“I’d like to know what this is all about,” Goldfleck said.

“As would I,” Gila said. “For one thing, why are you consorting with Avissss dragons, Slangfang?”

“Um, well…” Slangfang said. “That’s kind of a long story.”

“We have time,” Goldfleck said. “Well, at least I do.”

“Well, it all started about three days ago,” Firetail said. “We met, and well…”

“We kind of…” Slangfang said. “Like, um…”

“Spit it out already!” Gila said.

“Fell in love,” Slangfang whispered.

“WHAT!” Gila and Goldfleck said.

“You have got to be-” Gila started.

“He’s an enemy!” Goldlfeck interrupted.

“It doesn’t matter!” Firetail shouted. Gila and Goldfleck looked at him. “There’s an enemy we both share.”

“Yes, and that’s the invaders,” Gila said.

“There’s an enemy we share with them too,” Slangfang said. “The ant dragons.”

“Hah!” Goldfleck said. “We took care of those already!”

“They’re back,” Slangfang said. “They’ve created mountains across the world.”

“And they won’t stop until they take over or are destroyed,” Firetail added. “We need to work together.”

“I guess we could, just this once,” Goldfleck said. “As they say, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

“So you’ll actually work together?” Firetail asked.

“I don’t see anything that bad about it,” Gila said. “Maybe we could even set up a more permanent alliance.”

“We’ll see about that,” Goldfleck said. “Now, let’s do this.”

“Where do we go?” Gila said.

“Oh, and one last thing,” Slangfang said. “We’ve also teamed up with two dragons who come from the invaders’ country but want to help.”

“This too,” Goldfleck said, then sighed. “Typical.”

“Let’s go!” Firetail said. He launched upwards into the air, and the other three followed. As they flew, they talked.

“Also, there’s going to be a gigantic spider dragon,” Slangfang said.

“How big are we talking about?” Gila said.

“Like, about a hundred-five yards,” Firetail said.

“That is ridiculous,” Goldfleck said. “The only dragons that were ever that big were the Titans and the Dinosuarics, and they’ve both gone extinct.”

“Well, Spinner just so happens to be a Titan,” Slangfang said. “He was an egg when the Titans were banished.”

“Okay, well, anything else that we should know about?” Gila said.

“The person who basically controls the Titan is a mantis dragon,” Slangfang said. “Her name’s Stryker.”

“Cool,” Gila said.

“We’re here!” Firetail said. He glided down through the trees and landed in a clearing. In it already were Rainbow, Kryptonite, Stryker, and Spinner. Also, standing off to the edge and staring directly at the mountain was a silvery dragon that looked like he was made of metal.

Gila and Goldfleck stared up in awe at Spinner’s massive body.

“Scan completed,” the metallic dragon said. He turned around and addressed Kryptonite. “The main activity is centered in a large chamber in the center of the structure.”

“Who’s this?” Firetail asked.

“This is Hardwire,” Rainbow said. “He’s an old friend, you could say.”

“I felt a disturbance in the network near here,” Hardwire said. “I think I can be useful.”

“And how’s that?” Slangfang asked.

“Well, I can do calculations and computations a few hundred times faster than you,” Hardwire said. “And I can also do this.” He opened his mouth and his lower jaw split in two. His teeth tilted in his mouth so they were facing inwards and began to move like a chainsaw’s blade. Very casually, Hardwire grabbed a stick and used his teeth to shred it. He then aimed his head off in the distance and the tiny splinters shot out rapidly.

“Wow,” Firetail said. “That’s impressive.”

“That’s nothing compared to what Shuriken can do,” Hardwire said. “He’ll be coming here soon.”

“Shuriken?” Rainbow asked. “Are you serious!”

“He’s incredibly useful when fighting,” Hardwire said. Then, out of nowhere, a collection of shurikens of various sizes and shades flew out of the sky and buried themselves in the jungle floor.

“There he is,” Hardwire said.

“Those are just a bunch of shurikens,” Slangfang said.

“Nope, just watch,” Hardwire said smugly. The shurikens then shifted in the dirt. Several pulled themselves out of the ground and hovered while more pulled themselves out and then started unfolding. Each gleaming metal star unfolded itself into many shapes, like a talon, a tail section, a piece of a leg, etc. They then connected together with a hiss, leaving a seamless metallic dragon standing there.

“You asked for me?” Shuriken said.

“We’re going to do an attack on the ant dragons in that mountain, and we thought you could help,” Hardwire said.

“Fighting?” Shuriken asked. “For sure!”

“Alright then,” Rainbow said. “I guess he can be useful.”

“We all agreed on the plan?” Stryker asked.

“Yes,” they all said.

“Ok, then, let's go!” Stryker shouted. At Stryker’s signal, Spinner lowered his huge wing and let the rest of them climb on top. He then launched into the air. He circled around the mountain as the rest of them observed it.

“Look!” Rainbow said. “The ant dragons are coming out!” Everyone looked and saw that Rainbow was correct. Hundreds, if not thousands, of ant dragons were crawling out.

“Spinner can’t land right now!” Stryker said.

“We got thiss!” Gila said. He and Slangfang created red energy in their palms before launching them downwards. Each time they threw one, they created another to throw. They landed on the dragons below, which had a devastating effect. That combined with Spinner’s power to energy weave easily cleared a landing spot for Spinner.

“Don’t land just yet!” Gila said. He gathered blue energy into a huge ball. He sent it upwards, and it split and spread so that it formed a shield around each member of the party.

“Now they can’t touch us,” Gila said.

“Great!” Stryker said. “Okay Spinner!” Spinner roared so loud that the ant dragons were blown backward. He landed on the side of the overgrown anthill with a thud that shook the earth.

Then, a loud buzzing filled the air. The hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of ant dragons flew into the air, each dragon’s four wings creating the infernal sound. Spinner dug his massive talons into the earth, gouging huge chunks out of the mountain. From these gaps came even more dragons. They swarmed up and out of the chambers below, but they couldn’t get close. And thanks to Gila’s protisium spell, the energy used to maintain the spell was taken from the object attacking, not the wearer of the shield. Slangfang thought. Clever!

Slangfang leaped off Spinner with the rest of the dragons. They tried to keep the ant dragons from getting too close to Spinner so that he could dig in peace. But it was difficult. They swarmed out of the tunnels within the mountain, each one knocked out or killed being replaced by one to five more.

Slangfang and Firetail stood next to each other, sending out explosive bursts of magic and power. Rainbow was on the other side of Spinner, letting loose beams of light and energy that ate through the opposing ranks like a cluster of deathwillows ate through an animal.

Kryptonite flew past overhead, leading a huge group of ant dragons. She was utilizing her mysterious abilities to blast through the air like a rocket while also devastating the opponents.

Slangfang and Firetail, by unspoken consent, started moving in the direction of Spinner’s tunnel. Inside was complete and utter chaos. The ant dragons came swarming out of all sides, the buzzing of their wings creating confusing background noise.

Near the “construction” of the tunnel, Shuriken and Hardwire were fighting crazily. Hardwire used his shredder mouth to decimate the walls and the opposing dragons. The end of his tail had become a saw and at least ten other places over his body had a hidden chainsaw mechanic.

But Shuriken was better. He used his claws to hack and slash, while his tail could generate a huge amount of energy and then let it loose as an extremely powerful laser beam. And added on top of that was the fact that when he got hit, he would shatter into all his many little shurikens, where he would slice and dice and then form back together again and continue fighting.

And adding on top of that, Stryker was hiding on top of Spinner. She would wait and then pounce on top of a group of ant dragons. She would kill them quickly and then jump back on top of Spinner, leaving utter confusion behind.

Slangfang pulled his arm back and flung a small ball of green and red energy. It landed right next to a large clump of ant dragons.

“What was that?” Firetail asked.

“Stickybomb,” Slangfang replied. Then, the bomb exploded, sending strands of green-colored magic glue that stuck the ant dragons to the wall while flinging the rest all over the place. With an added flair, each strand of green burst into bright red flames.

Slangfang turned and saw a ridiculous sight. Gila was holding a modified snipespear that launched Goldfleck at oncoming enemy dragons. He would slam into them with the full force of 640 pounds of living solid gold and then retreat.

Then, with a loud crackling sound, the end of the tunnel caved inward. What was revealed behind it was astounding. A massive cavern easily big enough to fit the biggest Titan was in the middle of the anthill mountain. The bottom was a huge lake of murky water, with several spires of insect paper that held up platforms and rooms.

With a loud roar, Spinner stuck his massive head through the hole and scrabbled at the surrounding material with all six of his front legs. There was a loud crinkling and cracking sound that echoed around the tunnel. Then, with a much louder crack, the whole chunk of earth and insect paper fell into the main chamber. Spinner ripped apart the arch trapping his neck and flew up to a huge platform that sat in the center of the main chamber.

Slangfang, Firetail, Kryptonite, Rainbow, Hardwire, Shuriken, Gila, Goldfleck, and Stryker followed him. When they landed, the first thing that caught their eye was the throne. It was made of solid obsidian and decorated with strips and patterns of glittering diamond. A ring of magic lights surrounded the platform, giving it a brighter glow than the rest of the otherwise gloomy chamber.

“Aah, finally,” the dragon on the throne said. She looked like all the other ant dragons, but she was dark pink instead of warm gold. Her wings were bigger, and her abdomen was longer and slightly plumper than the other ant dragons. “Welcome to my kingdom.”

“Who are you?” Rainbow asked.

“You may call me Phantasmi,” she said. “Or also ‘Your Majesty’ if you would be so kind.”

“And why should we?” Kryptonite asked.

“Well, eventually all of you shall be my subjects,” Phantasmi said. “All of you.” Then, out of nowhere, two of the ant dragons flew up to Phantasmi. One whispered something in her ear.

“Fine, let her come,” Phantasmi said. She waved the two dragons off. As they flew, Spinner calmly leaned over and ate one of the dragons whole. He swallowed.

“While we’re waiting, we can talk,” Phantasmi said. “For one thing, why have you completely destroyed my home?”

“We had our reasons,” Stryker said. “One of them being that you’ve been taking over the world basically.”

“It’s what I deserve!” Phantasmi said. “After all that me and my family have been through, we deserve it!”

“No one should deserve the whole world,” Firetail said. Goldfleck and Gila both nodded.

“I’m here!” someone shouted. Everyone turned and saw another ant dragon with the same pink coloring as Phantasmi. She flew down and landed next to Phantasmi. She turned to face the new dragons and then stopped. She stared at Kryptonite, seemingly starstruck.

“K- Krypt-” she said. “Kryptonite?”

“Who are you?” Kryptonite said.

“It’s me,” the dragon said. “Crystal.”