and yet more Nutcracker/Dragon Flyz

AN: and time for the dragons and siblings to appear (and oh, look, Rosalia's joined us)

The Nutcracker stared at the children of Aaron, a look of confusion sweeping across his wooden features. For some strange reason, there was this wisp of memory - of his knowing who they were and what they meant to him, but as quickly as the memory surfaced, it as quickly faded. He glanced away, not sure what to say at this point - Ilona had always been the one to do the introductions, to ease into conversations with the others, but it wasn't as easy with him.

Rosalia nudged her not quite boyfriend [only if he'd just stop that annoying pining for Ilona, who was clearly in love with his older brother, even if said older brother was so damn clueless about her feelings for him] slightly and looked at him. Her mental link with him wasn't as strong as the one that Summit had with Miriam or the one that everyone knew Ilona had with Z'neth but it was strong enough for their purposes. /Doesn't he remind you of a certain sibling, right down to the stick up his ass?/

Peak paused a moment, trying very hard not to laugh out loud at her assessment - even if it was entirely accurate. /Yeah, only this one has a literal stick up his ass/ he answered with a mental chuckle, causing her to mentally laugh as well.

/And what are you two hyenas laughing at?/ Summit asked, drawing himself into the conversation when he heard his younger sibling laughing at something.

Rosalia quietly shared the image with Summit, who gave a dignified snort before collecting himself. Definitely not sharing with Apex - she didn't quite share their sense of humor.

The Nutcracker's gaze had fallen on the dragons and another wisp of memory surfaced - a little stronger, a little longer, but it faded before he had time to clearly latch on to what he had remembered. Still, the dragon did feel achingly familiar. A hand went to his head as he tried to fight the pain.

Riptor tilted his head and looked at the Nutcracker. An undignified snort escaped him as he made his way over to the Nutcracker. He lowered his massive head and glared at him. \Clearly, Z'neth\ he began. \You really don't pay me enough in the way of yummy treats to put up with this crap\

The Nutcracker blinked his eyes, unused to hearing another voice in his head. But with the name came the swarm of memories - memories he hadn't been quite prepared to deal with. His legs buckled, forcing him to sit down hard on the ground and he held his head as he tried to make sense of what he was remembering.

Apex quickly made her way over and shot a questioning look at Riptor, wondering why he looked slightly smug. \Blaze?\ she called to her dragon, hoping he had answers.

\Riptor merely forced him to remember what he had forgotten. Which, quite frankly, was the best thing that could have happened. After all, he'll need to remember who he is if he's going to be able to fight properly\ he answered, settling down in an attempt to get warm - damn this cold weather. He quickly sent a glower at his rider, who had noticed his shivering. \I am not wearing that embarrassing pet sweater again. I will bite you\

-

If looks could kill then Apex would have been a smear on the streets of Airlandis as Blaze sulked, clearly unhappy with the turn of events. Why did he have to be the one that got stuck in the stupid pet sweater? So what if he got chilled quicker then the others - there was no need for this great indignity [which jingled with every step. Who put bells on a pet sweater anyway?]. He glanced at the Nutcracker [not quite sure if he should be calling him Z'neth again, especially since he did't look like a Z'neth].

Z'neth was silent as he walked next to his dragon. Fighting mutants, dark dramen, gremwings - that was easy, fighting giant rats, not so much. Besides, none of the former ever tried to use Ilona [no, there was that incident where Fryte had bound her above the lava pool in hopes of it would make him surrender - all it did was piss him off. It had been a lucky thing too that Peak had disobeyed his order to stay behind and had made the lucky catch, and then there was the...] He shook his head, trying to clear it.

"You okay, Z?" Peak asked, sidling close to his older brother. It felt strange, knowing that the wooden doll he had given Ilona as a Christmas present had been his big brother, merely in a miniature version of his cursed form. Privately, he wondered which of the mutants were twisted enough to actually do that - to turn him into a wooden toy. He did hope that had been a one-time only thing and that they didn't have to worry about being turned into wooden toys as well.

Z'neth glanced at his younger brother and shrugged as best he could. "If you can call being trapped as a wooden toy as being okay, then yes, I'm okay," he said quietly.

reworking of prompt Hero to fic proper

Ilona glared up at Z'neth, her hands on her hips. She hated being smaller then him (he had about a good foot on her - her being a dainty five feet even [five foot two if in heels] and his being a much taller six feet), which meant she had to tilt her head back at an uncomfortable angle. "I'm telling you, Z'neth, for the last time, I'm far too busy in the lab to be out and about playing babysitter for a bunch of unruly future dragonators that you're desperate to pawn off on people." She was not at all willing to give up precious research time just to play babysitter for children [it wasn't that she didn't like children - she did, she just didn't like the children being tossed at her without warning].

"Sorry, Princess," he said, sarcasm dripping from his voice. "But you're the only one that I could find that has nothing important.."

"Oh, and doing reads on those chunks of amber to make sure there's no bugz in them isn't important?" she snapped, cutting him off. "Just because you're Dragon Force One does not automatically make you my superior." She let out a particularly exasperated huff. "I have work in the labs that's at a completely critical stage."

"Ilona," he sighed. "This isn't a request."

~

Ilona sighed quietly as she walked with the students, wishing again that she was back in the comfort of her labs. All she knew is that Z'neth was clearly going to owe her for a long time since these little future dragonators were pressing every one of her buttons of her now currently limited patience. Her hand shot out and grabbed the back of the shirt of one of the boys. "I said stay close," she said, her tone sharp.

"Miss Ilona?" one of the girls called. "Can you come here?"

"Yes, Ritva?" she answered, quickly making her way over when she heard the sound of fear coloring the girl's voice. Ilona's blue-violet eyes widened at what she was seeing. This clearly was not a good sign. "Ritva, I want you and Nikodemus to gather the rest of the students, can you do that?" she asked, trying to figure out how the hell to get help.

Ritva nodded and quickly raced to get her twin brother to help her wrangle the other students. She looked at her twin and nodded - hopefully, Miss Ilona wouldn't be too mad that they had borrowed Aunt Katja's Vox Box (especially since they knew the Vox Box could connect to some of the other Dragonators and that would be good since Miss Ilona could use the help).

Ilona watched to make sure the students had managed to get into a hiding spot. A grim expression crossed her features as she studied the sheer number of gremwings that had managed to get into Airlandis. She'd have to see if Orac could add a new layer of alarm to their systems to easily alert the Dragonators should this happen again - something that she hoped would never happen again. She let out a pained hiss as one of the gremwings bit her on the arm.

Nikodemus pulled his twin close to him as they hunkered down in the small room they had found. He quietly fished out their aunt's Vox Box and looked at her, waiting for her judgement call. He was of the opinion that they should have called Aunt Katja the moment they had spotted the gremwings in this area. At Ritva's nod, he flipped the thing on, waiting for one of the Dragonators to answer.

Ilona stood outside their bolthole, her blue-violet eyes fixed on the gremwings. She had to protect the children - she had to. They were her responsiblity and she wasn't about to let anything happen to them. Her arms were littered with their bites but she wasn't going to back down. The approaching sound caught her attention and she glanced up. A grateful smile crossed her features before she crumpled to the ground [or would have, had not for Z'neth shooting down to catch her before her head hit the ground].