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Book 3: Chapter 4: Scourge-Mass

Judging by Brixaby's sudden stillness on shoulder, he had too. But Arthur was riding a veteran dragon and he was used to sudden dangers on the battlefield.

"Ware above!" Shadow boomed out. "Earth cards, shield your formation!"

They only had one dragon with earthen powers, a brown named Char, who was born with a disintegration power -- what he colloquially called a quicksand power. This was because his rider had a spring-well card. Together, they created an effect that liquefied most substances like quicksand under people's feet.

At Shadow's call, brown Char surged up with a burst of speed. Around him, other brown, tan, and orange dragons -- who traditionally had the powers of material change -- did the same. The falling storm of rubble and boulders began to burst into harmless dust. But they couldn’t get all of it. Boulders were falling. They looked like they were coming down slow, but that was only an illusion due to size.

"Brix!" Arthur called and pointed up.

The little dragon understood. He buzzed closer to Char - close enough to fall within his aura.

Suddenly, even more rocks threatening to land on their heads burst like fireworks Arthur had seen at the end of festivals.

Brixaby was only temporarily copying Char’s power, but he had the strength of a Legendary behind it. That gave a not insignificant boost.

Harmless dust rained down. Arthur covered his eyes to keep from getting blinded.

But rocks and dirt were not the only things expelled from the eruption. The moment Arthur found himself cloaked in dust, he heard the terrible whistling coming from above and around.

Scourgelings. Some would surely fall to their death from being blasted that high and then hurtling to the ground. Others, however, would have wings.

"Dive!" Arthur called, knowing any second that their formation would break apart as the rest of his class came to the same conclusion and then moved to protect themselves. They were still in training, and they had not practiced using card powers during battles. They were more likely to hit each other or other nearby dragons than scourgelings.

His call was taken up a few moments later by Cressida and Joy at the front of the diamond.

"Dive! Dive! Follow me!" Joyberry sang out.

They descended in a ragged formation. Brixaby’s speed meant he had no problem returning to Arthur. His claws sank into the protective pad Arthur had sewn into his shoulder to use as his perch.

Once the formation was below the worst of it, Arthur looked up. The whole sky above was dark with dust. Dragon pairs all over the city who could had used earth powers to break up the worst of the boulders were still working on dispersing the cloud.

But they hadn't gotten everything.

Several boulders had fallen devastated buildings and streets, in addition to the scourgeling survivors that now chased fleeing people.

Arthur dearly wished he and Brixaby could be one of the independent fighters he saw diving after those scourgelings now, or one of the non-combat Lobo rescue teams who ignored the scourgelings and simply flew down to scoop up people running for their lives.

He and Brixaby could do that -- Brixaby's speed and maneuverability were amazing. But it was not to be. They were here to learn to manage a formation on the wing. Besides, Brixaby was much too small to scoop anyone up.

Joy and Cressida continued to lead the way forward. The other dragons tightened up the formation again into a passable double diamond. Soon, they were flying between the buildings, towards the collapsed barrier that cut so many people off from escape.

A small crowd had formed at the base of the debris – some digging for survivors, but most trying to escape. He people scaling the mountain of debris, desperate to get further away from the expanding eruption.

Arthur called to Char and his rider, "Fly ahead! See what you can do to open a way for them!"

The rider signaled he understood with a raised hand, and the two peeled off. Char's ability to reduce stone into dust would help clear a path. Maybe they could even find survivors in the rubble… though Arthur didn’t hold out much hope.

Worse, he spotted a giant scourgeling heading their way. It had taken the form of a dark, twisting mass of... roots? Worms? It was something that tumbled along end-over-end with hundreds of legs, most ending in sharp teeth that mindlessly snapped in all directions.

The mass was one block away and tumbling ever closer as if it could smell the people trapped just ahead.

Cressida yelled out, and a bear made of flame galloped through the air ahead of her. It continued down as if on a steep downward slope and struck at the mass with giant flame claws.

At the same time, Starshine, the yellow dragon, opened her mouth. Light so condensed that it was a heated beam pulsed in a line, striking the mass in the middle.

Several other dragons who had area of attack powers did the same, though with more limited effect. A spear of ice missed the mass of scourgeling completely and instead hit a nearby wall.

We'll have to work on accuracy, Arthur thought absentmindedly. But his heart had swelled with pride for his class.

Though not all of the attacks hit or were effective, they had not trained for this before and were doing well.

One dragon flew over and spat out a tiny flurry of snowflakes that burned when they hit the mass. That seemed especially effective.

Then the diamond formation passed over the scourge-mass and turned in a tight circle, guided by Joy and anchored in the middle by Shadow's excellent flying. Then they headed straight on for another pass.

Though the scourge-mass was looking ragged thanks to the attacks, it continued to doggedly roll forward as if it wasn’t completely aware of them at all.

Until, just as the first few dragons flew over it again, the entire thing blew apart.

At first, Arthur thought someone had lobbed some kind of explosive power at it... though he didn't remember anyone admitting to a card of that nature. Then, as he caught a flash of dark, misshapen parts of the scourgeling jabbed into dragon flesh, he realized he’d led the formation into an attack.

On instinct, he reached for his Phase In, Phase Out card, worrying that Brixaby might not have the presence of mind to do the same. They had access to each other's cards as the borders that defined his heart deck and Brixaby's core were thin... but they hadn't had much practice at it.

He didn’t have the chance to activate the card. In the next second, velvety darkness surrounded them.

He, Brixaby, and Shadow erupted out of a shadow of the downed building several hundred feet from the impact. Shadow had whisked them away.

"What?" Brixaby buzzed straight up in surprise, looking around to get his bearings. "Why are we here?"

Arthur, though, had twisted to look back towards the formation. It was in complete disarray.

Some dragons were downed on the ground, some were still aloft and screaming. The few who seemed to be untouched were flying scattered and confused.

Joy's distinctive pink hide was still visible in the air, though this far away Arthur couldn't see if she was bleeding.

Meanwhile, the scourgeling that had been a mass was scattered everywhere. It was reduced to hundreds of mobile sticks with teeth on each end, snapping this way and that as it flailed in random directions. Some of the snapping sticks recombined with others and started, once again, rolling towards the crowd of trapped people.

“Take us back, Shadow,” Arthur said.

"I cannot. My orders are to keep you safe," Shadow said and added, as if sensing Arthur's growing outrage, "You are a Legendary. There is only one of you and many Commons and Uncommons."

Arthur didn't give a damn, and was about to reach for the shadow teleport power himself.

At that moment, Brixaby let out a roar and launched off his shoulder, not at Shadow, but at several scourgelings which had recombined and were tumbling their way.

"No, Brix!" Arthur yelled.

But his dragon acted like he was possessed. Although he didn't have a strict combat card to fight the scourgelings, he had strength and agility thanks to Arthur's Master of Body Enhancement card.

Brixaby fell on the scourgelings with teeth and claws alone. When one stubborn mini-mass detonated again, Brixaby simply let it Phase through him, using Arthur's card power. Then he fell on the split pieces and ripped them to shreds.

Meanwhile, the initial shock had worn off the rest of the class and those who could were fighting back.

Cressida, who, by the looks of things, had saved herself and Joy completely by using her shield power, sent another flame bear to great effect among the scattered scourgelings.

Starshine was once again beaming her condensed light on small recombining masses and burning them to cinders. Even Keelfree, who had the burning snowfall charms, was peppering some of the remaining scourge. A few, like Brixaby, had landed and were using teeth and claws against the things before they could reform.

"Dragons should not fight on the ground," Shadow commented pointedly. “That’s where we are most vulnerable.”

Cupping his hands around his mouth, Arthur called out, "Form up! Take to the sky!"

Brixaby finished with the last of his scourgeling and quickly returned with his claws full of Common card shards - his harvested haul.

Arthur took them with a grimace. Common. A good portion of his class had been injured by a Common-ranked scourgeling.

Well, a card shard was a card shard. He dropped them into his Personal Space.

Only one dragon couldn't fly the blue who had been the one to badly throw that spear of ice. Luckily, he was small enough to crawl upon the back of an orange dragon who, much like Arthur and Brixaby, didn't have many combat skills.

The orange dragon did have long claws, which were now wet with scourgeling blood, and a smug look on his face.

Fully half of the class was injured, but most were also pocketing new card shards.

The remains of the scourgeling mass was trying to recombine again. Under Brixaby's direction, the dragons swooped down to collect litter from the streets - chunks of broken masonry, fallen rocks, and furniture spilled from smashed-open homes. They then dropped these on the recombining scourgelings to squish them from afar.

It was a lot safer than using untested power so close to trapped people and their own wingmates.

Shadow hovered in the air above, allowing Arthur to sit and watch and feel useless.

Even if he had a card with long-range abilities, he had been lectured time and time again that his place as a Legendary rider was to stay out of the fight except in the direst circumstances. It was a minor faux pas that Arthur allowed Brixaby to join in on dropping stones on the scourgelings. They were meant to save up their strength.

Arthur didn't like it, and he didn't agree with it. But instructor Athena had not followed them through the rip in the sky because he was the ranking rider. That meant he was in charge.

That was how the hive trained their riders: Sink or swim. Fight or die.

He wondered if this was Valentina and Whitaker's decision or if this was simply how things were done.

If it was, he thought, that’s another thing I mean to change.

In the back of his mind, he again relived the horrific scene he witnessed when he was twelve years old: a pink dragon being torn apart by two others. Finding the rider's corpse was how Arthur had gotten his Return to Start card.

It wasn't unusual for dragons not to return from scoure-eruptions. The missing was always logged as simple casualties. More and more often, Arthur wondered if it was really that simple. And if the people in charge knew better than to ask too many questions… and if Uncommon and Common pairs were considered that disposable.

A triumphant shout came from behind him. Arthur turned to see brown Char who he had set to clearing the debris had finally succeeded.

A thin column of stone and brick melted away before his eyes. Some additional stones fell into the new gap, but the waiting crowd didn't care. They surged forward, some sobbing with relief to get that much further away from the scourgelings and battling dragons. Some folks had the presence of mind to call out thank-yous to the brown and rider.

Char and his rider bowed their heads, not out of acknowledgement, but out of simple exhaustion. Arthur didn't need an extra mana sense to know they were depleted. They had saved perhaps a hundred people but were out of the fight to come. It was worth it.

Meanwhile, the class was finishing up with the final pieces of the scourgeling mass. Arthur waited for the last to be harvested and then recalled the dragons back into formation. At least half were still visibly bleeding from the surprise explosive attack.

Arthur pointed to his riders. "You, you, you, and you... oh, and you. You need to immediately fly back through the Wolf Hive rip and return for healing. You're done for the day."

To his surprise, he didn't receive any backtalk. Most of the riders looked exhausted, and no one wanted to see their dragons bleeding and hurt.

Arthur turned to Cressida. "How's your manna?"

"A little more than half gone," she admitted. "Bringing up a shield around Joy and me really took it out of me."

Arthur hesitated. Although Joy wasn't bleeding, if Cressida's mana had fallen that dramatically, she might not be able to effectively protect herself and her dragon if there was another attack.

But he wanted her around. If he weren't in this class, she would be the leader, as a Rare-rider. As such, she was his second in command.

She was also someone he trusted.

As if on cue, Joy spoke up. "Arthur, my quest just updated!"

"Tell me," he ordered.

"Now it has a twenty-minute timer. The rewards haven't changed, though.” She sagged. “That's a bummer."

Her quest update must have sparked something through her aura. Arthur and Brixaby both pick up a version of the quest themselves.

New Quest: An Ally Calls for Aid

An old ally from the past once helped you out and now needs assistance in turn. Will you help them in their hour of need?

Rewards: Vital information/Access to Noble Freeacre's card library.

An ally?

Marion, Arthur thought. He didn’t know where his friend had gone after Brixaby had hatched, but with his connections as an ex-prince it wasn’t hard to imagine him winding up on noble’s land.

Beside him, Brixaby whooped in happiness and buzzed loop-de-loops in the air. The dragon didn’t care about Marion, but he loved quest rewards.

“What are we waiting for?” Brixaby boomed as he came out of his loop. “Lets go aquire—I mean save some cards!”