Rubix called his father-in-law during his walk with General (Captain) Hook.

A/N (This character really exists and was my tutor to help me in my studies as a physicist - General Lucien is an uncle with the rank of Colonel and was generalizable - he got the title and rank on his pension).

Exodus, still in his anthro form, stopped short and his expression darkened.

He turned to the captain.

"We're out of time... we have to move fast!!!"

Hook. "What's the matter? I've never seen you so stern!"

Exodus: "Trouble. A powerful enemy perhaps... a threat to our very existence!"

Suddenly, he transformed back into a 32 meter dragon.

"Climb on me! We're going to your lab!"

Hook climbed onto the membranous wing and a saddle magically appeared, much to his amazement.

"How is that possible?"

Exodus: "This is part of the energy I told you about... one of the applications..."

Hook: "This is insane!"

Exodus: "Later! Where shall I go?"

"To the Sart tilman, near Colonster Castle! "

Exodus ran. And his phone rang. Lucien was asking him what was going on and why he was flying max size.

Hook answered.

"It's me... I'm on his back on a saddle. We're going to my base... I'll take responsibility."

Lucien: "Okay, General...is everything okay?"

"It's pretty fast but I think our new captain is trying to prove himself."

Lucien: "No charm or spell?"

"No, the Taoist talisman is intact!"

They arrived at the castle. Frizor and Vulcanus were in sight and Hook was able to slide down the dragon's wing. The saddle disappeared as it had appeared and Exodus didn't seem to care, too preoccupied.

He looked at the ground and took a few steps.

He chanted a mantra and a mist formed.

The wind dispersed the smoke and revealed :

The wind dispersed the smoke and revealed :

An arch vessel.

In runic, it read: Red Anvil.

Despite its oblong and very retro size, it was gigantic. The main hatch was about 30 metres long and the ship was over 100 metres high.

Hook fell on his ass.

Exodus: "This is the Anvil! the last dwarf ship capable of traveling between stars and worlds! but something is broken or worn out inside and I'm unable to get it off the ground but its command centre is still operational and its cannon still works! It can pulverize space rocks!

Power word: "Activation".

And a ladder came out of the side of one of the auxiliary reactors and landed on the ground.

"Come on!"

Exodus climbed up the ladder with ease, followed by the general and the other two dragons.

The interior was all bronze with various gauges. A steampunk paradise.

Everything was riveted and screens made of crystals served as monitors.

Everything was impeccable but as if frozen in time.

The device was like an ancestor in need of a thorough overhaul.

The dragons were in anthro to access the decks and control systems.

Exodus" Once I had a dwarf crew but it's all gone. And all the fleet and technology is gone too. This is the only remnant of that time. But some parts are still functional."

Hook: "Don't touch anything, Captain Exodus... The system here is very different from what we know and as a precautionary measure, this ship could be a real bomb."

Exodus wanted to protest and activate the search radar but Hook talked him out of it.

Exodus obeyed and in doing so gained a few trust points with the army he worked for.

Dozens of technicians and engineers rushed in and Exodus entered Hook's base.

He pulled out scrolls with the ship's plans and acted as interpreter while they worked on transcribing the plans into 3D with a list of features.

The craft turned out to be much more complex than it appeared.

Originally, in the virtual and unreal world of Ultima, the ship was like an icon that carried tracers and sectors to other parts of a coded world. But as it passed through the red portal into reality, the ship's reality changed as did the dragons and humans accompanying them (and the Kobolds who had arrived on the sly).

Exodus waited patiently in the castle lobby and, to his surprise, there were plenty of display cases with original dinosaur skeletons. These were unexhibited models, probably from the reserve of the natural history museum.

Belgium is famous for its largest collection of dinosaurs.

To his surprise, in resin, a dragon skeleton with his name written underneath, and to scale.

This made him laugh out loud: "Ah, these humans, they have a sense of humour.

Hook returned to Exodus and looked at the model on display as he did.

"It's a beautiful reproduction."

Exodus: "It gives me chills... to think that not long ago... I was in this form in a mausoleum.."

Hook smiles, more to test the emotions..

"A diskette..."

Exodus turned his head quickly, staring at Hook.

"This isn't fun!!! Everything was real... The taste, the flavors, the pain and suffering!"

Hook readjusted his glasses. "Edifying... like in the movie Tron..."

"Sorry, General...but it's hard, even now...Even though it was coding, I really suffered, I really cried.."

"Sorry, Captain...I couldn't know. but this is beyond logic and as a physicist I don't know where to start"

Exodus: "According to the latest information on the screen, the batteries were empty...And at the time, I didn't know how to charge electricity, I only knew how to charge mana."

Hook: "The dangerous thing about this ship is that it handles quantum physics forces and the presence of a black hole would not be impossible"

Exodus: "There was no black star at the time... not on this model... It may have been equipped for interdimensional travel but not this one. It has a hollow core in which the dwarves could generate a dark star but that was not activated."

Hook breathed a sigh of relief.

"We haven't really mastered all that knowledge yet..but we're not far off."

Exodus: "You need to upgrade your radar, but time is running out I'm afraid. "

Hook: "Did you have explosives?"

"No, not that I know of, only a runic cannon.

"Hook: then we only turn on the radar. but we need to re-grease all the mechanics, the engines could seize up and fry."

All the panels were open and the technicians were busy re-greasing and oiling anything that looked like a cylinder, an engine or a gearbox

But the circuits were intact, as if frozen in time without being affected. even the original paint had not suffered. it was untouched. yet the red turns to yellow and then disappears with time and exposure to ultraviolet light.

Exodus returned in human size and explained that the ship could grow to 20 times its size to accommodate dragons as crew at the time.

On the main deck, Hook looked carefully at the runic inscriptions and realised that everything was in English but with a different alphabet of 26 characters.

The words and symbols were the same as on land. A programming aberration, probably.

Exodus put his front paw into a base with the mould of his claw hand and it sank in, causing magical gems to light up as lamps.

A projection appeared on a crystal blade and the areas in green and red could be seen on the rocket's design.

The batteries were in red... but the rest in green.

Notifications of pressure alerts, lack of oxygen in the tanks and deactivated mana catalysts, crystals drained of energy.

Exodus: "I can recharge the auxiliary crystals a bit but the batteries need a mana converter. You don't have one and neither do I, but I know more or less how to build one. You'll have to build an electrical charging adapter.

Hook: "Batteries are super capacitors... Better than our current batteries. But you can charge them without any problem! The problem is that they are plutonium batteries!

Exodus: "And???"

Hook... "No... nothing... we have them on satellites. It's not enriched plutonium... it's depleted."

Exodus:"????"

The dragon opened a panel on the floor and a network of green but non-phosphorescent crystals could be seen.

Then he blew and a cone of warm light permeated the crystal, which began to resonate, to tinkle in a soft, melodious sound.

Red lights on the screen turned green and a host of indicators showed where to grease and oil and unglue.

It took a whole day to repair part of the ship, which exhausted the 3 dragons.

Exodus didn't come home that night and settled down with the other two, huddled together to share their body heat but more importantly to recharge their mana faster.

Meanwhile, something happened at the ranch.

The next morning, the farm workers woke Ragul and Esme up.

"Mr. Ragul! Mister Ragul!!! come quickly!"

He put on his boots and down jacket and then, followed by Esme, he walked out of the farmhouse and into the stables.

Several horses were lying in the meadow. Probably shot in the head.

Esme put her hands in front of her face and put her head against her husband's chest, crying.

Ragul held and caressed his wife's neck, who was sobbing with terror and sadness.

Esme : "Why??? why??? we didn't do anything to anyone!

Rubix had gone to the course with the dragoons at the local school

Ragul was running the farm and doing skill validations at night school.

He walked around the paddock, disgusted...his best animals stolen and the others slaughtered...

Then a police van arrived, followed by another police car.

Esme was in shock and no dragons were present that night. They were all in training in various parts of the country.

The police had closed the park for investigation, but what revolted Esme was a puppet of Torin and Rubix crucified on a sign.

"You monsters! Disappear or next time it will be you!"

Dragon Hunter's Association.

And underneath it was a moulded dragon head put on a board as a hunting trophy.

The human couple returned with the policemen but one of them had spotted something.

"Inspector... the screws on the trophy are not metric but imperial."