The owner, however, decided he needed more time to make his decision. This did not sit well with Elle or the Workers, and later that week Lena answered a soft knock on her door to find Elle and a group of Workers standing there. They were quickly ushered in. Lena sent a knife into the chest of a suprised looking night guard, just to be sure.

"We're starting it now," Elle told her. "You two can join us if you wish, or I can tell them to leave you two alone. Your choice."

"We're coming," Ryff replied before Lena could say anything. He dressed quickly and threw Lena's lab coat at her, which she put on and then headed into the bathroom to change out of her night clothes.

They slipped out of their room with the group of Workers once the hallway had been cleared by Elle's sharp eyes. Soon, leaving a trail of night guards behind them, the ever growing group had alerted every dorm and Workers were silently flowing through the halls, killing any upper class person they met.

Lena and Ryff and a few others were with Elle, who had become the leader of the revolt by default, just as Ryff and Lena had lead theirs with the help of Sara. Silently, as she sent another guard to his knees with a bullet in his chest, Lena wondered if this was how she would spend her whole life: fighting, surviving by the skin of her teeth, and moving on to the next factory to do it again.

This revolt was slightly more organized than the one led by Lena and Ryff. That is, it wasn't a chaotic massacre of Workers and upper class alike. It was a controlled mass murder, groups working one room at a time, killing one, two, sometimes three at a time with the occasional night guard in between rooms.

Something was bothering Ryff, though. A voice in the back of his mind, and increasingly in the front of it. You shouldn't kill men, the voice scolded.

Ryff pushed it out of his mind and, flicking his wrist, slit the throat of an upper class man.

Stop killing.

Ryff only grunted and tackled a fleeing overseer. He wrestled the man to the ground and hit him hard where his head met his neck. The man went limp in an instant.

Men should not kill men, the voice told him sternly. Stop.

One moment Ryff was on his feet concentrating on blocking out the voice, and the next the wind was knocked out of him and he collapsed on the floor. "Lena!" he croaked.

There was a gagging sound and the thud of a body falling next to him, but there was black rimming his vision and he couldn't see where. "They got you pretty bad," Lena told him, but she sounded very far away.

"Did you get the bastard back?" he asked, trying to smile.

"Of course," Lena chuckled, but her voice sounded worried despite her light words.

No wonder, Ryff thought to himself, she's starting to drift apart. In fact, everything was. It soon became very hard for Ryff to look at anything, and he closed his eyes. The black rushed in, smothering him. But the damned voice was still there.

This is how they felt when you killed them, it said.

Good, they deserved it, Ryff replied, not caring who or what exactly he was replying to.

Then you deserve it too, the voice reasoned. You are no worse than them.

They're upper class! Ryff scoffed. Killers! Merciless enslavers of their own race! They deserve it.

They kill, you kill, the voice replied. That makes you the same.

Then why aren't I dead yet? Ryff wondered triumphantly. He wouldn't be talking, as wierd as his conversation was, if he were dead. Would he?

You will be if I let you, the voice told him.

What can you do? Ryff scoffed. What are you anyway?

A dragon.

A what?

A kick to his left arm made Ryff's eyes fly open. He was looking up at the strangest looking man he had ever seen. He was dressed in some sort of animal skins and, though he looked like any other man, he had a strange quality to him. As though he didn't quite belong. "Who the hell are you?"

The man gave him a grim grin. "R'lan, blue Ancith's rider."

"What kind of a name is R'lan?" Ryff scoffed as he struggled to his feet. "And where did you find a blue horse?"

I am not a horse, the voice, Ancith's voice, snapped. I am a dragon.

"I'm not from this world, and neither is my dragon," R'lan replied, glancing around at the carnage. "And I think I'm glad about that."

"Look, don't joke around with me. We're in the middle of a revolt, and anyone who's not with us dies," Ryff threatened, reaching for a knife.

R'lan held up his hands. "Whoa, I'm not here to fight! And I don't think you're in the middle of a revolt. Everyone I've found except for you has been dead."

Don't worry, Lena is alive, Ancith told him, making Ryff flynch.

"Oh, well, we'd better find Lena then," R'lan said. "Come on, let's go. I want to get out of this place as soon as possible. How are there any people left if you kill so many of eachother?"

Ryff didn't bother to ask how Ancith and R'lan had known about Lena, instead he grunted and started to pick his way through the carnage. He was glad to see more upper class dead than Workers, but each dead Worker brought back the painful memory of seeing one of his friends lying dead and so Ryff tried to move quickly.

It is amazing you are still alive, Ancith remarked. Having lived to see so many of your friends die and come back to do it again.

I didn't ask for it, Ryff grumbled. It just worked out this way.

No one asks for their destiny, the dragon told him. Nothing just works out. Everything has a time, place, and reason for being.

Was mine to fight back? Ryff wondered.

Maybe, maybe not, Ancith replied mysteriously. All that matters is now. It was meant for you to be here now.

Are you always so philosphical? Ryff asked, slightly annoyed.

When I need to be, was Ancith's even more frustrating reply. Ryff stopped talking to the dragon and concentrated on finding Lena.

They came across Lena in the hallway. She was on her knees with a boy who looked to be about ten on her lap. He was struggling not to cry and, as they neared, Ryff could see why. Lena was trying to remove a knife from his leg, stuck in all the way to the handle.

"You kill children too?" R'lan asked, kneeling beside Lena, who raised an eyebrow at the strange looking man but continued her work.

"They kill children," Ryff corrected the rider. "This is a Worker boy. He should have been in the nursery."

"They killed many of the children there once they knew what was going on," Lena explained, voice strained from exhaustion and anger. "We saved as many as we could."

"Who is they?" R'lan demanded suddenly. "What in Faranth's name is going on here?"

"Nevermind," Ryff told him gruffly. "We found Lena. Now what?"

"Now we are leaving," R'lan announced. "Once she gets that boy fixed up, we are getting out of here as fast as Ancith can carry us."

"We?" Lena asked, giving the knife a final tug. It slid out. The boy gave a gasp of pain and blood spurted onto Lena's lab coat. She calmly pressed her hands to the wound and, producing a bandage from a pocket, proceeded to bind it.

"You two, me, and Ancith," R'lan replied. "I'm not taking the chance that two perfectly good Candidates will be killed."

"Where are we going?" Ryff asked suspiciously. "And what do you mean 'Candidates'? What are we candidates for?"

"We are going back to my world, Pern. You are Candidates to Impress dragons, like Ancith," R'lan explained. "But we have to hurry, or I doubt any of us will make it back."

"Whoa, hold it," Lena protested as she wound the bandage a final time. "We can't leave until the revolt is won, and even then I'm not going to another world, if there really is one."

R'lan sighed. "What does it take to convince you people? Ryff, have you ever heard anyone talk to you like Ancith has on your world?"

"Well, no," Ryff admitted slowly. "But then I've lived in Sherman's factory most of my life. You could be some sort of upper class police, and Ancith is some new weapon. How can I trust you?"

R'lan rolled his eyes and produced from a sack at his waist a small knife and laid it on the ground. "Look, that was all the weapons I had on me. Take it. Keep it, for all I care. Just come out with me to Ancith. He's the last thing that's going to hurt you."

"We have to find Elle first," Lena reminded Ryff before he could accept the offer. "We can't leave without telling her."

Thankfully, Elle found them first. "Without telling me what? Where are you going?" Elle asked, appearing around a corner. She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw R'lan. A gun appeared in her hand immediatly. "Who is that?"

"Don't worry Elle, he's not upper class, he's not even from this world," Lena explained, casting a wary look at R'lan. "He wants us to leave with him."

Elle didn't say anything for a moment then frowned and nodded slowly. "Then you should go. We can take the revolt from here. Thank you for helping us start it."

Ryff suspected that Ancith had something to do with that reply, but nodded anyway. "You're welcome. Promise to carry this on until all the Workers are freed."

Elle beamed despite her bloodied clothes and wounded body. "Deal."

Ryff led the way out of the factory, Lena and R'lan following. When they got out, the most amazing thing Ryff and Lena had ever seen was waiting in on the grassy land that separated the factory from the rest of the world. It looked like a giant lizard from the biology lessons he'd had in the nursery. Except it had wings. The looked like bat wings, except that they were blue, like the rest of the dragon. Hello, Ancith.

Hello, Ryff, the dragon replied.

R'lan strode forward confidentlty and swung himself up onto Ancith's back. Ryff followed just as condfidently but when he got up to Ancith and saw how huge he truly was, he had to take a step back.

I don't bite, not human's, at least, Ancith told him. Climb up already!

So Ryff began to climb. The dragon's skin was suprisingly soft and his muscles easy to use as handholds. He seemed to be made of nothing but muscles with blue skin stretched over them, without and ounce of fat on him.

Lena followed a little more eagerly having seen Ryff manage. She swung herself up with almost as much ease as R'lan and Ryff grumbled about women being too flexible.

"All seated back there?" R'lan called back to them.

"Yeah," Ryff called back, though he was a bit nervous about riding the dragon, gentle as he sounded.

His fears were almost confirmed with Ancith lept fron the ground. Ryff nearly fell off himself and instinctively tightened his grip on Lena, who gave him an annoyed look.

A few wing beats into the air, it seemed like something was going wrong. Suddenly, everything went black. Ryff wouldn't allow himself to scream, but it was very unnerving. He was concious, he knew that much, but he was disconnected from his body. He knew he was seated on Ancith's back, he just couldn't feel it. He couldn't feel Lena either, though he knew his arms were arond her waist.

Then, as suddenly as the blackness had come, it was gone, and they were spiraling down towards another world.

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