The door bursts open in an instant, with King looking stony-faced at Jonaleth. Kelly’s dancing plasma goes out like a lightbulb, and she gives one piercing glare at him before turning her ire towards King. “Keep your creep in line, whoever you are. If this is how you run your revolution, you can stuff this up your–”
“Kelly, right?” Drenar is as tense as he’s been since this whole night started. He carefully moves his finger away from the trigger again–mistakes can’t be afforded here. “Please understand that we have…many different opinions on how the operation gets run. We do not coerce people into service–that would be something the Conclave does all the time, and gives lip service to condoning in practice.”
“Right. Like I was saying, the Conclave doesn’t like loose ends, and Julia and Drenar are loose cannons. You need to keep them in line, or people other than us could cause problems for them.” She crosses her arms and ignores Jonaleth.
“I hate all the attention we’re getting,” Drenar mutters. “Not gonna lie, Angie, we might have done something really boneheaded going up to Mount Syren.”
“Maybe. But then we’d have zero clues on what they’d be up to. Don’t look back, plan forward,” Angela insists. “Why is King covering for us?”
“Power play? Maybe he doesn’t like wanton murder and wants us to be good little soldiers still,” he responds while rolling his eyes. “We’re in trouble, either way. I’m calling Diane and telling her to lay low once we clear out of here. James, make sure your parents get the hint wherever the hell they are.” He leans back into his cheek weld against the frame of the weapon, pulling all his focus on making sure that this meeting ends without a shot fired and that everything goes by routine.
“Is it true? My dad…worked with you?” Drenar curses, he missed a few seconds of the conversation–hopefully he can get some context. King’s composure slips for a second–a look of regret.
“I won’t lie, he worked with me for a time. Before the Talons. Your father is a good man, Kelly. You shouldn’t lose sight of that.”
“Does he work for you now?” she demands, arms folded and stance tense.
“No. He doesn’t work for me. Occasionally we…help each other out. But I haven’t had much contact with him since he…requested to step back into the light. He’s a man I trust, in a world of gray where actions can be construed as hostile by the powers that be.”
“Roland, save the sob words. We have things to finish discussing,” Valosterla calls from the doorway, and eyeballs Jonaleth with those piercing ruby eyes. “Did we not discuss this ‘provocation’ that you seem apt to use?”
“Nah, Val. Just laying out some hard truths. Right, Roland?” It’s almost like Jonaleth is in on the joke that isn’t his name.
“Correct. Val, I believe that we should allow them to depart for the evening, you and I still have some business to discuss.” Strangely, the armed men haven’t even flinched with the commotion in the room, but one pulls out a phone and Drenar focuses back on him, out of curiosity.
“One of those brats is recording. Got a live stream going with a few hundred viewers. Tell Val right now.” The man nods his head almost imperceptibly, while Valosterla is talking, and he nods to the other men.
“Nick, trouble. They’re onto them!” Drenar says in an elevated voice. “Levine we’re going to have to move, I’m guessing one of my fellow students did a stupid thing and live-streamed their interview with the devil!”
“Ah, ballocks–Nick, get in there! You got your teleportal escape pad ready?” Levine is scrambling on the end. "Smith, keep the drone feed rolling, be prepared to track moving targets east!"
“Plan C, extraction exit!” Nick barks out. Drenar goes by rote memory, they’d set up a teleportal pad well out of the way in a field in advance, just in case they had to make a fast getaway. For a plan they cobbled together in two hours, they’d done a damn bit of contingency planning, just not like this. “We’ve got thirty seconds, Drenar and Angela, prepare to breach, use those alchemical grenades, they’ll stun, but they won’t permanently injure!”
“Ah crap, here we go again!” James says in a scramble to get the equipment packed up. “You guys suck at planning!”
“We didn’t screw up this time!” Drenar barks, already in motion. He keeps the audio feed going even as he preps the flare grenade–it should be enough to blind a dragon, and Angela’s already shifting to her dragon form just out of the view of the window. Even stranger is how the armor morphs around her and now seems size-appropriate over her nascent draconic body. He also reaches out to his draconic form and feels the bulk of muscles and raw power course through him, and the armor vest and clothes feel tight as they twist and transform with him. Two giant dragons trying to stack up on a doorway would probably seem like either a hilarious or terrifying sight to passersby.
With the adrenaline pumping on the prospect of seeing three peers get murdered for breaching trust, he’s not taking any chances on this one. He pulls the pin on the alchemical grenade with one claw. He can hear the conversation turn heated. Val’s mercenaries burst into the room with a stomp of boots. “Miss Roshanikov, we have a…situation that requires immediate resolution.”
“Can it wait? We’re just about to depart,” she snaps. The voices are muffled but his draconic hearing allows him to pick out a mouse shuffling through grass from a hundred meters away at least.
“Val, I think you need to hear this.” One of them puts out the phone and there’s distant audio, and he swears he can feel malice permeate the air. It’s disturbing that even with an armor-scaled body, he’s never felt this vulnerable against something that doesn’t have a physical presence, what is that awful feeling he keeps getting? “What should we do?”
“Take their phones. Find the culprit. And kill them. Make sure the others are watching when you do it, then have them take the body out in the woods and dump it. Actually, you know what…I’ve got a better idea. I didn’t have a meal before I caught my flight here.”
“Oh, what the fu–” Angela whispers before Drenar motions for silence, claws still tightly wrapped around the safety after reminding himself of what happened last time. They’re not going to get another shot at this, and he charges his free hand with telekinetic energy. That glass might have mana filaments reinforcing it, but it can’t take a concentrated impact like this, based on the practice he’s had over the past few days. He motions for her to get ready. “Julia, anyone lines up a shot on Kelly–”
“They’ll be dead before they hit the floor,” she says with a deadly tone over the radio. “On your signal Drenar, I can see a circuit breaker just to their left. Break the glass, and the shot should go right through. Call it.”
He waits for the right moment when the mercs and Valosterla stomp back into the room. “Does someone have…something they want to tell me? Something pressing? I thought we had a level of rapport and trust,” Valosterla says, and that sickly sweet voice grates on Drenar’s nerves. She has a figure that borders on drop-dead gorgeous, but beneath that exterior is an utter monster that he can’t reconcile the difference.
Told ya. It’s always the redheads.
Great words to die by Alex. Here we go. He waits for the pause. Violet shrieks, and there’s the clatter of a phone on the ground.
“I’m sorry! I thought you were here to kill us!” she squeals. “I didn’t want my last words on this earth to my mom to be utter anger at her grounding my ass for ruining the living room when I transformed!”
“Well, we weren’t…” Val starts to say. Drenar doesn’t wait and taps on the glass with a claw, and everyone turns to face him, utterly bewildered. He waves to Val, who looks at him with disgust.
“Didn’t I kill you already?” she sneers. It’s a very odd statement before the disaster that follows.
“Candygram, bitch,” He utters with contempt before he smashes the glass with a kinetic blast that shatters the whole row of windows. The two mercs shield Valosterla from the shards where it pings off their spell shields. He chucks the flare grenade at their feet and veers behind the wall and covers his ears. “NOW!”
Two high-pitched shots ring out and plunge the room into a sputtering darkness that lasts all of a second. There is a deafening blast of light and sound and then screams of two mercs and a dragon hopefully with ruptured eardrums. Angela is in lockstep and rips out the wall and Kelly and the others are covered behind the conference table. Tristian forgot to cover his ears and currently is wailing in agony. Drenar follows suit and kinetic blasts the foes against the wall, bringing part of the ceiling down on them in a shower of debris that blocks their way. “Hi kids, way to screw up! Double-time it!”
“Um…did we just get sassed by a giant dragon?” Violet says while squinting her eyes, then gasps. “Holy shit, you’re–”
“Clark Kent, and we are getting the hell out of here!” he barks. Drenar grabs Kelly who firmly latches onto the base of his neck, and Angela grabs Tristian, who is steadied by Violet and they get a running start. Drenar hears bad news as soon as the radio crackles again while trying to get to flight speed. He’s attempted this twice at an extremely low height behind the house this weekend, but not with extra weight.
“Drenar, reinforcements coming from the house! They must have been camped in the basement!” He’s greeted by the sharp ping of a bolt off his flank which harmlessly bounces off his armor scales, but it still hurts. “Nick, are we allowed to shoot back?!”
“They’re opening up on civilians, weapons free, and watch your fire!” Distantly, he hears the sharp crack of more autobow bolts and he arches his spine to take the brunt of the damage–they ping off harmlessly and flare the barrier faintly, and the sparkles of blue light protectively wrap around Kelly as well. They get airborne in a few strides and massive spring of his legs up and forwards, and he feels that bubble of lightness envelop him.
Nick had explained that dragons don’t typically have enough lift in their wings to get past the thrust-to-weight ratio problem. But when a dragon attempts to fly, they instinctively trigger a distortion of gravity magic within them that makes them lighter–light enough to soar through the air with ease, given the wingspan. He had politely explained to Nick that getting hit by anything heavy in the air might result in him being yeeted through the skies.
Stolen novel; please report.
Nick had dead-eyed stared at him and told him not to get hit. Which is why he’s in pure adrenaline panic beating his feathery wings, and hoping he clears the top of the trees before he crashes into them at the edge of the clearing. Angela is a powerhouse, and Nick surges to his dragon form and grabs James. Bullets and bolts ping off his shield but they might as well be tiny wasp stings, and Julia springs to motion when Nick lands briefly and she catches a ride on him with an incredible jump of grace. They take a bead on the clearing about a mile away, flying in tight formation.
“Fantastic plan, idiots!” James screams out. “Not like they're gonna come looking for us and know where we live, which one of you dumbasses was putting wizards and dragons live on Tiktok?”
“Me! Sorry, I didn't know how verboten that was–”
“It's very verboten, and we already got yelled at for it!” James shouts over the roar of the wind. “Nick, you know what, we need to give them ‘the talk’ I've been saving up.”
“Stay seated, it's difficult carrying two passengers,” Nick snaps with a swivel of his head. Julia slings her weapon in a saddlebag and taps Nick gently. “Yes, Tsundere?”
“I see a gun. Big gun. Can I shoot it?”
“The M82M3 is designed for a fixed firing position, and using that on unshielded humans is, well, probably a war crime–”
There's a deafening blast and a crackle of purple energy behind them, and half the ranger station explodes outwards, and Drenar turns his head just in time to see it. Oh. We have messed up, big time.
You think? Alex's rebuke can't convey the feeling of dread when he sees a monster from a nightmare dash out of the damaged structure in a blur of midnight blue scales and a blood-red feather mane, and wings that beat with incredible strength, unburdened by the proximity of the interior. Nor is there any hiding those razor-sharp teeth and claws and a scream of anger that emanates from behind them.
If there is a Hell on earth, her emanating shrills are the open portal to the screams of the damned. Valosterla is one massive dragon with an array of deadliness matching her demeanor as an apex predator in a business suit.
“Siberian Hellkite, on our six! Two more Valencians transforming!” Drenar relays to Nick, who grunts audibly. “One really big Siberian hellkite who might just be a little pissed at me for calling her a bitch.”
“Your snarky one-liners are gonna be the death of us, Drenar!” Angela screams out. Violet and Tristan look terrified of her. “Long story, folks, we’ll–yikes!”
Drenar feels the danger before he hears the crackle of energy, and swerves right while Angela swerves left. A globule of scintillating dark purple energy blasts past them and detonates like a flak cannon round, and pings his scales with buzzing purple energy. A near miss felt like he got hit by a cloud of nails against his scales, and it stings. “We are being shot at!” he roars.
"Dragon brats, stomping in?! Do I fear? Nah, I'd win," Valosterla sings out in an almost manic tone.
"Did--is she...is she taunting us in verse?!" James shrills. "What is wrong with this woman?!"
“Big shooty gun now please, Nick!” Julia screams out over the roar of the wind past them. “We can't use the teleport while we're being shot at, we need to ground her or lose her!”
“Julia, if you manage to hit anything with that weapon while bucking mid-air against a highly mobile target while clinging to me for dear life, I'll name my firstborn daughter after you!” Nick retorts but doesn't outright say no. Drenar tries to land a kinetic blast like a globule and holds it until Valosterla is close enough, and relaxes his claws. There's a sonic boom and it disrupts her flight, slowing her down.
“I'm calling that one depth charge!” he roars in triumph. It's kind of hard though because he's panting from the effort of beating his wings at maximum speed, and Kelly is clinging on for dear life and squeezing his neck tightly.
“Are you just insane Drenar, or are you naming your attacks like a shonen anime?!” she screams out and punches him in the scales for good measure.
“It's stress therapy! And why was Violet going off script?!”
“I didn't tell her shit for this explicit reason, she’d have blown our cover sooner!” she shouts out. “Sorry Drenar, you guys did cover our ass but good. Jonaleth got under my skin too, you probably saw that.”
“He gets under everyone's skin–scales–whatever. I dunno which phrase to use anymore.” He swivels to look back, Val is picking up speed behind him. “Nick, Siberians are vulnerable to plasma, right?”
“Against her? That's suicidal, she's a dragon matriarch judging by her size and scale thickness!” Julias grabs the massive rifle and braces it against the harness, and straps herself into an attached tether that secures her to Nick's back. “Julia, keep your aim steady! That'll punch a hole right through my wing!”
“Then I won't miss! Keep her distracted!” she barks out to Drenar and Angela.
"A whelping flees my claws, oh it's so endearing! You really should die now, paralyzed by fearing!"
There is something seriously wrong with this woman! Drenar thinks frantically.
I'll say. Her meter is decent, her word choice quite flavorful. And terrifying. Alex chiming in at this manic dragon behind them isn't improving the situation.
“Drenar, I have an idea!” Kelly announces from his back. “You're half Maridian and Azure, I think I can give you a fighting edge!”
“How?!”
“Brace yourself, this might sting!” She presses one palm on the valley of his back between his wings, and he feels a current of energy radiate from the spot, stinging like biting ants. But it doesn't discharge, it instead increases in intensity and spreads across his scales, glowing white-blue and arcing intermittently. “Let me know when it starts to hurt! Your scales are superconductive for plasma energy!”
“Why is everyone experimenting on me like I'm a lab lizard, damn it?!” He can feel that charge across his body, flowing through him, and while it might sting, he feels the surge of power he can unleash. Another shower of dark energy is unleashed and he dodges several of them. More surprisingly, his barriers seem enhanced–he can barely feel the stinging impact anymore! He files it away as a new protective tactic.
But can it be used as an offensive tactic? Valosterla and the two distant Valencians are closing–one of them looks like Jonaleth with the close-cropped feathers and ice-cold eyes, along with a slight scar on his snout. An analog of an idea crops up, and he focuses that charge to his claw, pivoting his body to look back at Val launching more deadly attacks. He’s running out of maneuvering room, she’s bigger and faster than they are. “Kelly! I need advice, have you used your plasmakinesis before? That grappling beam?”
“Once! It’s like throwing a fishing line!” she belts out. He swerves to dodge a volley of deadly purple energy–whatever this attack is, even near-misses hurt, and his feathers are slightly singed on his tail, much to his annoyance. A brilliant idea comes to mind.
“The yeet has not been yotten!” he belts out with a laugh. Kelly looks at him like he’s lost his mind. “Julia, wait for the moment!”
“Ready!” He waits for Val to commit to the attack, she’s close enough that he sees her inhale sharply–breath attack!
He folds his wings and plummets down, just as a belch of blue-black flames occupies the space he was in, and she tries to track his motion. He’s still more agile than her, and he screams towards the awaiting forest, trying to keep as much speed as possible. He charges that energy to his claws, waiting to break the tension. Valosterla laughs when a few feathers smolder, and he shouts out–those flames are abysmally hot, even from a near-miss! Kelly shouts and holds herself pressed against his body, but the effort has slowed Valosterla down a little. The embers eventually die out, much to his relief, and he waits for her to charge energy in her claws once more.
“You can’t outrun me, little hatchling! Why don’t you tell me who you are, we seem to have gotten off on a bad start–”
He flares his wings backward to catch as much drag as possible and she zooms past him, surprised by the maneuver, and overshoots on her next attack–the bits of energy sting his face, but he’s got a new target, and throws out that charge of energy in a brilliant beam of plasma that tethers to her right leg!
She looks behind in surprise and swerves, but he’s not done yet! He’s done a rough calculation while he’s tethered onto the literal kite from hell, and prepares his primary skill, a shimmering white globule of kinetic energy. She inhales sharply, she can’t miss at this range!
…Unless he wasn't where he was supposed to be. He snaps the tether of energy in a massive constricting motion, sending him flying forwards and upwards and over her, and tucks his wings to ensure maximum speed. Meanwhile, the recoil motion jerks her downwards and she swerves her tail and tries to recover.
But this time he’s right where he needs to be and kinetic blasts her torso with as much energy as he can summon from the high-up angle, shouting in fury as the point-blank attack impacts her. She is sent veering off-course, trying to correct her spin into the ground. “NOW!”
Several shots ring out from Nick’s position–Julia dumps the entire magazine into Valosterla, and amazingly, the shots connect in a flare of bluish-purple sparks, and the shielding flickers. It barely holds, but momentum still carries and sends her downwards, where she clips into the top of the nearest tree–her forward speed saves her, and the tree splinters, but the second and third impact slow her down and she can’t recover. She crashes through the trees and lets out a scream of rage, and several trees topple from the massive impact of the dragon line driving through the forest.
“Yeah-hah! The yeet has now been yotten–”
Kelly shocks him again and the stinging rebuke stops him mid-sentence. “Your sardonic wit is going to drive me insane, Drenar!” Kelly screams out.
“Ow! Let me have this moment!” They beeline for the now active teleportal on the characteristic one-time-use pad that looks similar to the one that Crosomer had used, and Nick and Angela had already landed. Julia is wincing and rubbing at her instantly bruised shoulder, looking confident. “You got to use the fifty again.”
“I got to use the fifty again,” she says with an infectious grin, even as she slaps in another massive magazine and keeps it trained on the tree line. “Let’s mosey on outta here, Nick, are we going to be under capacity for this thing?”
“Barely. James, everyone else okay?”
“I’m going to be sick,” Tristan moans. Everyone scrambles onto the folded plates that are glowing with silver light, and Drenar is the last one on, the platform already charging.
A blast of unnatural blue-black fire incinerates the trees closest to the clearing, and that murderous dragon with midnight blue scales and the fiery red feather mane storms past the burning kindling and leers right at Drenar. She should be furious. But she's wearing a manic grin that is unnerving as it is out of place. “You’re not her, are you? You surprised me even at my age, but you’re still dead hatchlings walking!” she shouts out from the couple hundred meters distance.
“In the words of my generation, get stuffed, Val!” Drenar says while giving her a triumphant one-claw salute. The world flares to light and he forces his eyes closed–he feels utterly weightless–