Dragon Bound

Chapter 28

Two bright dragons flew high above the clouds, one bright yellow, the other bright red with white splotches along it’s spine and tail, they had been flying for hours, the red dragon was following the yellow dragon’s lead for the whole of the hours which they flew, after those long hours, they finally started to descend, much to the red dragon’s relief.

“Where is this place?” Ryoka asked as they touched down after dropping the huge crates they had been carrying, she used mind speak to communicate with Adrian who had earlier told her to keep following him and just trust him.

Ryoka looked around at the expanse of huge and tall bushes and trees, they were in a very deep and thick forest, and where they landed was the only place in the whole forest that could actually land a dragon or two, and it looked intentional.

She used other spectrums of her vision to scan through the whole forest, and she saw what looked like a cottage, but was very larger and spacious and looked rather pretty elegant.

“That’s my home, where I had spent most of my life” Adrian answered Ryoka when he saw her concentrated in the direction of the house, the house he grew up in along with his six elder siblings and his mother.

Ryoka gasped at his words, his home? Where he had run away from to go fight against the WIC? No wonder he had been so bitter and angry at the WIC for what they did to his family as well, she imagined having to live here all her life, with no other person but her parent and maybe siblings, it could be better than having to be on the move every six months and it may be worse, to have to live far away from the rest of the world and shut off from every other person.

She felt pity for him, they really were similar in more ways than one, at that point she saw a few figures rushing onwards towards their direction, there were three of them, and they moved with inhumane speed, ‘they would be here within seconds' she noted.

“Here comes the welcoming party” Adrian said, when he noted the oncoming persons as well, his eyesight wasn’t as great as Ryoka’s, but still, it beat that of any land or sky predator.

“We’d better shift back, we’ll look less threatening that way, although, these guys here will make minced meat out of us should it come to a fight” Adrian said and he started to shift back to human.

Ryoka actually started to get a bit scared at what Adrian had said, from what he had initially explained to her, she was sure these had to be his siblings, but then, he had left this place going over four years now, they might not be in the best welcoming mood, seeing as he had left on very bad terms.

She shifted back to human as well, and then she quickly changed into a jean shorts and an oversized round neck shirt, they hadn’t packed footwear so she remained bare footed, she was standing beside the little crater that her dragon paws had created on the ground, looking at the size of it, she felt so small in her human form.

The three persons burst out of the bushes to the clearing and stood in strategic positions, a triangle surrounding both she and Adrian who was dressed in a shirt and baggy shorts, he grinned and placed his hands sideways as if he wanted to shrugged.

“Hey fellas, c’mon, don’t tell me you didn’t miss me after all these while uhn” he said in a very light tone as if this was how he normally related with the guys whose faces were as serious as an art kid in a calculus exam.

There were two guys and one lady, and they all looked to be around Damien’s age or older, but as it is with dragons, that wouldn’t be their actual age, they might be younger or older, Ryoka learned that after a particular frequency of shifting, when an Eldrian shifts back to human they would be able to either reduce or increase the age of the human that they are, no matter which generation the Eldrian is, after shifting over and over for a couple of years or so, they would be able to choose if they want their human look to age, older or younger or remain the same.

One of the guys went to Adrian and unexpectedly, he hugged Adrian tightly and sobbed a bit, then he released him and slightly slapped his cheek in greeting

“Little brother, you gave us quite a scare with how you exiled yourself, especially when Mom brought the news that she believed you had been captured cos she stopped noting your actions” the guy said with just a slight accent that was most probably Australian.

“Mom knew of my actions and activities?” Adrian asked in surprise and shock, then tears welled up in his eyes, at that time, the other guy came towards him, he looked Asian though, most probably Korean with his slick hair and hot looks.

“Mom never lost you, not till about a year and half ago, she kept tabs on you despite your rebellious ways and actions” he said although in very smooth and fluent American English with no accent whatsoever, after his words he hugged Adrian and playfully slapped his back too.

Then the lady came forth and went to Adrian as well, Ryoka felt as if she had never seen a striking beauty as such as the lady had, she was dark skinned and her skin seemed to glow, she had more build that Ryoka obviously since she is older than Ryoka but then there was something about the way the lady carried herself elegantly that made Ryoka stricken with awe as she just get gaping at the lady.

The lady dished out a hot slap to Adrian, and the sound shook Ryoka out of her staring, she recollected herself immediately after hearing the sound of the slap as if she was the one that got slapped.

Adrian looked back at the lady and grinned widely, showing a bloodied teeth seeing as the slap was strong enough to make him bleed in his mouth.

“Fine, fine, I deserve that, but c’mon when I explain fully you’ll all see it was worth it” Adrian said then he threw his hands open wide and hugged the lady tightly, she returned the hug and even though she was hiding it, a few tears dropped from her face.

“Just don’t ever do that to us again” the lady said, and Ryoka immediately placed her African accent although it was a perfect blend with her American accent and she only noticed it because she had been listening, waiting for her to speak so she could hear and detect the accent.

“Ok, C’mon guys, huggey and touchey time is over, see here is Ryoka, right now I’d only tag her as my badass savior, Ryoka meet about half the family, Hugh, Han Seok, and Letty, watch out for her right hand though” Adrian introduced all parties.

Ryoka smiled as Adrian brothers came and shook her hand, but she blushed when Letty came and hugged her instead and whispered ‘Thanks’ into her ears.

“It is an honor to meet you all, he did not inform me that he was bringing me here, I’d have been more prepared” Ryoka said blushing once again when her eyes met with Letty’s.

“Oh but on the contrary, we cane prepared” Adrian said with a glowing and infectious smiling expression, then he moved back and shifted all the leaves and bushes that had covered the crates of provisions and weapons that they brought here “We are gonna need some serious help with these though, so where is the rest of the family?” Adrian asked as he showed his surprised siblings the tons of load he and Ryoka had come with.

As he asked, Hugh made a sharp loud whistle with two fingers in his mouth, then the remaining three siblings of Adrian came as well, it was when Ryoka saw them that she realized they was an explanation missing, the remaining three persons; two guys and a lady as well, named; Javier, Jamie and Christine looked to be from different parts of the world just like the first three, South America, North America and Europe respectively.

Now the question was that ‘how come six people from six different continent are siblings with Adrian?’ Ryoka obviously knew that some of them had to adopted or maybe all of them was adopted, either ways she kept quiet.

The siblings including Ryoka and Adrian all started to breakdown the crates into the smaller sections in which Adrian had packed them together to make them one whole crate before, in all honesty, Ryoka had been skeptical as she had carried her crates from the warehouse, all her thoughts were only aimed at where they would stash such plentiful stuffs, there was no way it could all fit in the house they stayed with Damien, but then, as if he had read her mind, Adrian had said “Just follow me” and then brought her here, to his family, only his mother was yet to be seen to complete the family.

“However did you manage to get all these?” Jamie asked, they really did see this as a stroke of luck or something, the truth shocked them when Adrian explained.

Adrian started from his last bust of the WIC which had been a trap, then how they caught him and at first locked him up for a long time, he explained the collar which the WIC had developed to use against Eldrians in any form be it dragon or human and he explained that that was the only way he was subdued.

He told them as well of his promotion into the labs and how he was poked and prodded for months not knowing what they were looking for, but he knew they were unsuccessful, it was later through the slip up of some younger scientist that he got to know that the WIC were trying new drugs, serum and implants to make them better control Eldrians, and the control was meant to be total and optimal, it was meant to even control their shifting.

This part of the explanation shocked every other person there including Ryoka, such that they all paused the unloading and unpacking for a few moments and just gaped at Adrian, Adrian had not told her this before so it hit her like it hit everyone else.

Adrian then continued his explanation of how Ryoka came singlehandedly to rescue him even though that hadn’t been her initial plan, and also how she took him ij despite the third party’s decline, then he got to their arrangement and agreement to hit the WIC just as he had always wanted and then to the actual hit and then the packing away of the very load they were currently unloosening.

The siblings all dropped whatever they held and took a few paces back from the crates “You mean to say all these is WIC stuff?” Christine asked in a pitched British accent filled with disgust.

“Well who else do you think we’d be able to steal so much stuff from and be this comfortable with our hand work?” Adrian asked his siblings “They have taken so much from me, from this family, heck from a lot of people in the world, it is only natural that I take from them, that we take back from them as much as we can” he finished.

At that, the siblings continued their work and before long they all had completely dismantled and restructured the big crates to form smaller ones of eight different lines, tied together by sturdy ropes ending with a kind of backpack strap so each person can strap it to their backs and pull along as they walked on to the house.

“I can’t wait to see the look on mom’s face as well when she sees me and all this too, oh Ryoka, you’re gonna love my mom” Adrian said with a huge grin as he was strapping on his own train.

“Uhm Adrian” Javier called to him, the siblings had all stopped now and had sad looks on their faces, Adrian dropped his rope strap as their sad mood infected him, wiping off the grin on his face.

“What? What is it? Mom is in there right? Somebody say something!” Adrian demanded with trembling voice, it was obvious that the siblings wanted to deliver some bad news.

“Mom isn’t here” Letty said sadly, she was the only one who could bring herself to say the words “About a month ago or so, she got an urgent call for help from a colleague, according to what she told us, we never even knew she had a satellite phone until that day, she said it was for rainy days as such, she left and at first was able to get back to us via the sat. phone as she promised, but after the second week, we heard nothing more from her till now, mom is gone” Letty finished.