Chaotic Clusterfuck 40 (Patreon)

Chaotic Clusterfuck

Chapter 40

-VB-

After dropping off the rescued slaves at Morocco with the Batarian frigate and shuttles, we took a detour to the western coast of the Dark Continent where monsters laid instead of heading straight back towards America.

Why?

Aside from giving whomever might be watching from orbit a false target, we wanted to check out the dragons of the Dark Continent on the only ship available to us that might get us out there fast enough to not become lizard food.

And if we get lucky and happen upon a mostly unguarded dragon nest?

I was more than happy to get my hands on some dragons for myself.

They had to be trainable, right? Even if they were introduced to this world as sort of the ultimate fuck-you to humanity, they had to be trainable, right? I wouldn’t be even attempting this if I wasn’t a parahuman, though.

That way laid suicide. Elaborate suicide but suicide nonetheless.

We watched from every port possible as we shakily and rather unsteadily brought the frigate close to the coast of the Dark Continent.

The Dark Continent was … dark. As in it was preternaturally dark. The tall forests reminiscent of Jurassic jungles from Jurassic Park movies – which was essentially just a tropical rainforest with more ferns of short and tall orders – stood underneath the bright blue sky, but the shadows they cast were remarkably deeper than they should be.

It now made more sense why the new continent was called the Dark Continent. It wasn’t called that because of some historical nonsense about terra incognito being “darkness yet to be conquered” or some other philosophical bullshit.

It was called the Dark Continent because it was literally dark out there.

“Damn,” the piloting clone muttered as he glanced at the dense forest that mimicked at being an old growth forest. “It’ll be slaughter to step into that jungle.”

We’ve heard the stories from the few people who came back from the Dark Continent with useful experience.

‘The Trees are the enemy.’

‘Don’t get close to a dragon. If you can see it, then it’s already smelled you.’

‘Don’t let the light go out at night.’

And the like.

Some of those tips were why we weren’t staying there longer than we needed to to throw off whoever might be looking. It was already nearing dusk, and as soon as the sun went down, we were going to high tail out of here on low power, which would both serve to mask our departure and reduce our visibility.

Of course, assuming someone up in orbit was watching us.

Which we should assume because otherwise, I might have a second attack on Brockton Bay at hand.

Not that I intended to land there in the first place. See, my plan was rather simple.

Use the darkness and low power to sneak away from the coast of the Dark Continent. Make it look like it was either some of the adventurers from there or a denizen of the Dark Continent itself that took the ship. We would go back to the East Island and land not in Brockton Bay but in Georgia, i.e. the Batarian-occupied areas of the U.S.A. Aside from this appearing “normal,” anyone who tracked us just might stop there.

Regardless of where we land, we’ll dismantle the frigate for all of the eezo and tech within the ship and leave with just the components. It wasn’t like we had a warehouse big enough to park a whole frigate, never mind the kind of attention that would bring to me.

No, no, no

My hands were full just trying to keeping PRT ENE’s nosiness in place. I didn’t need to give them a reason to get even nosier.

Actually, if I managed to bring back a whole frigate in the middle of the day or something like that, the government might use eminent domain on me or something similar to take it from me without paying me anything. That would suck 100%.

Which was why I need-.

All of the clones’ eyes widened as we caught sight of something truly magnificent.

A dragon.

It was …

Oh dear.

It was big. It was half as long as the frigate. We couldn’t calculate properly but its wingspan seemed to be as wide as it was long. Its red scales glimmered in the setting sun’s light and …

And it just banked. And started to head toward us.

“Ah shit,” we muttered and quickly got to the unfamiliar stations and controls of the ship.

The dragon screeched at us before smashing into the frigate.

Unfortunately for it, the ship was heavier than it by far, and it only managed to nudge us off of our course by a bit.

What wasn’t so great was the dragon starting to breathe fire on us.

“FUCKKKKK-!!!”

-VB-

When we landed in a secluded place in Georgia at 7 p.m. local time, it was with a frigate whose hull had been punctured, pierced, scorched, and overall damaged like it had come out of a fire, not a transatlantic flight.

The frigate’s hangar bay opened up and we clones walked out before collapsing on the solid ground.

One of us started hurling.

Because it’s only been ten minutes since the dragon decided we weren’t worth it and, after hunting us across the Atlantic Ocean, turned back just a hundred miles outside of Georgia.

“Fuck you!” one of the clones shouted.

I had a feeling that it was directed at me, the original, for wanting to see dragons.

And you know what?

I kind of deserved it after that fiasco.