Silver felt her heart thud in her chest with each pulsing beet of engine jets. There were more of them? Despite being healed of all her previous wounds she was feeling rather exhausted of fighting. She had spent most of the day in the air, and the sun was high in the air. The pounding she had taken just a moment ago didn't help. Her body was throbbing slightly and she was wobbly in the air.

But, as before, she forced herself upwards toward the coming threat. Elron rose next to her, glancing at his daughter worriedly. He hadn't expected this. They didn't tell him that they had a spare hundred or so machines ready to fight off any dragons that defeated them.

The other dragons in the valley slowly rose up as well, some looking extremely frightened. A muttering rose around them, speaking of surrender, or retreat. Not many of the dragons their had been part of something like a battle, and now they were faced with one of the most dangerous armies in the known world.

"Don't fall now!" Elron yelled, "Stand and fight! We have no chance if you retreat! All of you will be captured, killed or worse, if you fall now. Would you do that to yourself? To your mates and hatchlings? Don't let yourself be frightened by them, use all the power you have. Don't think you can't win! You can!"

A few of them looked at him in surprise and the fear of fighting dissipated somewhat, though it was still there in a few dragons. However when they saw Iraliene rise up from a mountainside all that fear completely vanished. If their own leader was going to fight with them, then the fight was worth it. She nodded at Elron, a mutual understanding passing between them. As bad as the dragoness was, she understood what it was like to fight for something she believed in. She had been doing so all her life.

Raize flew up beside his sister and the two exchanged a small smile.

"Think that the same idea would work?" asked Silver.

"No, Gravon feinted," replied her brother.

She snorted, "Of course."

They laughed slightly, both shaking out their nervousness. The army was approaching quickly, and there was something different about it, or more specifically one of the robots in the midst. It was different from the rest, more sleek and humanoid, and instead of a completely metal shell it had a glass pane at the head, revealing the human inside.

It took a moment for Silver to recognise him but when she did her heart leapt an extra mile. It was the scarred man that had she had fought all that time ago. He had the same looks and crazed grin. His eyes sparkled with inhuman insanity. The throbbing scar on his throat didn't look any better then before, and if anything stood out from the rest of his body like an unnatural growth.

A growl escaped the silver dragon, and Raize looked at her in confusion, wondering where this sudden anger had come from. He hadn't seen the scarred man before, having made it out before then.

"It's the hunter that captured father before," Silver explained, "And nearly defeated me, without even breaking a sweat."

"What?" Raize frowned, having not heard this story before.

"You two ready?" Zepos said, flying to meet with Silver and Raize before the dragoness could say anything else.

Silver nodded her head at him, this time not smiling. Her hate for the scarred man made her blood boil and her nervousness completely dissipate. She was going to destroy him, along with his fancy looking machine, making sure there would be nothing left.

Zepos frowned at her, wondering what had got her so worked up. He glanced at Raize, who shrugged back, not quite understanding himself. The three dragons began to move with the others, beginning to fly toward the approaching army in readiness to protect their mountain.

Suddenly another noise rose up, more planes and engines. A few of the dragons turned to see the culprit and the murmurs of fear rose up again as more planes appeared behind them. There weren't any robotic machines in this army, but it was far bigger then anything else A.O.D.H had thrown at them so far.

"Don't fear my friends!" yelled Iraliene over the crowd, "It is the Chinese. They've come to help!"

Silver blinked in surprise. She knew that Sky Mountain had an alliance with China, but she didn't know the friendship was strong enough for the country to actually aid the dragons. A smile spread across her face, now they far outnumbered the A.O.D.H army. There was no way the enemy could win now. With a roar she charged forward, flying as fast as she could toward the approaching dragon hunters. The rest of the dragons followed, with new hope now that they had the upper hand.

Silver was in the front line, and as they clash the dragoness took the brunt of the attack. She twisted throw two robots, striking with her tail in an attempt to break their armour. The strike didn't do much however, the metal of the robots being made of the same substance as her shell.

Instead of giving up however she formed a hook with edge of her wings and hit one of the robots on the back with her wing. The shard edge sunk deep into the machine's back, and Silver found herself stuck to its back. Snarling she wrenched the claw out, leaving a long, deep scar stretching down its back. Wires were sprouting and she couldn't but grin as it began to malfunction. She must have cut something important.

She turned to find that complete chaos had broken out amongst their ranks. Complete and utter chaos, though the dragons were easily winning. The planes from the Chinese swooped above the army, loosing rockets at the robots in the midst and explosions range out through the sky. A few machines were even knocked from the sky.

Silver rose higher into the air, above the army, and began to look for a certain machine in particular. She spotted it, right in the middle of the fight. Elron had gotten to him and the two were fighting with destructive ferocity. Elron had his wings carving through the air with a razor edge and tail formed into a mace like ball with spikes. The machine that the hunter controlled was fast however, far faster then any of the other robots, and Elron was having a hard time keeping up with the punches and kicks thrown at him.

Silver dove toward them, lengthening her tail as she did so. While the robot was fast, dragons were faster. She dove past it, whipping her tail around its foot as she did. The man inside grunted as he was suddenly pulled from the air, leaving him open to Elron's next attack. He grunted as he was forced backwards with a strong strike from the mace like tail. The glass cracked, but didn't shatter.

Silver pulled up before she hit the ground, still dragging the robot with her and felt a satisfying thud at the end of her tail as the machine crashed into the ground. It was a stupid idea to have glass in the machine. That substance was so much weaker the metal, and if the machine didn't have glass, revealing the man within, then the two metallic dragons wouldn't be going at him together.

The man inside of the machine hurriedly pressed a few buttons, and flicked a switch, getting the robot to its feet once more. Silver still her tail wrapped around its leg, simply pulled, making the two-legged machine fall over once again. She nearly laughed, when a hail of bullets went her way. She growled as a robot landed on her from above, driving her into the ground.

With a grunt she unwrapped her tail from the machines leg and formed it back to its normal length, before striking at the machine that had attacked her. She was still in full metal form and was quite well protected. The reason her armour was stronger then their's was because the metal she breathed and the metal she wore were two different types of the same metal. What she breathed wasn't alive, while her shell was. She didn't exactly know why it was like that, but it was.

The robot grabbed her around the neck and picked her up, before slamming her into the ground again. She snarled, clawing at its hand. She was so used to fighting flesh and blood creatures that she expected the hand to pull away, but robots didn't feel pain. With a grunt she was slammed into the ground once again.

Giving up on trying to tear the arm apart, Silver formed the end of her tail into a blade and stabbed forward into the robots chest. The armour was pieced easily under the blade and she stabbed the human controlling it from inside. At first the robot didn't do anything, but then its grip on her weakened, and right before it fell on top of her she managed to get free and role out of the way.

The battle overhead was going really well. A.O.D.H seemed to be retreating, the machines flying away from the dragons as fast as possible. It hadn't even taken the dragons and Chinese an hour. The dragon hunters seemed unused to fighting other machines, and had no defence against them. Raize and Zepos were fighting together in the air, working together to destroy machine after machine. Iraliene was like a giant green demon. She was big enough to grab to machines in her paws and crush them together.

There was a reason life dragons had the name they had. While their breath could be used to heal and bring life to living things, it could also do the opposite. Powerful life dragons could drain another creature, practically stealing their life force. And they could also heal themselves, so whenever Iraliene's scales were broken through, the wound instantly closed up again. It was like she was immortal.

Gravon had finally joined the fight as well. While he was still rather weak from his use of power during the first wave of enemies, he still had enough to create great havoc amongst the armies. He made two different machines crash into each other with such force that they were flattened. To others he made them fly into zero gravity wells where they couldn't control themselves, and then the gravity dragon would fly into them, knocking them into the ground.

It was the first real use of power Silver had seen from the two dragons, and she felt she was almost impressed by it. Almost. Turning back to where her father was she saw that he had crushed the scarred man's machine into a mountainside, shattering the glass and making the thing unusable. Raising his tail he brought it down on the man inside, before he stepped back and turned with a snort.

Silver smiled and leapt into the air with a flap of her wings. The rest of the robots were retreating into the horizon, trying to preserve their own lives. A victory. Silver couldn't help but smile. A.O.D.H wouldn't trouble them for a while, now that they knew the Chinese were on their side. If they did it could well cause all out war between them and the Asian nation.

Sighing she turned back to her father. He was still on the ground. They smiled at each other. Suddenly a movement from behind him caused her to roar out a warning, but it was to late. The scarred man's robot leapt at the grounded dragon, grabbing him in the neck and swatting him across the maw. Elron grunted as he was thrown sideways, landing on his side.

Taking his advantage the scarred man made his robot grip Elron's neck again, shoving him into the ground. One of its hands slid back into the robot's arm, creating a cannon. The man, seeing that the outside of the metallic dragon's body was covered in impenetrable armour, shoved the cannon down the dragon's throat.

Elron and the scarred man made eye contact. Somehow the hunter had survived the crushing blow struck by the metallic dragon, and his body was still in contact. His eyes narrowed and his grin widened, knowing he had the dragon. There was no escape from him this time. It had happened to fast for anyone to save him. The hunter fired the cannon.

"DAD!" Silver screamed.

Elron's body convulsed, the inside not being nearly as protected as the outside. The hunter slowly drew the now bloody barrel of the cannon from the dragon's mouth. There was a metallic clang as the body fell onto the ground, limp and not moving. And just like that, half of the metallic dragons in the world were gone.

A scream of rage erupted from Silver and she pulled in her wings, diving head first toward the creature that had killed her father. He laughed, opening up his robotic arms for her, leaving himself wide open. She didn't think, aiming directly at the man, claws outreached, maw open, ready to rip him to pieces. The man simply swatted her out of the air and she went tumbling through the trees, before springing to her feet once again.

The man was already gone however, retreating with the rest of A.O.D.H, into the sky. Silver cried out after him, opening her wings, ready to take off after them and destroy every last one of the creatures. She lifted herself into the air, and something tackled her down to the ground once again.

"No, don't Silver. Don't. You'll just be captured," Zepos said, pinning her to the ground.

The dragoness struggled viciously against her friend, trying throw him off, "I'll kill them all! I'll destroy them! Let me go! LET ME GO!"

"Silver please!" Zepos cried out.

This time she heard him, and fell limp on the ground. The electric dragon hesitated, before letting her go. She rolled to her feet slowly and got up. She walked over to her father and collapsed by his side. He was still in his full metal form, and no one would know that he was dead except for the blood trickling out of his mouth and the fact he wasn't moving.

"Dad?" Silver whimpered, not allowing herself to believe that he was gone. Refusing to believe it, "Please... please."

She buried her head in the dragons side and let the tears fall from her eyes, "Y... you can't be dead. You just... you just..."

The silver dragon keened, a haunting and mournful cry echoing through the mountain range. It sounded over and over, tears trickling down her jaw and neck. The dragons around her lowered their heads in respect. And Silver cried. For the first time in her life she opened the emotions she had held and let them out into the world, her keen like a resounding death bell.

Raize landed a few feet away, and nearly collapsed, "No... no."

He walked up to his sister, staring in disbelief at the limp body of his father. To the hatchlings he had been invincible, impossible to defeat. The ultimate hero. To them, he was immortal. He did the impossible, and instead of falling into fame he rose into it, loving his family the whole way.

Iraliene landed near them as well and bowed her head. Her heart was heavy, and she couldn't help but feel guilty for the death of this might dragon. She looked at the silver dragon and her brother. She was mourning, and he was standing, staring with hate filled eyes.

Silver looked back to the queen of Sky Mountain, and suddenly hope blossomed, "You can bring him back right? You're a life dragon. You can... bring him back!"

Iraliene lowered her head, "No... I'm not powerful enough to do that."

She had tried once before, in a very similar circumstance, and she had nearly died at the same time. The dragon she had tried to heal hadn't been revived either and she had mourned, just like the silver dragon, she had mourned. But Silver refused to give up.

"Try, at least... try," she sobbed.

Iraliene hesitated, before nodding her head. She took a step forward and gathered her power in her chest. She opened her maw and let out a streaming blast of green energy. It entered Elron's body, making it glow. Every dragon there looked on, hope filling them at the sight. Iraliene continued to pump the body full of life energy, hoping, praying that it would work. She couldn't let another dragon die like this. As she continued to use up her energy she began to feel weak and feint, but she continued on, refusing to give up on the metal dragon. It went on for minutes, until the queen could not give anything else. She collapsed to the ground, huffing in exhaustion, but her eyes fixed on the metal dragon. Every eye was fixed on Elron. And... nothing happened.

"No... no!" Silver cried again, new tears coming to her eyes, "You have to do more! You have to!"

Iraliene only sighed, "I... I don't have anything left."

"Please! He's my father," she collapsed by his side again, "He's... he's my father."

Raize didn't say anything.

Zepos moved over to her and lay by her side, wrapping his wing around her. He couldn't believe it either. He had spent the first few months of his life in A.O.D.H, and didn't remember it that well, but he did remember what it was like being freed. And Elron was the dragon that did that. It was part of the reason he had fallen for Silver in the first place, because her father was his hero.

Silver buried her muzzle into his side, weeping. Great shudders ran through her body and her shell dulled to nearly black. Zepos held her, not knowing what else to do. He glanced at Raize. The fire dragon was still staring at his father, shuddering with rage. A single tear trickled from his eye before he turned and, without a word, took to the air, flying back toward the mountain.

Zepos looked back at the dragon he loved, now broken. He nuzzled her neck gently, "We... we should go."

She looked up at him, and nodded her head. She slowly got to her feet, standing next to him. The rest of the dragons slowly began to take to the air, flying away from the dead dragon. Zepos opened his wings and took into the air, Silver following close behind. A few dragons picked up Elron's body and together they flew back to Sky Mountain.

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Hey guys! The last chapter of 'The Silver Dragon'. Vote if you enjoyed, comment what you thought... and please don't hate me :) I nearly cried writing this. 

This is the first book in the planned trilogy. The next book will be called 'The Silver Void' or 'The Silver Revenge'. It may take a couple of weeks to get it out, so look out for it if you're curious to see what happens next. Tell me which was you favourite chapter as well, and what you liked and didn't like about the book. Who was your favourite character? And what did you like about him/her? 

Until next time... See Ya!

Pennator^^