Under The Wings Of Change

Chapter 5

Narrator POV:

After the catastrophe resulting in the loss of a dragonet and 5 humans, things went downhill for the striped trio.

Colonel, Bee, and Blue were kept isolated in another room in metal cages where they barely had enough room to turn around in. Since the cages would have been too big and heavy for humans to comfortably lift, they had the cages put on wheels that they could lock in place.

The scientists had realized, that the more agitated these three were, the more upset other dragonets got.

They had noticed a pattern of other dragonets following the striped trio's lead and hoped that separating them from the flock would transfer their authority onto the scientists that had been taking care of the smaller dragonets.

The scientists were wrong about the last part, but they didn't know that. If anything, it had the opposite effect. Even though they still mind-linked regularly, none of them were happy about the separation. The only time they could see the other dragonets was when one of the trio was taken to the playroom through the room with cages.

The time in the playroom changed too.

There used to be just one scientist, a different one every time, who observed and took notes. For the trio, there were the same two scientists every time, one of them covered in protective gear who did not let the dragonet under their watch out of their sight for even a moment while the other wrote pages in everything they did.

The dragonets' number was steadily growing, which was concerning all on its own. The success rate for the newer dragonets was better, but people were still dying or getting turned into jailbirds.

The dragonets found out that the scientists changed one of the serums and figured out a new set of transfer methods after the first generation only had four successful hatchlings. They also changed their target groups, they only kidnapped people aged between the early 20s and mid-30s and they had to belong to one of the talent groups - creative, academic, or sport.

There was at least one positive to keeping them separate. Quite often there would be a newly hatched dragonet when one of the trio would be rolled by and their reactions were always amusing to witness.

It was one thing to hear of Colonel, Bee, and Blue and speak with them, but seeing one from the first generation seemed to always surprise the new dragonets.

By the time it hit the three-year mark from Bee's hatching, they had 106 dragonets in total, 28 failed escape attempts and 31 times they managed to injure one of the scientists.

Heads of the project weren't particularly happy with these statistics. They were even less happy about only having three battle-fit dragonets despite the soul-wrecking amount of money that the whole thing cost and covering up a huge amount of people disappearing got more difficult as time went on. Even government couldn't hide that from the people forever.

So they came up with a plan, that they hoped would raise their success and lower the costs. A plan that did not sit well with their winged captives.

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A/N: Hey, lovelies! So, I know the chapters are slow and short right now, but there were things I wanted to address and make clear before we get to the action. Not to mention shorter chapters get published faster. I hope you enjoy the story and I would love to know your thoughts on it! Suggestions and constructive criticism are always welcome, just don't be rude about it.