“What do you mean you don’t have a press pass reserved under my name? I can’t have flown economy class for nothing!” said Kadath Embergaze into his smartphone. He resisted the urge to append the words you fucking asshole into that last sentence, but he didn’t want to shoot the messenger too badly. And there was still a chance that this was a mix-up. Press handlers could make mistakes, too.

“We handed out all the passes already,” said the press handler on the other end of the smartphone. The handler’s voice was clipped – but then again, there was a lot of bad blood to go around at the moment. “The deadline was a month ago, and I’d have remembered giving out passes to a reporter for the Malvari Chronicle. If you want, I can make a few calls by morning.”

Kadath inhaled sharply. “Buddy, I’ve got a little under forty-eight hours to cover this tournament. You’d better straighten it out, or…” Halfway through his train of thought, he realized that he couldn’t actually threaten the handler with anything – anything that wouldn’t end in first-degree homicide charges for him, anyway.

“Please call back tomorrow, sir. This is the first time in our history that we’ve ever gotten a complaint like this.”

Kadath snorted. “First time for everything,” he said, as he bit back the urge to curse once more. Then he hung up and headed toward the taxi lane. Admittedly, he’d been cranky all day; flights tended to do that to his human body’s constitution, and he was still getting used to flying economy class.

By the time he’d arrived at the hotel, Kadath hadn’t improved in temperament – he waltzed towards the front desk with a scowl. The concierge looked at his passport, then back at him. “You’re Mr. Embergaze, sir?” she said, a twinge of confusion evident in her voice. “The photo you provided doesn’t match.”

“That’s what they all say.” Kadath waved his hand in the air; no one expected a pale, skinny, and five-foot-tall nineteen-year-old boy with messy dark blond hair and light brown eyes to be a shapeshifter. Hell, his choice of attire – a maroon hoodie, some gray cargo shorts, and brown sandals – didn’t even make him look like a journalist.

Then Kadath showed the concierge his wrists, which were flecked with small maroon scales – the only indication of his true heritage. “If this isn’t enough, I’ve got a special shapeshifter’s I.D.”

“That won’t be necessary.” The concierge’s lip twisted. “I’m going to have to ask you to turn back, sir.”

Kadath stretched his arms and yawned, then rubbed the golden ring on his finger to make sure it was still on. His stomach growled, but he tried to ignore it. “Alright, but you asked for it.”

That was all the warning he gave before he stretched and grew from a short human teenager into a ten-foot-long, maroon-scaled dragon. With a grunt, he stood on his haunches, then crouched and folded his wings – on all fours, he was only half a foot taller than his human form.  

“Thank you, Mr. Embergaze,” said the concierge. “Now let me just patch you in…”

As the concierge did so, Kadath remembered something. “By the way, has a guy surnamed Matsuda checked in here?” he said, as an afterthought. “He’s my security detail. The office told us we’d both be checking in here.”

“I’ll check the records, Mr. Embergaze.”

Kadath’s stomach growled again. “Tell him to meet me at Masterson’s. I’ll just leave my baggage here.”

Once he’d checked in his suitcase and shifted back into human form, Kadath walked straight out of the hotel and into the busy city streets. He turned a few corners, then decided to take a shortcut through an especially crappy part of town. If anyone tried anything with him, it’d be a simple matter for him to dispatch of them.

A few steps away from Masterson’s, two young, scruffy-looking men slunk out of a nearby alleyway, both brandishing rusty crowbars. Turning around, Kadath saw a third punk lazily twirling around a spiked chain. In a city like San Agaro, one could only expect wannabe punks to come out of the woodwork, especially around sports festival time.

Kadath sighed. “Can I help you guys?” he said with a tired expression, knowing damn well what they wanted with him. “I don’t recall seeing you around.”

“Hey, jackass, just hand over all your shit,” said the punk with the chain, as he gestured towards the satchel hanging at Kadath’s side. Kadath resisted the urge to roll his eyes – they couldn’t have thought of any better threats?

But before Kadath could shapeshift, a blur sent the chain-wielding punk flying into the nearby wall. Kadath saw another flash and heard two thwacks, then heard the metal bars clang against concrete. He turned around. Behind him, a bearded man in a sleek black three-piece suit had pinned one of the punks to the ground in a painful-looking hold.

The other punk, who had been knocked flat on his ass by a blow Kadath hadn’t seen, took one good look at the man and bolted away. Kadath turned to see the last of the punks drop his chain and retreat. “Ow, fuck, ow, fuck…” said the pinned punk, his voice now surprisingly nasal.

The man let the punk go. “Leave,” he said in perfect Zorskarran, his voice a hiss. As if that didn’t send the message clearly enough, the man pulled the punk up, spun him around, and gave him a good kick on the ass. The punk listened and ran back into the shadows.

Once the punk had disappeared, the man turned to Kadath. He had the characteristic black hair and narrow eyes of a man of Hirayaman descent, and his slicked-back hairstyle and well-kept beard even reminded Kadath slightly of a samurai. At his side, he wore a long, curved sword that he hadn’t even bothered to draw. “Please be more responsible in your choice of meeting places, Mr. Embergaze,” he said.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

“So you’re Finnegan Matsuda, huh?” Kadath looked at the discarded crowbars lying on the pavement. “I had it under control, man. In three seconds, I would’ve – “

“Reduced those young men into charred corpses. And then we would have had an incident on our hands,” said Finnegan, shutting his eyes and rubbing his temples. “It is conspicuous enough in this city that one of the few remaining dragons in the world is present at this tournament, Mr. Embergaze.”

“Please call me Kadath.” The fact that Finnegan was right went unspoken, although Kadath did give a grimace. “Come on, let’s have some dinner. We’ve got a lot to talk about – like how the office won’t even give us any fucking passes to the tournament.”

“Are you referring to the press passes?” Finnegan fished into his wallet and took out two sets of the passes in question. “I had procured them from their press handler just this morning. I thought that the head office had informed you.”

At those words, Kadath exhaled loudly. “Well, so much for that problem, huh,” he said, as he felt tiredness wash over his body.

***

On the day of the tournament, Kadath and Finnegan arrived at the stadium two hours early. They decided to get breakfast at one of the diners attached to the stadium’s side; said diner was an ill-kept affair, with flickering lamps, cracked tiles, and an air conditioner that audibly struggled to keep the place cool.

“So,” he said to the man at the counter over a cup of coffee, “I can’t get any coverage in here. What do the odds look like on your end?” He hadn’t actually bothered to check his phone, but chatting up the locals about popular opinion was part of a journalist’s job.

The man, a tanned fellow with a nametag labeled ‘Carlos,’ rubbed a glass idly with a washrag. “Oh, you didn’t hear? One student’s making quite the commotion this year,” he said. “She’s the favorite to win by a long shot. All the agencies are squabbling over her.”

Kadath’s eyebrows arched. “Is that so?”

“Yeah. They say she’s Zero-Point Juan’s kid.”

Kadath choked on his coffee. “No shit. Zero-Point Juan?” he said, as he struggled to regain his voice. “He came back with some crotch spawn in tow?”

Zero-Point Juan was, of course, the stage name belonging to the frost mage Juan Aguirre. He’d made a name for himself on the tournament floor as a young student, and had leveraged said fame into a successful military career – he’d been an instrumental asset while putting down the insurgency in southern Zorskarra. By the time he disappeared from public life, he had left a legacy as one of the most powerful Zorskarran mages on record. And now his daughter was competing on the same stage he’d competed on at her age.

Carlos nodded. “She’s the favorite to win this tournament. Not the friendliest sort, though, from what I hear.”

Kadath chuckled and downed the rest of his coffee. “Well, this is going to be a damn event,” he said, his voice still shaken.

Thirty minutes before the tournament, Kadath and Finnegan had barely managed to shove themselves into the box reserved for the press – even though the Malvari Chronicle had reserved two seats for him, Kadath still strained to squeeze himself between two human reporters while adorned in his full dragon form. But then again, Kadath couldn’t exactly change back. His dragon’s eyes were exactly why they’d gotten him for this job.

When recording the movements of a magical duel, humans had two options; they could either train their eyes to see the intricate arcane symbols being woven in the air, or they could use specialized equipment to do the same. The former took years of study and practice to even achieve, and the latter was prohibitively expensive for most.

To a dragon like Kadath, the visuals produced by both methods would’ve looked like crude cartoons. As creatures of magic, dragons sensed mana as easily as they breathed air, which made them ideal candidates for covering magical duels. There were only a few thousand left in the world, though, which meant that the Chronicle had struck gold with Kadath’s hiring.

Fortunately, the tournament started sooner than Kadath had anticipated. And from what he could glean off the gigantic television screen on the opposite side, the first match was between one Michael Navarro and –

When he read the other name, Kadath blinked, then lurched forward. Clarita Aguirre? There was no way that was a coincidence! Holy shit, was he in for a treat today!

A minute later, the contestants stepped onto the white square arena. On one end was a black-haired, shirtless, and heavily tattooed young man wearing black leather pants and matching combat boots. Kadath spared the young man – Michael Navarro, presumably – a passing glance, then waited for the screen to zero in on the other fighter.  

Clarita Aguirre stood in the ring with her hand on her hip and the hood of her dark blue cloak down. Underneath said cloak, she wore a white corset top and a long white skirt. She had light blue hair that flowed down to her shoulders and matching blue eyes, and presently stared down Michael like he wasn’t worth shit.

As the countdown began, Kadath squinted down at the arena, doing his best to focus without relying on the television. Five…four…three…

The alarm blared. Michael shot out his hand, and the frog tattoo on his wrist shot out its long, ink-black tongue. Clarita didn’t react – the tongue wrapped around her, then swerved her towards the right in a clear play at knocking her out of bounds.

Kadath barely registered what happened next. Clarita’s eyes glowed neon blue, and an immense chill filled the arena – the cameras could barely capture the spell. The next thing anybody knew, Clarita was standing in the arena with an outstretched arm…and in front of her was an immense wall of ice that had frozen Michael in place.

It took Kadath a second to notice that his jaw had dropped – he imagined that everyone else in the booth wore the same expression. In the surrounding air, small snowflakes danced.

The speakers blared to life to announce what was obvious to any of the observers. “And the winner by instantaneous knockout – CLARITA AGUIRRE!” Then the door of the press booth swung open, and everyone in it immediately started shoving past each other to get out.

Kadath felt himself squeezed between a mass of human bodies, all of them shouting; he wasn’t fully conscious of it, but he was sure that he was doing the same. The crowd’s roar made his head spin. A second later, Kadath managed to shove ahead – on instinct, he spread his wings and glided down to the arena square.

“Miss Aguirre – Miss Aguirre!” said Kadath, his voice cracking. “A moment, please!”

Clarita turned to Kadath with the same blank expression she’d worn earlier. “Excuse me, sir,” she said, as she looked at the dragon like he was an annoying dog. “Only competitors are allowed to come down here.”

Kadath blinked. He knew what cockiness sounded like, and her tone didn’t have a trace of cockiness in it. “Wait, allow me to explain. I’m with the Malvari Chronicle,” he said, before turning back into a human boy in a hoodie. He fished into his satchel and took out his card – without hesitation, Clarita took said card and skimmed it.

“We’d love if you could do an interview some time. Maybe an – “

Clarita put her hand down. “Very well,” she said. “I am unsure what would interest you, though.” Then she turned around and walked towards the tournament ring’s entrance.

Kadath had been standing there for half a minute when he became conscious of someone behind him. He turned to see Finnegan standing behind him – and, judging by Finnegan’s equally puzzled expression, they’d both seen Clarita’s attitude in play.

“So, Finnegan…” said Kadath, his expression still dumbfounded, “…what the fuck just happened?”

Finnegan cleared his throat. “I…am not sure, Mr. Embergaze. Nevertheless, she agreed?”

“I, uh. Yeah.” Kadath watched Clarita retreat into the doorway; then, despite himself, he smiled. “Either way, we’ll find out more soon enough.”