Dragon Approved Complete Series Boxed Set (Books 1 - 13): A Middang3ard Series

by Ramy Vance

Alex didn’t know what to say. That was what she felt as well. She had no idea where the fear was coming from, why it cropped up so fast, or where it had been hiding during the last few months, incubating and growing stronger. It was here now, and if it was here for her, it must have been there for the rest of the team too.

  Alex held her hand up to her face so she could look her friend in the eye. “Hey, it’s going to be okay,” she said. “We’re not scared kids anymore. You got that? We’re dragonriders now.

  Jollies nodded as she wiped away her tears. “Yeah, I know,” she said. “Still feels like I’m a scared kid, though.”

  “Same here.”

  Jollies laughed as she floated back over to Amber. “Don’t worry. I’ll pull it together.”

  Alex walked to Chine’s platform and hopped up. She watched Chine curling and uncurling his tail. Even the dragon was nervous about the upcoming battle.

  A beep went off on Alex’s dragon anchor. It was an incoming call from Abby. Alex opened the message and the anchor projected a holograph of Abby in front of her. “Whoa, that’s new,” Alex yelped.

  Abby smiled widely as she fist-pumped. “Sweet, it worked,” she exclaimed. “Been trying to get the new software upgrades to you guys for a bit. Anyway, I took a look at that rod for y’all. Got bad news for ya.”

  Alex groaned as she braced herself for whatever Abby was going to say. “This isn’t one of those good news/bad news situations, is it?”

  “Nah. All bad news. That thing is dangerous. Severs the connection between your dragon and anchor and blocks all telepathic communication. And here’s the doozy: it stays active until someone kills the person who used it.”

  “That’s great. I was starting to get my hopes up about this mission.”

  Abby’s next smile was not nearly as enthusiastic. “Yeah, don’t shoot the messenger, okay? But don’t worry, I ain’t gonna leave y’all hanging. I’m working on something. Kinda like a firewall.”

  “Are you going to have it finished in the next ten minutes?”

  “Uh, no. In a rush or something?”

  Alex nervously chuckled. “Kinda in the middle of an invasion.”

  “Oh, well, hope you don’t have a lot of these. Good luck! I should let y’all get to it.”

  Alex couldn’t help laughing at how matter of fact Abby was about all of this. Even though she was the same age as Alex and the rest of the riders, Abby seemed to be acclimating to working with Myrddin and Middang3ard. “Yeah, yeah,” Alex said. “Hey, if I survive, we should, like, hang out.”

  “Ugh. Agreed. You have no idea how weird it is working with people in their three thousandth year of life. Y’all go wreck them.”

  Alex hung up the comm and jumped on top of Chine. She pulled up the tactical display and checked to see if there were any more updates to the current situation.

  The intel had come in, and the display showed the terrain around the Nest. The area was filled with red dots denoting enemies. There was also a message attached to the display. Alex clicked on it.

  Alex’s ears were overwhelmed by frantic screaming, someone begging for their life, repeating over and over that they didn’t want to die. Alex turned off the message as fast as she could. She climbed off and sat down next to Chine and tried to control her breathing.

  Alex’s comm rang, and she looked down to see a message from Myrddin. It was time to go.

  The dragonriders gathered in the main hall, where the massacre had taken place a few months ago. Alex thought it must be Myrddin’s intention to face what everyone was thinking rather than running away from it.

  Alex appreciated the notion. She knew it was still on her team’s mind, and there was no way the rest of the riders had forgotten about the atrocities that had taken place here.

  The captains stood on the main stage behind Myrddin, who was behind the podium facing the cadets. The dragonriders were lined up in rows facing the stage, their red and black uniforms shining brightly.

  The mech riders, a smaller corps, stood to the left of the dragonriders. They wore blue uniforms with an insignia and a phrase written in Elvish that Alex had meant to ask Gill about.

  The dragon and mech riders stood silently watching the stage as another explosion rocked the Nest. You wouldn’t have been able to tell by looking at Myrddin. His face didn’t show any sign of interest in the dangers that lay beyond the Nest.

  Myrddin stepped closer to the podium and cupped his hands together, resting them on his stomach. “Today, the Dark One has dared to come to our doors once more,” Myrddin said. “Today, we gather in this hall where so many passed, and we remember them. The dead did not sacrifice their lives for us. We must be honest with ourselves. Their lives were stolen.”

  Alex looked at the teachers and the other captains out of the corner of her eye as Myrddin continued speaking. “But today is a new day, and we are wiser and stronger than before. Today is the day that we avenge our fallen brothers and sisters. Today is the day the Dark One will be reminded that the Wasp’s Nest is a place of warriors. Fight well.”

  Myrddin stepped away from the podium as Roy took his place. “You have your assignments already, so you know who you’re teaming up with. The game plan is simple—we’re going to meet them head-on and fight them off. That being said, keep your ears out for comms and individual orders and formations from your captains. There’s no way to get around this; some of us aren’t coming back. You sure as hell better make sure you give as good as we get. Dismissed.”

  Alex followed the rest of the captains as they left the podium. This was it.

  The sky filled with dragons and mechs as the riders departed the Nest, rising into the clouds. There were hundreds of them, different breeds and colors. Alex could never have imagined anything like it. There was no way the Dark One was going to win this battle.

  Roy, Toppinir, Alex, and the rest of the captains were at the front of the horde of dragons, their respective squads behind them. Alex checked her dragon anchor as she leaned forward and scratched Chine behind his horns.

  A comm came through from Roy. “Dragonriders, we got a nice bit of intel. The Dark One’s got some new doohickey that’ll kill your connection to your dragons. There’s nothing we can do about that since we haven’t had enough time to figure out how to stop that, but there’s a system in place, thanks to some friends over at Earth’s HQ. If you get disconnected, your anchor will send out a signal to the closest mech to come scoop you out of the sky. Think about it as getting a free sky-diving lesson.”

  There were chuckles across the open comm channel. Alex was glad Roy knew how to defuse a stressful situation. She felt like there were worse things than plummeting to the ground after being knocked off Chine.

  There was no fanfare at the beginning of the attack. Roy simply rocketed forward, Toppinir following him, and Alex took that as a sign to get moving. The dragon army headed to the coordinates that had been provided.

  There were a few miles out from the Nest when Roy stopped.

  They had arrived at the coordinates, but there was nothing there. That couldn’t be right, Alex thought as she checked her tactical display. The coordinates were correct. The Dark One’s army was supposed to be right in front of them.

  Roy opened his cockpit and lit his cigar. “Hm,” he murmured. “This is a little anticlimactic.”

  Alex focused on the ground below them. They weren’t too high up, and her dragon eyes could pick up the smallest detail. What caught her eye was an odd shimmer, something like a ripple across still water. “There’s something down there,” she announced.

  Suddenly, there was a loud whirring sound like that of a power generator turning on. It grew louder and louder until a blast of plasma nearly the size of a red dragon came shooting up from the ground. “Incoming!” Alex shouted.

  The riders scattered, Alex veering hard to the left to avoid the attack. The plasma blast soared through the air, suddenly exploding and sending smaller bolts at the riders, who dove toward the source of t
he attack.

  Alex’s eyes focused again on the shimmer beneath her, and she saw something moving. “Roy, I’m going down there,” she shouted.

  Roy hooted loudly as he got back into his mech. He plummeted toward the shimmer with a mad cackle as he threw his thrusters into afterburn. Alex and the rest of the riders were right behind him.

  Chapter Seven

  Alex, Roy, and the rest of the dragonriders passed through the shimmering veil. Once through, Alex pulled up on her dragon anchor, causing Chine to stop and fly backward a little bit. She was not the only one to do that.

  The Dark One’s forces were coming over the hill. The army was led by what appeared to be slugs nearly the size of houses. Their bodies were pale blue, and they had eyes all over. Electrodes and electronic components covered their soft flesh. An orc sat atop each, its body from the waist down melded into the slugs through some obscene mixture of technology and flesh.

  Plasma cannons half as large as the slug’s bodies were strapped to each creature’s back. That must have been where the whirring had come from.

  Behind the slugs were creatures that Alex could never have imagined. They were taller than the slugs, with long spindly legs, stretched and spider-like. Their heads looked like ancient, rotting human heads with long stringy hair hanging from their gaunt faces. Their skin was covered in steel plates, and they lumbered along like ghosts caught in a dream.

  Roy’s voice came through the comm. “What the hell are those? You ever see anything like that before?”

  Toppinir replied, “No.”

  “This is an attack by the Dark One, right? ‘Cause this does not fit his M.O.”

  Alex pointed to the orc/slug fusion creatures and narrowed her eyes to get a better look at the tech that connected the orcs to the slugs. She could see there were multiple orcs embedded in the skin of the slugs, some of them barely visible, others merely a hand forcing its way through the slug’s skin.

  “That’s the Dark One’s tech. I’ve seen it in some of the briefings. Stuff like that’s been cropping up throughout Middang3ard.”

  “You’re right,” Roy agreed. “Well, we got our work cut out for us. Let’s get started. Charge!”

  Roy blasted forward, and Alex took off after him. “Boundless,” Alex called, “I want you as close to me as possible. Jollies, take point. Get as close to those things as you can, but don’t engage. I want to get an idea of what we’re up against.”

  Jollies and Amber zoomed to the front of the charging army, easily flying faster than the other riders and the mechs. “On it,” the pixie called.

  “Brath, I want you in the front with me. Gill, get behind us, and Jim, link up with the rest of the mech riders. Squad A, we’re going in slow. We don’t know what these things have ready for us, other than those anchor detachers, so be ready.”

  The whirring of the slug’s plasma cannons began anew. The sound was louder and more oppressive up close. They were gearing up to launch an attack.

  Alex looked around to see what else was down there. So far, she didn’t see any aerial fighters. Maybe the Dark One’s plan was to ground all the riders, turn this into a ground fight, and see what happened. Alex didn’t know why, though. The last ground fight, the dragonriders had won.

  Jollies’ shrill voice squeaked over the comm, “You’re not going to believe this until you see it. Heading back to the main group.”

  As if the Dark One’s forces had heard her, a change came over the slugs. They stopped their forward movement and began to shake and convulse. The orc bodies inside the sagging flesh of the slugs forced their way through the skin.

  As the orcs climbed out of the slugs, spewing bright blue fluid everywhere, they screeched loudly, techno-organic wings sprouting from their backs. The wings were razor-sharp, and the orcs had cannons mounted on their backs.

  The orcs stood, steam rising from their bodies, then spread their wings and took off, heading straight for the dragonriders.

  The slugs fired their cannons, sending the plasma blasts into the thick of the riders, who took evasive action, then spread out, preparing for the inevitable explosion of the plasma blast.

  The orcs didn’t seem to care about the plasma bolts and kept flying toward the riders, slashing at them with their metallic wings.

  Alex pulled up, drawing her scythe from her dragon anchor and watching closely to see if any of the orcs near her were holding black rods. She couldn’t see any, but they were moving fast.

  An orc flew past Alex, slashing at her with its wings. Alex ducked in time, avoiding having the razor edges slice through her neck. She raised her scythe and caught the orc in the chest, which nearly yanked her off her dragon. Luckily, she was still anchored.

  The sky had turned into a scene of chaos. There were hundreds of the flying orcs aggressively attacking the dragonriders as if they had no fear for their lives. Alex could see a dull green light glowing in their eyes as if their brains had been hollowed out and replaced with something else.

  Below, the lanky spider creatures with the faces of men opened their mouths. Black drool and gunk fell out as they regurgitated giant chunks of black rock, stretching it out in the shape of a rod. “Those are it!” Alex shouted. “The spiders have the rods!”

  Roy flew to the front lines as he shouted, “Mech riders to the front! We need to take down those spiders!”

  The mechs detached from the main group of riders and headed for the spider monsters, weaving between the orcs. The winged creatures tried to attach themselves to the mechs and rip them open with their wings and plasma axes.

  The sheer number of orcs looked overwhelming. Alex wasn’t certain if the mech riders were going to be able to make it to the spiders without being ripped out of their mechs. They would need backup. “Boundless, we’re backing up the mechs. Squad A, try to keep the orcs off of us, but don’t get too close to the spiders. Stay as far back as you can. We don’t know the range of those rods.”

  Gill, Brath, and Jollies flew closer to Alex, and they pushed forward, Chine and Furi lit the sky with their fire as Alex hacked at any orc foolish enough to get close to her.

  Roy dropped on the closest spider creature, floating in front of its grotesque face. He opened fire with everything that he had, unloading his machine gun and missiles onto the black rod.

  The spider creature screeched in pain as it reared up on its hind legs. A shock wave erupted from the black rod.

  Alex could see the energy signature of the shockwave. She pulled up on the anchor, avoiding the wave. “Chine, you can see that, right?”

  The dragon banked to the right to avoid an orc, blasting it with a flame attack. “Yes, but I’m not sure the rest of the dragons can see the same frequencies we can.”

  “Link up with them telepathically. Watch the shockwaves and let them know when they’re coming. I’ll take care of any orcs that get too close. We’re gonna keep moving forward.”

  “Understood.”

  Alex drove Chine toward the closest spider creature. Jim had joined Roy, and they were working on destroying the black rods. They had the firepower, but it was slow work, almost like mining an ore deposit. Alex wondered how her weapons were going to fare against the rods.

  Brath flew to Alex’s side, and the two of them headed for the same creature as orcs flew past them, Alex cutting down anything that got too close to her. They made it to the spider and flew past it, firing their flame attacks at the rod.

  The heat from the flames cracked the rod. It didn’t fall or shatter, but it was damaged. Then it began to hum and vibrate loudly. “Pull back!” Alex shouted as she yanked up on her dragon anchor.

  Chine and Furi soared upward, away from the erupting shockwave. Alex watched it spread toward the dragonriders dealing with the bulk of the winged orcs. The rods had an extremely long range, apparently, and the shockwave was going to hit them. “Roy, the wave is coming for our riders!” Alex shouted over the comm.

  Roy and Jim disengaged from the creature they were figh
ting and headed back toward the others as Jim shouted, “We’re on it!”

  Alex and Brath flew back down toward the rod, firing everything they had at the head of the spider creature. It reeled back in pain, a muffled scream ushering from its mouth.

  Chine fired another flame attack at the rod as Brath guided Furi around, flying a good distance away and then charging full force at the black rod, tackling it with all the force the red dragon could muster.

  The rod split down the middle, separating from the spider creature’s mouth. It fell and crushed one of the slugs making its way toward the Nest.

  Alex flew in closer to the slug’s head and slammed her scythe down in between its eyes. The creature screeched in pain and threw back its head, toppling into the spider creature at its side. Both of them crashing to the ground in a heap of thin, kicking legs.

  Alex shouted, “Squad A, how are you holding up?”

  One of the squad members replied, “We’re holding our own. The orcs are vicious, but they seem to mostly be a distraction. The slugs on the ground have all the firepower, but we can’t get to them with the rods still active.”

  “I want you to divert your attention to the slugs. Ignore the orcs as best as you can. We need to take care of their artillery.”

  “Roger!”

  Alex banked left, flying back toward the remaining spider creatures. “Boundless, the priority is the rods. Anything you can do to bring them down, do it!”

  Out of the corner of Alex’s eye, she could see Jollies charging forward, electricity sparking off Amber as they headed for the nearest spider. Gill was right behind her, Timber firing plasma missiles from his shoulders.

  The plasma cannons connected with the rod hanging from the creature’s mouth and Jollies flew around it. Lightning jumped from Amber’s scales, sending a chain-lightning attack up the creature’s body.

  Alex and Chine headed for the same spider creature, the dragon shooting ether flames at the rod and Alex swinging her scythe with all the force of her robotic arm as they flew by.