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Who would've thought that the danger that the draconians faced was something they were all familiar with, though not as a real-life experience.

The travel through the desert region proved to be uneventful. With Juagar driving, they were safe from many conditions that could delay their travels, like sand dunes with steep hills, and the scorching heat. With explanation from Richard to the dragons, the young black-scaled dragon used a bizarre magic that not only protect their 4x4 from the unknown weather, but also keep the car from overheating.

Talking about a 4x4 in a fantasy world was far from something normal, but then, when did this world ever taste 'normal'?

Within only five days, they had reached the arid region of the Southern Region, which had a different desert than the one in the Central Region. The deser there had more rock structure yet to be eroded by the winds. These structures gave imposing images during their travel through the South.

The dragons that they accompanied seemed to be using some sort of dimensional magic to make their travel faster. Richard suspected Xiciro as the one that did that. He knew Avila could access a dark dimension she once used to help Ray separate from a dangerous side effect of his nanotech-like augmentation give to a dragon, which resulted in the birth of Ray's 'evil twin' Ernest.

"I wonder what's Ernie doing right now," thought Richard as he watched the vast desert. Bestreid, his short chubby friend, looked at his mannerism and smiled.

"Remembering old times, eh, bud?" asked Bestreid nudging his side. "I don't blame ya. You had a history in this history, too."

"It's nothing like your world, Bes," said Richard, but he quickly corrected it with 'Our World."

Bestreid laughed. "Even if they've considered it normal, we'll still regard you as a foreigner. I mean, who wants gold-colored scales anyway?"

The others who heard Bestreid's comment laughed, too, causing Richard to say, "C'mon, at least I have a bank when I'm broke, right?"

"Oh, are you talking about that?" said Bestreid while pointing towards his thighs. Richard quickly interjected with, "Hell no! Mine's the same with other!"

"Guys, guys, I think it's best if we stop talking about those things," said Orozco. "Be on the lookout, though."

Richard knew that even if Orozco was not always a serious fellow and followed the group's whims, he was still a commander at heart, even if he had retired from his post to open a hunting sports store. Richard respected him in many ways, especially his marksmanship that was better than that of Juagar.

Of course, their sightseeing must come to an end on the seventh day, when Avet, the younger black-scaled dragon, flew near their car and said, "Hey, there are some raiders riding towards your car."

"Raiders?"

"Dragonsbane, really, but they are a separate group. This region is so big that many are doing personal works. Some are crazy as hell."

"How crazy are they?"

"Crazy enough to fight dragons. They're just crazies, so we'll deal with them before you..."

Xiciro then shouted, "Fly up, all of you!" and Avet quickly flew up, but leaving the group's 4x4 behind. Wondering what's up, Richard quickly saw something flying towards them directly above them and exploded behind the car. This surprised the group into alert state, with Juagar quickly stepping on the pedal.

At their line of sight, they a group of raiders, but were surprised by what they were riding on. The creatures looked nothing like the creatures native in the West, and was clearly monstrous and ran pretty fast. They ran towards the car, intending to ram them, but Orozco's marksmanship stopped it by shooting its rider (the creature was heavily armored). This, however, did not stop the others from coming towards the car.

One monstrous mutant creature, which moved slower than the rest, was carrying a group of humans wearing tribal clothing and markings all over their body performing a battle chant and songs with drums lined on top of each other, similar to a stage of street performers, but this one was on a moving mutated creature. Some of them, howling and yelling, rode near their car and used a spear Richard quickly identify as an exploding magic spear to try and blow the car's top hatch. Richard, however, was quick enough to open the hatch first and shot some rounds towards the attacker, in which it hit his head and he toppled over the cars.

The dragons were not far from danger, either. A group of dragon riders, riding dragons wearing tribal paintings as their riders. attacked the three dragons in a ferocious manner that they were put in defensive. Yort wanted to help, but Xiciro said, "Not in my watch, Yort! We will survive this, and this includes you!"

Avet was the first to react. He concentrated and used his new gravity-based dark magic to make one plummet to the ground, but it was only effective within a small range. Xiciro quickly back him up and enhanced his claws with darkness, killing one of them by ripping the dragon's throat and throw him down to earth.

The draconians were forced to the rock structures when their car were bombarded by the magical spell, which had little to no effect to the car except some fire and scratches. The group held off pretty nicely, with Bestreid being the one scoring the most kills with his short-range shotguns. Richard noticed fire consuming the car's hood and quickly took up some sand to extinguish it, all while the car was moving.

One crazed human quickly jumped on Richard, surprising him and made him fell into the car. The human tried to pull out a gun from the car, but Bestreid put a stubbed shotgun in front of his face and blew his brain out to the door.

"I'll promise I'll scrape it later!" exclaimed Bestreid while pumping his shotgun. He noticed it's out, and said, "Reload!"

Seiglet, who was sitting near the stockpile of ammo and guns, took the shotgun and reloading it, While Juagar drove in a swerving motion to confuse the attackers beside him. As he finished reloading, he shouted, "Batter up!" and gave the gun to Bestreid, only for it to almost be snatched by one of the raiders. He pulled out a knife and stabbed the human's hand, making him yelp and was thrown out while the car was moving in high speed and dangerous maneuver.

"Somehow this reminds me of that Oz movie!"

"How so?"

"Crazed raiders, high-speed motor combat, and what, battle drums while riding? It's all about that bloody movie!"

"Which one? Elm Gibbons or Tolm Ardi?!" said Richard from the top.

"Elm Gibbons doesn't have exploding spears!"

Richard laughed. "But no one's chroming anyone in Gibbons's one! Hey, Juagar, how's the drive?!"

"With these assholes around, it won't be easy! How's the dragons?!"

Richard looked up and saw the dragons were also engaged in a fight to the death, in which it was also a dog-fight."

"Fury road and fury sky! What a lovely day!" exclaimed Richard in an adrenaline rush as he opened his wings and jumped towards the top of the cliff. Orozco smiled while Seiglet said, "It bloody well is!"

Juagar was concentrating on driving, but he also helped the group in repelling the raiders coming from the front of the car, in which he pulled out his crossbow and shot some of them. Driving and shooting severely reduce his marksmanship, which was not helping the others optimally. It was, however, enough to help to reduce the raider's attack significantly for the others to shoot.

The majority of the kills were Richard, who was directly attacking the raiders on their creatures. He thought that his appearance would intimidate the humans, but to his surprise, they were excited, or more euphoric, when they charged towards him with an exploding spear that killed him, but threw the golden-scaled draconian away from the top of the creature. The other humans were also relentless. They attacked him while he was clinging by the side of the creature, trying to cut his hand. One of his hands, still free, pulled out his rail gun and shot a big burst of electricity towards the rider, which threw him to the ground, snapping his neck. Richard took control on the creature while batting away the other raiders.

Of course, without knowing how to even steer the creature away (in his short time as a dragon rider, Raithorakh was the one in control, and was also the reason Richard never used a saddle), Richard was riding towards a rock wall. He considered jumping away from the creature, but when he sensed the electronic equipment inside the only car in that world, he quickly opened his wings and let the wind to push him upward like a parasailing chute. The creature stopped near the rock, with Richard being fascinated that such mutated creature could still have decent reasoning after all.

He landed on the 4x4 and climbed inside. His bigger wingspan and thicker tail made it hard to get in from the door, so he used the hatch on top of the group. The rest of the group welcomed him as Juagar sped away from the pursuing raiders. The raiders, tired of fighting a car and its riders, gave up and returned with the remaining ground crew they had, knowing that with the heavy loss, they were utterly defeated.

The dragons joined them later after defeating the dragons that attacked them. Knowing very well that the fight had caused their car to overheat anyway, the group decided to make camp, as the dragons also claimed that they were also tired.

Xiciro decided that they camped near a settlement he called Charlestown, which made Avet shudder. It was less than a month since half of his face was blown away, but Xiciro persuaded him to stay since it was the only place they could rest without being attacked by raiders.

"But, just one question, Avet," said Xiciro. "When we were travelling to Nia Baleth for the first time, we did not encounter those raiders. Do you mean that the Dragonsbane that you were trying to avoid were..."

"Precisely," said Avet. "Only those near the dragon prison were organized and posed a threat for you and us. Those Dragonsbane...well, they aren't actually dragon slayers. Most are just rejects, but rejects or not, those skags are dangerous."

"Yes, I can see why."

They reached Charlestown, again during the night. Only one dragon stood by the city gates, and he was clearly intimidated when two Argoons flew towards the town. The soldiers immediately recognized the two Argoons as the one causing problem before, and tried to stop them from getting near the town in case another sneak attack caused another problem. Yort stepped in and said, "Do not worry, human friends. They are not going to be a problem." His wise visage, and his deep, rumbling voice convinced the humans immediately, as did the dragon beside him. The dragon even kneeled in respect, but Yort, like a wise old man, said, "Raise your head, young one. Ancient I may be, but not a dragon worthy of respect reserved only for the kings of dragons."

"I'll be damned," said Xiciro. "That's a line from 'The Humble Dragon'."

"Which is Grandos, by the way."

Richard knew Grandos, and he asked Yort about the origin of that speech.

"Oh, you'll be surprised on how small he was back then," said Yort with a chuckle. "If it's not for Abridorn, Gran wouldn't stand a chance."

The presence of draconians intimidated some of the villagers, but they assured the surprised villagers that they meant no harm. Some human children played near the 4x4, curious of what it was. Juagar moved towards them and said, "Come on, kids, it's not nice tampering with other's property. It's late now, so return to your mother, alright?"

The kids were unsure if the draconian was a good person or not (due to his draconic visage and scaly hide), but they nevertheless returned to their mothers, who were waiting for them and looked at Juagar with a smile, but also their reluctance to be near a stranger who looked like a humanoid dragon. Richard approached Juagar and said, "I'm surprised. They don't seem to be afraid around you, Juagar."

"Why should they? I'm a nice guy."

Richard made a smirk. "Heh. 'A nice guy'. I don't think they'll say that when they know you shot me through my leg."

"Hey, that's 15 years ago! How the hell do you remember that?"

"First memory as a draconian. How can I forget."

That night, the draconians and the dragons talked to each other. Unlike the Argoon trio's first arrival, the draconians gave a lively night uncommon there. At first, curiosity drew the people of Charlestown to meet with the draconians, but in the end the five draconians were met with awe, as did the dragons familiar with their mythology. It didn't last long, though, as it was late at night.

After eating their fill, Richard walked towards the desert to look at the moon. He was quickly joined by Xiciro. Based on his past association, Richard was unable to forgive him, even though based on accounts of those involved in the fight, the dragon that killed Raithorakh was different from Xiciro, which was the reason why they didn't suspect him.

"What are you doing here? I need some time alone," said Richard with an annoyed tone.

"I just need to make sure everyone comes out fine," said Xiciro. "You need companionship the most."

"How pretty, coming from you."

"I don't think being in denial will help us out of this mess. You know very well that it's no use holding grudges to someone who you'll not be seeing again for a long time."

"I'll still be around for a maximum of two years, so why not," said Richard. But then his face relaxed and he said, "To be honest with you, though, I miss these lands."

"I've been thrown into another world, too, though...it's another story," said Xiciro. "Even after the many atrocities I've done, I still miss the land where I was hatched. A hundred years suspended in darkness made me able to think of the things I had done, but I chose to be a more...accepting dragon."

"Like being their doctor?"

"I prefer the term 'dragon healer'."

"So you're planning to take over Yort's works?"

Xiciro looked at the ancient dragon. Yort was sleeping soundly, his ancient visage was apparent. He looked more like a natural statue than a living, breathing dragon."

"I owed Yort on taking me in even though he knew that I was a Defiler," said Xiciro. "I don't really want to be one, but he appointed me as his replacement when he dies one day. It sounds morbid, but I can imagine living for ten millennia can make you think of your mortality as a finality instead of trying to avoid it."

"And I'm sure he has lived a long and content life, with misgivings and happiness in between," said Richard. "But...he insisted to go here even though he knew this will hasten that process."

"Even if in the end he will die, he wants to make sure that there are no loose ends. I think you understand why."

Richard knew what Xiciro was talking about, but he couldn't think of it as a necessity, since he would be living the rest of his draconian life in the world that had accepted him.

In the end, they talked for a little more before Richard returned with Xiciro, with his friends making a camp and talked to each other. He knew that this adventure with a twist would end, but he didn't want everything to just go away.

He wanted to return to his hometown, when everything started, to pay a respect to his human mother...and to his dead friend.