The Hunter, The Dragon And The Smokey Mountain Angel
Chapter 30

Method waved her hand and the trailer door opened by itself. Julia could hear the tiny sounds from the door’s hydraulics engaging and then locking. She followed Method in and looked around. The space was clean and the air was fresh. The paintings on the wall were still dust free but otherwise the trailer was empty.

Method touched her watch, the door closed, and the trailer started moving toward the mountain. Julia could hear the sound of the trailer sliding on rails. Then the light from the window in the door went dark. A red emergency light turned on above the front door and the room turned red.

Julia suddenly felt lightheaded. She leaned against the wall. She could feel the trailer rolling deeper inside the mountain. Then the trailer started shaking violently. Rocks fell on the roof and then the rumbling stopped and she heard a growling voice from inside her say,

The Hunter is here.

Julia whispered, “The Hunter is here.”

Method turned quickly and looked at her. She said, “Do you know who the Hunter is?

Julia shook her head, “I just heard that.”

“You heard what. I didn’t hear anything but the mountain shaking– ,” Method said but then she nodded slowly. She said, “The Hunter took you last night, do you remember that. He has taken your whole command line and all the other operators on your team. What happened to you?”

Julia strained to remember but her mind went blank. She asked, “Where is my son?”

“Not long after your accident we started losing a lot of people associated with you. The General took your son to protect him from the Hunter… What happened to you? How is it that you can walk? I don’t see you using that strange bending thing, very clever to make it look like you could walk by the way but you seem fully healed now.”

Julia asked, “How is it that I can fly?

Method said, “I don’t know... there is only one other we think can... fly like that. But we have other concerns.” Method’s eyes flared then relaxed. She touched another button on her watch, the other pictures on the wall flickered and a video began playing. It showed a large man with blond hair, very handsome, sitting on a thrown. The next clip showed him jumping down out of his mother ship and offering the people waiting below a golden pill.

Method said, “You’re not the only person able to move as fast as you did when we tried to take you in earlier.”

Julia recognized the pill but she couldn’t recall where she had seen it. She said, “The High Lord Sapen.”

Method stared at Julia for a long moment then the video sped up and the Earth fell under the man’s control, but at the end of the video, half the world turned into mindless beings tearing and biting one another.

“We think that everyone was lost, the video ends with a boy fighting some monster in the swamps…” Method said, “We recently down loaded this and much more data from a crashed space ship we recovered. There was a pilot but he escaped in a smaller craft when we arrived.”

Julia spoke before she understood what she was saying, “That wasn’t all you found in that ship.”

Method nodded as she continued narrating the video on the screens all around her. She said, “We’ll get to that. The Hunter returned to the crash site a few months after we had cleared and sterilized the landing site. We tried to capture it but it killed everyone who attacked it then vanished. It has some kind of cloaking device. After that, everyone connected to you started going missing; we hid you in hospital after hospital for months. The creature we found inside the spaceship was also very weak and injured.”

Then Julia felt the dragon. She could feel power radiating from deeper within the cave. Tactile sensations flooded her senses as memories of smelling pine and seeing… Julia looked Method in the eyes, “You have an orange and green dragon being held in a blue energy field down here!”

Method licked her lips and continued, “We tried to feed it but it wouldn’t eat anything. It did drink water.”

Julia said, “He requires sunlight to fully regenerate.”

Method asked, “How do you know this?”

Julia looked confused. She said, “I’m not sure. I can remember things but I don’t know where– the memories are new,” Julia shook her head, “thoughts just appear. I just knew it when I spoke.”

Method said, “I think the dragon can only manipulate some people while they are awake and others while they dream. You just confirmed that he communicates through advanced control methods but by what means... We are not sure what this means for us but the link between him and you is very strong. It’s been that way from the beginning, hasn’t it?”

Julia just shook her head. She felt stunned and at the same time, she knew all this was true.

“I think that it is a good sign for all of us that he chose to help you Julia. If he is your friend then maybe I have my answer.” Then she spoke into her watch, “Partially open the new skylight above the dragon. Stage one.”

A voice replied, “Only 20%.”

“Yes and stay back,” Method said, “I think the dragon is very intelligent. I don’t think it will harm us but we must be careful– the other one is near.”

The train stopped and Method stepped off. Julia followed but paused; she thought she saw a shadow move behind her.

“Your son is this way Julia.”

Julia looked away from the mining office and walked to the end of the hallway. The hallway was made of reinforced steel. Bright light reflected off the walls as echoes from their footfalls filled the empty spaces. Julia’s heart pounded. She was about to explode with excitement. She passed several doors, turned the corner and saw Method at the end of the hallway standing next to a door waiting for her to hurry up.

Julia stopped. The door next to Method started to open and Julia’s heart skipped a beat. Method said, “I’m sorry it took so long for you to see each other again. I personally watched over him for you.”

The door opened completely and a little head poked out facing away from Julia and looked up at Method. Julia couldn’t breathe as the boy reached out for a hug. Method squatted, gave him a quick hug and Julia heard her whisper in his ear, “Your mommy is here.”

Noah turned around slowly. His big brown eyes were wide and his mouth was frozen in an O shape and then spread into a big grin. He yelled, “Mommy!”

Noah started running. Julia began crying as she flew down the hallway, scooped Noah up in her arms and spun him around, hugging and kissing him, “Oh I love you baby. Mommy loves you, loves you, loves you!”

All the pain, all the hardship and endless walking, all the drugs and even surviving a war were worth this moment for her. The damn she had held back since the moment she had gotten off the Greyhound bus gushed. She couldn’t and didn’t want to hold back what she was feeling. Holding him, seeing him alive and well was the meaning of life.

“I missed you so much mommy!” Noah said, wiped her tears away and asked, “Why are you crying mommy?”

Julia laughed and said, “I am so happy to see you... and where is your dad?”

Rand walked into the hallway and looked at her. She could see a storm of emotions going through him. Julia wondered what reason they gave him for being locked up down here for so long.

“I missed you mommy. I’ve been playing all kinds of games. Come in my room.” Noah pulled away from her and Julia lowered him to the ground and set him on his feet. Noah wouldn’t let go of her hand as he pulled her inside the room. He continued, “There’s a pool down the hallway and a playroom and, here is my video games,” He waved a hand at the bed, “This is where daddy and I sleep and the bathroom is over here, it has a big bath inside. You want to see it mommy?”

Rand said, “Yes we can tell mommy all about our wonder–stay at Hotel California later.” He looked at Method, “Can we leave now?”

“Look mommy, you’re on TV again. You’re doing it again! How are you flying around the city?” Noah laughed, “That’s funny.”

Julia looked at the TV. It was footage coming from a car across the street when the General’s men had tried to arrest her only minutes ago. The camera changed to a YouTube video of her talking to Andrew. She said, “There’s a dragon under the mountain.”

Then the footage changed to a group of people gathered at the Waffle House. She saw Andrew, Jerry and Frank. Frank said, “It’s time we replace out what they’ve really been doing in that mountain. I don’t know what weird experiments they’re doing but they ant–goanna hurt Julia.”

Julia noticed that Jerry had a rifle on his back and Frank had the Judge strapped to his hip. The sheriff, detective and many other people she knew were all bearing arms. Even Andrew was holding his stake knife in his hand.

Jerry said, “They took Julia up that mountain against her will. What’s happened to her is not right.”

“They took her son! I bet they have her son in that mountain,” said Frank.

“She is a sweet girl and we’re not going to let them take her and do God–knows what experiments on her!” Frank shouted.

Then everyone loaded up in their trucks and cars and started for the mountain.

Method shook her head and said, “Shit! Now the whole operation is in jeopardy.”

Rand looked at her and then at Method. Julia swiveled her head slightly and said, “Sweet heart, mommy has to take care of a few more things before you can leave but I will be staying here,” She looked at Method who nodded as she spoke, “with you until my work is finished.”

Rand shook his head and said, “Well, we’re going to need two rooms then because I–”

Julia felt her mind unlocking. A flow of strength moved through her body and time seemed to stand still. Happiness, knowledge and power washed through her.

She whispered, “The dragon gift!”

She suddenly remembered all that Light Reader had told her and she felt her body begin to hum. The sound resonated from her belly and grew into the beating of a huge drum. In the drumbeat, she felt a savage energy shaking every structure in her body. The vibrations separated and identified in her what was natural and what was artificial. The light of her awareness looked upon these things and for just a moment her highest self–shown bright as the sun…

Then she could feel and see the cells in her body and, as all her memories began to emerge, she could identify every spider–nano inside her.

There is more to this, there is something more to this– Julia thought.

New memories, all the ones she had from before, poured into her mind.

Then the presence, Light Reader, approached her like an invisible wind rising up the mountainside.

Light Reader said,

They tried using their tiny robots on me too but I confused and reprogrammed them.

In her mind, Julia saw the Hunter and remembered all she had done to her and then she watched Light Reader’s memory of when she tried to make him her puppet. None of the spiders could penetrate his scales but they did replace a way into his nostrils. From there they injected him from the inside but his anatomy was unfamiliar to their design, however; he knew them.

He had been so weak at that time from trying to escape the dudgeon of the Red Dragons that for a while the tiny machines roamed his body unchecked. Then, as the hours passed, he awoke to their presence but instead of destroying them, he reprogrammed them to feed the Hunter false data.

Julia felt the life force within her quicken, absorb and then augment the frequency the spiders inside her were using to communicate to each other. Using the energy Light Reader had given her in the tea she drank, she searched her body and found the master–nanobot that physically held the code that directed the hive inside her. Using the code, she turned off a second nano that acted as a backup to the first. Then she started tracing the network hierarchy and reset them, first in groups of ten, then 1000s, hundreds of millions and then billions.

Her eyes flicked back and forth, as if in RAM sleep, as a new transmission moved like electricity throughout her body– invading every nano and adding a new line of code to control them all.

Light Rider directed her as she programed the tiny robots sub–programming to match his own but he kept the primary code that the Hunter had written intact for–show in order to complete the next task.

Through the foam he had given her, she could fly and the tea she drank contained his fibers, which had absorbed trace elements from his home world and with the nanos now at her control she felt time and knowledge bending around her.

And now, you are perfect my Julia. You are a new kind of human, a kind that won’t exist in this universe again until the end of time. All history is our future and I remember it all. We will control destiny. Our time has come. Just one more act and this show is over…

The moment passed but the humming coming from within her grew until the whole mountain began to shake. Julia inhaled sharply, her reawakening had happened in the blink of an eye.

She heard Rand continue his sentence, “…don’t want to be around her right now.”

Julia could feel the emotions of everyone in the room flowing over her like a multicolored waterfall. The slightest change in vibration, or when it nullified, rushed to her attention. Then she recognized another, perfectly calm energy, standing right behind her.

It took every bit of her self–control to remain still. She said, “I think Method can replace separate rooms for us in this–”

At the sound of fingers snapping, Julia went silent. Then the room shimmered and the Huntress appeared behind her. She wore a tight fitting, silver suit that remained open in the front and ended in a mini skirt. A pistol, like something out of a sci–fi movie, rested at her hip.

Julia pivoted as she swung her left hand in like a blade aimed at Martha’s throat. Martha snapped her fingers again and Julia froze in place.

Then Rand dove for Noah pushing him behind the bed then he rushed toward Julia. He ran and jumped for Martha but she caught him in midair and tossed him through the open door, into the hallway where he slammed headfirst into the metal wall. Julia heard his neck snap on impact and he fell to the ground limp.

Julia tried to cry out but no sound escaped her lips.

Method pulled a gun from her jacket and fired. Martha let her unload the clip into her body then she walked over to Method, took the gun from her and pistol–whipped her with it.

Margret smiled and said, “When My Lord comes, he’ll be pleased. I’ve captured his greatest prize and the dragon is still in my possession.”

Method wiped the blood from her mouth and then she touched a button on her watch and an alarm sounded. Martha’s fingers turn into claws and cut off Method’s hand just below the wristwatch.

Method clamped down on her bleeding stump and said, “Why don’t you kill me like you did that innocent man?”

The Huntress look back at Rand lying motionless in the hallway and then back at her. She said, “You’re much cuter than he is and I think you know quite a lot about this world. He strikes me as someone less important. I didn’t want to kill him but he attacked. Humans are so fragile. Until now, I was The Hunter, now I’m your Mistress. After this night, I will prepare the way for my Lord’s greatest experiment and you and Julia will command my lieutenants.

Method said, “I will tell you nothing.”

“That’s okay Method. I know you well. Hold out as long as you want but soon you will be my puppet too.”

A roar, like a thousand thunderclaps at once shook the mountain!

“That damn dragon won’t be quiet!” Martha said.

Light Rider spoke in Julia’s mind,

Concentrate on the feeling my tea gave you when you drank it. Imagine it like a small star glowing at the base of your tail then slowly let it pulse as it rises up through your abdomen, chest, throat and finally to the place between your eyes then, when the light reaches its zenith cry out with all your passion. Think on the one you love most and let it explode from your mouth!

Julia turned as she thought of being without Noah for all this time.

Martha’s eyes went wide as she said, “Stop that! Be still Julia. Then she snapped her fingers.

The machines inside Julia never heard the command. The show was over. The temporary program Light Reader had given them to freeze had ended.

Now Julia, she heard Light Reader say!

The image of a spinning vortex appeared in her mind at the base of her spine. She followed Light Reader’s mental instructions and she changed its color from a dark orange into a bright yellow then into an electric blue sun. Her son’s face filled her vision and she remembered all the pain she had endured while hiding from this woman and her love of freedom from her broken form. Her body began to vibrate, the power inside her expanded as it multiplied. The nano spiders inside her reacted. They let the growing energy pass through themselves like conductors. The energy bypassed her vital organs and the growing sun began to rise up through the center of her body.

Martha stepped back as she watched Julia glowing from her center; then the light flashed! The pulse intensified as it grew in her body. It rose until it reached her eyes and she cried out her son’s name, “Noah!” From her mouth shot a bolt of light.

Martha had already started running through the door and into the hallway when the light struck the door, blowing it off its hinges!

When the smoke cleared, a hole 10 feet wide glowed red.

Light Reader said,

The breath of dragons burns inside you. Now, tell Method to open the skylight and bring your son to me. I will protect him as if he were my own.

Julia turned toward the bed and flew to her son. She scooped him up and looked to Method. She said, “Open the skylight!”

“Wow mommy! You’re a superhero.”

“That’s right honey all mommies are superheroes. Now you are going to meet my friend Light Reader. I want you to be brave.”

Noah pumped his arm in the air and showed his teeth. He growled and said, “I’m a tiger mom!”

“That’s my tiger! Now close your eyes, put your hands over your ears and keep them there until I move them.”

Noah did as she told him to and Julia looked on the floor.

Method had just retrieved her hand lying on the floor and she pulled her bloody watch off with her teeth. She touched it’s screen and yelled’ “Emergency command 34. Open the skylight all the way!”

Julia flew out the room and passed a very stunned looking Martha lying on the ground patting her smoking fur.

Martha jumped to her feet, drew her weapon and fired. Light Reader corrected Julia’s flight path and the pulse of green light passed by her and struck the wall leaving a tiny burn hole in the metal.

Julia turned the corner as a humming sound came from behind her. The Hunter activated her pack’s electro–levitation mode. She rose into the air, her suit pulling and pushing on the metal walls that made up the hallway and she shot off after Julia.

Julia could feel her coming through her dragon sense and spider nanos. They flew through the metal reinforced tunnels of the mountain. Julia let Light Reader guide her upstairs and through the maze of halls.

Martha continued shooting at her but Julia kept turning each corner too fast for Martha to get a lock on her.

Suddenly, Julia saw the double door Light Reader had been guiding her to.

Those doors won’t open easily, Light Reader warned her.

Julia imagined the blue sun rising up from the base of her tail, through her body and out her mouth. Faster than before, a ball of blue flame erupted from her mouth struck the door and it exploded outward.

Julia flew into a huge cave. Hundreds of spotlights shone from the ceiling like tiny suns and each one focused on a single point in the center of the room. Through the glare, she saw the grid work of support struts holding up the cave walls. In the center of the floor was the large, black wedge–shaped spaceship. Behind it, bathed in all the shining lights and colored by a beam of blue energy emanating from the spaceship laid the most magnificent creature she had ever seen.

Light Reader strained as he raised his head and lifted his tail.

He slammed his tail onto the ground and the mountain shook. For a moment, the beam of blue light flickered and Light Reader was free but a split second later, the beam stabilized around him again. He said,

I’ve almost drained the ships back up energy supply. I only need a few more minutes!

Julia said,

You planted the idea in my head that you still had three more days until you are free, so that Martha would come!

Not now Julia.

A growing beam of sunlight coming from the skylight touched his scales each time the energy field flickered. Julia could feel Light Reader absorbing the sun’s energy, growing stronger by the second. Inch by inch the skylight continued to open and Light Reader fought harder against the failing energy field causing it to flicker even more.

Light Reader lifted a paw and said,

Drop him!

Julia hesitated as she flew around the powerful dragon.

Light Reader’s voice came into her mind as a whisper,

On my honor as a dragon, no harm will come to him.

Julia prayed then she dropped Noah. His body slowed as he passed through the blue light and into the dragon’s paw. Light Reader quickly tucked Noah under his wing even as Martha fired several shots at Julia and then down at Light Reader.

The green laser beams pierced the weakened blue shield, struck Light Reader’s scales and reflected onto the cave floor leaving little puffs of smoke.

“Are you okay?” Julia yelled.

Her little flashlight has no effect on me. Soon I will over power this cage and she will see MY light!

Julia saw the building rage in his mind. As kind and benevolent as this dragon was, as he had once been, the thousands of years of starvation and then torcher had made him bitter and now he had Noah in his claws.

We will talk about it later Julia, Light Reader said in response to her observation of his state of mind, “Be glad she is the object of my wrath!”

Julia suddenly worried about her son but Light Reader showed her the image of his two babies, the ones he lost so long ago.

He said,

I will never harm a child no matter how angry I become.

Julia changed her focus to Martha. Light Reader said,

Martha isn’t as strong as you are.

Julia flew high into the sky, twisting as she spiraled toward the skylight. She replied,

But Martha is a very experienced Hunter.

So are you!

Green lasers passed her and she glanced down. A stream of smoke followed Martha as she flew after Julia.

Light Reader said,

You’re not going to outpace her but she’s using a levitation suit that has a limited fuel supply and you can out maneuver her.

Julia plotted a course through Pigeon Forge then she passed into the ventilation shaft she had used before and headed out and down the mountainside. Martha was right behind her.

She circled the mountain as she descended and passed the place where the Mining Office trailer had been parked. Then she saw the caravan of would be rescuers coming up the mountain. Jerry drove his Cadillac and Andrew sat in the passenger seat. She dipped close to the Cadillac and yelled, “Go back to town!”

A flash of green light streaked past her with a high–pitched buzz. It cut a tree in half just in front of her and gunfire erupted from the cars below. Julia looked down at Frank as he fired up at the strange looking, furry woman that chased Julia. He raised his gun and Julia shook her head.

She had to get Martha away from her friends before she killed every one of them.

Julia heard rapid gunfire coming from above her. She looked back. A dozen people wearing jetpacks swarmed out of the mountain in white and blue suits with U.S. Air Force emblazed on their helmets. The sounds of rocketeers shooting across the sky joined the symphony of explosions and laser blasts.

Martha turned her back to Julia and started shooting her pursuers out of the sky almost as quickly as they emerged from the mountain.

Bullets whizzed by Julia’s head as they fired back at her, so she flew into the woods hoping the trees would block any bullets that missed their target.

A few seconds later the sound of gunfire stopped and a window opened in Julia’s vision and a hologram of Martha appeared. She said, “I’ve been trying to speak to you since you blew a hole in the hallway door.”

Julia tried to replace a way to turn off the link to Martha but she couldn’t.

“I think you should know that your new friend, Puff the Magic Dragon, is more dangerous than I will ever be.”

Julia made a sharp turn when she reached the main road and checked that Martha was following. The Hunter appeared from above the tree line and fired several times making Julia loop high into the air over traffic and then dive back down, behind the Waffle House and then she leveled off inches above the river.

“You say you’re not dangerous but you’re shooting lasers at me!”

“I never said I wasn’t dangerous. My lasers will only stun you. You know what you mean to me Julia. I just said that your friend is very unbalanced and I know unbalanced. I saw the original reading and the readings he allowed me to have through the nanos in his system. Talk about disturbing dreams. Did you know he was the last Dragon Lord? He is a TechnoDragon. The guilt he feels for the Great War on his planet has drove him mad?”

“Surviving a war and torment can put an edge on a person.” Julia replied as she dodged around a tree then rose above the buildings.

Martha stayed right behind her.

Julia zigzagged around statues of monsters atop arcades as she dodged laser blast. Every time Martha gained on Julia, she changed direction and the Huntress flew past her, over corrected and returned at full speed.

Two jet–propelled Air Force men flew overhead. They shot heat–seeking rockets and Martha flew into the mountainside weaving through trees until the rockets exploded behind her.

Julia saw King Kong on a tall building and hid behind the figure of a girl trapped in his grasp. Suddenly one of the plaster fingers exploded! Julia flinched as all but the middle finger she hid behind burst into flames. She dropped backwards, swooped across the street and headed for the replica of the Titanic.

Martha said, “I’m one step ahead of you girl.”

Julia looked up and saw Martha standing on the lead edge of the Titanic, gun pointed at her. Julia closed her eyes ready for the electric shock that was sure to paralyze her when a rocket exploded just below Martha. When the smoke cleared, Martha was gone and the hologram of her vanished from the window in Julia’s vision.

The front half of the Titanic broke and fell into the water. Julia felt relief and sadness as she checked that no one inside the restaurant was hurt. She found a little girl injured and was about to carry her out when one of the people in the jet suits landed in the water just outside the ship.

Julia called, “I can’t stay here. Everyone is in danger!” The rocketeer’s visor flipped up, Julia saw Method and she smiled. “How are you even still conscious?” Julia asked.

Method smiled and said, “Drugs! Now get out of the city! I’ll have a med–team here in minutes.”

Julia rose into the air and circled the sinking ship. She didn’t see any sign of Martha. The Mountain shook and she listened for Light Reader but she could tell that he was in deep concentration.

She turned back toward her home and flew as fast as she could but as she passed over the Waffle House Martha’s scout ship uncloaked before her. The Hologram of Martha reappeared in her vision. The Hunter spoke in her raspy voice, “Now, where were we. Oh yea, you’re goanna be my slave again but now we’re going to have to start all over.”

Gun turrets dropped from the ship’s wings and fired. Julia twisted as she dodged bolts of plasma and flew toward her house. But Martha’s ship was both fast and agile. Julia heard a clicking sound as she felt a net made of the same spider threads that held her down to the table wrap around her body and lock in place.

Just then, the top of the mountain exploded! From the distance, she could clearly see large claws, white fangs and enormous wings reaching for the sky.

Her dragon had escaped!

The black wedge ship slowly turned toward the mountain. Sunlight glittered green and orange as it reflected off Light Reader’s crystalline scales.

The huge dragon roared and a column of purple and blue flames shot into the air! He shined like a second sun as he absorbed the full strength of the sunlight.

The Huntress’s ship stopped and Julia could see the fear in the hologram’s face just before it went placid.

Light Reader climbed to the top of the mountain and leapt into the air. The mountain was far away but when he flapped his powerful wings, suddenly he wasn’t so far away anymore.

Julia saw something on his back. She squinted as she strained to see. Then, as if she had grown a second set of lens in her eyes, her vision zoomed in on the looming figure. Noah was riding on Light Reader’s back!

Julia screamed, “Noooo!” as Martha fired everything she had at the dragon but the lasers simply reflected off his scales and the missiles exploded in the jet of flame coming from his mouth.

Julia couldn’t believe how fast Light Reader could fly. He had to be doing Mock 2 and he had only flapped his wings three times.

Martha increased speed, trying to reel Julia back into the scout ship but Light Reader was upon them. He cut the net’s tether with the tip of his wing. The webbing slacked around Julia and she slipped out of the net.

Julia tried to touch his mind but he was beyond communication. Pure anger, as she had never felt before grew from the base of his tail and began rising. Thousands of years of captivity intensified his rage and he channeled this energy threw his body– as he circled above the hovering ship. The moment Julia was free, he roared and it sounded as if a star had just exploded!

A POP reported and the Huntress ejected from her ship. With one claw, Light Reader caught Martha. Her levitation suit wined and then sputtered as she tried to pry herself free but his talons only gripped her tighter.

Then Light Reader unleashed his pent up frustration in a jet of fire that crashed into the scout ship. The ship burst into flames and crashed into the side of the cliff below Julia’s house.

Julia saw what he meant to do to Martha and she flew as fast as she could, landed on Light Reader’s back and covered Noah’s eyes. The dragon’s mind was lost in the madness.

She held Noah in her arms calming him as he shook. Light Reader started to descend to the ground. Julia saw that he intended to stomp and smash every scrap of metal out of existence and then smear Martha’s remains in its ashes.

Julia whispered, “Great Light Reader, survivor of the Great War and defender of Earth, be at peace now. This Hunter will get the justice she deserves but not like this.”

Light Reader landed on the crashed scout ship. He crushed the scraps of metal with his stomping and then he flattened all that remained with his tail until only smoke rose from the cratered ground. He squeezed Martha and imagined taking her head off with a flick of his wrist, draining her fluids in the fire and then burning her remains…

Julia yelled, “This woman was taken just before her death. She is a mother lost in grief just like us. Forgive her Light Reader, help her.” Julia showed him an image of her crying at her son’s funeral.

She lost her heart in the wars on her planet. That sadness changed her like its changing you.

Light Reader’s grip on Marta faltered. Julia felt him reconsider the grim task he had envisioned and she knew he had heard her. His rage turned to grief for all he had lost and then he turned from his dark visions.

Julia said to Noah, “Don’t be scared Noah. Our dragon is done being mad. He just saved mommy’s life. Can you give him the most powerful, most loving, most grateful hug you have ever given to anyone?”

Noah stopped shaking and he leaned forward and wrapped his arms around one of Light Reader’s horns. Both Julia and Light Reader could feel all the love this little boy had for his mommy as he squeezed with his little arms and prayed for Light Reader’s happiness.

Light Reader released a stream of smoke from his nostrils. The image of his two children hugging his tail came to his mind and he took a deep breath. Noah smiled and looked up at his mommy. He said, “Mommy, I just saw two baby dragons hugging Light Reader!”

Julia hugged Noah.

Thank you for sparing her, Julia said silently to Light Reader, Some things can’t be undone.