From Normie to Dragon: The Rampage

"Shh!" Glen whispered to Kita who stepped on a twig. She ducked down just in time behind a thorny bush to hide from Anomaly men who stomped by on their way to the camp.

After they had moved a little distance further, Zini spoke. 

"We have to follow them but we must be careful. Follow my lead." she whispered and made her way out of hiding.

Standing behind trees and crouching in bushes, the four made their way through the forest near London's border, following the noisy Anomalies who laughed and sneered at one another while walking in military cadence. Their boisterous cries eliminated any chances of them hearing the footsteps of the intruders. The men made their way through rock enclosures and bushy paths that seemed to take an hour or more before they got to the camp. The place stood on a cliff overlooking a diamond quarry. The silent stalkers did not stop moving. The air became cool from the breeze flowing through the tight enclosure of trees.

Finally, when the men stopped walking, Zini looked ahead of them and saw the back of a large building made of wood and scraps of metal. The doors looked to be tightly hinged shut and there were no windows except a large chimney-like contraption on the top and black smoke rose to the sky through it. Zini was too caught up with surveying the building to realize anything more. But when Glen got his eyes off the building and saw what happened next, he knew they had to run.

As Zini stared at the building, her position behind a tree, Glen's eyes caught the men. Now, he noticed, they stood too still. They were supposed to keep moving and walk towards their direction after a minute or two, they weren't. Instead, they were as still as the boulder he hid behind.

Something was wrong.

He looked at Mackie and Kita who lay on the ground, hidden behind a large fallen tree, and received suspicious stares. He looked back to Zini, and his eyes grew wide.

One of the soldiers faced them and locked eyes with him. Suddenly, one of them who still faced the building grabbed a small handle on his utility belt and pulled hard, then threw it up in the air. The metal contraption let out bright blue and white lights that Zini and the rest hid their eyes from.

Shouts were heard from the direction of the building, both distressed and angry.

"Run!" Zini yelled and took off past the others who got up and started back into the forest. But the men gave chase, pulling out lasers and throwing up more of the bright sticks.

"They're calling more of them." Glen shouted as they all ran through the forest. Zini had a plan.

"We should split up!"

With the silent agreement, the four split up into two directions. Zini and Mackie taking a left turn into thicker bushes and Glen and Kita turning into a path. Fewer men followed Zini and Mackie through the thick and thorny bushes and more men made their way on the path Glen and Kita took.

Maryna looked up sharply and spotted the bright lights against the dark clouds. Instantly she looked around her and saw Anomaly captors running from their positions and into the forests towards where the bright lights came from. Something was happening and somehow Maryna believed that it was either she would die here, or it was her day of escape. She thought deeply as she dropped a stone onto a heap in front of the large building that manufactured them. She did not want to die. To die in captivity would render that hope of freedom useless and impossible.

She had to escape.

Looking around her, she saw that the bright lights that kept on shooting up into the sky took the attention of the soldiers around her. This did the job of alerting them of whoever or whatever was in the forest. As she turned to hide within a clump of bushes, she bumped into a teen boy who looked her wildly in the eyes and grabbed her arms. His body shook with fatigue and fear as he spoke, sores all over his face.

"Take me with you! Please! Take me with you. Don't leave me here!" He looked deep into her eyes and held her arms even tighter.

"All right. All right. But you need to be quiet. Please." Tears began to fall from her eyes at the sight of the boy. He looked so weak that she thought he could fall at that moment and not get up again. She held his hand firmly and led him to a clump of bushes and then squatted low to survey the area before they made a run for it.

Luck didn't seem to be on their side when instantly, a soldier spotted them hiding. Wasting no more time, Maryna held the boy's hand tight and took off running into the forest.

"They have seen us! They have seen us! They will catch us! They will catch us! Let us return or we will be whipped!" the boy said and pulled a little at Maryna's hold on him.

"We have got to keep moving or else we will die here!" she said and pulled him harder toward the direction she was leading him into. The boy did not seem to budge. He dug his heels into the ground father, splitting open Maryna's freshly covered up wounds.

"No! We must go back. They will catch us if we do not return, and we might not get beaten if we walk back!"

Maryna felt the tears run down her face as she saw the boy resist. She tried to pull back, but the boy was surprisingly strong enough to delay their escape and allow the soldiers to catch up to them. With the butts of their guns, the soldiers hit their backs and heads, making them fall to the ground in agony. The boy's voice screeched in pain.

One of the soldiers who suddenly looked annoyed in that moment, raised his gun to strike the boy again. Maryna then heard a familiar voice.

"Don't you dare!" Zini stood afar off with her hands clenched by her side and her eyes blazing in anger. The wind whipped her hair back and forth.

Mackie stood behind her and watched how her body moved. She remembered what was happening. The dragon wanted to come out again, but Zini was fighting it. Mackie saw this in the last camp where she first met Zini.

Maryna turns around to see a familiar face but brightly purple, brown, and shiny scales. "Zini!" She screamed.

Maryna's voice did it. Star rushed out of Zini's subconscious and took over.

The next minutes were a blur. The soldiers were pushed with the strong winds that blew about back towards the encampment.

As Star used her lightning speed on her way throughout the camp, Mackie ran over towards Maryna and the boy who seemed to have gone unconscious and helped them hide in safety. She held the boy in her arms and tried to get him to wake up because if the time came to run, it would be almost impossible to lift his body and take him with them.

"You're going to be alright." She tried to soothe the semi-conscious boy who still breathed hardly. "Wake up."

At a shout, Mackie and Maryna pushed themselves lower behind a rock and watched what was happening. The captors caught Glen and Kita. Mackie gasped at the sight. They had been struck. Kita bled from a wound on her head and Glen bled from his nose, his lip split. He still tried to struggle his way out of their hold. The soldiers walked towards the encampment unaware of Zini's presence there.

Mackie held a hand to her mouth to avoid detection in their direction. Fighting hard to keep in her sobs, she struggled to wake the boy up who, later, began to stir. Zini watched time pass in a big blur as Star wiped off scores of soldiers. She had cut off branches from nearby trees and cleared the site of soldiers with them. When the soldiers who held Glen and Kita saw the dragon girl fighting, one of them said, "It is true. The tale about the Stardust Dragon is true!" 

The soldiers all yelled in fear. To the surprise of Glen and Kita, they ran off!

Glen, who still had much strength within him, picked up a gun on of the soldiers dropped while in flight. He aimed to shoot any Anomaly soldier that approached him. Kita looked around weakly and spotted the people who tried to find hiding places for their lives in different directions and ran toward them. She went to gather them together.

As Star fought, she heard a loud siren from the top of a tower. Anomalies poured out of the barracks nearby. Once they saw Zini, they shot at her. She charged a group, knocking them over like bowling pins. A large truck arrived and more soldiers were on it. Near the front of it were more human prisoners.

Star's anger blazed at the sight of the prisoners. She jumped on top of a ruined building and bounced off towards the truck, landing on the its roof. She ripped a hole through it like opening a can of food and started pulling soldiers out of it. She threw every one of them as far as she could. Many were knocked out upon hitting the ground. After all the soldiers around and in the truck were slain, Star went into every building and into the quarry, slaying every Anomaly she met. The humans spectated this horror show. Some where in fear while others were in awe. The humans were sure it took just minutes for Star to clean the place out. Some of them stood on the cliff watching the carnage will others met up with Kita and the others to hide.

Star's anger calmed when she reached the deepest part of the diamond mine saw just humans staring back at her in fear. They huddled together in a small tight area. The last thing she heard before passing out again, giving way for Zini to come back out, was Glen's voice shouting at the humans that were still in the mines.

"Alright, everybody! Let's get you out of this place!" his voice echoed throughout the mines. Zini came out first. Trailing a ways behind her were dozens of humans in jumpsuits, faces blackened with soot from the mines.