Mark of the Ranger

XXXV. It's All Grown Up!

Infernas crawled slowly into his throne room. His loyal and beloved dragon, Moonshadow, was patiently waiting for him. When Moonshadow saw the many dents and marks in Infernas' armor, he rose his head to see what was going on. "Infernas! You've been hurt!" The flying dragon noticed. Infernas looked squarely at his dragon. "You should see what happened to the one that lost," he responded. Moonshadow frowned, his rocky brow furrowing in confusion. "Why would you do this, my rider?"

"It's all a part of the plan. We will have the Deadlands soon." With that, Moonshadow relaxed. The dragon just hoped that his rider wasn't killed. He didn't know what he would do without him.

*****

"Stockpiles of fruit?" I asked.

"Check," Ko answered.

"How is Jeff?"

"Aggressively prepared."

"Toxiclaw?"

"Raring to go."

"The other slaves?"

"Sick and tired of this island."

"Wonderful! We're all set," I concluded, then looked back out the hole of the entrance my snow elf companion and I were standing in. The ships were nearing. We had to free Toxiclaw soon, and feed him those black pearls. We had no idea what effects the rare minerals would have on him, but we didn't have time to worry about that. We only had time for action. I went back to the entrance of the geovore corral. Toxiclaw was sitting there, except there was something peculiar about him.

"Why are his claws, horn and tail spike green?" I asked Jeff, who was loitering right next to him. Jeff looked at me with concern. "They're not usually green?" He asked. I realized he hadn't seen Toxiclaw before we had started mass-feeding him. "They're usually purple. How does Toxiclaw feel?" I asked Jeff. Toxiclaw responded instead, barely moving his mouth.

"Better...Than...Ever," he responded, then tried to get up. I saw the manacles on his wrists, ankles, and neck. I wold love to break those right now, but we had a schedule, and--

"We've come to free Toxiclaw," someone said. I turned to face the voice and found a group of five rock breakers. I stepped to the side and let them pass. They each stood next to Toxiclaw, one person for each manacle, and took out a few pickaxes. They swung repeatedly on the manacles, and all I could do was watch as the clang! Clang! Clang! Sounded off. CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! The pickaxes continued to clang, hit after hit after hit. I heard a cracking sound from the neck manacle, and the rock breaker there persisted even more. Soon, the neck manacle broke. A smile spread on Toxiclaw's reptilian face. After that, the manacles broke, one by one. First the left claw, then the right. The left foot, then the right. Toxiclaw stood, and I saw his massive frame for the first full time.

Toxiclaw was ten feet at the shoulder. He was easily one of the most frightening things I'd ever seen and the intelligent eyes that stared back at me didn't make me feel any better. I gulped. "Don't worry," Toxiclaw rumbled to me. "Give pearls." He held out one giant paw. I took out the twin black pearls that I had been hiding. I handed them to him and asked, "How did you know I had these?"

"Smell power," the beast mumbled around the giant black pearls. As soon as he swallowed, I could tell that there was a change. Toxiclaw lowered his head looking back to me. "I can grow now," was all he said before falling onto all fours.

I stepped back in surprise. Toxiclaw's back arched violently, and he started roaring with the force of a thousand lions. He began shaking uncontrollably, and he began to change. Wings sprouted from his back, nearly enveloping the room we were standing in. Toxiclaw stumbled out of the small space and into the main rock dome as he continued to become larger. More green spikes grew on him--along his back and the top of his head, on his forearms, his forelegs, his tail, and the ridge of his new wings. Soon, he stopped shaking, and I saw Toxiclaw for what he really was.

Toxiclaw was a dragon.

He must have been eighteen feet tall at the shoulder, which means he was roughly thirty feet long, from head to tail. Even though he was on all fours now, he was much, much larger. I couldn't believe it. "I'm going to take care of the supervisors now," Toxiclaw rumbled. I noticed his speech was no longer broken. "Make sure you keep your ends of the plan." With that, he flew away, and all I could do was sit there and watch him shatter the rock walls with his brute strength.

*****

"Now, let's see what those dumb slaves have for us this time," the first supervisor, the one who watched over the rock breakers, said to the other. The second supervisor, the one who watched over the geovore carers, laughed in response. "Yes," said the third supervisor, the one who watched over the pearl gatherers. "Let's hope we have an acceptable shipment to give to the pirates, and not some paltry crumbs." As the fourth supervisor, the one who watched over the slime ranchers, opened his mouth, he was about to ask, "Remember when the slime ranchers actually lost the products?" But instead, he asked, "Mother of pearl! Is that a dragon?"

It indeed was a dragon, one who was eighteen feet tall at the shoulder, meaning it was roughly thirty feet long. It flew towards them from a wide hallway that it could fit its wings through. From its mouth came some sort of acid. "Toxiclaw. He grew up," was the only thing the fifth supervisor, the one who watched over the arboretum, could realize before the powerful breath weapon of his correct guess turned he and his fellow supervisors into ash.

Toxiclaw roared in victory, then looked for more people that had mistreated his new best friends. He would turn them into ash, too.