Well... I take that back. 

I'd been staring at the monstrosity for five minutes and still could not believe it. Avery wasn't much better. Her expression looked like a mixture of anger, terror, and sorrow. You could almost see the wheels turning in her head as she struggled to process the sheer size of this dragon. 

This dragon wasn't the kind you just look at and take in all at one like- woah. No, this was the kind of dragon that you had to turn your head and keep turning it and keep turning it and find more and more dragon as you do. And when you think there couldn't possibly be any more dragon, you got a look at the tail and felt like passing out. 

Not only was this thing enormous, but it was built like a tank. He looked almost like a sort of quadruped dinosaur of old, huge and hulking with a long, stiff tail that soared over the skyline and a barrel shaped rib cage supporting thousands of spikes that seemed as sharp as they were tall. The spikes covered most of its body except for its underbelly and the the leather skin that allowed its arms and legs to move without impaling itself. Now he was just standing there, still as a statue, perhaps just acting as an intimidation factor. Perhaps he wasn't moving because if he did, the earth might just crack in two and swallow him and his Rider whole. In any case, I still couldn't believe my eyes. 

After a few more minutes I finally found my voice. "I.... I left him at the mall." I whispered softly. 

That was weird enough to make Avery blink in surprise. "What?" She asked, stepping back.

For a moment I didn't reply. I just couldn't believe it. The tall but silent giant... the man who had taken me out shopping and, and who I had left stuck in a lighter in Hot Topic.... this beast was him. It was him. 

"He's my great Uncle," I said suddenly. 

She blinked. "Did you hit your head or something?" she asked. "Because you're not making a lick of sense."

"Okay, it's kind of hard to explain but the blond is my Great Uncle and this is his dragon so that must mean he's my great uncle dragon, right?"

She looked too shocked to even respond to that. She blinked. 

"I don't think it works like that," Caedmon said softly. I ignored him. "Well one time I left him in the mall in a lighter... long story but anyway you'd think a big dude like this would like.. smite me or something but he didn't! Because he's my Great Uncle Dragon!" I said as if I had come up with a brilliant idea. 

She put her hands together as if in prayer and held them up to just under her nose as if she were trying to deduce what the heck I was saying like Sherlock. Finally she inhaled slowly. "I have so many questions." She said softly. "But the first one is... you know this freakin giant dragon!?"

I blinked at how loud the whisper yell was and looked over at Blaize as if expecting one of his deer ears to twitch and that massive pick-ax shaped head to swing over, spot us, and incinerate us on the spot. But he still stayed there, so still he might have been a part of the earth itself, a monument made by some god long ago. "I know him." I whispered in return, completely in awe. "He won't hurt me. I'm family."

She blinked. "He's- you know what? I'm not going to ask anymore. So... you spent some time with him. You know his weakness? Does he die if you poke him in a certain spot? Like an Achilles heel?" she asked hopefully. 

"Uh... I don't know." I said before raising a finger. "But I do know.... his favorite food is tacos."

She groaned and facepalmed. "Ugh! Useless!" 

"We could go for his eye. He only has one left," I piped up.

She looked at me like I was an idiot. "His eyes are literally right next to his gaping inferno of a mouth and besides if he's really a.. level five dragon... he's gonna have three eyelids, one of which would crush a bullet and bend a sword. It's not worth the try."

"His other eye though... it hurts him really bad." I thought about how when he was in human form he had a hard time speaking. Maybe his voice was so loud and mighty his human form couldn't handle it? He had coughed up some blood. But now, after that tremendous roar, he seemed totally fine. So that wasn't an option. "Maybe I could shoot his bad eye."

"I doubt that would even work. He's enormous! We'd need a missile or a bomb or something to even take a small chunk out of his eye! And getting to his brain...." she shivered and I bet she was imaging the gruesome scene. "Not going to work."

"Well, have you got a better idea?" I sputtered, exasperated. 

"Well, yeah. We give him what he wants." She said, making me and Caedmon look at her in surprise. We were kind of expecting a Harrison Ford kind of response- something about Americans  compromising with terrorists or something. She saw our expressions and her face hardened. "There's not much else we can do," she said defensively. "Give him what he wants and we might make it out alive."

I closed my eyes and looked through Caedmon's eyes like Zach had taught me. With his sharp eyesight I could see down to the facility. Everyone was on the ground, their bellies to the asphalt and hands over their heads. The dragons were all lying side by side, their heads lowered like prisoners of war. I could see Darius with Mrs. Geier. He seemed to be talking to her about something heated. Blaize even gave the smallest rumble he could manage deep in his throat to add to the intimidation. "You're right," I murmured. "He wants something. Something other than freeing the kids. Or whatever he meant by that."

"What is it?" she wondered before looking to me. "You need to find out, Justin. You're his family. He probably won't kill you even if he did hear about the mohawk creep."

"Thanks," I mumbled dryly. "What about you?"

"Some other dragon riders have escaped. I'm going to go round them up," she said as she pulled her hat down over her red ears. "I'll meet you back here at nightfall."

"What are you going to do with the recruits? Escort them back to safety?" 

She exhaled. "No. We'll hide out in the mountains. If we come up with a good plan... we'll need some backup."

I couldn't help but grin at that. "Alright. Sounds like a mission to me." I said before saluting. And me and Caed did what we do best. We turned into shadow. 

____________________________________________

As soon as we emerged from the ground like phantoms, Darius turned to look at us. Caed was back to original size but he puffed flame from his neck and tail to make himself look bigger in case Darius wanted to wrap his meaty hand around my neck. But instead he was grinning. "You did it!" He said. "You got Mardu. I'm so proud of you." He put a hand on my shoulder. It was so heavy I thought I would collapse under the pressure. A quick flush of guilt raced through my body. Mardu. Right. He was dead.

I managed a smile and looked up at him. "So.... what's the plan now, boss?"

"Well," Darius looked back to the people lying in the parking lot. "We need to keep an eye out in case they called in the dragon squad from Washington. Not that that would be any trouble. But I'm having trouble getting a straight answer from these people. There's something... hey... maybe you could find it, Justin. It's a vault. The one I told you to find last time? It's somewhere hidden in this base and I need you to find it. Your great grandfather is in there, Justin. Family." He said the last part looking straight in my eyes. I tried not to shiver. 

Suddenly it came back to me. The day my powers were all out of whack.. I had fallen into some sort of room. There were people in tanks... the dragon scale... Landin's voice... the woman with the wires in her skull. I looked to Caedmon. Give him what he wanted. 

Now that I remembered the woman, Caedmon only had to think of her and the shadows pulled us back into the room I had stumbled in what seemed like ages ago. There they were, all seven of them, their heartbeats steady, the beeping the only sound in this creepy room. Each in their own dimly glowing tank, each wearing white bathing suits. The silence and serenity of the sleeping figures suspended in the crystal clear water made it feel as though I were in some alien world. 

I stepped up to one of the glasses and put my hand to it, feeling the gentle warmth of it as I looked up at the male trapped inside. He was tall, handsome even, with a brown beard and wavy chestnut hair that drifted in a small current in waves over his head. His eyebrows were heavy, brows pinched even in his slumber. A shining dragon tattoo raced over his pecs and outlined his biceps. He looked to be around thirty. Could this... could this be my grandfather? 

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," a thick voice, laced with pain, came from behind me. 

I turned to find myself on the wrong end of a .45 Magnum, and the one holding it was none other than General Landin himself. 

(k that's all the writing I can do in one night sorry imma edit it later ya'll thanks for being patient)