Chapter Text
“Wait,” Qibli started before the tesseract fell at their feet. Peril tried to take it unsuccessfully, and burned her hand in the process. (Moon still wondered how.)
Silence.
Then the mountain began to rumble, and rocks showered as the tip broke and cracked the rest. Moon, Turtle, and Peril shot into the air first, safely hovering away from the rock shower. Qibli shot up after them, but a rock caught onto his wing, keeping stuck on the ground. Winter circled back and landed next to the rock, and began to heave it upwards.
The mountain collapsed, but the shadow of it wasn’t gone.
A large black dragon with a golden set of antlers emerged from the mountain, stretching his arms upward. Winter and Qibli were where his feet would be.
The dragon stuck his hand into the rubble and lifted a stick, then frowned. The stick grew in size until Moon could see every detail. It was a long golden stick, matching his antlers, and at the end was a glowing blue jewel next to a point.
Winter was using most of his weight to force the rock off of Qibli, and Qibli was helping.But the black dragon grabbed Qibli’s body and lifted the rock off him. Winter scrambled away from the large black talons.
“Hello.” The large black dragon boomed. Winter growled, and sent a shot of cold frostbreath into his face.
The black dragon wiped the smoke away from his eyes. “You are silly, you can’t hurt me.” the dragon tapped Winter’s chin. “But, you do have heart.” He lifted the large golden stick so the point was at the base of Winter's neck. Winter stopped struggling, and his eyes went wide. His normally dark blue eyes enlarged to become full black, then shrank back and turned a lighter teal color. Moon noticed it was the same color as the jewel.
Winter began to hover next to the dragon’s side. The dragon looked around, glance drifting from them to the tesseract at his feet. He smiled, but before he could grab it, a pale yellow talon came out of the nearby rubble and snatched it. The dragon reached down into the rubble and pulled out Qibli by the tail. The dragon lifted his gold stick.
“I won’t let you have it!” Qibli swung around so his back was to the dragon. But Moon saw him make his “I just realized something” face. He turned his head, and looked down as the seam line between the dragon’s wing and torso. “Darkstalker,” Qibli breathed.
Darkstalker rolled his eyes and tossed Winter upward, now Winter lay on his back in Darkstalker’s palm, still clutching the tesseract. He pressed the tip of the stick to Qibli, and just as Winter, his obsidian black eyes turned to a flat shade of teal.
“You have brains, but aren’t the strongest.” Darkstalker said, and Winter released the tesseract.
Moon looked at Peril, then at Turtle. They looked back, with one, shared thought: Run. At that moment Moon, Peril, and Turtle took off toward JMA.
“Oh, don’t worry, I’ll come find you! When I have all my power!” Darkstalker cackled.
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The Jade Mountain Academy, or JMA, was a small organization created by Tsunami as a way to protect the world from the animus magic. When Moon was first introduced to this place, she was thought she’d committed inter-tribal crimes, but she had just been a perfect candidate to help with Project: Tesseract. Apparently five other dragons also suited the position: Kinkajou, with her weak stature but vast materials and brain, Turtle with his shape-shifting abilities, Peril with her innate abilities and moral compass, and finally, Qibli, the sharp-shooter of the group. Qibli could use any weapon to battle. Moon was a mind reader and minor-prophet.
Tsunami and her closest friends, although for legal reasons assistants, Sunny and Clay. Sunny and Clay ran around organizing smaller teams of dragons that worked on a multitude of things. But the Tsunami talked directly to them. And right now she was asking the Information Specialist, Starflight, about the tesseract.
“So, you got anything on it?” Tsunami asked, leaning over his shoulder. He had what looked to be at least ten different scrolls on his desk.
“Yes, actually.” the blind dragon answered. “The tesseract is an animus artifact that has some sort of magical properties. When used correctly it is a vessel.” He moved some scrolls around. “The staff is an animus invention created by an animus dragon named Fathom. Originally it was supposed to be a bracelet, but after some amount of years it stopped working. Some dragon had used his magic to turn it into a scepter with mind-altering abilities, but I don’t know-”
“Darkstalker.” Moon blurted.
Everyone turned to her, except for Starflight.
“Darkstalker used his magic to create the scepter. Then he used it on Qibli and Winter AND stole the tesseract. I don’t know what it’d do. But..” She wanted to say something else, but her adrenaline was gone, and her shyness was kicking in.
“Qibli was one of JMA’s top agents, and Winter was a scientist working on Project: Tesseract. Darkstalker must’ve picked them for a reason.” Tsunami said.
“I- um, have a guess.” Turtle started. “What could happen if he used the scepter on the tesseract?”
Starflight rubbed his chin. “Well, theoretically it could control the tesseract’s properties. But that’s just a theory.”
“Do you think his ‘power’ was in the tesseract and he planned on using the scepter to get it?” Turtle shrugged.
They all stopped to think. Moon crossed over to the desk, and lifted scrolls for Qibli and Winter’s JMA profiles.
Qibli, codename is “Hawkeye”, introduced four years ago. But what pulled Moon in, was a note closer to the bottom. Qibli had come from a criminal background against most of the queens, and was forced to work at JMA as an agent as a way of pardon, but the note says he didn’t seem too upset about leaving.
Winter said almost nothing. Induction four years ago, same as Qibli’s. But apparently he was the nephew to Queen Glacier, so he came from nobility.
What would an all-powerful two-thousand year old dragon have with a street ninja and a royal scientist? Moon thought.
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Qibli’s head felt slightly fuzzy around the edges, and sometimes random thoughts popped into his head that made him want to do something he’d never done. Darkstalker had told Qibli and the IceWing that they were supposed to make something from the blue rock. But he hadn’t elaborated for Qibli. He’d given Winter instructions apparently.
Qibli sat on the steps leading out of the cave system they were currently set up in. Winter and three other NightWings were scrambling around with the blue rock.
“Qibli, where'd you find all these dragons?” Winter asked, tool in talon.
"JMA has had many enemies in its time, doc.” Qibli answered.”And a lot of them will work for a big spooky dragon.”
Darkstalker stepped into the cave system they were using as a base of operations.
“Good afternoon, sir!” Winter shouted up at the larger NightWing. That sounded, not Winter-y, but some fuzzy thought came to Qibli and it suddenly didn’t.
“Hello.” Darkstalker said flatly as he watched Qibli string a bow and Winter scramble around other dragons for materials. “Are you missing something, doctor?” Darkstalker asked Winter as he looked confused in his scowling-IceWing way.
“Yes, do we have any iridium?” Winter looked up at him, the sight would make Qibli giggle at the size difference, but he didn’t.
“No. But I’m sure we could retrieve some.” Darkstalker turned to Qibli as he finished.
“Qibli, do you know where to find your dear friend some.. uh- iridium?”
“The only source I know of is at JMA. In one of the deeper caves with an old animus.” Qibli pulled from his memory, not knowing where the memory came from.
“Is there anything you’d need to retrieve it?”
“A distraction with the main group,” Qibli thought for a moment. “And a key.”