Crack.

Firetail whirled around. A colorful peacock dragon was standing in the forest.

“Hello there,” he said. “I’m here for the next shift.”

“Oh, great,” Firetail said. He flew off into the trees towards his village. When he arrived, he landed in the main scouting building. He walked over to the line of scouts and guards checking in to find out their next assignment.

“Next!” the attendant said. “Okay, you are in sector 2J.” The scout flew off. After waiting in line for several minutes, it was finally Firetail’s turn.

“Okay, you are…” the attendant said. “Ahah! You will be guarding the mines! Here’s your name slip. Next!”

Firetail sighed. He walked over to the liftoff platform and glided through the village. The ominous clouds above him gave Firetail the creeps. He shivered. When he landed, the sky rumbled loudly and rain started to pour down.

Firetail lifted his wings above his body, creating an umbrella of sorts. He walked to the cave entrance to the mines. He stepped inside and walked over to the main desk. He handed his slip to the dragon there and waited.

“You are in the seventh tunnel,” he said. “Go take three rights and then a left. When you get to the main cavern there, take the middle tunnel, and then that's your position.”

“Thanks,” Firetail grumbled. He stalked off to the tunnels and followed the instructions he had been given. As he walked, he started to get the feeling that he was being watched.

When he reached his position, he stood there, surveying the open space. Many dragons were all around, digging into the walls and mining the minerals, ores, and crystals.

Suddenly, there were several yells and a loud clang. Firetail looked over and saw two dragons fighting. They had tossed their tools aside and thrown themselves at each other. Several of the guards flew down and pulled the fighters apart. Both dragons were pulled out of the cavern and the mines.

Firetail settled himself back down. He watched the room, looking for anything out of the ordinary. He noticed several flakes of dust drifting down from the ceiling.

He looked up and saw that one of the stalactites was shifting slightly. As he examined it, he noticed that there was a circular crack around it. It shifted again, and he swore he saw a talon above. There was a scratching sound, and the stalactite dropped an inch and shifted slightly.

Firetail gasped. There was another scratching sound and the stalactite dropped a small bit more.

“Look out!” He shouted, just before the stalactite fell. He watched as if in slow motion. The dragons below looked up, saw the rock spire and tried to move out of the way. Most did, but one dragon was impaled by the spire. Firetail looked up again and saw that several odd-looking golden dragons were crawling out of the hole.

One flew down and landed on one of the miners. The miner yelled and reared up, but the strange dragon stabbed its tail downwards onto the miner, who then collapsed. The golden dragon jumped off, and several more flew down and grabbed the miner. They started to carry it up to the hole above. Several guards yelled and flew up to try and stop the golden dragons.

A swarm of the golden ones flew down and attacked the guards. Firetail noticed that each dragon knocked out by the golden dragons was picked up and taken into the hole.

Firetail fled into the main tunnel. He saw a control room on the side of the tunnel. He dashed into it and looked around frantically for the close-the-door button. He flipped open the warning case and slammed his talon on the button.

The door creaked and slowly fell. As it did, several dragons tried to escape. Only five did, and three of them were the golden ones. Several more guards attacked the golden ones and killed them swiftly.

The bodies lay there, with dark blood spilling out of their wounds. Suddenly, the wounds rippled and sealed themselves up. Firetail looked closer and saw that they were breathing again.

With a shudder, the golden exoskeleton cracked apart and split around the head. It began to seemingly fold itself into nothingness. When it had vanished, what was left were three dragons lying on the ground. One of them was an Avis dragon, another was a Reptilik dragon, but most surprising of all, the third one was one of the dragons from the more advanced society. The Avis dragon groaned and rolled over. She stood up and then fell over.

“Oof.” She said, “Where am I?”

“You’re in the Avis mines.” One of the guards said. “What happened to you?”

“I…” she said. “Oh! I remember! So, there is this hidden civilization of Insectik dragons, in my case Antik dragons, who kidnap dragons and take them into their underground homes. They, like, shove you in a pod thing and it turns you into one of them. And that’s what happened to me.”

“Ok?” One guard said.

“This is important news,” Another guard said. “We need to tell someone.”

“Goldfleck,” Firetail said. “He’ll know what to do.”

“Goldfleck!” The new dragon said. “Goldfleck!”

“You know him?” One of the guards said.

“It’s me, Flower,” she said.

“Oh my gosh!” Firetail said. “We all thought you died!”

“We need to get to Goldfleck.],” One of the guards said. “Let's move.”

Suddenly, the cave rumbled and the metal door creaked ominously. There was the sound of hundreds of claws scratching against metal. The noise echoed around the small cavern. The dragons started running in the opposite direction. As they ran, the tunnel shook and rumbled. The door let out another creak. Firetail looked back and saw that the door was bending and bulging. He ran faster.

Suddenly, the door cracked in half, and the swarm of ant dragons burst into the small cavern. Firetail turned and saw the two other dragons picked up and taken by the swarm. The group of seven dragons ran as fast as they could toward the exit. The ceiling rumbled and cracked, and several small pebbles fell down.

Firetail and Flower were ahead of the rest of the group when the cavern collapsed. The boulders and rock and dirt blocked off the tunnel, trapping the other five dragons behind. There was the sound of scrabbling as the swarm started attempting to dig through the walls. This caused more shaking to occur.

“We have to get everyone out of here.,” Flower said.

“This way,” Firetail said. He ran up to a small control room in the side of the passage that had previously been occupied by guards. Firetail realized that they were the ones that had been trapped behind the rocks. Firetail turned on an alarm and then spoke into an intercom.

“Alert. We have an invasion in the deepest sections of the mines. Please evacuate so the system can be closed off,” He said into it. “Ok, let's go now.” He said to Flower.

Both dragons ran out of the room and away into the tunnels. After several confusing and winding paths, they made it to the front. Once everyone had been evacuated, Firetail pressed the self-collapse button. With a rumble, about thirty explosives went off throughout the mines. The whole cave system collapsed on itself, creating a shallow but wide crater in the ground.

The rumble stretched out into silence. Firetail sighed and turned away from the crater. He started walking to the village. Flower saw him and approached.

“Where are you going?” She said.

“Back to the village,” Firetail said. “I need to notify the elders and scouts about this.”

“Should we tell them about the ant dragons?” Flower asked.

“Yes, we should,” Firetail said. “They need to know.” He continued on into the forest.

Suddenly, Flower groaned and doubled over. Firetail turned around, a look of concern on his face. With a snapping and cracking sound, the golden exoskeleton that had disintegrated around Flower before reformed around her. She groaned again and was finally still.

“Flower?” Firetail said. He wasn’t sure whether she would retain memories of herself.

“What. . . ?” Flower said. Her voice was different; it had a strange undertone to it. She slowly stood up, wobbling. She opened her eyes and looked down at herself. With a yelp, she jumped backward. She crouched down and covered her head with her talons, breathing heavily.

“Flower?” Firetail said. “Are you okay?”

“No,” She said, “I thought I was all done with this!”

“Come on,” Firetail said comfortingly. “You’ll be okay.”

“At least I still have my memories of me,” Flower said. Her breathing slowed and she calmed down. When she was finally calm enough, she stood up shakily. Then, just like before, the exoskeleton disappeared, folding away just like it had before.

Flower looked down at herself again. “It’s gone!” she said happily. “And I can feel something in my head that’s, like, how to switch between these two forms!”

“Great!” Firetail said. “We should walk the rest of the way to the village though, just in case.”

“That’s probably a good idea,” Flower said. She continued on into the jungle. As the pair of dragons walked, they thought about what had happened. When they got to the village, Firetail told Flower to stay there while he went off to find Goldfleck and the elders.

Firetail flew towards the scout building and landed in Goldfleck’s office. Goldfleck looked up irritably.

“What do you want?” He said.

“There’s some important news regarding the mines,” Firetail said.

“Better be really important news,” Goldfleck said, scowling.

“It is,” Firetail said. “There was an invasion in the deep sections of the mine.”

“So?” Goldfleck said. “Just close off that section of the mines.”

“The thing is,” Firetail said. “The invasion was of such force and magnitude that the whole mine had to be self-collapsed.”

“WHAT!” Goldfleck yelled, leaping out of his chair. He sank back into it, stunned. “Do you have any other information regarding this? I’ll need some to tell the elders.”

“I do, in fact,” Firetail said. “It has to do with Flower.”

“Flower?” Goldfleck said slowly. “She died three years ago.”

“I’ll tell you the rest with the elders,” Firetail said. “You’ll be reunited with her.”

“Good,” Goldfleck said. “In that case, let’s go see the elders.”

Both dragons flew to the elder’s building. Goldfleck went inside first. Firetail turned and saw Flower waiting nearby. She saw him and smiled.

“Firetail!” Goldfleck said. “You can come in.”

Firetail sighed and then walked inside. He looked up nervously at the elders.

“Firetail…” the oldest elder, Hawkson, said. “Recount your tale to us.”

So Firetail told his story, excluding Flower, to the Elders.

“And the weirdest part,” Firetail said. “Is that most of these ant dragons are other kinds of dragons that were put in pods and then transformed into the ant dragons.”

“Really. . ?” another elder said. “That is… intriguing.”

“Just before the door closed off the original cavern, five dragons managed to get past the door before it closed,” Firetail said. “Three of these dragons were the ant ones, so other guards nearby killed them.”

“Why is this important?” a third elder asked.

“Well, you see,” Firetail said. “After these dragons were killed, their wounds healed extremely fast.”

“So we are faced off with an invasion of dragons that can heal themselves and revive themselves from death?” a fourth elder asked. “Then we are doomed.”

“Actually, quite the opposite,” Firetail said. “Once the wounds of the dragons had healed, the golden exoskeleton folded away into nothing.”

“So they heal themselves just to disappear?” a fifth elder said. “That seems pointless.”

“The thing is, when the exoskeleton disappeared, underneath it was a normal dragon,” Firetail said.

“Who were these dragons underneath?” the first elder said. “Were any one of ours?”

“One dragon was a Reptilik, and another was one from the forest destroyers,” Firetail said, eliciting gasps and snarls from the elders. “But, yes, one of them was one of our own.”

“Wait a minute,” Goldfleck said. “Who exactly was this?”

“It was Flower,” Firetail said.

“WHAT!” Goldfleck said, half hysterically angry and half hopeful. “Where is she?”

“Would you permit me to go get her?” Firetail asked the elders.

“Yes, you may.” one of them said. “I believe we are all interested to hear what she has to say.”

Firetail quickly exited the building and flew over to where Flower was hiding.

“What happened?” Flower asked.

“They’ve asked to see you,” Firetail said. “I believe that they wanted to hear more about the ant dragons.”

“What about Goldfleck?” Flower asked.

“He definitely wants to see you,” Firetail said. “Come on, let’s go.”

Flower and Firetail flew up to the building. Firetail entered first. When Flower entered, Goldfleck shouted, “Flower!” He rushed over to her and embraced her in a hug.

“Are you alright?” He asked, a look of concern on his face.

“I’m fine now,” Flower responded.

“It is nice to see that you are alive after all this time,” one of the elders said. “Could you recount your tale to us?”

Flower told the elders about how the Antik dragons had kidnapped her and many other dragons, as well as how they convert them and how the social structure worked.

“So, all the dragons that were left behind or taken in the mines are being converted into the Antik dragons,” Flower said.

“Is there anything else you can tell us?” the third elder asked.

“There is one more thing,” Flower said. “I don’t know about others who have been killed in ant form, but I can revert to the ant form if I want to.”

“What! Are you okay?” Goldfleck said.

“Yes, I’m fine,” Flower said. “And I retain my normal memories.”

“This is some news,” the first elder said. “Thank you, all three of you. We must think about this amongst ourselves. You are dismissed.”

Flower, Firetail, and Goldfleck walked outside. Goldfleck and Flower flew off to the home they shared together. Firetail breathed deeply and flew up into the air. He saw the crate in the ground that had once been the mines. He now knew who the real enemies were.

He turned to his house and glided down, done for the day.