AN: Like House of Doormouse, this is a collection of crossover one-shots, which I first posted on SpaceBattles, but did not want to post on more sites until I'd posted more chapters. However, I'm (hopefully) soon going to start updating this more often, so I thought to post it on other sites as well.
This is a crossover with another original urban fantasy story, written by my friend Akrona on SpaceBattles.
None of the events in this story are canon to the series involved.
***
"You're still here."
Albion didn't have time to scoff at the Umbral Calamity's implied threat. Before he could even twitch, the larger, black-scaled dragon crossed the distance between them, faster than he could see, and flicked his forehead, sending him flying. Al's head rung as he zoomed through the air-understandable, really, the old lizard had cleared the clouds for kilometers as a side-effect of that move-but his blue eyes still caught a glimpse of the Calamity, now returned to his previous position, probably to fuss over his halfbreed apprentice freak and that foul-mouthed bitch that tagged along them.
Albion's muzzle curled into a sneer, before he realized that he wasn't slowing down. In fact, if anything, he was getting faster...
Damn. How hard had the has-been hit him? Or...maybe this was his momentum power at work? But such things weren't supposed to work on dragons.
Light began bending around the green dragon's body, with space and time soon following. Before he knew it, Albion left his world behind.
***
In general, Lucian wasn't opposed to things dropping out of nowhere. Hell, as a zmeu, he couldn't be, not without being a hypocrite. That was how he arrived himself half of the time.
The problem was that such things were rarely announced, and even more rarely were they nice surprises.
Case in point: the flying green blur that smashed right through his bottle and into his face, sending him flying through his palace, breaking the mountain-sized gold structure to pieces.
Sighing deeply as he flexed the rubble off him-rebuilding it in zmeu country would only take a few moments, some willpower, and no effort; he just doubted the newcomer was going to let him do it-Lucian got a good luck at his unexpected, uninvited guest.
It, because it looked sexless, would have been considered tall and strong, by humans. It was two heads shorter than the zmeu, thinner, with blue eyes and a hairless humanoid body covered in scales a few shades lighter than his own's bottle-green shade. Lucian almost laughed. Like himself in his teens, if he castrated himself before trying to look like Kermit!
'You alright there, little guy?' The zmeu asked, carelessly tossing a billion-ton chunk over his shoulder and the horizon. To his quiet relief, the lizard jumped to its feet in moments, an intense look on its face. Good! Not just alive, but conscious! Time to see if it was intelligent as well...
'Who are you calling "little"?' It hissed, bounding to cross the distance between them and frowning as it was forced to look up. 'And what's that stupid thing on your face? Are you trying to look human?'
Intelligent enough to be tasteless, then. 'You...? You a reptilian or something? You got the size, the looks, and no balls. No genitals, either.' The zmeu smirked at the uppercut that turned everything between them and the horizon to gravel. 'No, wait, I almost felt that...you can't be a repto, unless you're one of those superstrong special projects of theirs-well, strong by their standards.' His left hand descended to catch a knee that broke the sound barrier as it flew at his crotch, its shockwave as it was stopped dispersing a thick cloud above them.
'As for your other question...you know, I get it. The incomprehension, the jealousy...there was a time when I couldn't even grow stubble, either. But fear not, my manlet friend-!'
Lucian grunted as it-he, the lizard sounded male, for all that it looked like a scaly Ken doll- headbutted his chest, levelling the abused land even further. He prepared to hit back, when the lizard made his dumbest decision yet. Reaching up with a clawed hand, he grabbed the zmeu's moustache, trying to yank it off, as far as Lucian could tell. After a few moments, it stopped, blue eyes meeting the zmeu's yellow, black-slitted ones.
'It's not fake...?' The lizard trailed off, not entirely by choice. Lucian had just smacked him on the head, smashing him through the ground and leaving a crater so deep, not even his superhuman sight could spot its bottom.
'No,' Lucian deadpanned. 'It's not fake.'
***
Sarah adjusted her glasses with trembling hand, and her brown hair with the other, as she watched the altercation(it couldn't be called a fight, at the moment; the boss might not have gotten serious, but he had still been slapped down)from what she hoped would remain a safe distance for a while longer. Her shields felt halfway ready to crack, though.
Next to her, Zeek cursed under his faceplate. If not for his power armor's helmet, the witch felt her colleague would have been running his hands through his hair. "Dammit." He ground out. "First I get chumped by the hybrid, then that wash-out turns the boss into a flyball with a finger? How the fuck is this fair?"
"Zeek..."
"And now, he's apparently strolled into some dragon's crib, expecting to bitch him, only he's getting bitched instead! How can our luck be so damn rotten?"
"Zeek!"
"What!?"
"We must leave before Al enters his true form, or that dragon pulls out some trick, or both. Hanging around like this is not safe..." Sarah somehow managed not to facepalm as he tilted his head. She knew that posture, dammit... "Please don't-"
Before the first syllable was out of her mouth, the power armor wearer was blurring towards the unknown dragon that had just made a crater with Albion's head.
As if he could help or something!
***
His headache, Albion argued to himself, was wholly mental. He had not gotten hurt by that smug bastard's-whatever he was-slap. His life had just been really, really stressful lately. Between the hybrid brat, the Calamity and the work to change the world's placid status quo at Talon, could anyone really blame him?
The dragon bounded out of the gaping crater, dust still filling the air from when it had been pulverised, fists clenched. The mustached prick's face was split by a smile that showed his finger-long ivory fangs, and his arms were spread wide. Albion almost roared in response to the taunting posture...then noticed both middle fingers were raised, and his roar dropped to a growl in his throat.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
Assholes. Assholes, everywhere.
"Why are you even fighting!? You wrecked my house, remember?" The douche asked, broad, batlike wings beating steadily to hold him aloft. Albion didn't need wings to fly. To a human observer, he would have been standing on air.
"As if it was my fault!" Al replied, smirk a mirror of Mustache's grin. "Besides-do you really think that was the first house I've wrecked?"
Before his opponent could answer, he was engulfed in a cloud of light and flame that would have blinded and deafened a human. To Al, it was almost as annoying as the culprit.
"Zeek," the dragon groaned. "How and why are you here?"
Zeek looked up, shrugging armored shoulders, palms still raised and smoking. "See, boss, that's a real interesting question. Personally, I believe we've been placed on Earth to-"
"Sorry," Sarah hissed, after appearing next to her colleague in a flash of colorless light, glaring at Zeek in exasperation. "We saw the spacetime breach, and thought you might be in danger. Came to take you back home, or at least rescue you."
Albion would have laughed at that childish idea-anything that could threaten him would slaughter them a dozen times over-if he had not been sent flying, for the second time today. This time, the cause was a mace, its spiked head the size of a human torso, seemingly made of solid gold, but far heavier and more durable. The dragon flew through a mountain, and tens of billions of tons of rock became dust at the contact with his body. Albion snarled, trying to stop or throw away the glorified rattle, but it kept going, dragging him through more mountains that were also pulverized, until he felt as if the scales on his back were about to crack.
Albion stomped down when he approached the ground, creating a lake of lava that could have swallowed a city.
Why had he believed this would be easy?
***
"Hey." Sarah's head snapped up so fast it almost hurt. Between blinks, the local dragon had done something that had sent the boss flying, and moved from his former position in the air to loom above her. "Really dig the librarian look. Cute, in a plain way. Say..." He slouched, smirking, suddenly holding Zeek in a headlock as he leaned down to look her in the eyes. "Is your boyfriend here Tinfoil Man? 'Cause he seemed to have this insane theory about being able to hurt me."
"F-fck yu," Zeek managed to choke out, looking for a way to blast the dragon at point-blank without being caught himself. He failed, but at least the dragon dropped him.
"He...he's not my boyfriend!" The witch said, bemused. Did he really believe she...with a coworker? Did he really not know about-no, of course not. This area gave all the signs of being another reality, or at least planet, given the golden glass and deep purple sky.
"Aaah...good taste. Midget over there," he jerked his head behind him. "Then? Or are you single and ready to mingle?"
Albion answered for her, tackling the dragon in a clash like crashing islands, both of them splitting the ground for tens of kilometers as they flew over it. The green dragon was livid, fangs barred, bludgeon-like tail vibrating too fast to see as he tapped into the power of the earthquakes that had birthed him.
The local dragon laughed joyously, wrapping arms thicker around than most people around Albion and smashing clawed feet into the ground, stopping in the middle of a canyon that could have swallowed cities. Albion gripped his skull with both hands, vibrating so fast a mountain barely-visible in the distance was shaken into dust.
***
'Aw, no need for that, shrimp!' Lucian chuckled, fangs clenched to stop them from clacking. 'I'm not really mad at you-and not the type to kill the massager, either!'
'Fuck you,' the dragon's voice was barely audible in the shaking air, his arms spinning like drills to rain punches that, while they didn't hurt, rattled Lucian's bones every time they landed. 'You're just as childish as...never mind. I'll break you like him, too.'
'Awww, is your sugar daddy mean to you? Sorry, can't help with your marriage. I'd only swing your way,' the zmeu's hand flashed up at the dragon's side, Albion's eyes darting to glare at it suspiciously. It was empty, radiating no power, so why-
Lucian's mace heeded its master's call, appearing in his hand as he swung it at just the right angle to catch Albion's right eye. The dragon's head swayed under the impact that turned the landscape to steam, and Al staggered, not out of pain, as dragons felt none, but because his sight had been halved. "To knock your block off!" The zmeu whooped.
Enough games. Whatever this freakish dragon imitation was, he couldn't beat him by half-assing.
Albion grew in size several times as he assumed his true form, arms becoming the tree trunk-like legs of a bat-winged body that would have dwarfed most whales. His power grew tenfold, while new scales appeared over each other in layers. Deep in his chest, around his core, Albion's greatest weapon blazed.
He opened his mouth, and breathed.
***
Lucian's instincts shrieked at him as the fire that was not fire filled his field of vision, but they weren't needed. His arcane sense was positively screaming warnings at the power behind the false flames, which left behind holes in the ground and sky he somehow knew he wouldn't be able to fix.
Zmei could ignore almost anything esoteric, barring the interference of certain, unfathomably powerful beings, as long as they were aware and willing to resist. Even so, Lucian felt the flames burn away at the edges of his self, looking to erase him.
Mouthing a curse, he raised his mace in front of him like a shield, tapping into its true power.
When the Mother of the Forest had given her word to forge the greatest weapons she could for him and his brothers, in exchange for their services(only lay he regretted), she had kept it. Lucian's mace could destroy anything, if he had the intent and will. Objects, beings, energy...and so, so much more.
The zmeu brought his mace down on the fire, reducing it to nothing. The dragon's poleaxed expression was almost hilarious, before he met the same fate.
***
"So." Sarah's face fell as the local dragon strolled up to her and Zeek, whose eyes she was sure were bugging out, Albion's glowing core held in one hand, his mace in the other. "Now that we've all calmed down...who are you, and why did you come here?"