The sea of humanity overwhelms him like a tide, pushing and pulling him to and fro throughout the dumpster that is the city.

Nothing good came from Nazareth, and Nicholas Adamson was sure that that logic could be applied to the dragons that dominated Islandsword's southern and central volcanos.

They were dumping everyone here as if they were hoarding treasure, like the old dragon legends from Earth.

Nicholas had been dumped in the middle of it, and he had to claw his way through everyone to make it to the eastern side, where he was sure the people of Landing were.

If he could just find one person, that would be enough to start planning his next move; he hadn't formulated that yet, but he had an idea of what it was.

He shoved his way through the throng, even as more humans were being dropped in the mass by the dragons from above and the ones on the ground were pushing him back.

One of the bodies resembled that of Lance Carver, his old friend from bygones ago.

Years ago, Zenith, a city located in the eastern mountains of Dragonsworld, experienced an avalanche and needed help recovering. Under the orders of Nick's father, the previous pastor and leader of Landing, Lance came with Nick and other humans to help the residents.

It was during that time that the pastor's son gained the skills to succeed his father when he retired, and where Lance met his future wife, Violet Waters.

When Zenith was finally rebuilt, Pastor Adamson's team returned to Landing with two "friends" – Violet and a large, green-colored forest dragon with two curved brown horns on its head.

The forest dragon was apparently far from the Weald for unknown reasons, but it kept following them throughout the recovery.

So, they decided to tame it and take it back with them for their own reasons.

They also used the dragon to get back to Landing, and it was way easier to fly on one of those creatures than using the vehicles that were normally reserved for long trips.

Soon after returning, Pastor Adamson stepped down and Nick became the leader of Landing. His first act was to allow dragons to stay there.

For some, this was a long-awaited change; for two long centuries, Landing lacked a proper dragonriding force to extend to their army. Now, it was coming.

Of course, with major changes, there were opponents of this. They advocated that the current army of footsoldiers and gunrunners that protected the city since the planet's colonization would become footnotes in history textbooks, and that the beasts would destroy Landing, eat them like prey, etc. etc. etc.

Before making it official, Nick heard both sides and weighed them before deciding that the benefits outweighed the risks.

The first dragon to join this force was the green dragon that Nick, Lance, and Violet brought back from Zenith. They initially named the dragon "Tree", after the forests where it came from; they later renamed it "Leaf" when the dragon scrawled a drawing of a leaf into the dirt with its claws and pointed at itself when Lance decided to became the beast's rider.

Many other dragons had joined in the years following this, including a green-yellow ocean dragon with cold, dark green eyes and a slimy "vibe".

Almost all of the dragonriders in the DFL (Dragonriding Force of Landing) had one dragon, although some, like Lance, had two or more dragons.

That was the "leader" part of ruling Landing.

The other part of it was being a pastor. Like his father, Nick tended to his flock with expository preaching, which was going through the Bible verse by verse. Also among his duties as a pastor was to provide Biblical counseling to troubled individuals and officiating wedding between serious couples.

Despite this, he himself hadn't made time to reflect on himself or be married. Between the city's physical and spiritual state(s), Nick had no time for reflection nor "self-love". The concepts in of themselves was selfish, and it would only get in the way of his duties.

One of the duties that brought him joy was performing baptisms on believers who wanted to publicly show their faith. Many of them were adults, but some were kids.

Two notable cases were Lily Carver, the biracial daughter of Lance Carver and Violet Waters, and Solomon, a man who immigrated to Landing from Enclave, which was located on Islandsworld, the otherside of the world.

Lily's baptism was personal to Nick and a reminder of how far he and Lance had strayed from each other.

Solomon's, on the other hand, was the first red flag that something was happening on the world stage.

According to him, he had fled Enclave as the city was being overrun by volcano dragons and turning into some sort of mass-production factory.

Nick had mentally kicked himself for not taking it seriously as Lily, Violet, and Leaf were killed and eaten in front of him, Lance, and Lance's ocean dragon during a battle between the volcano dragons and the DFL a month ago.

He kicked himself when pours of humans and dragons flooded into Landing, and had to rename the DFL to the DoI (Dragonriders of Iysl) as a result.

He had also kicked himself when he and the others were taken here from Landing a week ago, when his city ambushed by the volcano dragons in a surprise attack.

He kept kicking himself, even as he made his way through the tightly-packed crowd.

"Lance?" Nick yelled as he shoved several men out his way. "Lance?"

There was no answer, only the sound of humanity searching for each other filled his ears.

"Lance?" he called again.

Nothing.

"Lance Caspian Carver?" he bellowed, as he pushed and shoved, pushed and shoved through hordes of humans.

"Nick?" a deep, bass voice shot through the madness like a flash of light in the darkness.

Hope shot through him, giving him a supernatural boost of energy,

He was here.

And he was alive.

"Lance?"

"Nick?"

"Pastor Adamson?" a voice cut through the crowd.

Soon everyone repeated that voice's phrase.

Adamson was also the leader of humanity.

He was the root of all the cities in the world, the other leader reported to him like a council advising a king.

"Lance?" Nick boomed again, trying to get over the grabbing, shoving crowd.

A hand from the crowd suddenly grabbed Nick by his collar and dragged him backward before two familiar arms wrapped around his torso.

The noisy throng was still pursuing him as he was still dragged backward, his captors pushing through.

"Move!" they all said, and some parted to let them through, although many of them were gaining traction and staring at them.

The smell of every human filled Nick's nostrils and it was beginning to sicken him. His stomach churned.

Human body odor was the combination of the bacteria that lived on human skin and the sweat that was excreted from glands inside to cool it down. Genetics was also part of it, but that was rarely talked about in most microbiology classes students took during their formal schooling years.

As his captors continued dragging him, he turned to see who was taking him out of the crowd.

Lo and behold, Lance Carver was one of the ones that found him. Bentley, another man from Landing, was part of the group. There were others, but Nick couldn't get a good look at them.

Above them, in the grey cloud-filled sky, dragons were roaring at each other, flying through the sky carrying something or assisting this or that dragon. But oddly enough, two of them were hovering above the city, gesturing at the humans with their black talons while seeming to converse with each other. The city had suddenly gone quiet, as if a deep freeze had suddenly swept over them.

"Lance", Nick choked out, as gently as he could. His old friend didn't stop walking backwards while still following Bentley and his allies, although the crowd was starting to thin for them.

"Lance", Nick said again.

"Hmm", was the only reply.

Nick hated doing this, but it would be the only way to get his attention.

"Lance Caspian Carver."

Lance stopped, and he told the others to stop as well. He let Nick go, and humanity's leader turned around to face him.

Lance was a man in his 40s, like Nick. Like most humans on Iysl, he had pale skin, but it wasn't white like lily flowers or snow. He also had grey eyes, which had a similar vein to Nick's earth-brown ones.

Lance was one of the few men in Landing who grew his hair out, while Nick and the others kept theirs short and close to their heads.

However, his brown hair was close to him. It looked like it had been recently chopped off by himself or someone else with a knife or something similar to it, as the last time Nick saw him, it was halfway down his head like a tiny mane. He wondered if it got any longer when he was in the Weald during the last months.

Lance's long hair started as a rebellion against his parents telling him how he had to dress when he was a teenager.

It was a universal experience to hate what your parents did to you sometimes as they raised you to be a successful adult.

The only thing Nick protested fashion-wise during his childhood was wearing very formal clothing for everything; it made him look like a tiny prince everywhere he went.

Lance also had a beard, like some men, but it looked recently cut in a similar fashion like his hair.

The long-sleeved pale grey shirt that he was dirty, covered in sweat and patches of brown dirt. The long black pants and the solid black shoes he wore were in a similar state. He also lacked the gun he had carried for the past twenty years, making him look like a recent torture victim held hostage by an insidious enemy.

Nick's own clothing, were differently-colored than Lance's, were in a similar condition.

Around the two, the crowd was forming into a lopsided, haphazardly-done diamond; they were staring at Nick like peasants awaiting the decree of their king.

But he was no king. He just was a man, called by God to look after and guide His flock.

"Lance", Nick said again, this time slower. "Look up."

Lance gave Nick an incredulous look, as Bentley, another similarly-aged man, looked up.

"Carver", Bentley said in a serious tone with an accent. He always addressed people by their surnames. "Look up."

Lance looked up, and Nick saw him shudder in horror. "Four moons..."

"Nick, I would recommend you do the same", Bentley said, not even taking his eyes off the sky.

Nick looked up, and saw that the two black dragons that were hovering above the city were still there, albeit they were staring directly at humanity with their fire-colored eyes and gesturing at specific individuals.

One of them pointed at Nick and purred to the other dragon. The other dragon gestured at Bentley, Lance, and the others, as if they were trying to convince the other one that the group needed to be taken, not just Nick.

Soon, the two were bickering with each other, and Nick thought that this would be he time to escape and formulate his next move.

He looked back down, and saw that Lance, Bentley, and the others were waiting for him. They had seen enough.

Nick glanced back up before looked back. If he ran, the dragons could capture him. If he walked, it would be the same fate but it made him an easy target.

He decided to run, and his sprinted across the space towards the group.

A roar was let out from above as the group grabbed Nick and rushed him through the thinning crowd towards a large, concrete-grey building with lots of windows on its sides and a metal staircase that winded through its hollowed-out center – an apartment complex.

As they got closer to it, a shot of fire came from the sky and hit the complex, setting it ablaze.

Those who were moving (including the group), stopped; those who didn't move ran into the building to see if anyone was in it.

"I told you that was a bad idea!" Bentley indirectly snapped in Nick's ear. "But no! You wanted him safe. And look what's happened." He gestured to the burning building.

It took a moment for Nick figure out that Bentley was not yelling him. He was yelling at Lance.

"Well, what would you do if you suddenly lost everything?" his old friend fired back.

"Gentlemen!" Nick interrupted the two men before it could advance any further. "Stop it! You're men, not sissies."

He gestured to the roaring flames with his head. "Get in there, and find as many people to save."

Both stared as him as if he were speaking some alien language he only knew about.

Nick glared at both of them, and kicked Bentley's groin with his heel.

"Oh!" Bentley groaned. He let go of Nick and grabbed his balls in his hand. Lance let go, figuring that he would get the same treatment if he kept hold.

As Nick shoved both himself and Lance towards the blaze, a giant black shape suddenly dropped from the sky and pounced on the building.

Both had stopped running when they realized that a volcano dragon had destroyed the complex, and had probably killed anyone who was still inside it.

Everyone was running away from the black dragon, who clad in a plated metallic armor that resembled the ones worn by characters in fantasy novels. Unlike the ones in those worlds, this armor was sleeker and made of silvery-black metal, and its wearer didn't seem fazed by what it had did.

The dragon scanned the humans with its flame-orange eyes, determining who would be its next victim when it suddenly pointed a claw at Nick and Lance.

"Rrrf!" the dragon huffed and a metallic web suddenly fell onto the men.

The web scooped them up, alongside some other innocents like Bentley, and flew upward into the sky.

Everyone tumbled into each other like fish being thrown into cooler as the web was tightened. Nick was on was on his back when the web, which was actually a net now that he thought about it, was tightened and saw that it was manned (or carried) by a black dragon in similar pattern of silver-black armor, yet it looked younger than the one that destroyed the complex. Lance's head was on his stomach, and another man's head was on his legs.

He felt crushed by them, asif many bricks that had fallen onto him. He could breathe, but he had to takegulps in as the young dragon flew away from Nazareth (and Crescent Island) andheaded south towards the Domino Volcanos.

Originally published: 10/12/2023 (added text from final manuscript version of book 2's prologue to page); edited: (WIP)