I was walking home after work when I witnessed the mugging.

It was just down the main street, right in front of Mrs. Obuzaki's bakery. As I turned around the corner, I saw a local girl in her late teens and a man, a foreigner. The man held a big kitchen knife and brandished it, demanding the girl's cellphone in broken Japanese. His hands were shaking with barely-controlled violence. Hers were shaking too, as she reached into her pocket to surrender a cellphone covered with brightly-colored anime stickers. Her eyes were wide and deep, as if she was staring at death itself.

It was her eyes that made me snap.

I charged down the street, keeping my claws from spreading wide to disembowel potential prey. In ten strides I was there, and roared in anger. The man jerked in my direction, his mouth opening in mute terror. In one moment he raised the knife, in the next I hit him with a full-body slam. He landed in a heap half dozen paces away, the knife clattering on the ground farther still. I made a threatening step toward the man, low growl in my throat.

"No, no, no!... Don't kill me!" he said, raising arms in desperate plea.

The fight was over before it even began.

I looked around. Mrs. Obuzaki's bakery was at the entrance of the district's open market, one of the busiest places this time of day. There were dozens of bystanders, all watching in silent shock. No one had tried to stop the mugging. I snorted quietly, and glared at the mugger himself. He definitely was a foreigner, vaguely Western European-looking, dressed in unkempt vacation clothes. One of the trapped tourists, no doubt. Although I had no idea why he'd tried daylight robbery, I could guess what probably pushed him over the edge. The man lay on the ground curled into a ball and watched me like a cornered animal.

Finally, I looked at the girl. She was dressed plainly, wearing a colorful backpack, and had a comely appearance. I'd guess she had been a last-year high schooler before the lockdown. She stared at me with the same wordless shock as the bystanders. I smiled faintly, without showing teeth, and made a small bow toward her. To my surprise, the fear in her eyes slowly turned into wonder.

"T-thank you, Kaiju-sama," she stammered, bowing her head deeply.

Before I could reply, a shrill whistle echoed in the distance. The bystanders muttered to one another and moved to make way. The whistling echoed again, closer. A group of soldiers with armbands denoting them as military police came running down the street. As they neared the scene, the MPs halted and looked at me, then at the girl, and then at the man on the ground. Then they looked back at me. I tensed involuntarily.

"He tried to rob me!" the girl said, pointing wildly at the man on the ground.

The MPs' gazes did another round of suspicious inspection. "What about him?" one of them asked, pointing at me.

"Kaiju-sama stopped the robber! He saved me!"

The MPs checked me one final time, and then reluctantly moved past me to arrest the mugger. I slowly exhaled. For a moment it looked like I'd be the one going to jail merely on account of my nature. Then I heard a yell behind me.

Turning around, I saw the foreigner being beaten instead of arrested. Two of the MPs were hitting him with their police batons savagely, while the others stood and watched. The man squirmed, trying to soften the blows, and his pained yells quickly turned into ragged sobs.

"Hey! Stop that!" I shouted. The MPs glanced in my direction, but didn't stop. Meanwhile, the crowd of bystanders did nothing at the sight of the brutal punishment. All the locals watched in grim silence, their faces hardened in implicit approval. It was appalling.

I couldn't take it anymore. I took a step forward. "Hey you, stop! I said STOP!" I growled loudly.

The MPs halted their beating, and immediately turned on me, batons drawn. Their corporal fixed me with a cold stare. "Do not interfere, citizen," he spat the last word. "This is a military matter."

"Fuzakeruna! You are supposed to arrest this man, not beat him to death on the street! He deserves a fair trial!"

"Last warning, citizen!" the corporal said, pointing his baton at me. "Move along now, or you're next!"

Sudden fury rose inside me. I widened my stance. "Oh, really?" I said quietly, almost pleasantly. "Well, fuck you, Jap-face."

"Nani!?" the corporal bristled, his voice filled with rage. The other MPs tightened the grips on their batons.

"Let me repeat so you understand, officer," I said hotly. "You are clearly incompetent at your duties. So I won't let you touch this man any more. He suffered enough for his crime. Allow him to go home, and there won't be further problems. Understand?"

"That's it, you're under arrest!" The corporal signaled to the other soldiers. "Teach him a lesson!"

The MPs rushed at me, batons raised, ready to give me a taste of their medicine.

Fools. These jarheads must be new here.

I struck at the first couple of soldiers who reached me, knocking them out cold. Then I sidestepped to avoid a swing from another soldier, grabbed him, and threw him across the street into a vegetable stall. I swept my tail at two other soldiers as they charged me, knocking them down. I parried several blows with my bare forearms, hissing at the pain. The fight was difficult, as I had to keep my claws and instincts in check constantly, lest I turned this into a bloodbath. Even so, I was more than a match for my opponents.

I disabled another couple of MPs, roaring for good measure to let some of my bloodlust out. A particularly determined soldier took out a combat knife and tried to stab me. I kicked him in the leg to trip him, but miscalculated the power of the blow and heard bones crack. The soldier fell down with a strangled cry. At this point, I had already taken out half of the MPs, and the street was filled with moaning soldiers lying on the ground.

"HQ! HQ! Come in!! This is Group 14!" the MP corporal shouted in his personal radio. "Send reinforcements immediately!! Subject Delta is out of control!"

I grabbed a soldier's baton mid-swing and hit him in the chest. He collapsed with a huff. The remaining MPs backed away, having lost the will to fight. I cracked my knuckles and growled, showing my teeth.

The surviving soldiers clustered around their commander, faces drawn in fear. The corporal still shouted in his radio for reinforcements, staring at me. I pointed at the radio and hissed a single word. The radio crackled loudly and died.

"Release this man." I pointed at the mugger, while glaring at the corporal. "Allow him to go home, without persecution, and there won't be further violence."

"You will regret this, freak," the corporal said, breathing heavily from fear and adrenaline. "We'll wipe you and your kind sooner or later!"

I snarled. The MPs yelled in alarm, backing another couple of steps. "Don't you dare threaten my family," I growled. "Or I will personally gut you like the cheap fish lunch you eat every day."

"Now," I repeated, "release this man. Do it!"

"Go to hell, kuzo!" the corporal said, backing away with the rest of the MPs. The crowd of bystanders was giving me a wide berth, too.

Heavy engines rumbled to a halt nearby. The pounding of boots filled the street. The crowd of bystanders scurried yet again, whispering urgently. Four full squads of soldiers armed with assault rifles lined up at the market's entrance. "Acquire target!" somebody shouted, and the wall of soldiers aimed their weapons at me. Dozens of rifle barrels glinted in the fading daylight.

"SUBJECT DELTA!" boomed a megaphone held by a military sergeant. "YOU ARE SURROUNDED! LAY DOWN ON YOUR FACE AND DO NOT MOVE UNTIL RESTRAINED!"

Kuso. I was fucked, and I knew it. There was little hope to save the poor wretch now. But then I saw the MP corporal, standing next to the armed soldiers, looking at me with an ugly little grin.

That grin infuriated me. No way I'd let this asshole think he can abuse his power.

I straightened and faced the armed soldiers. "I have done no wrong," I said loud and clear. "I have witnessed a crime and I intervened. Then I waited for the authorities to make an arrest. But instead, when they arrived," I pointed at the MPs, "they committed a crime themselves! They began beating this man here savagely and brutally! I am a witness! These people are all witnesses! This is a behavior unbecoming of any person who serves in the JSDF! Thus I demand the release of this man, this pre-sentenced criminal, for he has already been given a sentence that will surely prevent him from doing future crimes. He has learned his lesson! So again, I demand for his release, in the name of justice!"

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"SUBJECT DELTA, LAST WARNING!" boomed the megaphone. "LAY DOWN OR YOU WILL BE SHOT!"

My speech had zero effect. Damn. I estimated my chances of throwing down with fifty armed soldiers. It was not a fight I could win. My scales were durable enough to stop maybe a bullet or two. Odds were fifty-fifty I could cast a defensive shield before they opened fire. But then I wouldn't be able to retaliate. Besides, even if I somehow defeated these soldiers, more would just come but with tanks and jet fighters instead. I had no chance against those.

I glanced at the mugger. The man was positively terrified now, being the potential focal point of a lethal battle. I'd be terrified too, if I were him. I looked at the soldiers. The shitty corporal was still grinning. I wanted to smash his face into a pulp.

But first I had to do the right thing.

"I will comply fully with any and all orders," I said aloud. "But I will do so only after you let this man to go home without further incident!"

"SUBJECT DELTA! COMPLY!"

"JUST FUCKING RELEASE HIM!" I roared. "HE ALREADY SUFFERED ENOUGH!"

"Company, fire on my command!"

I gambled, and I lost. The world seemed to slow down. The soldiers prepared to fire.

Suddenly, the school girl darted in front of me, arms spread wide.

"Stop!" she cried out, facing the soldiers. "Don't shoot! Kaiju-sama saved my life!"

"CITIZEN, STAND ASIDE!!! DO NOT INTERFERE!"

"No, I won't! You don't understand! Kaiju-sama is a hero!"

"CITIZEN, THIS IS A MILITARY MATTER! STAND–"

"Listen! Listen to me!!!" the girl said with surprising vehemence. "That man," she waved frantically at the mugger, "tried to rob me! In front of everyone! He might have killed me!! But nobody tried to stop him! Except for Kaiju-sama here! He alone helped me! Thanks to him, I still have my phone, the one my late papa gifted me! And I might have been dead too, if it wasn't for Kaiju-sama! He saved me!!

"If Kaiju-sama says something, I will believe him! If he says this man will not try to steal and kill anymore, I will believe him! Because Kaiju-sama risked his life for me! And now I will risk my life for him, if I have to!!!

"So, please, don't shoot! Don't hurt Kaiju-sama! Don't hurt that man, too! Just please, please, let them go home! Let them go home!!!"

The girl stood, arms wide, taking quick breaths. The crowd of bystanders was utterly still. The soldiers were like statues. I dared not move a muscle. For several moments, the whole street was like a picture frozen in time.

Then, resolution.

"Company, lower your weapons! Stand down!"

Slowly, reluctantly, the soldiers relaxed. The girl hugged herself, letting out a nervous laugh. I let out my breath, loosening my shoulders. That was a close call.

"UNIDENTIFIED FOREIGNER," the megaphone boomed, "LEAVE THE AREA IMMEDIATELY. IF YOU ATTEMPT CRIMINAL ACTS AGAIN, YOU WILL BE SHOT."

The mugger sprang to his feet and disappeared down the street in a flash, despite his injuries. I squinted in his direction. Man, perhaps the MPs didn't beat him that bad.

"Hey," I said to the girl, "thanks for saving my life."

She turned, her whole face glowing with that sense of wonder she got after I helped her. "N-no problem, Kaiju-sama! You saved me too, right?"

"SUBJECT DELTA! LEAVE THE AREA IMMEDIATELY. ALSO, IF YOU COMMIT VIOLENCE OF ANY SORT AGAIN, YOU WILL BE SHOT!"

Ah, there's my cue. Time to leave this fubar and go home. However, I wanted to learn the girl's name. She seemed a nice person.

"You can call me Drago," I said to her. "Can I ask what's your–"

"SUBJECT DELTA! LAST WARNING! LEAVE!"

Tch. Fucking jarheads. I reluctantly turned around, casting one final glance over my shoulder at the girl. Then I left the market street.

I headed home as if nothing happened. A lone military jeep with a machine gun turret followed me for a few minutes, yet left shortly after when they saw I wasn't about to go on a rampage somewhere else. Good riddance.

Perhaps it was time to add some context to my situation.

My name is Dragomir Chudomirov Raveloff, Drago to my friends. I'll hit 28 in just two weeks. I've been living in Japan for over six years.

Also, I'm a huge nine-feet-tall hulking black-and-red humanoid dinosaur.

Shocker, right? I think the story title is pretty clear on that point.

But I wasn't always like that. As the overwhelming majority of sapient creatures on boring old planet Earth, I began my life as an ordinary human – an Eastern European, in fact, originating from the infamous city of Sofport.

So, the two important questions are: why was an uncultured barbarian from the former Iron Curtain living in one of the most chauvinistic countries in the world? And how the fuck did I become a huge walking'n'talking dinosaur?

(Yes, that's the right order of questioning.)

The short non-answer was it's a long story. The kind of long story that wasn't necessarily long by itself, but would take long to be told meaningfully.

However, here's the quick gist of it: a year ago some supernatural juju happened, I became a dinosaur, people panicked, the military came, and the whole region was cut off from the rest of the world. Something-something about not letting "dangerous paranatural monsters" from roaming around and terrorizing the world or the local diner or whatever. Sound familiar?

Oh, you're still looking at the title? Wondering about the first part?

Yes, I'm not the only dinosaur around.

I do, in fact, have a wife who is a giant horny dinosaur mage.

I have a whole family actually. But let's not get carried away yet.

For the past two years, I've been living in Makinata District, in Hyogo Prefecture. It's located north of Kobe, beyond Mount Taishaku. Technically, the district was part of Ogocho. But distances in Japan being so small, I've always considered Makinata to be more like a distant suburb of Kobe, or perhaps Shijimicho, which was practically right around the corner.

It was a nice, rural place, the perfect blend between nature and modern infrastructure. Down in the valley there were a multitude of farmsteads, encircled by a highway to the north, while up in the mountain was pristine wilderness dotted with lakes and populated with many shrines and temples. Makinata's heart, Road Station Ogo, was a microcosm of urban development – a dozen streets tightly-packed with houses and micro apartments, and the market street square in the center, lined with shops and cafés from end to end. Makinata had a bit of everything, and I loved it.

Well, you know, except for how things currently were.

I walked along the empty streets in the district's southern end. The sunset bathed large fields of rice and wheat, and electrical lights flickered from shadowed sides of the occasional house. It has been almost a year since this story – my story – began. When I was on the brink of death and then I was suddenly and irrevocably transformed. And I was gifted a wife by Fate itself. My dreams became a literal truth. Yet the power fantasy didn't last long.

A mere week after my transformation, the Japan Self-Defense Force came down like the wrath of God, and tried to imprison me and my wife. When that didn't exactly work out, the JSDF surrounded the entire Makinata District and erected barricades around it. Nobody was allowed in or out, no exceptions. Three thousand people were trapped in an area of thirty square kilometers. Some were locals, yet others were transit travelers, and a small handful were not Japanese at all but international tourists, who just happened to be at the wrong place in the very wrong time. The JSDF provided us with the bare essentials like water, food, and fuel; but beyond that, every-human-for-themself mentality had taken over, with very few exceptions. Makinata District had turned into an unofficial concentration camp. One that the rest of the world had no idea about. Rumor had it the JSDF had passed off the quarantine of Makinata District to the media as some sort of unexplained biological weapon test gone wrong. The irony.

All because my deepest desires had been granted by a higher power.

I wonder–

My cellphone beeped. I took it out of my pocket and checked it. Yet another reminder about my meeting tomorrow with Mr. Nakamura. I've been waiting for ages for this opportunity. Mr. Nakamura was a JSDF special agent. He's the one the government had sent after I'd been trying constantly to request a meeting with somebody official whom I could talk to like a normal person. Honestly, I didn't think things would change much, even if this Nakamura turned out to be an okay guy. He'd probably cite some threat to national security or some similar crap and would tell me the situation couldn't be helped. Still, this was the best shot I had so far.

If I could persuade Mr. Nakamura that me and my family were just ordinary people (ahem, relatively speaking) then perhaps, just perhaps, we'd have a chance at freedom.

The last farm field fell behind as I entered the forest leading to the mountain. I took an old road that led to a shrine temple. The shrine temple was located high in the mountain, at the foot of Mount Taishaku itself. It was where me and my family lived.

Darkness had already descended into the forest, the sky holding the last traces of sunlight. Leaves and tarmac debris crunched under my clawed feet. The air was chillier than usual for the late autumn weather. I wore only a pair of cargo shorts, but thanks to my beefed physique and metabolism I could survive naked even in winter. The pants were for utility and (when around humans) modesty.

At last, I reached the shrine temple. It was a beautiful two-story building of lacquered wood, Buddhism and Shinto weaved together in the architecture. Small pools of illumination came from hanging lanterns. The front courtyard gurgled with the song of running water in a cobblestone basin. I walked on the stone pathway leading to the shrine temple. As I neared, a huge figure emerged behind the shrine temple, looming over the ornamented facade.

It was Miko, my wife.

She was a giant in every sense of the word: she stood thirty feet tall, a massive, meaty tail swaying at her backside, her body packed with muscle and curving with soft pudge in all the right places. She had a more feral visage than me, resembling a humanoid T-Rex, not with tiny forearms, but with fearsome five-fingered claws, fully-developed and freaking ripped, like the rest of her. Her coloration was azure blue, with magenta stripes running all over her tail, body, and limbs.

And she had a pair of absolutely huge, enormous, mind-bogglingly stacked tits.

Yes. Miko is a giant dinosaur with breasts. I'll wait now for all your snide remarks and entry level lectures into basic herpetology. Kind reminder: she is MY dream wife, not yours.

Oh, and any comments about back pain, connective tissue deterioration, ligaments strength, and so on? You should see Miko's JSDF lab file. If you ever get it somehow. Put succintly, she doesn't have those issues – and no, the eggheads still wonder how exactly she dodged Nature's laws.

I'll tell you one word: magic.

That's right. Miko is a mage.

Of course, looking at her, you'd never be able to tell. Well, apart from her large pointy hat which was the only clothing she ever wore. (It was the one silly thing about her.) But Miko was actually a highly-intelligent mystical practitioner. She could throw spells like nobody's business, cast complex rituals, and then some; she wasn't merely a powerful individual who could channel arcane energies, she also had tons of occult knowledge, both theoretical and very practical. And her expertise wasn't limited to cliched stuff like fireballs, bolts of lightning, or summoning spirits – in fact, that was the basic stuff. I should know, because I was her apprentice.

Yep. That neat trick I did on the MP corporal's radio back there? Yeah, Miko taught me that. And many other things. (Among others, *wink* *wink*.) Even after a year of shared life, she was still a mystery to me.

Yet every time I lay my eyes on her, I become acutely, painfully aware how much I love her.

The best part? The feeling's mutual.

Raising my arm (and the tent in my pants), I waved and roared, "Tadaima!"

To which Miko rumbled happily, "Okaeri, Drago!"