Alicanto looked up at Gen, his eyes narrowing into icy slits as the hybrid disappeared.Gen straightened quite suddenly as the moonlight illuminated the man's face.
A torrent of memories charged through his mind, and Gen inhaled a sharp gasp, looking away. He recognized Tobias- and Tobias must have recognized him, because when he locked eyes with his target, the man gave a knowing look.
For a moment, Gen forgot what he was doing in the middle of the desert beside a dead man and a smoking car.
A bright red SolarWing flashed through his mind.
Tobias swore, dropping the damaged weapon, which had done nothing more but click. He raised his left hand slowly, still in the dragon's talons.
The SandWing was studying him, and Tobias locked eyes with the dragon, who gave a small, understanding nod, his jaw slightly agape.
Sol scaled the dune, looking down on the dragons below, who were maybe twenty feet away.
Gen vanished, and Sol tried to suppress a hopeful smile, digging his talons into the sand.
Something was suddenly off about the dragon, and the entire mood in the air seemed to shift as quickly as Gen's scales. The Cloudwing glanced down at the human in his talon, wondering what about the pathetic creature had set the hybrid off so suddenly.
Alicanto froze.
Something about the human seemed startlingly familiar. Not like he hadn't seen his face before. He'd seen the pictures the Professor had given him before the hunt and maybe glanced Tobias from a distance.
It was the same feeling that he got around the Professor, only flipped. Whenever he was around the older man, he felt defensive, on edge. Something tugging at the corners of his mind, something he had lost countless nights of sleep over, trying to identify, that told him to run, to attack, to hide.
This human had the opposite effect. Something that channeled beneath the surface of his entire mind, that gave him a feeling that he could only assume was guilt or regret. It was enough to drive him insane. He'd known nothing but the Den his entire life, so why did he feel like there was something missing? Like he was standing on the other side of a mental wall, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't break it down?
Movement in the corner of his eye yanked Alicanto brutally back to the present, and his head snapped around toward a nearby sand dune, his eyes slitting again. He shoved the disturbing feeling back into whatever dark, mental pit they'd come from, tightening his grip on Tobias' waist slightly.
"Back to the Den," he growled to the other two, opening his wings to take to the air. "We got what we came for."
@_-Captain BRM-_ @Little Baby Bean