The doctor could feel my temperature slowly rising.

"That's a good sign, ma'am," he said to my mother.

But in the meantime, at the headquarters of the United Nations in Brussels and the seat of centralized government,

Neuville was pounding his fist on the dais where a microphone and Holo camera were at his disposal.

"It's been 1 month since these giant aliens settled in France without asking anyone for anything.

They come and go as they please and have even started building a giant beehive or a horrible termite mound.

Civilians are fleeing and no one dares venture into the woods.

Can you imagine?

20 to 25 meters of teeth, flesh and scales.

It's as if Jaws was on steroids and had bird wings.

If there's 1 or 2 of them, that's fine... but the whole tribe... 15 giants and a score of little ones and then... if they make 10 little ones at a time, Every year??"

The crowd of officers was speechless.

He showed photos and observations.

"Mir... is a monster... potentially more dangerous than Umbrella.... "

They've come to colonize us.. with honeyed words.

If we don't act fast... we'll be lost!"

Chancellor Paladin: "General Neuville, I can understand your fears, but I don't think we can keep up with you..."

"Thank you, Chancellor, for granting me the right of reply.

As I was saying." and he pressed a button and images appeared."

We sent out an exploratory mission and people thought it was a hoax, but it was true. Our predecessors were overconfident and ignored the threats.

The Ark arrived in the Proxima solar system, followed by the Colossus, and you all know what happened.

These monsters gifted with strange and mysterious powers cloned our technology and as a counter-battery they in turn built a Destroyer and having a combined mystical and technological science, they sent their destroyer almost instantaneously all the way here.

Worse... they've destroyed a fleet capable of destroying our defenses, and they're strolling around here with impunity.

They're the ones who'll colonize Earth, not Earth who'll colonize Alpha!

Then (he showed another video). We've woken up the wrong thing! The size of the monster behind the portal, between the dimensions! Yes... there's a place between the start and the finish. It's like cutting a hole in a piece of paper to show the distance. And that place is called HELL!

I'd be ridiculous to invoke something so naive, but how can I describe the monster that threatens us? His Eye! His claws... It's bigger than Jupiter!!! He's wiped out the enemy fleet. Who's to say his next objective isn't to replace humans with draconids, dragalians or dragons for short!"

The conference became stormy, with some pro-dragon and others opposed.

France, Spain and the Maghreb countries, India and a number of African countries, as well as Arabia, were in favor of dragons, but they didn't constitute a majority. These states had suffered the most from global warming, which had scorched their lands, and in order to reconstitute primary jungles, they had suffered for decades under the shade of orbital stations and to reduce the heat.

Unfortunately, the international community voted against the dragons. This provoked a schism between the few nation states and the community that imposed its dictate.

China and Russia remained on the sidelines, part of the community but respecting their right to self-determination.

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The dragons were just a pretext behind a litany of repressions and disagreements.

Several presidents rose in indignation and protest.

Truk was furious.

"Is this a meeting of musical chairs? Who do you want to eliminate - me? Him, the Algerian? The Moroccan? You hate French and you bombard us with Mickey Mouse and that filthy money culture!"

Chancellor Paladin: "President Truck, calm down. I think your scandals are suffocating you and you're running your country like in the old days, which are over!"

"Chancellor. Allow me to remind you that our centuries-old culture and knowledge made it possible to build and even realize the chair you're sitting on."

"You live in a bygone age, and you're alluding to phrases worthy of your great-grandparents... in the same era as Professor Brillant, whereas we're in the middle of the quantum era."

Truk didn't insist, and the session turned political, with threats between the union and certain countries that wanted to secede, or at least not be part of the club.

At first, Neuville was glad that the Chancellor was on his side, but he had no idea how bad the situation was getting.

There was talk of revolt, of secession, of threats between states, and the dragons were forgotten.

He wanted to speak up, but it was a field of howls and threats.

Feeling that everything was turning sour, he rushed back to his plane and returned to Brussels.

When he arrived at the old NATO building, everyone was staring at him with wide eyes, as if he'd pushed a war trigger.

One of his colleagues bumped into him and said: "You've done a great job of kicking the anthill!)

Neuville: "What's been going on since this morning?"

Colleague: "They've reinstalled the borders and set up customs frontiers between the Union and the Secessionist states. There's talk of an economic, social and military alliance between the countries of the Ring of Fire, including France, Spain and Italy, against the rest of the world. Basically, the imperialist republican liberals against the socialists."

This naturally reached the ears of Xayda and Chlorophylle. Sacha was summoned to Paris as ambassador.

She was a military woman and sensed that something serious was going on.

Kroa accompanied her as bodyguard and they took the "tube", a kind of ultra-fast underground TGV linking the major French cities. It was the jewel in the crown of technology, but decried by the countries of the alliance, as always.

She was dressed in her imperial uniform, and Kroa also had decorations and an imperial loincloth.

They exited the station, the humans running away from the 2 dragons who had reduced in size and looked comical to watch, but Sacha, it made his heart ache...

Maybe it was the teeth, or maybe they'd been binge-watching horror movies or dumb thrillers.

There were posters stuck up saying "The monsters are coming!"

"Alien, The Return!"

And there was a dragon sitting twisted and swallowing people, blood pouring out of its mouth.

Sasha: "Kroa, don't look back... they're just papers printed by evil idiots."

But on the platform, near the escalators leading to the exit of this new metro, there were people sitting down who weren't paying attention.

This reassured Sasha, and she walked past them, waving.

CLIC CLIC CLIC... her heels clicked on the cobblestones.

It was true that they were cool, but it was also true that they were scary, even with clothes on.

Especially with clothes on.

An animal was one thing, but a powerful, intelligent being was quite another.

As soon as they passed the bench towards the escalator,

a man and a woman stood up, drew revolvers with silencers and shot Kroa in the back.

PING! PING PING! Came the bullets, which crashed into his scales, hurting him in the process.

The humans fled, aided by accomplices who threw smoke bombs and a grenade.

But Sacha had already launched her magic shield - she had one permanently activated on an artefact she wore as jewelry.

And she launched "Bigby's Hand".

It was as if the attackers were caught in an invisible hand that took the form of a giant, phantasmagorical dragon's paw materialized by smoke.

The 4 humans were caught and coughed and screamed.

"Monsters! We're under attack! Help!"

Then Kroa cast a sleeping spell and all was calm again.

The police arrived, took the men away and took notes for ballistics.

Kroa showed his back and wing reddened by the impact and a subcutaneous hematoma.

But as they were on a diplomatic mission, the police didn't intervene and the commissioner gave Sacha his virtual card... but she didn't have a human terminal...

And she made a note in her notebook, the old-fashioned way, of the agent's contact details for the deposition.

It was clearly an assassination attempt and a provocation. But they weren't bothered for more than 10 minutes, and a shuttle bus took them to the Elisée.

They were greeted with great pomp and circumstance, but Sacha couldn't get it out of his head that someone had just tried to kill them, and that if they didn't have a dragon skin, they'd probably be killed or mortally wounded.

In a way, they were demonstrating that dragons were tough and could not be attacked with impunity.

Sacha gazed out of the window of the armored luxury van, devouring the window displays of his future shopping rage.

The driver, afraid of having wild animals in his vehicle, tried to break his fear.

"Madam Imperial Ambassador, commerce is different here compared to the rest of the world. We've remained a romantic city and I'm sorry for what happened to you. This is the first time in my career that something so horrible has happened to you.

But Sasha cut in, in impeccable old French: "There's always Maxitailles? "

The driver smiled. "You're from here, all right. The rumor wasn't false. Yes, Madam Ambassador, the house still exists and you can still try on the clothes for real."

Sacha: "One day I'd like to go shopping again like I used to...even if I've changed on the outside, I've always loved fashion."

Driver: "I'm sure there are stylists out there who'd die to be able to dress the beauty that you are..."

Sacha began to cry... and thanked the man for the compliment.

Kroa also consoled Sacha.

Driver: "It's your husband, then, Prince Kroa!"

And suddenly, the driver saw not monsters in his rearview mirror, but a perfectly normal couple. Dragons were like people... just a little different.