"Good job, idiot." Herring snorted.

"Hey you didn't check to see if the coast was clear before you literally took away my cover." Saguaro griped back. She looked to Holler and flicked her head. "Go, now! Go get Orphaner and get away."

"What about you?" Holler asked. Despite his camoflage still perfectly in place, she knew he was crying.

"Do what I said, Holler. Go!"

Without another word, the RainWing took off out the mouth of the cave, winging away without a sound and out of sight.

Herring turned as well, and he leapt for the cave mouth right as iron gates slammed down in place.

"Great. Now we're fucking stuck here." He growled. "Should have made you stay outside."

"Yeah well that was your mistake." Saguaro said.

Two SeaWings came barrelling down the hallway with spears in hand, but neither knew what hit them until they were both engulfed in Saguaro's fire.

Herring reeled at the SeaWing's screaming. "DID I NOT SAY NO FIRE!" He shouted. One came through the flames and landed at Herring's feet, still gasping for air and burned unrecognizably. Herring made quick work snapping his neck.

"Sorry. It's a BIT of an emergency!" Saguaro hollered back. She jumped on the other SeaWing to slice him across the throat with her barb, and he collapsed in a puddle of blood and venom.

"WHAT IN BLUE BLAZES IS GOING ON OUT HERE!!" came the booming voice of General Prawn, she came stomping into the corridor like a mountain of green scales, blistering with anger and adorned in gold-plated armor.

"Well, now we have to kill her." Herring groaned. "this is NOT how I thought this through."

Prawn laughed, and the sound it made ricocheted off the walls and shook Saguaro's scales. "YOU? KILL ME??" She dissolved into a fit of rauckus laughter. "Three loons, that's the best joke I've heard." She brandished her pearly-white claws and lunged for Saguaro, taking her down to the floor under her massive body.

The general's weight was crushing, and Saguaro snapped her jaws at her neck, drawing forth dark blood that barely slowed Prawn down at all. But she was disoriented by a smack of Herring's tail to her snout.

She staggered away dizzily, letting Saguaro go. She ducked under Prawn's belly and slashed at her underscales with fervor. The SeaWing howled and reached down to tear at Saguaro's sides. She latched onto one of her wing stalks and yanked her out into the open.

The stone scraped against Saguaro's fresh wounds as she slid and collided with Herring. But he leaped over her and flashed all of his bright scales at once. Prawn reeled in pain.

"You slimy little shits!" She growled, and charged through her temporary blindness to tangle up with Herring. She ripped into his healing wounds and fresh blood covered them both. Three more SeaWings and two SandWings poured into the hall. It was then that Saguaro noticed that there was water covering the floor.

It rushed in through the iron grates on the exit. The sea was at their doorstep, and was quickly swallowing it.

The island was sinking.

"Herring!"

"I know!" He answered, and bit Prawn in the soft flesh under her jaw. There went a chunk of flesh and more blood.

Saguaro took a running leap for the general, and grappled with her huge chest. She held on tight and sank her tail barb deep into her stomach. Prawn gasped and sputtered and black lines of poison spiderwebbed from her stomach and up to her chest underneath her armor. It reached her heart, and Prawn's whole body convulsed.

She collapsed with blank, vacant eyes, and the SeaWings behind her reeled with shock.

"That's right!!" Saguaro seethed. "Back away, let us go, and there won't be any more where that came from."

The SeaWings looked hesitant, but the two SandWings glowered and rushed her. Saguaro held her ground as they attacked, and the three dragons went up in a blaze of fire and thrashing tails.

She felt the bite of a SandWing barb in one of her wing stalks, and the bite of one's teeth on her neck.

But then Herring was there, and he bit down on a SandWing's throat with such ferocity that it snapped between his jaws. The second SandWing was caught as Saguaro caged her in with her wing stalks, and her claws made quick work of her throat. The two SandWings breathed no more.

But new life was given to the last three SeaWing soldiers as revenge and hatred filled them. And they rushed Saguaro and Herring.

But she bared her teeth, and braced herself for the fight as the adrenaline in her body surged through her.