Stanton had coasted all the way to school. He'd gotten dressed (after getting undressed from where Cassandra had put him), picked up a new note from one of his contacts, and was trying to hide his sunken, baggy eyes behind a weak illusion spell.

"Stanton," Angel asked, keeping her voice low so as not to draw attention to him, "how do you become a princess?"

"Marry a prince." Stanton reached for a flask of water he always kept handy for such times. It still felt like something had died on his tongue, even after a refreshing rinse with alchemical wash—his own sure-fire method that at least stopped death-breath. "Or, be born one. Why?"

"No reason." Angel froze as Stanton rubbed at one of her ears, then she tilted her head to the side and let out a happy sigh.

"I won't push you, Angel, because I'm pretty sure you're trying to do something good for someone. Just promise to tell me before you try doing anything crazy about it?"

At the front of the class, giving her lecture on the ethics of using mind-control spells, Sorceress First Class Celia (no longer Celia the Enslaver) only gave Stanton a pass for his quiet talking because it was quiet and because he'd recently gotten his familiar. When the little canine he was petting started to scratch her ear, and the thumping of her leg got loud, Celia cleared her throat. "Was there something in particular you needed to know, Mister Raveel-Sharptooth?"

Like a deer caught in the bright light of a wizard's magic, Stanton's mind raced but came up with nothing useful. He had almost no experience with his current set of lecturers—having just started the year of study in earnest.

"Sowwy, M-m-miss Cewia. It was awl my fauwt." It was the most degrading thing Angel had done for Stanton, but she had to admit he was being rather nice today and that deserved positive reinforcement. "I'wll twy to stowp."

Stanton, along with everyone else in the class, stared at Angel as she wagged her tail and gave her best big-puppy-eyed look at the lecturer.

"Pay attention, class. This is a fascinating example of non-magical mind-control. How many of you wanted to rush up and pet Stanton's familiar and tell her she was a good girl and it was all okay?" Looking around, Celia noticed no one put their hand up. "… Because I certainly did. Her analog to a canine pet is such that the cross-bond between our species is utilized quite well. Please, don't be shy, raise a hand."

When half the classroom raised their hands, Celia gave a nod. "It's understandable, Stanton, that your new familiar would be having a similar effect on yourself. Please, for the sake of"—she made a point of looking around at all the hands—"around half the school, learn to control her before she controls you." With the little demonstration done, Celia quickly ran through the last of her lesson plan for the lecture. "Any questions?" A few hands went up. When she pointed at one, the student looked back at Stanton.

"Can we pet Stanton's familiar?"

Angel braced herself for the onslaught, but in the end Celia had told them they couldn't—which made Angel lean into Stanton's hand a little more and sigh happily. "You owe me one."

"Yeah, I do. Thanks for that." Slipping his notebook into his huge jacket pocket that was a literal magic bag sewn into it, Stanton stood up and cradled Angel in his arms. "Are you hungry? It's time for lunch."

Jerking upright in excitement, Angel jumped into the air and zoomed around Stanton's head several times. "Will there be more chicken? I really liked the chicken last time."

"If there isn't, I'll demand they go out and hunt down a chicken for you." Making his way through to the restaurant where students could have lunch, Stanton spotted Cassandra duck into the building just before him.

Heading in too, Stanton saw that the restaurant was busy. There was nothing else for it but to join the queue forming at the ordering counter. "Good news, they have chicken pasta. I'll get a large plate and we can share it."

Pasta had been something Angel had learned to love very quickly. Between the amazing sauce and squiggly noodles, she had decided that for the rest of her life she would eat pasta every day. "This is acceptable."

Stanton looked around for Cassandra, but couldn't find her in the queue. "Angel, can you see Cass anywhere? She looked like she came in here."

Narrowing her eyes and inspecting every inch of the restaurant, Angel shrugged. "I can't see her anywhere." Turning back to look in Stanton's eyes, Angel asked, "Do you think she's a ghost?"

Rolling his eyes, Stanton shook his head at Angel. "Now you're just being silly. Hey, we're almost at the front of the line. Are you sure you want the chicken pasta?"

Grabbing the collar of Stanton's coat in her paws, Angel jerked him closer so she could press her nose to his. "We both know the answer to that."

"Angel?"

"Yeah?"

"Your nose is wet."

Glaring at Stanton for a moment longer, Angel giggled. "You're silly."

Bantering back and forth, Stanton managed to put in his order and was given a table number to sit at. The food arrived quickly and he started eating.

One thing he'd noticed, since his recent change, was that he was ravenous after any kind of strenuous activity. It was like his body was turning food directly into pure energy for his body to burn. He let Angel eat from the opposite side of the plate on the usual stipulations—she had to use a knife and fork and she was not allowed to lick the sauce on the plate.

----------------------------------------

Cassandra was having a rough day up until she'd seen Shazine tailing Stanton. After a night when she'd accidentally turned into her draconic form in her bed while she slept—thus shredding all the covers with claws and spines—she had to spend most of the morning cleaning up that mess. She'd even missed walking to the school with Stanton.

In a grumbly mood, she'd stomped around her morning classes, struggling to focus without remembering how cute Stanton had looked passed out on his bed, and slowly building her desire to, as Angel had said, be his special friend.

Just the sight of Shazine hunting him like some kind of she-wolf looking for a mate—and the fact she was connected in the noble sense—made her anger grow more. Clamping down on her anger, she stomped into the restaurant and immediately headed for the bathroom.

Bathrooms were always cooler than the rest of a building, it didn't really help Cassandra's temper, but a splash of water did. She was just starting to get over the whole incident when she heard a voice outside the window of the bathroom.

"There's got to be a way to get him to go for it. I just need to have Stanton all to myself, for one night, and he'll never look at another woman again."

Hearing Shazine's words was too much. Cassandra struggled out of her clothes before she transformed back into her dragon self, only destroying one sock in her haste. Needing to be outside and teach Shazine who Stanton truly belongs to, she ripped a hole in reality and walked right through (technically around) the wall.

The first Shazine knew that there was a member of the most ancient species in the world behind her—and furious—was getting tossed into the air, out of the alley she'd ducked into, and across the street. Her instincts had kicked in fast and, mid flight, she'd shapechanged enough to land without harm.

"Damn werewolf nobles! I'll destroy you all!" Cassandra's rage was at full steam now. She pumped her wings and seemed almost to teleport to the end of the alleyway, spotted Shazine and didn't hesitate to throw a bolt of lightning in her direction.

The screams and sounds of fighting was what got Stanton's attention away from his pasta. Looking around, he saw people rushing to the front door of the restaurant and got up too.

"Nooooo! My pasta!" Angel forsook her etiquette and dove onto the plate to snap up as much as she could of the creamy chicken sauce.

Cassandra had thrown bolt after bolt at Shazine, the werewolf woman somehow managing to dodge them—so Cassandra used those dodges to herd Shazine into a corner. She was just preparing to slash at Shazine with her claws when a flash of movement ended between her and her target.

"Another damn werewolf? A noble too, I bet! Looks like my day is getting better!"

Stanton had read descriptions of dragons. Dangerous magic users and even more so in close combat. The weird thing was a sense he got of her moving toward him, swinging her claws at his face—before she actually did it. "Stop this! Why are you attacking her?!"

Swinging several times, her talons always missing by inches, Cassandra roared her anger. "Isn't it obvious?! You noble families make me furious! Always claiming the best of everything! Look around, most people will never earn what just one of your ridiculous fashion outfits is worth!"

What came next was a hail of slashes and strikes that had Stanton falling back with each step. He could predict every move she made, but her drive to hit him was so reckless and intense that he had no way of stopping every single strike. In the end the best he could do was brace both arms up before his face and form his magic around them like a shield to stop the claws from raking him.

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Pushed back almost against a wall, Stanton was annoyed enough to finally lash out. "That's it. I'm done with"—he dodged her next swing and punched the dragon in the stomach—"dealing with your shit. You know what you need? You need some time to cool off!"

It shouldn't have been possible, but Cassandra felt the much smaller creature pick her up and, with little apparent effort, throw her high into the air and outside the city. Twisting and turning to regain her bearings, she had several seconds to see the huge lake approaching rapidly. "Oh sh—"

Dusting his paws off, Stanton was aware of the fact that there wasn't just a whole bunch of people watching him, but that two of them were approaching him.

"Super Lupine Girl!" Angel (definitely Wolfette) said as she flew as fast as she could to reach Stanton in time. "Quick, you need to—"

"You saved my life." Shazine had to bite her lip to stop from drooling on her savior. "I haven't seen you around here before. What's your name?" It wasn't that Stanton's current form was particularly her type, but the power that radiated from him drew her in like a moth to a flame. "Are you single?"

Stanton could only stare in shock at Shazine, at least until Angel smacked his cheek. "An—?"

"It's Wolfette, you big, dumb fighter. Come on, we have to go!"

Suitably brought back to reality, Stanton nodded. "Right. Of course. Sorry, ma'am, but I have to go make sure that dragon won't be coming back to cause any more problems." Turning, Stanton paused for just a moment to whisper to Angel, "Uh, can I fly?"

"No, silly, you don't have wings."

Glaring at the wingless, flying Angel, Stanton instead poured his magic into spells to make him move fast—and ran like the wind. Normally he would worry that a reasonably competent wizard like Shazine could match his speed, but with the extra magic coursing through him, he had no doubt that nothing in the world short of teleportation could catch up to him. It also helped that he'd lied.

"Wait, where are you going? This isn't the way out of the city!" Angel, inexplicably, was perfectly capable of keeping up with Stanton. "We're going home?!"

"Yes, we're going home, Angel. I don't know if you noticed, but that was a dragon. Do you know what dragons did the last time they were around?" The only nice thing for Stanton was that even at such a blistering pace, he was still perfectly fine talking—not even slightly winded. But, before Angel could reply, he answered himself, "They took over the world and held every other species as their slaves. No way, no how, am I going anywhere near a dragon. Let Shazine report it to the city guard and have them call in the army."

"What?" Angel zoomed around Stanton to fly backwards through the air in front of him. "What do you mean?"

Reaching out a paw to catch Angel before she slammed into the back door to his tower, Stanton hugged her and slipped inside—only to get his dress caught in the door and having to open it again (while cursing) to free it up.

Without the energy to even swap back, he walked over to his expansive sitting room and flounced onto the couch there. "Wait, I'll explain, I just need a drink."

Not waiting for him to do any magic, Angel produced a cup of his favorite coffee out of thin air and passed it to him. "That is never ending, by the way. You can thank me later for breaking the laws of physics for you."

"No, I'll thank you now," Stanton said after sipping the coffee. "Thank you, Angel. Now, dragons. Dragons haven't been around for about four hundred years. They were driven off and killed by the greatest heroes the world ever knew. I did a report on them in"—Stanton sipped more of the coffee, and while doing so petted Angel on the head as a further thank you—"school years ago. They could shapechange between that form you just saw and a massive beast. They were masters of magic from birth and could twist minds as easily as they did elements. Why that one wasn't using any of its powers, I don't know—but I don't want to know."

Sticking her snout into the cup when Stanton was done with another sip, Angel tasted the dark roast and screwed her face up. "Maybe it was really young?"

"She. And maybe. Wait, if she's the first of a new brood of dragons—and she had no parents—maybe she doesn't know how to use all her powers?"

"'It', Stanton, because you said they can shape-shift. So it could be trying to throw us off its trail. If it just appeared in the middle of the city, it can't have just walked in looking like that. It must be someone living here." Angel made a second, smaller cup appear that she held between her paws and carefully sipped at.

Staring at Angel for a moment, Stanton reached out and rubbed her ear. "Thanks. I'm a little bent out of shape due to this. Good insight."

Tilting her head into the ear rubs, Angel gave a happy little woof sound before she froze and blushed. "I didn't—"

"Angel," Stanton said, "relax. You're a good girl." It was adorable the way her eyes closed in glee and her tail swished behind her. "Now that I have been given a good wake-up call regarding my logic, I can start to go forward here. It will be back. Working off what we know—that it doesn't know how to use its full abilities and is likely a resident here—it will come back to the city and return to its life. Maybe it will hide, or maybe it will get so angry it will learn how to become a huge dragon and start pulling the tops off buildings looking for me."

"We know one person it isn't." Wiggling a little under the attention, Angel was attempting to hide her blush at how purely happy she was at being praised. "That werewolf you defended."

"Plus Cass. She went into the restaurant too, remember? She must have been in the bathroom." Stanton turned sideways and flopped on his back, lifting Angel onto his tummy. "So that's you, me, Cass, and Shazine. Everyone else in the city is a suspect."

"Stanton?"

"Yeah, Angel?"

"This could be really bad. Like, really-really-really bad, couldn't it? If the dragon figures out all those things this city will not have a lot of options."

"Right. Yeah. That would be bad." Stanton tried to work out a way to drink from his cup of coffee while lying on his back, but eventually gave it up as impossible and set the cup down on the floor. "That means we need to stand up to it, right?"

Turning and looking back over her shoulder, Angel nodded—even as she felt her tail wag a little faster. "Yup. That's what super magical girls do—they stop the bad guys."

"I'm going to have to fight that dragon again, aren't I?" Stanton held up his wand and turned it over in his hand, admiring the huge, heart-shaped gemstone without acknowledging how girly it was.

"If you keep goodness and purity in your heart, I can promise you that you'll have enough magic to defeat anything—even a dragon."

Jerking his head to look down his body at Angel, Stanton raised one eyebrow. "Beat a dragon on my own?"

Closing her eyes, Angel communed with the source of all goodness, virtue, and feminine purity—then held out her paw and wobbled it a little. "Yes and no. Yes, you will beat it. No, you won't do it alone."

"Let me guess, with my brave sidekick Wolfette by my side?"

"No. If I'm understanding what fate wants correctly, you will need friends to take up their own wands. Oh—my—gosh! We're going to be a whole super girl group!" Jumping up and down on Stanton's stomach, Angel did a little howl and she got so excited. "Stanton! This is going to be so amaz—"

A knock at the front door shut down their conversation completely. Angel stared at Stanton for several seconds before Stanton held out his wand. "Hey, uh, wand? Can you turn me back now, but put me back in my clothes?"

The wand in Stanton's hand seemed to hum with joy, spilling out a wave of magic over him that led to him laying there, still female of course, but now at least looking human and wearing his clothes from earlier in the day. When the knocking came again, Stanton picked up Angel and stood up, then set her on his shoulder and grabbed his cup of coffee.

By the time Stanton opened the door, the two blue-coated local city guards looked like they were about to leave. "Can I help you with anything?" He sized them up. One was a sergeant in the local garrison and the other looked like a new recruit.

The sergeant cleared his throat. "Sir Raveel-Sharptooth, there was an incident earlier near the academy, a fight broke out between some kind of monster and a werewolf. Another werewolf jumped in to help and we are seeking information on a female werewolf known as—I'm sorry to have to burden you with this, sir, but being who you are we—"

To a member of the guard, Stanton could be exceptionally generous when it came to aid. They were not exactly the best to be dealing with this situation anyway, so he was keen to put their minds to rest. "It's alright, really. I know my family has a lot of pull with the other werewolf groups. If you give me this werewolf's name, I'll see what I can find out for you."

The relief felt at hearing that, the sergeant well-knew, was visible on his face. "As always, sir, your assistance is greatly appreciated. The woman was called Super Lupine Girl." He'd expected Stanton's reaction to be at least a little dismissive, but when the young noble simply nodded and looked to think it over, his opinion of Stanton rose to a new level. "When would be best to follow up on this?"

"I'll come to the garrison tomorrow, myself, after I've contacted my family." It would also be a great reason to skip out on his ethics class late in the day—and give his lecturer an ironclad excuse that she literally wouldn't have a hope of arguing. He found himself looking forward to the clash almost as much as using his position to hide the fact he was Super Lupine Girl.

When they backed away from the closed door, the corporal looked at his sergeant with new respect. "The nobles here are this helpful?"

"You're from the capital, right?" When the sergeant got a nod, he smirked. "You know about the Raveels and the Sharptooths, then?" This time it was a shake. "Two of the highest ranking noble houses in the kingdom. They decided to bring the houses into a closer partnership and the young lord there is the linchpin for that. What makes their union more sure is his bearing. He didn't even hesitate to root around for us—a true lord." The awe in his voice even took the sergeant aback slightly.

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The water helped cool off Cassandra's fury, though her anger remained. "Ugh, that—that bitch!"

Stomping her way out of the lake, she shook herself dry and started swearing. Growing up, Cassandra had never spent much time among polite company, so she had enough familiarity with vulgar speech to carry her halfway back to the city. She finished up with, "… and there's no such thing as a good werewolf!"

That startled her to hear. "Well, except Stanton." She stood still and thought on it some more. "Stanton's nice despite being a werewolf. That means he's extra nice, right? Right. Not like Shazine. Not like that—that annoying—"

"Super Lupine Girl."

Snapping her head, getting ready for a fight again, Cassandra saw one of her kobolds kneeling on the forest floor. Instantly her anger evaporated and she walked over to them. "That's her name?"

"Yes, your dragoness! I heard her sidekick call her that after she—after you retreated to regroup." Twisting bad things to sound good wasn't just second nature to kobolds—it was a survival instinct. When dragons with hot tempers were nearby, every piece of news needed to be good news. "I tried to follow them to their lair, but they gave me the slip."

For a moment Cassandra considered hitting the kobold for daring to fail in a job she hadn't even asked for, but she liked to think she was a little more sane than to expect the actually impossible. Instead, she reached out a hand and gave it a pat on the head. "Good work finding out her name. Now we know who the enemy is."

Staring up at Cassandra, the kobold's eyes widened with surprise and adoration. "Yes! Yes! We will build you a mighty fortress from which to strike fear into the hearts of all—"

"… werewolves." Cassandra's smile widened to show off a mouth full of sharp teeth. "We can't build it above ground—not yet. Build it under the city. Tunnels and caverns and pits and traps. We're going to rid Conjur of the damn nobles!"

While she stood there fuming, Cassandra barely noticed the movement all around her—at least until two dozen kobold faces were all around her, looking up at her in awe. A feeling of power and the need to take it boiled in her, but she tempered it with her life as a peasant. "And then I'll show them what true leadership is!"

All around her, cheers rose to a fever pitch as Cassandra's decree filled tiny kobold hearts with more than just a command—she gave them the fervor of conviction. They had a queen again, and she spoke such beautiful words that inspired them to call on more of their kin to come—come and follow a new master.

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This story is released under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. If you are paying money to see this or the original creator, Damaged, is not credited, you are viewing a plagiarized copy of the story.