Jeremy’s jaw dropped as he stared at the second dragon. Unlike the first dragon, it had four legs and a pair of wings towering high over its back. It had a dark red overlay with runes exactly like Moira’s. If it were not totally unbelievable, he would say that the dragon was Moira. He certainly could not see her anywhere else. The first dragon screamed back at her, high-pitched and awful. He ducked and covered his ears. The car window in front of Jeremy shattered. Glass showered over the back of his head.
He doubted he could do much against a dragon, but as soon as the awful roar stopped, he leaned into the car to sort through the glass and gym bag. There was a baseball bat on the floor, which was probably his best bet, although it was not a bet he wanted to make. He thought about the kids chasing the mini goblins through their neighborhood and shook his head.
Now that the dragons were finished screaming at each other, they started to fight. They took huge swipes with their wicked claws and beat each other with their wings. Neither seemed to have the upper hand until the two-legged dragon twisted one of the other dragon’s wings beneath them and flipped it onto its side. Then it went for the throat with its teeth.
The pepper of gunfire to Jeremy’s left had him ducking beneath the car once again. He looked over to see a shirtless guy in pajama bottoms standing on his stoop and aiming a pistol at the dragon. Jeremy watched him in disbelief. The door next to him swung open, and another man stepped out with an assault rifle.
“That won’t do shit against a fucking dragon!” The second guy hollered at the guy with the pistol before peppering away with semi-auto fire. Neither were doing anything to the dragons. The bullets ricocheted off the scales like they were throwing peanuts. Jeremy didn’t want them indiscriminately firing in that direction until he figured out where Moira had gone. And an assault rifle was a much better bet than a baseball bat. He launched himself at the second guy.
“Give me that.” He yanked the assault rifle out of his arms and ran around the cars to get a closer shot. The dragon that might be Moira managed to stop the two-legged dragon from ripping its throat out by holding it back with one paw, but only barely. They were engaged in a battle of strength like the ones in movies where someone is trying to drive a knife into the throat of the person under them, and the person on the floor is trying to stop them. The two-legged dragon sucked in a huge volume of air, and a core of fire glowed down its throat. The Moira dragon pushed back harder. Neither moved very much, which made it easy for Jeremy to line up the shot and put a few bullets straight through the two-legged dragon’s eye.
There was a pretty horrific explosion of blood as the bullets razed the eye. The dragon reared back with another earth-shattering screech, accompanied by a spout of fire. The two dudes on their stoops hollered and whooped at Jeremy. He ran to the other side of the road to get out of the open now that the dragon was spewing fire and to get a clear shot of the other eye. This put him only feet away from the dragon that he was 99% sure was Moira. She immediately stumbled to her feet and narrowly avoided taking Jeremy out with her tail but did not deliberately attack him. Instead, she went for the darker dragon’s throat while it had its head thrown back in pain and tore it out.
“Holy shit. Holy shit,” Jeremy ducked out of the way as the body crashed toward him. Its wound sprayed the entire crossroads with blood. A lamp post buckled under the body. Jeremy just barely managed to hop into a doorway of the warehouse to avoid being crushed as well. The two men standing on their stoops also ducked for cover, their overlays pulsing and changing from deep red to orange.
A moment of strangeness washed over him. Just yesterday, he’d lived his life by strict rules like no eating in the car, never leaving the house in only pajamas, and making all plans at least a week in advance. Now, he was holding a gun for the first time in years. That was another one of his rules: to stay away from firearms. He was glad his aim was still okay. The feeling passed, and he looked out to see the four-legged dragon had disappeared, leaving Moira standing in its place. He made sure the safety was on, then climbed over the dragon’s carcass to join her in the center of the street.
“Did you…uh,” He took a deep breath, “Did you just turn into a dragon?”
“Yes.” Moira clutched her phone to her chest and stared at the dragon carcass with wide, wild eyes.
“You, dude!” The guy Jeremy had stolen the gun from came bounding over, “That was sick!”
Moira did not look away from the dragon. The guy kicked one of its claws. It was about the same length as his foot. The guy was thin, with dark skin and long dreads that fell around his shoulders. Jeremy glanced toward the rowhouses, where the man with the pistol stood watching. He nodded at Jeremy, then went back inside. The curtains in all his windows remained still. Jeremy turned away.
“I’m Qince,” The guy said.
“Jeremy.”
“Can I have my gun back?”
Jeremy gnawed on his lip. He should tell this guy that it would be better in the hands of someone who knew how to use it rather than firing haphazardly and hoping something would stick. But he would rather not have a gun in his hands anyway. He held it out.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“Thanks,” Qince slung it over his shoulder and looked at Moira. “And who are you?”
Moira ignored him.
Qince barreled on, unphased, “Can you teach me how to turn into a dragon? That was unbelievable!”
Moira tapped her phone a few times, then held it to her ear. Jeremy sighed. She had been trying to get a hold of her boyfriend less and less over the hours, rationalizing it each time he did not pick up. This time, when the ringing transitioned to leave-a-message, she jammed her thumb into the screen and held the phone over her head like she would smash it into the pavement.
“Woah.” Jeremy snatched the phone from her hands. “Let’s not be stupid. It will be hard to replace that with the way things are right now.”
She was done with rationalization, though. She screamed right in his face, then stomped off and started kicking bits of the car accident. When she got tired of that, she started picking bits of metal and dragon scales that had ripped off during the fight to fling them as far as possible. Then, scream after them in frustration.
“Damn,” Qince said.
Jeremy shook his head. He hoped her boyfriend was still alive, but he better have a good explanation, or he would not be for long. Jeremy looked at a scale Moira threw as it sailed through the air, its shiny surface glinting in the sunlight.
“Do you have any knives you are willing to part with?” He asked Qince.
“For you man, sure. I’ll be right back.” Qince jogged back over to his house. As he disappeared through the door, Jeremy made his way over to his ruined car. He glanced at the bloody mess in the compact car, and his stomach flipped. With a grimace, he touched the crumpled metal of his car and sighed. Moira joined him, her chest heaving and face flushed.
“Feel better?” He asked.
“No.” She panted, “But sorry. Being a dragon was…overwhelming. Things are a little different. My perspective is a little different.”
“How did you do that?” Jeremy asked.
“I have no idea. It just happened. It felt…” She waved her hands around. “…instinctual.”
Jeremy hummed. He pulled out his notebook and pen and flipped to a new page. At the top, he wrote ‘Moira,’ then squinted at her. He copied the runes that floated near her throat and recorded that her aura was now orange. Moira looked over his shoulder curiously.
“Is that what you see?” She asked.
“Yes.” Jeremy flipped to a new page and wrote ‘dragon’ at the top. “Everything seems to have the same dark red color, except for a few things, like us and those kids who were hunting mini goblins. We have slightly lighter red. I wonder if the color changes with experience. Every time you kill something? I’m not sure. But the runes are all different.”
He tried to write down the runes he saw on the actual dragon as best he could remember. He looked at the body. It would be nice if the overlay remained, but it disappeared when the dragon died. He noted that it only had two legs, flipped to Moira’s page, and wrote that she had four.
Qince jogged back over to them.
“Have you done any magic at all?” Jeremy asked, looking at his red overlay.
“Well…” He looked around the block. A few cars had driven halfway down the street, then seen the carnage and turned back around. Nobody else had come out of their houses. But Qince lowered his voice before continuing, “I know we aren’t really supposed to, but I have been playing around with it a little. Just making doors close by themselves and stuff like that. Just to keep freaking my sister out. It's hilarious.”
Jeremy nodded and flipped to a new page. He wrote ‘Qince’ across the top, then recorded that he was a lighter crimson red and had practiced making doors close on their own. He copied the runes in his overlay down as well. He had absorbed some of the magic from the dragon when it died, which Jeremy imagined caused his overlay to lighten to the crimson color.
But he had not actually participated in the fight beyond firing a few ineffective shots at the beginning. Jeremy guessed that the amount of magic transferred to each person depended on how much of a role they played in the creature’s death. The colors of bystanders would not change as much as the people who got a kill shot. He made a note of this on the page as well.
“What do you mean we aren’t supposed to?” Moira asked.
“Well, that’s what they are all saying. The news people,” Qince said, “That we shouldn’t use magic because they don’t know if it might make everything worse. Apparently, it has backfired and injured a few people too.”
“We should be trying to figure out how to use it. Otherwise, we are never going to be able to deal with stuff like dragons, and god knows what else.” Jeremy muttered, “Especially when they are bulletproof.”
“You got that right!” Qince crowed. “I keep saying the military should start throwing fireballs at the goblins up in Chicago. They keep gunning them down, and they keep coming. They are trying to destroy the gate now, but I bet that won’t work either. Here’s your knife, by the way.”
“Thanks.” The nine-inch kabar gleamed wicked sharp when Jeremy pulled it out of the sheath.
“Is that why you didn’t want my gun?” Qince asked, “You want a knife because bullets are useless.”
“I hardly think bullets are useless.” Jeremy clipped the sheath to his belt. It seemed like this guy had already forgotten Jeremy had managed to do some serious damage to the dragon by shooting it through the eye. But Jeremy would also be the first to admit that he only succeeded because the circumstances had been pretty perfect. If the dragon had been moving around or flying overhead, he doubted he would have been able to make that shot.
“I want the knife for something else.” He said as he went to the car with the gym bag in the back. He dumped the cleats and gym shorts and everything else out.
“Cody is going to be pissed,” Qince trailed after him.
“Cody should not have left his stuff in his back seat,” Jeremy said. Qince made a sound of agreement as he followed Jeremy to the dragon’s carcass. Moira stayed by the Jeep. She crawled back through the passenger door and retrieved their granola bars and water bottles from the back. Jeremy knelt beside the dragon and hooked a finger under one of its scales so he could try to pry it off. It did not come away until he did some grisly digging around the root of it.
“What are you doing?” Qince asked.
“Well, having bulletproof material seems pretty useful, so I’m collecting some of these scales.” Jeremy tucked the scale into the gym bag. It was about the size of his palm. He began digging out another one. Qince made an exclamation and ran back inside. He showed up a minute later with another knife and started harvesting scales for himself.