The man ran out of the elevator in a hurry. It was very important news, and he needed it delivered as fast as he could. He rushed past the loads of people walking by him, hitting into a few, and even spilling one's coffee - but he could not stop to pick it up. His scrawny legs grew tired, and he started to breathe much faster, though he knew he was almost there. When turning the final corner, however, he brutally hit into someone, causing them both to fall over. Each of them dropped everything they were carrying; paper, books and pens scattered all over the floor. He excused himself over a thousand times, but he did not manage to calm the lady, who began picking up over three pounds worth of documents off of the floor. But before she could continue to criticize how bad his sight was, he had already left, straight toward the room at the end of the hall.

He was impatient, but he knew he had to knock before entering. One second, two seconds, three seconds passed - he waited enough. He went to open the door, but in his rush, it was opened for him, which allowed gravity to make him tumble yet again to the floor. He rose as fast as he could, staring his boss straight in his unimpressed eyes. The dark haired, 190-pound, 56 year-old man waited for news to spill out of the unwanted guest, as he went over to his chair at the end of the room.

"Well? What is it now? You've given me useless information ever since I put you in charge of your department, which makes me deeply regret my decision. So speak up, will you?" His voice was booming across the room, a quality everyone in the building had grown a custom to.

"Okay, sir..." He flipped through his documents, spilling a few while he was at it, but when he finally found what he was looking for, his eyes lit up as he stored the rest under his arm. "I think this is one of the best developments we've had so far towards the case, sir. We've found their traces north of their last sighting, which could lead us to find them again." He pushed his glasses back against his forehead before proceeding. "I think it would be best if--"

"No", his boss interrupted. "I don't want your worthless opinion. You've already made us lose a whole day's worth of time looking for something which should have been so ridiculously easy to find." He grabbed the documents from the worker's hands, further spilling his other stuff. "And this isn't even accurate! God damn it, do you have any idea how useless you are? Our targets are moving ten steps forward, while we keep taking ten steps back! Do you know how aggravating that is? Do you?!"

The man, clearly frightened, tried to answer without letting a stutter escape his mouth, something he was not able to accomplish. "Y-yes, sir, of course I do."

His boss chuckled in mockery before returning to his rant. "No. No, you don't. Because if you did, you wouldn't of have come in here with this useless piece of garbage, you dare even call a development! We aren't running a lemonade stand here - we're running an investigation!" He took his breath, and sat back down in his chair, head in his right hand as he waved his left toward the door. "Get out of my sight."

The worker, distraught, slowly picked up his documents, pen and paper off of the floor, and walked out the door as he was ordered to do. His boss leaned back into his chair, let a sigh escape, rubbed his eyes in succession, and turned around to look out the window. At the height of the building he was in, located in the middle of Manhattan, he could see most of the beautiful cityscape of New York, surrounded by the breathtaking scenery of the Hudson River. It was an incredible view to the eyes of any regular individual, but to someone who had seen it as many times as he had, it was dull and repetitive. The Chief Officer of Special Affairs tried his best to calm down, knowing he still had a long day ahead of him. With most of his frustration relieved, he turned back around and pushed a button on the telephone near the end of his desk. Immediately, a buzzing noise was heard, signaling the beginning of a call to his secretary.

"Hello, Wendy?", he spoke calmly through his speakerphone. "Could you get me the head of the CIA on the line for me, please?"

"No problem, Mr. Parker."

Alan Parker pressed another button, which canceled the phone link to his secretary. The information supplier whom he had spoken to was, in his opinion, only one of the many idiots he was forced to work with. He had been dealing with the same type of people for over ten years, and he seriously detested it. The old war veteran yawned at the sight of a flashing red button, which signaled an incoming call he knew came from none other than the head of the CIA, Tom Benson.

"Hello, Parker", Tom greeted. "What a pleasant surprise hearing from you at this fine hour in the night." He sounded much better rested than Alan was.

"Yeah, yeah", Alan replied, all too familiar with Tom's immaturity. He despised the man, but deep down, he was his only hope. "Look, we need your help. I know you don't normally get into foreign affairs, but this is serious. We'll need all the help we can get if we want to find--"

"You can spare me the details, Alan. I know what you're looking for and I know you're having trouble finding it. It was only a matter of time before you'd call, frankly. So, what do you have so far?"

"Well, they both fled the scene, both in two different directions; however we presume that they've met at the same rendezvous point."

"...is that all?"

"Unfortunately."

Benson chuckled. "You never cease to amaze me, Parker. When I think you can't get any worse, you do just exactly that. I'd bet on my mother's grave you're still resorting to your own crew to do your work, correct?"

Alan cursed through his teeth. "Are you going to continue mocking my way of work, or are you going to help?"

"Oh, Alan; you're going to have to learn to loosen up one of these days. Of course I'll help you and your team out. Start by tracking their credit cards, bank transfers, passports - basically anything with their name written on it. Try to get some aerial support ready and initiate a ground search as soon as possible. Does that sound simple enough for you?"

Parker grunted, but accepted. "Of course. I'll get my surveillance team to do it as soon as they get here." A moment of silence ensued, as he forced himself to mumble his two next words. "Thank you."

Tom laughed, mocking his correspondent's attempt at appreciation. "It's not a problem, Alan. I'm always glad to assist in a dragon hunt."

...

They woke up very early, trying to begin their trip before sunrise. Although he was not tired, Eric did not want to fly at the moment, which he found unusual since he had been enjoying it so much the past few days. Matt, on the other hand, seemed quite invigorated. The past few hours seemed to have gone right by for him, even though the only thing they did was walk. He had clearly explained the plan he had thought up to Eric. They would walk southwest, as far as they could go without leaving the forest. There was an unguarded border crossing around the outskirts of Angle Inlet, Minnesota, which was 1000 kilometers away, and upon reaching it, they would pay for a rental car, claiming they were visitors from Canada, and proceeding to drive it to a friend of Matt's in Fargo, North Dakota. He would then have him create fake passports, which would hopefully allow them to buy a plane ticket to Europe.

Eric was curious about one specific thing. "Come on man, tell me, why Europe? We could hide much farther than that - somewhere like Australia or something. We have the money."

"I can't explain it right now."

"Matt... Come on. You must have a good reason."

Eric was beginning to irritate him. "I don't know; I always liked Europe for some reason." He desperately tried to change the subject. "Listen, it's going to be hard to make it to Angle Inlet. We won't always be in the woods, hiding ourselves from civilization. In fact, not very far from here is Thunder Bay. We'll need to blend in, maybe change our clothes and our appearance. This isn't like in a movie. I'm sure the government is already looking for you by now, and there is absolutely no way they are going to stop. They saw you fly north, and they saw me go north. The people at the school know I was in the classroom with you helping you out, so it's quite obvious you have an accomplice. We've got to make sure we don't fit their description. Sure, they'll be looking for me as well, but it'll be a lot tougher to distinguish me from all the other adults. So first, we'll go to a barber shop to get your hair cut and have it dyed black, so you'll stand out a lot less. We'll have to see about the clothing."

Eric was astonished. Never would he have thought of anything of that sort. He simply figured Matt must have watched too many action spy thrillers. Either way, the plan seemed top-notch to him, so he did not argue. On the other hand, Matt was not as sure of the plan. He knew something would backfire. He was not very sure as to how close the police were to finding them, which scared him a lot. The only good thing he could think of was that he had a handgun in his pocket, ready to be utilized against anyone who would dare come in his way.

Of the four hours they had walked, an eighth of it had been reserved to breaks. During that time, Matt tried to see if he could somehow shift Eric into his full form, which was not an easy task. A mid-form was easier to shift into, since the animal parts were simply built upon the human parts; however, the full form required massive concentration, - especially for Eric - and extreme internal and external changes. For an average TFR, the aforementioned took around a year to master; seeing it after a mere two days was unheard of. It would have been a great advantage for the both of them if he could, since a full dragon would have been able to easily carry someone of Matt's weight. This would have most likely sped their trips up by at least four times over.

As for food, they were lucky to have found a deer walking around earlier that day. Matt easily caught it with his wolf's agility, and killed it dead in its tracks. The wood also provided a very nice fire, thanks to the dragon, which allowed them to eat it in their human form. They could have also ate it raw in their mid-forms, however, as Matt noted by experience, they retained most of their human taste buds, and deer tended to have a foul taste when uncooked.

At around 11am, they passed the time by discussing various subjects such as their lives and their former school at John Adams High School. Out of the blue, they both heard a loud helicopter fly overhead. Matt, reacting instinctively, pushed Eric as well as himself over to the nearest tree in order to stay hidden. He instructed Eric to stay on the ground and to lie flat until the danger went away, which only took a few seconds. Relieved, Matt got up, soon followed by Eric.

"What was that about?" Eric alertly questioned.

Matt looked around, not bothering to look at his dazzled friend. "Search and rescue helicopter, not the good guys. I didn't think they'd take so long to find us. We've got to be on the lookout for anything now, because there might be a few ground patrols as well. It could get real dangerous around here."

Eric began to feel uneasy. "Alright..."

Matt's comment was not quite reassuring to him, but Eric knew it was a reality. They were probably looking very hard for them, and the closer they would get to the end of the woods, the easier it would have been for them to do so. In light of that thought, Matt decided to turn sharper to the west in order not to bump into any patrolmen from the south. Unfortunately for them, he was right. A half an hour after the helicopter, they spotted two policemen searching the area, about 100 meters in front of them, and they headed in their direction. Matt instructed to immediately get behind the big bush near them; while it did not provide very much protection, it was the best he would get. They held their breaths as they watched them get closer.

Both had dark blue outfits, similar to those worn by the RCMP. The first one was bearded with a medium-sized orange goatee, and seemed to be fairly old, around his 40's. He was muscular and had the average height of a male his age. The second one was much younger, around his mid-20's, with a small fuzz on his upper lip. His eyes were unusually close to his nose, which was quite small. They were both discussing the job they were currently taking part in.

"You know, I don't mind walking around here", said the younger one. "In fact, if I wasn't here I probably would be back at the station, filing paperwork. Don't you just hate that? Instead, I'm in the woods looking for a dragon! I mean how cool is that? What if we found him? We might have to shoot him or something! But wouldn't it just ricochet off the scales? How would you handle it?"

His partner seemed clearly annoyed. "I don't know; however, what I do know is that you're going to get your fucking ass kicked if you don't shut up soon, and it won't be by the dragon."

"Tch, yeah, sure. Hey, I heard rumors that the United States is getting involved in this. Imagine if it caused some massive worldwide story around the world or something. Wouldn't it be cool since he came from around here? And then we become a part of this story? I'm still trying to imag--"

His partner stopped, turned around, and looked him straight in the eyes. "Look kid... If you don't shut your god damn mouth, I'm gonna find that dragon, make him burn you like toast, and we'll both eat you. And if for some god forsaken reason we don't find this kid, I'll burn you myself solely with the steam flaming out of my ears, generated from hearing you talk. Did you get that through that thick skull of yours?" There was a brief moment of silence shortly after that. The two were about 10 feet away from Eric and Matt's hiding place, whose occupants were looking straight at them. Matt had his hand on the gun hanging off his belt in case something went wrong, while Eric tried to keep himself from laughing.

Finally, the young rookie answered. "You think he'd really do that?"

The older officer grunted and walked off at a faster pace, and his partner followed him with more questions beginning to jump out of his mouth. Soon enough, the two walked out of Eric's line of sight, but Matt did not want to get up, just in case. A few minutes later, he got up slowly, scanning the area for other possible encounters, and then signaled Eric to do the same, as they continued to walk towards their destination.

"By the sound of it, only one of them is going to make it out of this forest", Eric remarked.

"Yeah, I can tell", Matt laughed. However, he returned to a more serious tone very quickly. "By the look of the older one's attitude, they just started to patrol. That probably means we're getting close to the end of this forest. Come on, we should keep going."

They walked for another mile, and indeed, the end of the forest became visible to them. Luck seemed to continue to rub off on them, since there was no police, or anyone for that matter in sight. There was a small and narrow road just ahead of them, which seemed to be reserved for 4x4s, so they immediately took it. Eric grew tired of walking, but Matt urged him to continue a few more kilometers. He sighed and kicked a few rocks ahead of him, clearly bored, but this did not seem to worry Matt very much; he knew things would spice up shortly.