Chapter 17: Disaster

"My planet wassssss a beautiful place. Everywhere you looked, there wassssss beautiful lava flowsssss and magnificent volcanoesssss. However, that all changed. One fateful day, sssssstrange beingsssssss invaded our planet. They dessssstroyed our homessssssss and drove ussssss away from our planet. That issssss why we came here. Are you ssssssssatisssssssfied with my anssssssswer?" Kasai growled angrily.

We sat there, thinking about his story. Who are those strange beings and why did they invade Kasai's planet? From the sound of it, nobody could live there besides dragons or other creatures of fire.

"Well?" the great red dragon growled, growing impatient.

"Who were the strange beings, Great One?" Touwa asked.

"They-"

"Sssssssire! There's trouble! Ssssssome sssssstrange women have knocked five guardsssssss unconsssssscioussssss!" a dragon guard shouted, running toward us.

"WHAT?! How isssss that possssssible?" Kasai bellowed, almost blowing us away.

Uh oh. It looks like Mari and the others did too good a job. We need to get out of there before we get burned alive.

Kasai turned to us, glowering.

"Are your comradesssss ressssssponssssssible?" he asked in a strained voice.

Our answer was to run away. We got up and sprinted out of there like our lives depended on it because, well, our lives did depend on it.

"After them, foolsssss! Do not let them get away!"

By the time the dumbfounded guard got his act together, we were long gone. It looks like we made a new enemy. Oh, joy.

The girls and I zig-zagged through the streets, almost knocking over more than a few people.

"We need to find Mari and the others. They could be in danger," Yuri announced.

"Where do we look though? They could be anywhere!" Kiku said, exasperated.

"Over here!" a voice shouted.

We all turned to see Mari leaning out of an alleyway. We ran to her and quickly pushed her back into the alley.

"What was that for?!" she shouted, bristling.

"Shh!" Yuri hushed as she peered out of the alley. "They're gone now."

Everybody sighed with relief.

"Hi, guys! What's going on? Why did you push Mari down?" Akino asked cheerily.

"Basically, the negotiations didn't go well so Kasai is out to turn us into ashes. Any questions?" I summarized.

"Wow. You really need to work on your negotiation skills," Mari replied.

"It wasn't our fault! Everything was going well until a guard told Kasai of your attack!"

"Does that mean we get to kill them?!" Shitai exclaimed, excited for death.

"S-sure. The question is how do you kill a dragon? From what Kasai told us, he and his people are victims so is it right to kill them in the first place?"

"Course it is! They enslaved all these people, right? That makes them bad guys!" Mari cajoled.

"They're he-!" Yuri started to shout.

Suddenly, the world went black…