The Wolves Ch. 016

"We just spent the last two hours practicing," I replied.

"Perfect. Are you ready to depart? It is earlier than I was expecting, but perhaps I can extend the tour before we meet with the council."

"I'm ready. We can depart at any time."

"Alright, transform into your dragon form again, and we'll be on our way."

I started the transformation and could hear my mom speaking to Selalea.

"A friendly warning, Selalea. Abi is able to track Jonathan no matter where he goes. If something happens to him, you'll have her to contend with."

"I fully understand, Alexandra. If it were my son, I would give a similar warning. Rest assured that no harm will come to him while he is in my care. Dragons aren't in the habit of backstabbing our friends."

"Very well, then," my mom said. "My husband will be here in a few minutes with a tablet containing all the suitable planets they were able to find. Some of them are close to Scyftan space, and old allies, while others are nowhere near other inhabited systems. Abi put together a detailed plan for how she will transport the eggs, so you can show it to the council."

"Thank you. That will help a lot."

My mom turned to me, now that I was done shapeshifting into my dragon form. [I highly doubt anything will happen, but if you get into trouble, use the orb Abi gave you. She will advise us of your location, and a team will be ready to go in, if needed.]

[I will.]

A portal opened and my dad came through, followed by Yuki. My dad walked up to me and handed me the tablet, and a holographic projector. I had to awkwardly turn one of my forearms so he could place them in my huge paw. As soon as they made contact with my paw, I put them into my dimensional storage.

[See you all later,] I said, as Selalea was transforming back into her dragon form.

Everyone said goodbye, and watched as we all leapt in the air, using our powerful wings to propel us higher and higher. Eventually we leveled off, and I realized we were flying south, making me wonder where we were going. I was flying close to Selalea, and was surprised I was able to understand her when she made some noises.

"Can you understand me?" she asked.

I didn't have a clue how to answer, so I just nodded.

"We're going to start teleporting now. How about you teleport as far as you can in front of us, and we'll follow."

I nodded again and picked a spot in front of me. I teleported forward and a moment later Selalea and the other dragons teleported in right behind me.

"Nicely done! Alright, we're going to keep teleporting until we get to our destination. Follow behind us."

When she saw me nod, she teleported away and was instantly followed by her son and the other dragons. I looked for them in front of me, and teleported in behind them. This continued for about twenty minutes, at which point we stopped.

"Do you see the island ahead of us?" she asked.

I looked forward and saw a small, flat island that didn't seem to have any life on it. When I saw it, I nodded.

"That is Jarvis Island, and our destination is below it. Soon, we're going to start descending. When we're about fifty meters over the water, we're going to dive beneath the waves. Just hang at the back and follow the other dragons in, alright?"

I nodded and slowed slightly. We all started slowly descending, and when we were low enough, I saw Selalea and her son dive in the water with other dragons right behind them. I tucked my wings in like the other dragons were doing, and took a deep breath, following them in.

The dive sent us pretty far below the water, and we continued to swim further down. I was easily able to see the dragons in front of me, and copied them. They kept their wings tucked in and used their tails to help propel them through the water. Soon, we came across a large opening. Selalea led us all inside and I could see that there was a large air pocket, and even a small beach lit by light globes around the cavern.

I stuck my head out of the water, and saw Selalea and her son transforming into their human forms, with other dragons doing the same when they reached the beach. When I walked out of the water, I did the same. It sucked having to wait nearly three minutes, while all the other dragons were able to transform in a third of the time, but soon all of us were standing in our human forms. Looking around, I could see that all the dragons in the cavern were wearing red clothing, similar to the color of their scales. I wondered if that was significant.

"What do you think?" Selalea said, walking up to me.

"It was pretty fun, I really enjoyed flying. I wasn't expecting the dive into the water, though. How did you manage to find this cavern, anyways?"

"You'll see. Follow me, and we'll descend."

She led me to the back of the cavern, where there was an opening that led downwards. I noticed the dragons that flew with us weren't following, and I was curious about that.

"Why aren't the other dragons following us?"

"I'm required to have an escort when leaving one of our cities. Now that I am back in one, they are free to do whatever they wish."

"Oh."

The passage we were descending down was smooth and went in circles at a slight decline. It would be big enough to fit three or four humans standing side by side, but wouldn't allow a dragon in their natural form through. We descended for about five minutes before finally coming to a set of doors. I was very surprised to see what was guarding those doors.

There were two creatures that resembled dragons, but were more humanoid in appearance. They had blue scales and looked quite streamlined, wearing form fitting armor and wielding large tridents. The female was about eight foot tall, with the male surpassing her at nine or ten foot tall. They nodded at Selelea and turned to let us pass. The doors seemingly opened on their own.

When we were through, I looked at Selelea. "What were those?"

"Blue dragonkin. They're offshoots of dragons and are unable to fly. As a result, they spend most of their time in our cities, and usually guard them."

"Is there a significance in the color of their scales? All the dragons I'd seen up to that point were red, like yourself."

"There is, indeed. What do you think of when you see a red dragon?"

I thought for a moment. "Fire?"

"That's right, and what about blue?"

"Water," I replied immediately. "There are different breeds of dragons?"

"Eight, in total," she answered. "Each breed has their own strengths, weaknesses, and abilities unique to them. Red dragons are able to breathe and control fire, and blue dragons can do the same with water. I'm sure you noticed that the two blue dragonkin you saw are rather smooth, and don't have spikes and such sticking out of them like red dragons do? Blue dragons spend a lot of time in water, so they evolved to become better swimmers. You'll see that all eight breeds of dragons have their own quirks."

"I noticed that this passage is rather small. Why is that?"

"Thanks to our ability to transform into humans, it allows us to build smaller and have more room. We do have a few large areas where we can travel in our natural form, but we decided to build small. Perhaps on our new planet, we'll build bigger, since we won't have to hide anymore."

We continued walking while chatting until we came across another set of large doors on our left. There were two more blue dragonkin guarding the door, and they let us pass upon seeing Selalea. The doors opened and we walked into a large, well lit room. There were a few more guards inside, as well as other blue dragons and dragonkin walking down the long aisles. Some of them were wheeling carts around with blue eggs on them.

"This is one of the blue dragons' egg chambers," she said, leading me further into the chamber.

Secured to the ceiling were chains that extended downward in a loose coil before being anchored to the floor. There was a square platform attached to the chains at each corner, roughly five meters below the ceiling. Every four meters thereafter, were more platforms, with there being a total of five platforms in each stack. Each platform was about sixteen meters square, and a half a meter deep, with a raised lip to prevent eggs from falling off. They actually reminded me of the hanging fruit baskets that my mom had at home.

I wasn't sure how many eggs these stacks held, but I could see row upon row spaced a fair distance apart, so stacks wouldn't collide if there was an earthquake. There must have been tens of thousands of eggs in this one chamber, alone, but it was hard to tell. The setup wasn't very efficient compared to Abi's, but they didn't have the benefit of stasis.

"I thought you said the eggs were beach ball sized? I've seen a bunch that are a lot smaller."

"Those are dragonkin eggs. There are comparatively fewer dragonkin eggs than there are dragon eggs. Later on, I'll give you a list of the exact amount of each so you can pass it along to Abi."

"Works for me, and it will take up a lot less room. Is this the way you were planning on storing eggs if you ever managed to build your own ships?"

She nodded, "Earthquakes used to be the most common way our eggs would be destroyed. With this system of storage, there hasn't been a destroyed egg in hundreds of years. We figured it would be our best option for a ship as well."

"Well, Abi's solution should be a lot better. Each egg will be placed in its own padded box and put in a shipping container. That, along with stasis will ensure that eggs don't even move a micrometer, even if Abi hits something, or is attacked."

"Is that likely?"

"I wouldn't say so, no. Abi is much faster, and more protected than even the very advanced ships currently on their way here. There won't be any issues, and I was told that a powerful fusion reactor is also being installed, to be extra safe. There will be no risk of any eggs being destroyed."

"The rest of the council will be happy to hear that. Would you like to continue with the tour?"

"Sure," I said, as she led me out of the egg chamber.