Victory Strike's POV

"No one, hurts my dragonet! Not on my watch," Victory Strike thought in fury as he shot the sandwing before she could do anything.

BANG!

The dragoness was dead. Victory Strike quickly placed his gun in his bag and proceeded to walk up to Inkheart and the other sandwing who was next to him. Victory Strike knew that she cared for Inkheart, so he decided to not do anything against her and just smiled at the 'cute' pair.

"Father, about time," Inkheart said with a hint of relief and a playful tone he uses when he tries to avoid trouble.

"Yep, you sure did screw up. Say, where is that hug," Victory Strike said blatantly, except for the second sentence which had a slightly childish tone.

Inkheart tackled Victory Strike and the two embraced each quickly before Victory Strike let go and hoisted Inkheart up to his eye-level by his left horn.

"No more wine," Victory Strike snarled before dropping Inkheart, "You have no idea how worried we were when you weren't at home."

"Sorry, Father," Inkheart apologised with his head held low.

"May we take refuge in your hut for an hour or so, miss," Victory Strike redirected his attention to the sandwing dragoness and spoke with sincerity.

"Sure, but we to send this guy on his way," the dragoness said, "if you wondering, Sir. My name is Thistle."

"Lovely name," Victory Strike complimented as he stared at the unconscious dragon, "I will handle this."

Victory Strike then grabbed the unconscious dragon in his jaws and dunked him into the oasis and pulled out the grasping, struggling dragon before spitting him out.

"You better head back to the remains of your headquarters and tell your boss to never mess with any of us or else," Victory Strike hissed with menace and danger.

The dragon nodded and staggered up, then he bolted.

Victory Strike smirked and marched into the hut followed by Inkheart and Thistle. Once he had stepped into Thistle's home he noticed: an egg, a table, several stools, two shelves full of nooks and medicines and a sandwing who was waking up.

Thistle went straight to the awaking dragoness while Inkheart went straight to the egg.

"If you are wondering Father, the sandwings were from the Talons of Power and would come and take money from homes for 'protection'. They killed Thistle's father, so Thistle asked me to deal with them. Also, this is Thistle's sibling," Inkheart said as he pointed to the egg, " And that is her mother; Dust devil."

Victory Strike inspected the egg and noticed the movements inside as a sign that the dragonet will be hatching shortly, in a few days from now.

"Who is that," a voice said in the stupor of being half asleep and possibly after a hangover. Victory Strike turned his head to the hammock.

"Don't worry, mom. These dragons are here to help us," Thistle said soothingly as the dragoness; Dust Devil, got up and nearly fell out of the hammock.

Dust devil was a beautiful, slender and muscular dragoness with several scars on her arms and neck that resemble that of seawing and icewing claws. She was a sandy-grey and had rattlesnake markings that ran down her neck to the back.

"What are you," Dust Devil asked with suspicion in her voice then, she noticed that Victory Strike was very closer to her egg and shrieked, " Get away from my egg!"

Victory Strike slowly step away from the egg and watch Dust Devil to see if she was going to fight.

Before conflict could grow, Thistle tried to calm her down, " Mom, relax they saved us from the Talons of Power."

"What happened to them," Dust-Devil muttered in fear as her eyes widened and she ran to the door and screamed at the scene in front of her. Victory Strike rolled his eyes and followed the dragoness as she towards the corpse of the dragon whom nearly killed Inkheart and began to weep, clutching the dragoness's still freshly deceased body.

"Mom, what is going on," Thistle asked, concern and worried, "we stopped them from doing more harm."

"No, you just killed my friend," Dust-Devil shrieked in rage, "Who did it ?"

"Me," Victory Strike said plainly, bored out of his mind at the events he knew will occur.

"Why did you kill her," Dust-Devil hissed as she began to pace towards Victory Strike.

"Simple, she tried to kill my son, so I did what I had to do," Victory Strike tried to reason to the clearly intoxicated dragoness.

"Why, didn't she deserve to live," Dust-Devil shrieked as she quicken her pace and Inkheart grabbed Thistle, in order to keep her away from the inevitable fight.

"What gave her more of an excuse to live compared to everyone else whom died this night," Victory Strike finished while electricity began to crack around his horns, ready for the duel, his pitiful amount of fuzz stood up.

"Shut up and just die," Dust-Devil roared and blast a ball of fire at Victory Strike. Victory Strike blocked the blast with his wing and a splash of water from the small flask he kept on his dragon and moved to the left an incoming tail strike. He then bit down on the tail and snapped it before hurling the dragoness across from him and into a sand dune.

Victory Strike heard a thud and a shout, "Get off me, you piece of coal."

Victory Strike turned around to see Inkheart sitting on Thistle in order to prevent her from getting involved.

"Gees, calm down, my father wouldn't kill your mother. Also, you really need to work on your insults," Inkheart calmly responded as his tail flicked back towards the dunes where Dust-Devil was flung to and Victory Strike felt his electrical field acting up from his back and dodged by a inch of the stinger that would had mildly incapacitate   him.

Victory Strike took the opportunity and plunged his paralysis venom into the sandwing. She screamed, then silence as she collapsed onto the sands.  Victory Strike signed and began to drag the limp dragoness back to the hut.

By this time, Inkheart had gotten off Thistle and the sandy dragonet sprinted over to her mother.

"What did you do to her," Thistle hissed.

"Simple, I just paralysed her for the next hour," Victory Strike causally spoke as he passed the paralysed dragoness onto her daughter and his son, "Why don't you two carry her into the hut, I need to get something done."

"Alright, father," Inkheart chirped and carefully lifted the front half of the dragoness, while Thistle quickly lifted up the lower half and the two marched in near perfect harmony.

Victory Strike knew that he needed to leave that two love birds, alone. He knew that they are going to meet again. The question is when and will it end well?

That thought raced around his mind like a train as the king stared into the stars above.