Officer Abel Jones was a man in his twenties, born into a prestigious background as the son of a major general. He had even graduated from the United States Military Academy with flying colours, which was exactly why he had been chosen for this special program to work alongside the scientists of the Seattle Project.
If it succeeded, his name would be etched into the very stone of the facility, further solidifying his credibility as a soldier.
But if it failed...
Well, it could not possibly fail, right?
There were things that were simply too big to fail, and the HERE BE DRAGONS Project was one of them. The sheer backing it had was enormous, uniting the greatest scientific minds of the century.
It would be ridiculous if it truly failed.
The operation he was currently tasked with was relatively minor, yet important nonetheless.
For a Dragon to be deployed, it obviously needed to be brought outside first.
As for how the deployment would work, the matter was surprisingly far from complicated.
Once the control equipment was implanted into the specimen's body, it would simply be a matter of directing it toward whoever the government needed torn apart next.
And the time in between each 'mission'? Naturally, it was just an animal, and with the simulated environment that it had been raised in, the Dragon should have little trouble acclimating to the outside world.
Of course, they'd still need to track its whereabouts and make sure it didn't do anything too drastic.
But again, that just wasn't a great concern as they had already planned everything out.
The only real concern was getting this Dragon up on the actual surface.
The facility itself stretched deep underground, like really deep. Zone G was located at the very bottom, being roughly 700 meters beneath the earth.
The logistics of dragging a Dragon from all the way down here to the surface were very complicated, requiring full attention to detail and no clerical errors in sight.
Not only did they have to position the Dragon just right to be dragged up with thick ropes and cranes, they would have to periodically tranquilize it with Spirit Tiger spores to keep it at bay.
It would probably take days.
Luckily, AJ's personal duties weren't so convoluted. All that he needed to do was secure the target and make sure nothing went wrong when they began transporting it.
That was why AJ felt incredibly reassured now that Specimen C11 was perfectly under control.
The huge reptile lay on its side, both of its eyes were closed from the heavy sedation as a trickle of bubbling saliva dripped down from its gaping jaws.
Even now, it was still pouring out that foggy mist from its mouth that made the surroundings feel like the inside of a storm.
They had erected grappling ropes to tie the creature down and were constantly on edge. These soldiers knew not to mess around on the job, even when confronted with a beast of myth.
AJ stepped back as he avoided the crackling acid that had started to boil the very sand. He grimaced and wondered what would happen if he were to fall into a vat full of this stuff.
That would be one gruesome way to go indeed.
"Shit looks just like the broth my ex-wife used to make." Another soldier muttered nearby. "Probably tastes like it too."
"Shut the fuck up, Smith." Came the chastising voice of their captain, who seemed to have actually found that funny. "Who in their right mind would marry your donkey arse?"
AJ merely shook his head at their interaction, suppressing a little smile of his own.
Well, maybe a little messing around could be tolerated...
But that notion didn't stay for long.
The mood soon turned serious once more as their receivers came to life, the radio static silencing any words that would have otherwise been exchanged between the soldiers.
AJ tightened his grip upon the firearm as he focused on what the voices were attempting to convey.
...And it soon became apparent how grave the situation had become on the other team's end.
"I-It ate my arm! Dear lord, it ate my arm!"
The voice was strained and panicked, completely opposite to what was to be expected of a composed soldier.
"—Help! HELP! Help me! Oh, God..." The voice wept dramatically. "P-Please, I'm begging you...!"
And it was harrowing, sending chills that crawled up AJ's spine.
He gritted his teeth.
Ah... he should have probably expected this.
Of course, something went wrong. Of course, there had to be casualties.
The captain raised a palm as to somehow calm the other soldiers. His face told the story of someone who has experienced similar situations before, to which AJ had no doubt he did.
Although this was the first time it involved Dragons, a last plea of help from a dying man over the radio was more common than you'd think.
"Corporal Mitchell, is that you? What happened exactly? How are you still alive?" The captain asked these questions without pause.
Judging from what Corporal Mitchell had been screaming about, it seemed the other team had encountered another specimen, who was...
Not as incapacitated as Specimen C11 currently was.
"T-The big red one, sir!" Corporal Mitchell revealed. "It was asleep, but then... everything went wrong! Everything went so wrong!"
"Explain, Corporal!" The captain shouted with little patience. "Are you bleeding out? Where is the specimen now?"
"I don't know... I'm not sure where it went, sir. The ground collapsed beneath it and there was... burning water down there." Mitchell continued with his explanation as the captain raised an eyebrow at the term.
"Burning water? Do you mean acid?" He asked, a frown marking his features.
"Yes? Yes! Yes! It was acid, and it boiled most of the team, sir." The corporal stated, his voice even more strained now. "It was a trap, sir. That thing baited us to stand there until the ground collapsed... the acid boiled everyone who fell except for him. He... flew off, sir. The pain woke him up."
"He?" The captain repeated. "What do you mean he?"
"The red one, sir." Corporal Mitchell clarified. "It flew off in pain from the acid and then tore through our numbers. I-It was so fast that we didn't even have the chance to fight back..."
The captain looked simultaneously livid and horrified. "Why did none of you fire the damn flare!?"
The corporal seemingly paused, considering what answer he should give.
And the silence stretched...
Huh?
It stretched for far too long as the captain spoke up again just in case that thing had noticed that Mitchell was alive.
"Corporal!" The captain shouted. "Are you there? What happened?"
"S-Sorry, sir... it's just... I can't really speak much. That thing really ripped me apart, I think this body doesn't have much blood left." His response finally came with an appropriate amount of painful moans.
"I-I'm not sure about the flare, sir. He was faster than we thought, and we never had the chance to do it... the others, there were others that ran away, sir! I think they didn't fire their flares b-because the red one could see them from the sky and catch them through that."
"Are you able to tell me where you are, corporal? Is the specimen still there?" The captain quickly asked for the important information. "How hurt are you? You said that it bit off your arm?"
"N-No, sir... it flew off. I don't know where, the mist..." There was no need for an explanation as the soldiers could easily imagine what had happened.
"And the arm? Yes, sir. It bit off my arm and tore open my insides! I think it liked my kidneys, sir..."
"What?" The captain looked stunned as he glanced at the rest of the soldiers who wore similar expressions of confusion.
AJ felt a tight knot in his stomach at those inexplicably disturbing words.
"Are you sure? How did you even make it out alive, corporal?" The captain continued asking for more of the harrowing details.
"I didn't make it, sir."
That revelation created an even more uncomfortable silence as most of the gathered soldiers were too stunned to speak.
"What are you talking about!? You're not making any sense!" He shouted. "Corporal Mitchell, explain yourself!"
"Ah, you really haven't realized it yet, sir?" The corporal responded as AJ felt a creeping sense of dread clouding around him. "He killed me, sir. He made sure I screamed the loudest since he wanted to get my voice right and leave no doubt that it was me."
And then there was a pin-drop silence.
The captain hadn't realized when it started, but he couldn't help but notice that the hand he'd been using to hold the walkie-talkie was drenched in sweat.
The Dragon continued.
"Did he do it right, sir? It took a lot of practice, you know."
AJ wasn't sure which was more terrifying, the fact that it could speak English so fluently, or that it was somehow smart enough to know how to operate a radio transceiver.
Well, it's not like it would matter anyway.
Because not even AJ would survive the ensuing encounter.
· · ──── · ──── · ·
NINE watched from the sidelines as he emerged from his burrow, smelling like utter shit.
And indeed, he really was covered in shit.
Not out of his own volition, mind you.
ELEVEN's plan had been quite ridiculous and unreasonable for the other Dragons involved.
Not only did he make everyone else work significantly more than himself, he made sure that the other two got bathed in poop and acid respectively!
What a jerk...
And yet, NINE couldn't find it in himself to stay mad.
Despite everything, the plan had actually worked.
The first part of the plan was to ensure that NINE would not fall under the influence of the Spirit Tiger spores, at least, to a point where he could stay awake long enough to proceed with the rest of the plan.
Although they weren't sure of the exact details since they had only been exposed to it once before, that was apparently enough for ELEVEN to figure out that it was not only airborne but also took effect only after inhalation.
This was because, although they shared similar experiences with the spores, none of them were affected in exactly the same way.
For ELEVEN, he was already asleep by then on the shore of his favourite corner of the lake. The effects were instantaneous for him and he hadn't even realized that anything had gone awry.
As for SEVEN, he actually saw the spores themselves being released in droves from his territory's ceiling pipes, but didn't choose to fly away since he didn't even know that it would be harmful in the first place.
Of course, after breathing in the weird smell, he realized he probably shouldn't have stayed for so long, but it was already too late by them.
Now NINE had the most interesting experience.
Like SEVEN, he had detected the spores early on, having heard of the pipes open and release the potent gas.
However, he had assumed that it had actually been a new type of prey being released into his territory and dashed straight inside his underground tunnel system.
This was because of his usual hunting style of ambushing from below.
However, the prey never came, and instead, it was that weird smell that started dominating the tunnels!
The Earth Dragon lasted a while in those tunnels, but he remembered experiencing waking dreams of his youth, playing with SEVEN. These visions were so vivid, that although he had been awake, he couldn't accurately distinguish reality over his own delusions.
However, he soon made a discovery. After accidentally falling off of a cliff during his psychedelic high, the pain from the impact had been enough to jolt him out of that hazing stupor.
Of course, he soon fell under the influence again as not much time passed and the spores had yet to disperse, but the experience was still there.
From this recounting, ELEVEN identified the two most significant facts that would give them a chance to escape.
Out of the three, it can be inferred that NINE was the most capable of handling the spores' hallucinogenic properties. The fact that it took him some long stretch of time to pass out was impressive.
In addition, he also now knew that intense pain could very briefly counteract the spore gas' hallucinations.
Taking advantage of these facts, ELEVEN instructed his brother to expand his tunnel system in a very specific way.
And that was to create numerous small breaches to the surface that would allow for better ventilation across most of the tunnel system.
This wasn't something that NINE required due to his unique biology and subterranean lifestyle, but helped immensely against the spore gas.
Afterwards, he instructed NINE to construct a series of tunnels that were shaped in a rather unique manner.
They consisted of dome-shaped chambers connected by tunnels that curved downwards.
These downward curved tunnels served as reservoirs for water, which ELEVEN himself helped with the logistics off as they sourced the water from the nearby river stream.
As for the dome-like chambers? They were isolated air pockets.
This structure, combined with the numerous breaches in the rest of the tunnel system, was meant to filter the air and dilute the spores' effects.
The water by itself would drag the spores to the bottom of the floor, and the separated dome-like chambers would isolate the majority of them before they could reach the deepest chamber, which would be where NINE was to hide in when they started administering the spore gas.
Of course, even with this elaborate excavation, ELEVEN was worried that the spores would still somehow penetrate to the deepest chamber, so he made NINE stock those downward curved tunnels with all of their collected fecal matter and even some of the smaller Skullcrawlers' decomposing corpses.
ELEVEN reasoned that, with all the shit blocking the passage, there was absolutely no way that 'weird smell' could reach him all the way down there!
After being presented with this plan, NINE was understandbly pretty gobsmacked.
Because it meant he would have to swim through all that waste just to reach his designated hiding spot.
Sure, escaping from the spores' sedation might be important, but did he really need to wallow in shit and sacrifice all of his dignity just like that?
He was even 54% sure that ELEVEN had orchestrated this just so that he'd end up being covered in shit.
That was the type of thing he would totally pull.
Just hearing about the design left him stumped. Were the waste tunnels really necessary? Apparently so as ELEVEN had insisted that it was non-negotiable with a straight, emotionless face.
"…I really shouldn't have listened."
NINE spat out a mouthful of something he didn't want to think about and shook his entire body to get all of the waste off.
No matter how much he loved his brother, there were still moments where he wanted to take a swing at the bastard.
For the next part of the plan, ELEVEN had proposed yet another elaborate structure, which came in the form of a pitfall trap.
NINE didn't know where the hell he'd been inspired to create this, but he wasn't about to question it now that it had proven its overwhelming usefulness.
This trap had two special purposes.
First was to incapacitate and hurt as many of the humans as possible by decisively boiling them alive in a cultivated vat of acid.
And the second was to 'wake up' SEVEN whose role was to remain on top of the pitfall trap to act as live bait when the spore gas hits.
The 'floor' where he was supposed to be on would be a hollow shell, akin to an egg that had all of its contents removed. It could collapse at any time and send whatever was on it down below.
Since SEVEN was obviously heavier than some humans, they couldn't really rely on a mechanism that activated solely off of weight.
Instead, the floor was supported by pillars of rock that NINE had placed there and could knock away at any time to activate the trap.
That was the reason why he had to be kept awake as the entire plan would crumble if he wasn't.
As for what laid down below, it was another reservoir of water, however, this water would be mixed with ELEVEN's boiling breath, creating a crackling mixture that would be extremely painful and maybe even deadly for anyone falling into it.
Which would not be a problem for the Sky Dragon since he could just fly away once his senses returned to him from the shock of pain.
Of course, it was the exact opposite case for the humans who would have no method of escaping the vat of acid.
SEVEN was initially very much against this plan. He stated that there were many things that could go wrong and too many uncontrollable factors.
What if the trap failed? What if he didn't wake up or got stuck down there? What if the humans don't even bother with him and skip the trap entirely?
At that time, NINE distinctly remembered what their brother had said in response to those doubts.
"It's either this plan or nothing at all. Of course, that is unless you have a better plan that you might want to share?"
It wasn't reassuring at all, but it wasn't as though they expected anything else from the Sea Dragon.
SEVEN gritted his teeth, but ended up accepting it nonetheless.
Despite how painful it might be, at least, he wouldn't lose his dignity like a certain other Dragon.
Besides, even if the plan didn't go 100% smoothly, it wasn't like it would be the end of their lives.
In other words, it was better to at least give it a try rather than not do it at all.
***
So did I cook or not with this thick chapter? This is the last Great Escape chapter, we'll finally be in the outside world next chapter.
Please share your thoughts and ideas in the comments! I'm one of the rare authors who will take their time to respond if I can.
Power Stones too please! I need more than 16 a day, guys. I'm starving.