocne alarmed, and enraged. The low level growl that had been coming towards them turned almost into a general roar.

With the Ramming gear still active, Ronn hit the boost thrusters, and sent his dragon careening into the mass, hoping to scatter the mass of dragons. While it was slower than it would have been normally, due to the sheer weight of the brown armor on the bull class dragon, Rokkur found himself bowling over dragons in no time. The smell of fear and aggression in the air was nothing new to him, but there was something there that was… very, very out of place. After the finished the first charge, he turned, the light on his saddle illuminating nearly a dozen of the dragons he’d knocked over, picking themselves up… mostly, some of them were having trouble standing.

And then the dragon saw something that, when connected to the strange smell he’d inhaled during the charge, made him go practically light green with horror. These females had a telltale bulge in their middle… most of them were small, but coupled with that peculiar scent told him everything he needed to know.

They were gravid, carrying eggs. And he’d just blasted through their ranks like a bowling ball through a set of pins.

Suddenly, Rokkur was hoping desperately he hadn’t hurt any of them, the first time in his life he thought he might’ve been too harsh. He nearly felt like he was about to faint when he noticed one of the energy class females was actually limping.

Suddenly, he realized that he was getting orders from the saddle to charge again, and apparently had been for several seconds already, as Ronn was getting angry with him, shouting “Move you idiot!” at him, as the dragonesses were rounding on him, bearing their teeth and flexing their claws.

“I can’t….” Rokkur whined, right before a round dozen angry female dragons leapt at him.

<<>>

“Calling all units, calling all units, reports of a massive disturbance in Mid city east 22nd district. All available units please respond.” came the dispatch on Captain Faier’s communicator.

“Isn’t that where another of Scalesheen’s breeding centers is?” Said one of the officers with him.

“This is quickly turning into a crime spree. C’mon Cuffs!” Faier said, the blue bipedal dragon below him roaring in response before setting out in a sprint.

<<>>

“Oh no…” Connor said. He’d overheard the dispatch on his scanner, but considering up here it was still bright out, Artha and the others were probably in a class in the academy. Being called out twice in the span of a week, for any reason, would be too much of a strain on their already tentative enrollment in the academy.

“What’s that dad?” Lance said through the vid link. The boy was out on the track with Fracshun again, and Connor was supposed to be coaching them.

“Uh… nothing Lance.” Connor said, shaking his head. “Take Fracshun through the obstacles again.”

<<>>

Compashun stood, panting, outside the building. The human defenders had been routed, though their dragons had offered up some resistance, and a few of her companions had been hit. She worried for the ones who seemed in pain, but she couldn’t take the time to slow down, and instead told a few of their number to take the injured aside, back to where they’d been hiding before the attack had been launched. Among them had been 0144, the older female having been hit hard by the projectile ball in the first moments of their attack. Thankfully, though she limped, she was able to keep up with the few escorts that were handling the ‘injured’ females.

Taking point, Compashun broke in through the front doors, blasting them with a mag stream and sending them flying open before she charged in, but the defense she’d expected inside wasn’t there.

“No humans?” She growled, confused. She was sure this was some kind of a trick, but shook her head and turned to look behind her. “Everyone with me. There’s two levels with breeding pens directly above, let’s go!” She called out in a high trill before sprinting up a very familiar looking ramp.

They arrived at the first blast doors without seeing any humans at all. The lights here were, again, the dull red ones that had filled their breeding stable when they’d escaped a few days ago, and now some of the dragonesses, herself included, were feeling very uneasy, even as they kept in mind their mission, to remove other dragonesses from the fates they’d managed to slip free from.

This time, Compashun organized three dozen of her followers into a line behind her as she took the point with the concentrated mag-streams, half of the streams deep blue, half a pale purple. The metal heated up in no time, and slowly melted into a puddle, which the dragonesses backed away from. On the other side, there was no cry of fear, however. And Compashun began to become very worried. Her eyes were still readjusting to the light, now that the mag-streams were no longer illuminating the darkness and nearly blinding her… until she saw a quadrupedal dragoness walking up to the still glowing metal, looking at her with a mixture of confusion and interest… This dragoness had shorter, more heavily muscled legs and a longer more sinuous body than hers, and a very long neck, with a wide, square jawed head with long ears coming off the back corners, giving her a rather dramatic appearance. She was very, very dark in color, and while Compashun couldn’t really make out the specifics of her coloration in the red lighting, she could see the jagged delineation of color running down the female’s side.

“Who are you? Did you just break the door? What’s going on here?” The female suddenly demanded. Behind her, Compashun began to be able to make out the reflections of light faintly in the eyes of a large number of other dragonesses of a similar type to this one.

“In order, Compashun, yes, and we’re breaking you out of here.” Compashun said.

The female on the other side of the hole in the door snorted a single, short draconic laugh. “What are you, crazy? The humans will be very upset if we just leave.”

“And what have the humans done to earn your trust?” Compashun asked her.

“They feed us, care for us when we’re sick, and help us when we hurt in the middle.” The other female trilled.

“Those ‘pains’ you describe, they make some strange objects come out of your bodies, don’t they?” Compashun trilled, the other dragonesses behind her sitting down.

“Yes, what of it?” the other dragoness growled.

“I don’t have time to dance around it, but they’re called eggs. And they carry young dragons. Think about that.” Compashun trilled in an even tone.

The other female opened her mouth as though to say something, then suddenly what Compashun had said hit her and she stopped. “Young dragons?”

“Yes.” Compashun replied. “Young dragons which they force us to make, then take from us, when we are supposed to be their caretakers, their guardians. To the humans we are nothing but machines to make more of ourselves, from our flesh.”

“Wh… what!?” the female before her snorted, shocked, along with numerous other confused sounds coming from her kind behind her. “Why?”

Compashun shook her head. “I can say no more on the matter now, there are more dragonesses in this place that we need to release. You may either come with us, or stay here.”

“Hey! You can’t drop that on top of us and expect us to just follow you, HEY!” the dark colored female roared after her as Compashun took off and lead her group up the sloping corridor to the third level breeding pen, the second of two here in this breeding center.

<<>>

Word Paynn maneuvered several of his wraith dragons into position around the Scalesheen breeding stables. He’d also picked up the call dragon city security had put out, and now his wraiths were watching what was happening there intently, though augmenting everything in infrared, since the light level was too low to transmit in a normal frequency back to him.

“This female’s proving to be very resourceful… I didn’t expect her to assault another stable, but if she’s building an army, it’s not a bad place to start…” he mused.

<<>>

Compashun arrived shortly thereafter at the second set of blast doors, without a sound, all the other dragoneses lined up and began mag pulsing at the door, concentrating everything on one point in order to heat the metal. Almost before they managed to do any real damage to this one, they heard dragons on the other side, screeching and roaring. Once the hole in the door was open widely enough, Compashun made to go closer and see if she could see what kind of dragons were on the other side… but before she even got there, a large quadrupede dragoness, it’s primary body color a brilliantly bright one even in the dull red light leapt clean through the hole, looked around, and moved towards the ones who had released her.

“Hello.” The female chirred. “Did you do that?” she continued, looking Compashun over. The other quadrupede female was by no means anything like a bull class, but she had a fair deal of bulk on her, and she had these odd horns, one on top of her head, and one on her chin, which she could raise and lower. At the moment, they were shifting somewhere around middling, a 45 degree angle to her skull as she inspected her ‘rescuers’.

Compashun grinned, then trilled. “Yes, we’re getting you and all the other dragonesses in your pen out, and I’m running short of time to explain why. Please, make sure none of them are still in their stalls."

“Oh, we’re all here.” She snorted in laughter, then turned and looked at the other females on the other side. “We’re going OUT!” she almost screeched back into the pen, and a loud, emphatic roar came from the other side, before a wave of pale colored, oddly horned dragonesses came pouring out from the hole, and dashing down the corridor back the way Compashun and her mixed group had come from.

“Hey! Wait up!” Compashun called, stunned by the odd reaction from these dragonesses, before she took off after them, her group following immediately on her heels.

Ahead of them, Compashun heard the sound of pounding dragon paws as the pale females raced on, then, suddenly, a lot of screeching of claws on metal as they tried to abruptly stop, and a lot of roars of shock and alarm… before the thuds of a lot of bodies colliding. Compashun felt a surge of horror, had they just been attacked?

Then, rounding a corner, she found a large number of the pale dragonesses standing back from a pile of moaning, stunned bodies… mixed between the pale and dark dragonesses, while on the other side of the pile a bunch of the dark females were backing away, stunned by what had just happened.

“Watch where you’re going!” one of the dark dragons snapped before pulling herself out of the pile.

“If you weren’t blocking our path we wouldn’t have hit you like that!” one of the white females retorted with an annoyed growl.

“Well… this is different…” One of the pack females chuckled.

Compashun groaned. “What this is, is ridiculous…” she shook her head. “You!” she barked at the white female who’d spoken first. “Do you have a name?”

“Funny you should ask.” The other female grunted with a wry grin on her face. “It’s Affecshun, and you are?”

“Compashun.” She replied with a trill. “Affecshun, could you please sit still for two seconds? You can’t just run off like that. We need to stick together or the humans are probably going to recapture us and stick us back in those pens.”

“My tail they are!” the female said, growling.  “I’ve hated being stuck in that place every moment of my life. I want to RUN!”

“Well at least you’re willing to get out of here.” Compashun said, before looking at the dark dragoness, amongst the group that had just pulled themselves out of the pileup.

“I’m not going anywhere until I have more information, plus I’m none too pleased with being slammed into like that!” the dark female growled, first at Compashun, then at Affecshun.

“And you would be…?” Affecshun grunted.

“Empathya.” The female snapped at her.  “Now what the blazes was that you were saying about little dragons coming out of those things we push out?” she demanded in a growl. The collected mass of pale dragons suddenly gasped in shock.

“What!?” Affecshun roared.

“I was going to tell you that before you ran off like a mad dragon.” Compashun snorted back at the pale female, who immediately flattened her horn along her neck in apology.

“Can you explain it now?” Affecshun whimpered, trying to sound apologetic even as she was trying to ask for the information.

“Yes, I’d love to hear this.” Empathya purred, smiling, amused at the pale female’s behavior.

Compashun opened her mouth to speak, when suddenly she heard a pair of paws come sprinting up the ramp from beyond the other side of the mass of dark dragonesses… it was Payshance.

“Leader! Leader!” she cried out in a hoarse voice, she’d just sprinted very, very hard, apparently.

“Payshance, what is it?” Compashun trilled.

“More armored dragons coming… ridden by humans… we have to GO!” she panted, coming to a rest next to her.

“Ridden by humans?” Empathya said, confused.

“One of those things I need to tell you about, but only after we get you all out of here, unless you want to just be locked back up inside?” Compashun growled at the dark female.

Empathya looked Compashun hard in the eye. “You don’t seem like you’re lying…” she said after a moment. “Fine, I’ll trust you, for now. Girls!” she called into her kind’s pen, and the rest of the dark colored females came out over the now cooled metal ‘puddle’ on the floor. “We’re going with them.”

“Finally!” Compashun groaned, then took the lead again, running down towards the exit.

<<>>

Captain Faier pulled his dragon to a stop outside the stable building. The front door was wide open, and the contracted green security force was nowhere to be seen. The red and blue flashing lights mounted on his and the other officers dragons exposed dark splotches on the ground in the area, and concidering the smell, it wasn’t difficult for the experienced officer to figure out what they probably were.

“Men, cordon off this area, we got here quickly this time, so the culprit might still be in around.” He said, as Cuffs used a mag stream to pick his rider off his back and deposit him on the ground.

He flicked out a baton and activated a wrist light as he approached the front door of the breeding stable. The interior was filled with the dark red color of the emergency lighting, the only light in the area, and he wanted to see the details as best he could. He heard the men immediately going to secure the rest of the area, already pulling out the yellow tape.

As he crossed the threshold of the breeding stable’s lobby, suddenly he felt the floor start to reverberate. Was the power coming back on? No, the lights hadn’t gone back yet… a back up generator? No, same problem.

“What in the…?” he said, then suddenly realized that most of the rumbling was coming from one level above him, infact, directly above his head… though it seemed to also at the same time be coming from a ramp at the other end of the main level.

He raised his wrist light to look at that ramp, and saw nothing, just a wall at the back of the ramp where it turned. He was about to start moving towards it, when suddenly, time seemed to slow around him, as a large blue dragon came careening around the bend in that ramp, it’s limbs flying as they carried it at full speed… immediately following it were… too many other dragons for him to count, and they, too were all coming at him, looking very intently through him at the door.

It’s odd how moments like that give you such clarity. He was able to pick out several other individual energy class dragons, a number of almost identical looking pack class, and a number of black Psi-class and white Aero-class dragons.

He whirled around on his heels, and ran as fast as he could, though it didn’t feel nearly fast enough.

“STAMPEDE!” he yelled, gaining him the attention of every one of his men, before he dived sideways as the huge mass of charging dragons burst out of the door of the stable, and went spilling out past him, his men, and their dragons, and away into the night before they had a chance to react.

Description
Chapter 8.

“Sir, is all this really necessary?” A brown haired man in a green draconium armor suit by the name of Ronn Saddler said into a vidlink, on the other end was one of the managers of Scalesheen corp.

“Reports from the last raid said there was a lot of mag energy discharging going off, that means dragons. The CEO wants all our breeding facilities locked down tight, we couldn’t afford losses like that in the first place. Now get to work.”

“Yes sir.” The man replied even as the other end cut off the connection. He put the green full helmet on his head and went over to his bull class dragon. He was part of Scalesheen’s independent security force, and he’d been called in along with his squad to reinforce the defences of this, one of several of the company’s other breeding stables.

<<>>

Compashun, along with Payshance and Wydgett, crept forward to look out over the edge of the roof of the building they were on, to overlook the Scalesheen breeding building, the number 1, apparently, from what their guide was telling them. The rest of the group was hiding in the alleyways behind them.

“We here now, other breeding pen. That big place, lots of dragons inside, but lots of people too.” Wydget whined. “Oh, too many people, they see! They see us if we go…”

“Calm down Wydgett…” Compashun crooned, nudging him with her snout. “You don’t have to go anywhere near there, but I do need your help still.”

Wydgett had agreed to help them almost instantly once Compashun told him their story. The thought of being locked up for a lifetime alone incensed him, even if she hadn’t told him about the egg stealing.

“What Wydgett do to help?” he chittered.

“When we escaped, all the lights went out, then dimmer ones came on, and our stall doors opened. We’re not sure how it happened.” Compashun explained to the light green male.

“Oh!  Power go out.” He snorted.

“Power?” Compashun trilled quietly.

Everything work on power, it like when we mag. Things no get power, things no work."

“Then why did the other lights come on?” Payshance said, even though she was still keeping an eye on the street ahead of them.

“Emergency power.” Wydgett elaborated. “It useful, help when main power go out, so can see where walk, get to safer place, but can’t do much.” He continued chittering.

“So how do we get the power to go out again?” Compashun asked in a low rumble, her mind working overtime.

“Stop power from getting to breeding pen.” Wydgett snorted, as though it should’ve been obvious.

“Wydgett…” Compashun trilled, prodding.

“Power come from generators, generators push power through wires, wires meet at ‘transformers’, branch to other wires, go to buildings.” He explained, sounding haughty at his superior knowledge. Payshance nodded slowly, taking it in as best she could.

“Alright, now where’s… whatever it is that supplies this place with power?” Compashun asked in a low rumble.

“Um…” Wydgett grunted thoughtfully. “Nearby, am sure. There many power transformers for each sector.” He continued.

“Good… Payshance, get together some of your best pack females, say five or so…” Compashun said to her second in command. “Wydgett, I want you to lead her and her group to whatever is supplying this place with power. The rest of us are going to attack that place the moment the lights go out.” She said, looking out over the force of bull class dragons that were guarding the entrances to the building.

Payshance nodded to Wydgett, who turned and followed the larger pack female. Compashun looked out over the opposition they’d be facing for another minute, and then turned to go rejoin the group down below.

<<>>

Ronn rode his dragon around the building’s periphery in an easy circuit., his bull class dragon, Rokkur, snorting every so often. The dragon was bored, he knew how large and powerful he was, and backed by two dozen other such bull class males, there wasn’t much likelihood that anything would try this place. Still, he was outfitted in some of the best gear dragon city had to offer; green ramming gear, a pair of red thrusters if he really had to move, and a fair allotment of brown battle armor.

They were making a round past the front entrance when a loud bang was heard a few blocks away, followed almost immediately by the lights flickering out and casting the area into near pitch darkness.

“Blast it, Lights!” Ronn shouted, even as he and the others were turning on the ‘headlights’ mounted on the front of their saddles. In a moment they were searching the darkness for anything moving, hoping to catch whatever crafty culprit had done the first heist, and was now trying this tactic a second time.

A moment later, a blue energy class dragon walked out of the shadows… shortly followed by several more… then by a number of pack class dragons…

The entirety of the shadows beyond their spotlights seemed to be moving towards them… and growling.

“Commander…?”

Ronn gritted his teeth. “Don’t let them through!” he shouted, before clicking on the Ramming gear, firing a warning shot from his ramming gear in the general direction of the advancing mass of dragons. The ones in the front leapt out of the way, but the ball apparently hit one of the ones in the back, because it squealed as the thing sent it flying backwards.

With one of their number hit, the rest of them became at ocne alarmed, and enraged. The low level growl that had been coming towards them turned almost into a general roar.

With the Ramming gear still active, Ronn hit the boost thrusters, and sent his dragon careening into the mass, hoping to scatter the mass of dragons. While it was slower than it would have been normally, due to the sheer weight of the brown armor on the bull class dragon, Rokkur found himself bowling over dragons in no time. The smell of fear and aggression in the air was nothing new to him, but there was something there that was… very, very out of place. After the finished the first charge, he turned, the light on his saddle illuminating nearly a dozen of the dragons he’d knocked over, picking themselves up… mostly, some of them were having trouble standing.

And then the dragon saw something that, when connected to the strange smell he’d inhaled during the charge, made him go practically light green with horror. These females had a telltale bulge in their middle… most of them were small, but coupled with that peculiar scent told him everything he needed to know.

They were gravid, carrying eggs. And he’d just blasted through their ranks like a bowling ball through a set of pins.

Suddenly, Rokkur was hoping desperately he hadn’t hurt any of them, the first time in his life he thought he might’ve been too harsh. He nearly felt like he was about to faint when he noticed one of the energy class females was actually limping.

Suddenly, he realized that he was getting orders from the saddle to charge again, and apparently had been for several seconds already, as Ronn was getting angry with him, shouting “Move you idiot!” at him, as the dragonesses were rounding on him, bearing their teeth and flexing their claws.

“I can’t….” Rokkur whined, right before a round dozen angry female dragons leapt at him.

<<>>

“Calling all units, calling all units, reports of a massive disturbance in Mid city east 22nd district. All available units please respond.” came the dispatch on Captain Faier’s communicator.

“Isn’t that where another of Scalesheen’s breeding centers is?” Said one of the officers with him.

“This is quickly turning into a crime spree. C’mon Cuffs!” Faier said, the blue bipedal dragon below him roaring in response before setting out in a sprint.

<<>>

“Oh no…” Connor said. He’d overheard the dispatch on his scanner, but considering up here it was still bright out, Artha and the others were probably in a class in the academy. Being called out twice in the span of a week, for any reason, would be too much of a strain on their already tentative enrollment in the academy.

“What’s that dad?” Lance said through the vid link. The boy was out on the track with Fracshun again, and Connor was supposed to be coaching them.

“Uh… nothing Lance.” Connor said, shaking his head. “Take Fracshun through the obstacles again.”

<<>>

Compashun stood, panting, outside the building. The human defenders had been routed, though their dragons had offered up some resistance, and a few of her companions had been hit. She worried for the ones who seemed in pain, but she couldn’t take the time to slow down, and instead told a few of their number to take the injured aside, back to where they’d been hiding before the attack had been launched. Among them had been 0144, the older female having been hit hard by the projectile ball in the first moments of their attack. Thankfully, though she limped, she was able to keep up with the few escorts that were handling the ‘injured’ females.

Taking point, Compashun broke in through the front doors, blasting them with a mag stream and sending them flying open before she charged in, but the defense she’d expected inside wasn’t there.

“No humans?” She growled, confused. She was sure this was some kind of a trick, but shook her head and turned to look behind her. “Everyone with me. There’s two levels with breeding pens directly above, let’s go!” She called out in a high trill before sprinting up a very familiar looking ramp.

They arrived at the first blast doors without seeing any humans at all. The lights here were, again, the dull red ones that had filled their breeding stable when they’d escaped a few days ago, and now some of the dragonesses, herself included, were feeling very uneasy, even as they kept in mind their mission, to remove other dragonesses from the fates they’d managed to slip free from.

This time, Compashun organized three dozen of her followers into a line behind her as she took the point with the concentrated mag-streams, half of the streams deep blue, half a pale purple. The metal heated up in no time, and slowly melted into a puddle, which the dragonesses backed away from. On the other side, there was no cry of fear, however. And Compashun began to become very worried. Her eyes were still readjusting to the light, now that the mag-streams were no longer illuminating the darkness and nearly blinding her… until she saw a quadrupedal dragoness walking up to the still glowing metal, looking at her with a mixture of confusion and interest… This dragoness had shorter, more heavily muscled legs and a longer more sinuous body than hers, and a very long neck, with a wide, square jawed head with long ears coming off the back corners, giving her a rather dramatic appearance. She was very, very dark in color, and while Compashun couldn’t really make out the specifics of her coloration in the red lighting, she could see the jagged delineation of color running down the female’s side.

“Who are you? Did you just break the door? What’s going on here?” The female suddenly demanded. Behind her, Compashun began to be able to make out the reflections of light faintly in the eyes of a large number of other dragonesses of a similar type to this one.

“In order, Compashun, yes, and we’re breaking you out of here.” Compashun said.

The female on the other side of the hole in the door snorted a single, short draconic laugh. “What are you, crazy? The humans will be very upset if we just leave.”

“And what have the humans done to earn your trust?” Compashun asked her.

“They feed us, care for us when we’re sick, and help us when we hurt in the middle.” The other female trilled.

“Those ‘pains’ you describe, they make some strange objects come out of your bodies, don’t they?” Compashun trilled, the other dragonesses behind her sitting down.

“Yes, what of it?” the other dragoness growled.

“I don’t have time to dance around it, but they’re called eggs. And they carry young dragons. Think about that.” Compashun trilled in an even tone.

The other female opened her mouth as though to say something, then suddenly what Compashun had said hit her and she stopped. “Young dragons?”

“Yes.” Compashun replied. “Young dragons which they force us to make, then take from us, when we are supposed to be their caretakers, their guardians. To the humans we are nothing but machines to make more of ourselves, from our flesh.”

“Wh… what!?” the female before her snorted, shocked, along with numerous other confused sounds coming from her kind behind her. “Why?”

Compashun shook her head. “I can say no more on the matter now, there are more dragonesses in this place that we need to release. You may either come with us, or stay here.”

“Hey! You can’t drop that on top of us and expect us to just follow you, HEY!” the dark colored female roared after her as Compashun took off and lead her group up the sloping corridor to the third level breeding pen, the second of two here in this breeding center.

<<>>

Word Paynn maneuvered several of his wraith dragons into position around the Scalesheen breeding stables. He’d also picked up the call dragon city security had put out, and now his wraiths were watching what was happening there intently, though augmenting everything in infrared, since the light level was too low to transmit in a normal frequency back to him.

“This female’s proving to be very resourceful… I didn’t expect her to assault another stable, but if she’s building an army, it’s not a bad place to start…” he mused.

<<>>

Compashun arrived shortly thereafter at the second set of blast doors, without a sound, all the other dragoneses lined up and began mag pulsing at the door, concentrating everything on one point in order to heat the metal. Almost before they managed to do any real damage to this one, they heard dragons on the other side, screeching and roaring. Once the hole in the door was open widely enough, Compashun made to go closer and see if she could see what kind of dragons were on the other side… but before she even got there, a large quadrupede dragoness, it’s primary body color a brilliantly bright one even in the dull red light leapt clean through the hole, looked around, and moved towards the ones who had released her.

“Hello.” The female chirred. “Did you do that?” she continued, looking Compashun over. The other quadrupede female was by no means anything like a bull class, but she had a fair deal of bulk on her, and she had these odd horns, one on top of her head, and one on her chin, which she could raise and lower. At the moment, they were shifting somewhere around middling, a 45 degree angle to her skull as she inspected her ‘rescuers’.

Compashun grinned, then trilled. “Yes, we’re getting you and all the other dragonesses in your pen out, and I’m running short of time to explain why. Please, make sure none of them are still in their stalls."

“Oh, we’re all here.” She snorted in laughter, then turned and looked at the other females on the other side. “We’re going OUT!” she almost screeched back into the pen, and a loud, emphatic roar came from the other side, before a wave of pale colored, oddly horned dragonesses came pouring out from the hole, and dashing down the corridor back the way Compashun and her mixed group had come from.

“Hey! Wait up!” Compashun called, stunned by the odd reaction from these dragonesses, before she took off after them, her group following immediately on her heels.

Ahead of them, Compashun heard the sound of pounding dragon paws as the pale females raced on, then, suddenly, a lot of screeching of claws on metal as they tried to abruptly stop, and a lot of roars of shock and alarm… before the thuds of a lot of bodies colliding. Compashun felt a surge of horror, had they just been attacked?

Then, rounding a corner, she found a large number of the pale dragonesses standing back from a pile of moaning, stunned bodies… mixed between the pale and dark dragonesses, while on the other side of the pile a bunch of the dark females were backing away, stunned by what had just happened.

“Watch where you’re going!” one of the dark dragons snapped before pulling herself out of the pile.

“If you weren’t blocking our path we wouldn’t have hit you like that!” one of the white females retorted with an annoyed growl.

“Well… this is different…” One of the pack females chuckled.

Compashun groaned. “What this is, is ridiculous…” she shook her head. “You!” she barked at the white female who’d spoken first. “Do you have a name?”

“Funny you should ask.” The other female grunted with a wry grin on her face. “It’s Affecshun, and you are?”

“Compashun.” She replied with a trill. “Affecshun, could you please sit still for two seconds? You can’t just run off like that. We need to stick together or the humans are probably going to recapture us and stick us back in those pens.”

“My tail they are!” the female said, growling.  “I’ve hated being stuck in that place every moment of my life. I want to RUN!”

“Well at least you’re willing to get out of here.” Compashun said, before looking at the dark dragoness, amongst the group that had just pulled themselves out of the pileup.

“I’m not going anywhere until I have more information, plus I’m none too pleased with being slammed into like that!” the dark female growled, first at Compashun, then at Affecshun.

“And you would be…?” Affecshun grunted.

“Empathya.” The female snapped at her.  “Now what the blazes was that you were saying about little dragons coming out of those things we push out?” she demanded in a growl. The collected mass of pale dragons suddenly gasped in shock.

“What!?” Affecshun roared.

“I was going to tell you that before you ran off like a mad dragon.” Compashun snorted back at the pale female, who immediately flattened her horn along her neck in apology.

“Can you explain it now?” Affecshun whimpered, trying to sound apologetic even as she was trying to ask for the information.

“Yes, I’d love to hear this.” Empathya purred, smiling, amused at the pale female’s behavior.

Compashun opened her mouth to speak, when suddenly she heard a pair of paws come sprinting up the ramp from beyond the other side of the mass of dark dragonesses… it was Payshance.

“Leader! Leader!” she cried out in a hoarse voice, she’d just sprinted very, very hard, apparently.

“Payshance, what is it?” Compashun trilled.

“More armored dragons coming… ridden by humans… we have to GO!” she panted, coming to a rest next to her.

“Ridden by humans?” Empathya said, confused.

“One of those things I need to tell you about, but only after we get you all out of here, unless you want to just be locked back up inside?” Compashun growled at the dark female.

Empathya looked Compashun hard in the eye. “You don’t seem like you’re lying…” she said after a moment. “Fine, I’ll trust you, for now. Girls!” she called into her kind’s pen, and the rest of the dark colored females came out over the now cooled metal ‘puddle’ on the floor. “We’re going with them.”

“Finally!” Compashun groaned, then took the lead again, running down towards the exit.

<<>>

Captain Faier pulled his dragon to a stop outside the stable building. The front door was wide open, and the contracted green security force was nowhere to be seen. The red and blue flashing lights mounted on his and the other officers dragons exposed dark splotches on the ground in the area, and concidering the smell, it wasn’t difficult for the experienced officer to figure out what they probably were.

“Men, cordon off this area, we got here quickly this time, so the culprit might still be in around.” He said, as Cuffs used a mag stream to pick his rider off his back and deposit him on the ground.

He flicked out a baton and activated a wrist light as he approached the front door of the breeding stable. The interior was filled with the dark red color of the emergency lighting, the only light in the area, and he wanted to see the details as best he could. He heard the men immediately going to secure the rest of the area, already pulling out the yellow tape.

As he crossed the threshold of the breeding stable’s lobby, suddenly he felt the floor start to reverberate. Was the power coming back on? No, the lights hadn’t gone back yet… a back up generator? No, same problem.

“What in the…?” he said, then suddenly realized that most of the rumbling was coming from one level above him, infact, directly above his head… though it seemed to also at the same time be coming from a ramp at the other end of the main level.

He raised his wrist light to look at that ramp, and saw nothing, just a wall at the back of the ramp where it turned. He was about to start moving towards it, when suddenly, time seemed to slow around him, as a large blue dragon came careening around the bend in that ramp, it’s limbs flying as they carried it at full speed… immediately following it were… too many other dragons for him to count, and they, too were all coming at him, looking very intently through him at the door.

It’s odd how moments like that give you such clarity. He was able to pick out several other individual energy class dragons, a number of almost identical looking pack class, and a number of black Psi-class and white Aero-class dragons.

He whirled around on his heels, and ran as fast as he could, though it didn’t feel nearly fast enough.

“STAMPEDE!” he yelled, gaining him the attention of every one of his men, before he dived sideways as the huge mass of charging dragons burst out of the door of the stable, and went spilling out past him, his men, and their dragons, and away into the night before they had a chance to react.