Tank had a way of cutting to the heart of the matter. Feeling so stupid, Peter knew his friend was right. But deep down, he was afraid, afraid for his friend, unable to bear the thought of her being cast away, tossed aside like a little loved or played with rag doll.
'If the council want to do that, then they're most certainly going to have to go through me,' he mused, embracing his friend and apologising to them both. Quickly, he shook Flash's hand, thanking him for his honesty. Then the three of them just sat and waited, all the time watching over their stricken friend. Her breathing was a little ragged, Peter noticed, as her chest rose and fell, but he was glad that she was sleeping, and hoped that the pain from her injuries didn't trouble her so much in that state.
In the blink of an eye, their visiting time was over. A large dragon nurse pulled back the curtain and escorted them back out of the ward, the way they'd come in. As they shuffled back towards the entrance, the sound of muffled voices rang through the air from behind the giant, all encompassing curtain, now off to their left. It certainly sounded like the king, in a rather animated state. Intrigued, the three of them tried to get a little closer, but the nurse was having none of it. Having been suitably reprimanded, they continued on their journey, with Flash and Tank both having the same idea at almost exactly the same time. Casting barely noticeable mantas that enhanced their hearing many times over, they waited patiently to hear what was being said, but to no avail, as the voices remained muffled and incoherent. Flash figured it out before Tank. The curtain! Clearly the curtain was imbued with some kind of magic, a noise scrambling mantra if he wasn't mistaken. Whatever was going on in there, the medical staff certainly wanted it to remain a secret.
Reaching the end of the ward, the dragon disguised as a nurse held the door open for them to leave. Tank and Flash walked straight through, while Peter glanced back over his shoulder, hoping to glimpse the king one more time before they left. Disappointment spread out from his chest like a spilled drink when he couldn't spot the monarch. Just as he was about to turn round, he noticed the giant curtain had got snagged on something, leaving a gap from foot to knee height. And through that gap he caught sight of something extraordinary, something that just shouldn't have been. Before he had a chance to take stock, he was grabbed by the arm and thrust through the door.
"Come on sonny, you've done enough gawping for one day. Be on your way," cackled the nurse. And with that, she slammed the door shut behind them, leaving all three alone in the eerily darkened corridor.
Lagging behind his friends, mulling over everything that had happened not only in the ward just now, but the events of the previous week, Peter, despite having lived through it, and there had been moments (particularly in the clubhouse when Tank was laying down the mantras to contain the laminium bomb's blast) when he'd thought he wouldn't survive, it still seemed like a whirlwind of a dream to him. Things had happened so fast, and had gone from nothing to everything in the blink of an eye. As if saving everybody at the sports club wasn't enough, even though it came at the cost of the building itself, the loss he felt at losing Janice's friendship, well... love actually, cut deep. And then to find that Richie had been in the cellar when the building had been obliterated was nothing short of heartbreaking, only to be negated by the fact that she had, amazingly, survived. That had all been combined with a short spell in jail until everything had been sorted out, and with the much bigger picture: the devastating terrorist attacks across the globe which had wreaked havoc both above and below ground.
'The earth,' he thought, as he continued to follow his friends, 'is a much more dangerous place now than at any other time I can remember. I just want things to go back to how they were... safe, secure, playing hockey, with the clubhouse intact, and my beautiful Janice tucked up in my arms. Oh why did it all have to go so wrong?'
2
A Wing And A Prayer
A dragon call to arms went out across the kingdom to every living and breathing dragon. The world had been savagely attacked, the like of which had never been seen in its history. Even the darkest days of the previous World Wars paled in comparison with this outrageous, audacious act of violence.
Of course they all knew about it, each and every one of them. It had been plastered across the telepathic papers, with signs and banners flashing and pulsing away at the local storage nodes, making sure every dragon consciousness that arrived there got the message. As if that weren't enough, the king himself made a personal plea, compelling dragons to drop what they were doing and join the rescue efforts in any way they could. And they did, in their hundreds of thousands across the planet, those who were able taking human guise, infiltrating the world above and offering as much aid and assistance as was dragonly possible. Other, mainly subterranean, dragons made their way to the underground areas that had been hit in the attack. In his plea, the king had issued orders that everything was to be used in their fight against whoever had perpetrated this heinous act of barbarity, and in repairing the damage that had been wrought across the globe. So everything was. Both above and below ground, dragons wove their magic in two totally different ways. Below ground, dragons openly used their magical energies to cast mantra after mantra, some to the point of near exhaustion. Most were moving wreckage, some were reinforcing damaged structures, others carefully recovered the bodies of the slain. It was a grim task for sure, but by working together and drawing strength, both physically and emotionally, from each other, progress was made. Dragon towns and cities were made safe and the dragon corpses were recovered with as much dignity as possible.
On the surface, dragons used their power in much the same way, following the king's appeal. Small groups operated across the stricken sites, openly using their power, careful not to reveal themselves to the humans, well... mostly, but more concerned with time ticking by, and rescuing those that remained trapped or badly injured. The use of their power wasn't casual or reckless, but more measured, controlled, and just... MORE! It was almost as if they'd stepped out of the shadows and into the light. Things got done. For the most part the humans were in disarray, and had little chance of noticing the speed with which things were progressing, or indeed how much of the heavy work had been completed without the need for cumbersome machinery. Survivors were found... mothers, sons, fathers, daughters, animals in all different shapes and sizes, all saved because the rulebook had been thrown away, at least for the time being.
Efforts, however, didn't stop there. Magical mantras were used to repair electrical sub-stations and the infrastructure they needed to provide power. Water was also an issue, but this was child's play to the dragons on the ground. With their eidetic memories, creative minds and wealth of magical power, they almost resembled gods in what they could do. Hospitals in the midst of a blast radius sprang up from virtually nowhere, as good as new, having been obliterated only days before. Sewage systems were not only repaired, but made more efficient and effective. All this was achieved without the humans' knowledge. How? Groups of police, fire and other government bodies, all dragons in disguise, manned (or dragoned) each and every perimeter cordon, at each and every site. Some were harder to maintain than others, some required extra resources which duly arrived, thanks in no small part to the plea from the king. In most cases, humans couldn't get within a mile of the edge of each blast. It was teamwork on a massive scale, with parties of dragons numbering in the hundreds, purely devoted to organising the hundreds of thousands of volunteers who were answering the dragon king's call.