What, this wasn’t my bed… oh right, I was in the hobby room, not the dorm. I propped myself upright and looked around the room with bleary eyes, taking in my surroundings through the light haziness and crust that had formed in the corner of my eyes. Eugh, I hate getting gunk in my eyes, especially now that I have claws instead of fingernails. A brief interruption of clearing my optics occurred, then it was back to analyzing the room.

I was indeed still in the hobby room, and the door was still mostly blocked off save for a window, which meant I would be staying in here until Bahruk was awake. My belongings were still on the table right where I had left them. The small glowing stones embedded in the wall were slowly pulling in the wisps of mana in the air. The lingering smell of burnt wood hung around the pile of crates.

It took me a moment, but my memories from right before falling asleep were sound, even until right before I drifted off while thinking about the red dot Charles. It was odd how easily I trusted the speck. Was it because he had already been doing such a fine job of keeping my language skills up to date, or perhaps the way his words reminded me of the polite machine that had performed the job selection. They were both made from that same red stone, “spoke” in a direct and precise way, and left the impression that they were incapable of dishonesty. I still didn’t know where either had come from or what creature they were harvested from, and I felt that if Charles didn’t know the brain scanner probably would. I wonder if I can go down there and visit it under the pretext of making a new invention…

A noise from behind me grabbed my attention: someone was nibbling on something at ground level just by where my tail was. I turned to face my unexpected guest, and was relieved and delighted to see that Tim had somehow gotten back into the room and was eating something from the floor. I approached him and gave his shell a gentle scratching with my claws, which elicited a little trill from the living roomba. What are you eating there little buddy? Let’s move you aside and see what you’re… that’s a crater. Tim's body was just big enough that I hadn’t noticed, but the spot where the copper sword had been was now a hole in the ground about as wide as my hand fully outstretched and deep enough for my arm to reach up to the elbow, about as deep as the sword had gone before it had ceased to be.

Tim was dutifully trying to clean up the metal component of the debris scattered around the room, which at this point just looked like rubble from an explosion. Sorry little fella, you’re going to be looking around here for a long time if you want to get it all. I looked up at the ceiling, and as expected there were some specks of the detonated copper and rock pasted on the ceiling as well. Safety equipment. My lab needed mega mondo sized safety equipment starting right now.

Since there wasn’t much else to do and no one to keep me company, I just spent the next dozen or so minutes playing with my little pal Tim. I did experiment a little to see how acute his own mana senses were, and surprisingly it seemed that his ability to detect where I was channeling mana was by far the most sensitive I had seen thus far. I would place a simple mana collector set to hold just a few drops of power somewhere along my mana lines, and with surprising accuracy he was able to point his little antennae at the location accurately even down to a measly half a mana point, or five hundred million specks of mana. Unfortunately for him it seemed that his senses were not as absurdly refined as mine, so anything less than that was beyond his senses. I couldn’t help but give him a congratulatory scratching along his armored plates while thinking puppy talk words like “who’d a good boy? It’s you Tim, you’re the best boy!”.

Tim’s antennae perked up at the same time as my own senses picked up the wave of earth magic coming from the door while the rock keeping me in was parted like wet clay in the hands of a master sculptor. I only caught a glimpse of an orange leg moving through the door before a green tail lashed around waist height to pull the supposed door-opener back. Instead of my father coming through the door, I was instead greeted by the absolutely terrifying death glare of my mother. Oh gods of this world, please spare me whatever hell awaits me at the hands of my mother. I closed my eyes and prepared for the worst, only to feel those muscular arms of hers wrap around me like a constrictor. My bones creaked from the intense force she applied to my ribcage, the air forcing its way out of my lungs in a pained croak. Mom, stop, you're killing me!

Her crushing hug ceased, but before I could slump to the ground like the ragdoll I was to her she hoisted me up by my biceps and shook me back and forth.

“No more stupidness! You are coming with me right now for breakfast and a discussion! There is no sneaking your way out of this!”

I barely had the time to grab my necessary belongings before I was literally carried by the ribs like a naughty pet over to the kitchen where I was plopped down atop a box chair. There was already a spread of fruit slices and porridge set out, and everyone else was already eating. I reached out to grab my own food, but a slap from a green tail told me that it was talk first, eat later.

“Kayrux, explain why you thought caging yourself in the hobby room was a wise decision.”

I quickly wrote my answer, but the menacing eyes that bored into my soul barely slicked towards the slate to read them.

“Oh, so you think a toughened warrior like me can’t handle a few sparks? I’m not going to entertain such a novice assumption so, let me ask a new question instead: do you not have faith in your family? Are we not all trusting one another in defiance of the dark magic cult lurking in the shadows?”

I tried to answer honestly once again, but still she only glanced at the board before continuing with her interrogation.

“Yes, we have agreed to trust one another, and yet you still act as though your secrets are too much of a burden for us to handle. I love you my God-gifted daughter, but if you keep thinking that we cannot handle the truth then I will have to break you open and spill the truth like an egg yolk.”

I recognized that glint in her eye, and I knew that it meant she wasn’t bluffing. I could only shrink in my seat to hide from that malevolent glare, but she rose in tandem with my retreat to maintain eye contact.

“Kayrux, for the sake of your own scales and the longevity of this family, you NEED to be open with us. Am I understood?”

I nodded as fast as my head could move, which seemed to placate her rising hostility.

“Good. Eat your breakfast, then we can discuss some things that Bahruk mentioned yesterday that I believe are critical information for the family to know, as well as share something I wish to tell.”

I didn’t mean to shovel my food in as quickly as I did, but the creeping look of impatience that simmered behind my mother’s eyes scared me just as much as facing a magical meltdown but for completely different reasons. My food was finished and my dishes were placed on the floor for Tim to pick clean, and it was now that I was grabbed by the powerful tail of the green warrior and pulled to stand before her.

“Kayrux, I want you to show me these spikes that my mate saw coming from your back.”

I wasn’t going to get anywhere by avoiding her, so it only made sense to do as she wished. I flexed the muscle leading down my spine, and as she wanted I displayed the black spines to everyone in the room. That stern look she wore switched to confusion as she looked me over, with her hands poking and tugging at the pointed protrusions along my spine. Luckily they seemed to be a permanent fixture, as even when pulled on by her powerful arms they didn’t budge.

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“This is bizarre, and it must be from the mixed blood. I remember stories of mix-bloods having natural weapons given by the dragons so they could fight even without swords. Boys, have any of you changed in such a way?”

I looked over to them as she did, but none of them seemed to have any idea what she was talking about. They looked themselves over, poked at their backs, and flexed and twisted their limbs to no avail. Great, now I was more of a freak than I already was. Juaki noticed my disappointment and pushed the conversation away from me.

“Perhaps because she is female her changes have happened sooner, since she grows faster than you boys. Be mindful that you might begin to be reshaped by the dragons as well, perhaps some time soon.”

The three of them looked between themselves nervously. I allowed my spines to retract on their own, though this time the sensation was less vile than when I had forced them to return. Juaki strode a few steps away and turned to put her back to the wall, then she snarled a challenge to me.

“Kayrux, I wish to demonstrate how foolish you are. Hit me with a lightning attack.”

What? No way, that’s not going to-

“Hit me with the spell or there will be consequences. Trust your mother, I have been hit with lightning magic before.”

I don’t care what you say, I’m not going to shoot you with an attack spell of any kind. She seemed to sense my apprehension, and before my eyes I watched as a hellish red glow began in her chest and worked its way to her outer extremities.

“If you do not make the first attack, I will burn those drawings of yours as punishment.”

My brothers tried to intervene, but she shot them a death stare that could snap boulders in two.

“This is a test for your sister, do not get in the way! Kayrux, strike me now or I shall strike you first!”

Fuck, fine, I’ll do it! Let’s just… one line, five percent power, make the runes run at-

“Do not think of holding back. I wish to see just how strong you think you are, and destroy that notion completely. Go on Kayrux, allow your inner fire to burn as bright as mine!”

Her goading caused me to react in a way I thought impossible. The rune array I had begun to construct switched itself over to a thirty percent limiter, cranked itself to maximum power, and fed directly into a thunder rune set to fire when a maximum charge had been built. My hand was trembling violently as I lifted my arm to aim at her, but her only response was to cross her arms and sneer at me. I don’t want to hurt her, but I know she won’t listen any more! Please, if anyone or anything can hear my prayers, please-

BTHOOM!

The white lance of concentrated electricity shot forth like a beam of crackling fire, impacting my mother square in the stomach. I expected there to be gore painting the walls, a body lying in chunks on the floor, smoke rising from a violently exploded corpse, or a black spot where her body once was. Instead of any of that, the sight to greet me after the bright spots cleared from my vision was my mother standing there with a pained look on her face and a black mark on her midriff. I ripped the runes apart and rushed to her side, but the moment I got close I had to back away as a surge of heat threatened to cook me alive.

Juaki’s grimace warped into a deranged smile as she puffed out her chest and raised her fists beside her head in a bicep flex. I watched in awe as her red glow grew brighter, bluer, and hotter as something within her set off like a chain reaction. My mana senses could see that her source had bloated somehow, and her inner fire was ripping through her mana to expel it as heat. Another effect of this nuclear reaction was the complete removal of any trace that she had been hurt, almost as if the burns were being seared away by fire.

Her eyes shone in the blue light she radiated, and a mad laugh came from her lips.

“Do you see now how foolish you are? I have served as a hunter for thirty-nine years, hunted beasts that could destroy this city, and contended with magics stronger than yours. Your spell was powerful, but its energy was unfocused, impure, and was much too rich with mana! If I had sought to harm you, your spell would have only made me stronger! Bwahahahaha!”

She finished her maniacal monologue just as the excess energy from my attack ran out, leaving her standing in the center of a red-hot circle of rock on both the floor and ceiling around her. Suddenly it clicked in my mind as to why her captain was so afraid of fighting her, and why the queen cave monster couldn’t kill her even when it had her in its mouth: she was a living inferno geared towards violence. Shit, maybe it wasn’t the dragon’s influence that had me reacting so angrily before, but perhaps was hereditarily passed on from her. After all, it sounded like my grandfather had the same problem of going in with an all-or-nothing plan so others could survive, so maybe it was something that ran deeper in our blood than even the influence of dragons. I don’t know if I would prefer that or the dragon’s magic to be the cause of it, as both sounded equally detrimental to my well-being.

Following a moment of basking in her destructive glory, Juaki stepped out from the sizzling stone area to make her way to the kitchen once more to plunge her hand into the water bucket for a drink. There was no sizzle, no steam, or any reaction from the liquid. She had cooled completely in the few seconds it took to vent that mana and walk over to the counter. I was still too stunned to think of anything to write or do after seeing that.

“Tokols and Humey, grab your gear for the expedition. We will be leaving shortly.”

Both of them snapped into action with a “yes mom” before scrambling into the dorm to get their bags.

“Bahruk, I trust you to take care of things here while I am gone.”

Dad was leaning over the counter with a dreamy smile on his face, completely unaware that he had been addressed.

“Mibata, you help your father and keep the den safe, and don’t let Kayrux get into any trouble.

Mibata recovered from his amazement in a flash to revert to his posh presentation of himself.

“Of course mother, it will be done.

She grabbed her own bag before strutting over to me. She placed her hands on her hips while smiling in a tender way. She cocked her head to the side and ran her claws over the side of my head until they came to rest under my horns.

“I’m sorry. I got carried away again. Are you alright?”

I don’t know if I am. That blast could melt stone and vaporize copper, so how did you tank it like that? I’m so glad that it didn’t kill you, but I also can’t understand what had happened. None of this felt real at this moment, so how should I react?

I know how I should feel right now: mad. Seriously, what the hell was she thinking by goading me into shooting her with magic? What kind of lunatic tells their own daughter to hit them with a lightning bolt spell as though it were an okay thing to do? Better question, why the fuck did I go along with it? Ugh, you stupid impulsive moron! Mom could have gotten really hurt, and it would have been your fault!

I carefully reached up and removed the hand that was caressing the side of my face in a comforting gesture. No, I didn’t need to hate myself or be mad at mom right now. I needed to get focused on putting things together while making sense of this all. I held mom’s hand in my own and rubbed my thumb over the back of her hand while my eyes looked over her abdomen carefully. She really was completely healed, as if she had just regenerated from the damage I had inflicted.

I used my free hand to drop my slate on the counter so I could write with my free hand. It was a little challenging to keep the board steady with one hand, but I managed well enough to put my words out there.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t trust you there, but I can tell that you’re stronger than I thought. Please be safe in the depths mom, and keep the boys out of trouble. We’ll be here waiting for you.”

She read the message and let out a small rumble from the back of her throat, almost like a purr from a reptilian cat. It was going to be an odd week without her around, but perhaps while she was out I could process the turbulent emotions she had left me with from that forced demonstration. I was putting it off for now, but she needed a serious talk regarding what was considered “taking things too far”.