When reality pops back into existence and Angela staggers to the floor, she’s immediately set upon with an intense case of dizziness. She clips Nick with an errant wing and stumbles to the concrete floor of the building they’re in, and sprawls out, trying not to throw up.
“Oh. Oh, dear Fates. Oh.” It still feels like the universe is spinning, and she forces her eyes shut. “If I hurl, don’t judge me.”
“Um, I’m not gonna judge the dragons that just pulled us out of the literal fire. Oh my goodness, Angela?! You, too?!” She dares to open her eyes and Kelly is peering right at her, and it’s still a little disorienting when her vision clears. Everything since her transformation has been in extremely high-definition to where she can see Kelly in all her fine detail. “You are gorgeous, dear! And Julia! And, and–Drenar too, I guess.”
“You’re welcome,” Drenar sighs. He’s sitting on his haunches and looks like he’s not having a good time post-teleport. “Everyone in one piece?” They all sound off, and Kelly gives a tight hug to Angela, who strangely tries to nuzzle in her mane feathers.
Um. I am strangely okay with this. “Hi, Kelly, it’s been a spell, how are ya?” she says softly.
“Well, I uh, er–” Kelly trails off and lets go, looking extremely flushed, “I was just happy to see you guys. I guess I haven't been the only one going through disruptive life changes, I thought you were normal!”
“Take a ticket and get in line, our lives are completely fubar,” James complains. She very gently grazes his hair and tousles it with her tail, much to his annoyance. She can’t help but get a toothy smirk in. “Nick, any chance that psycho can follow us, and–where are we?”
Nick has been busily tapping in commands to his teleportal in the sprawl of a massive modernized barn, with the lofts leading up to a cushy second floor. The main floor is a workshop and armory of immense proportions, and she glances around at the place. It’s Nicks’ home. His base of operations.
Well, guess I went over to his house. Wish he’d invited us all over sooner. She glances down at her chest and notes the scars are obscured by the fabric armor vest over her persona. It’s a little itchy on her scales, but it’s manageable. Nick glances up, all blonde and green feather mane spread in every direction. He looks tense, to put it mildly.
“Thanks, while you’ve been all giving yourself a pat on the back, I’ve been busy spoofing the exit leyline, scrambling my encryption key, and wiping all the teleport data. So the Talons murder army doesn’t come looking for us,” he says with a little bit of bite to his words.
Oh, he’s super pissed. Great. Guess we’re about to get an earful. She’s always had an instant read on Nick’s mood, maybe even better than she did on Drenar and the others. James has been watching him tap the console, and he frowns.
“That encryption is out of date, Nick. Change it, because there's known exploits. I’ve seen that method, the NSA baked in vulnerabilities,” he says after a second. Nick looks at him, surprised.
“Didn’t take you for a cryptanalyst.”
“Hey, I can’t transform into a dragon and so far I haven’t had my ‘yer a wizard’ moment, so I’ve made up for it with my other life skills,” he says sourly. “Also, your password is too short. Twelve characters with alphanumeric, symbols and capitals buy you at best a couple of weeks before someone decrypts it. And don’t use variants of people you know. Names that end and start with the letter ‘A’ for instance–”
“I will use your sinew to floss my teeth, James,” Nick growls. James looks at him, unimpressed by the colorful threat from the even more colorful avian dragon.
“Uh-huh. Sure. Now, are we safe?”
“For now. Ladies, gents, and teenagers of all flavors, welcome to the barn out back! You’re now all sworn to silence. This place is too cool–and secret–to spill the beans to a soul, are we clear?” he says in a half-serious, half-humorous beat.
“Looks like a gun lab here!” Julia ejects the magazine from the massive rifle and extracts the round in the chamber with a sharp tug of the charging handle. “Damn Nick, you’ve been holding out on me! This puts my mom’s armory to shame! I’m moving in!”
“Oh good. I was about to suggest that. For a multitude of reasons for the short term,” Nick says after closing down the console with a tap of his claws, and he runs his fingers through his feather mane. It’s quite a human gesture, she notes. “Drenar, Angela, good breaching tactics. That was fast and efficient. Julia, fantastic aim. James, good call on the tactical positioning. It was a B+ effort, you’ve all got more to learn, but you are learning.”
“Does flunking mean we die?” Drenar asks with a light gulp. He looks a little singed in retrospect, but he doesn’t seem to be in any severe pain.
“No. It means I’m slightly disappointed at the outcome. Debrief, five minutes.” Nick slowly shifts back to his human form, takes off his tactical gear, and winces at a grazing wound on his shoulder–a great big red welt. Angela reaches out to grab the medical kit before reminding herself that her hand is now the size of a frying pan. She hands it gently to him, and he looks at her, surprised. “It’s nothing.”
“Still looks painful.” She hates that feeling of all the energy leaving her body when she shifts back into her human form. The thought gives her pause, even as her wings shrink and eventually merge with her back, and her tail just–slithers away to nothing.
My human form. It’s weird to think about. I’m not one or the other. I’m both, at the same time. Is it weird to think about something like that, Samarina?
No. Child. Vissa’ les’tho. She doesn’t quite catch the last part, but her vocabulary is slowly growing. But it’s not growing in the way she would normally expect a human child to learn words–maybe the analogy doesn’t quite work here.
Angela staggers a bit when her leg stance changes in the last part of the transformation, and Nick catches her with a firm grip on her arm before she falls. “It’ll take some getting used to.”
“Digitigrade stance, versus plantigrade? Is it normal to forget?” she asks softly. He tilts his head thoughtfully.
“It’ll take some adjustment. I…haven’t spent that much time as a dragon myself, to be honest.” James, Drenar, and Julia are busily scolding Violet in the background, who in turn is throwing some unsavory terms at all three of them, and Tristan is–being apathetic and withdrawn. Kelly is leaning in, and swivels between examining Angela and Nick, her blonde curls bouncing like always.
“So, when did you two bone?” she asks with an impish grin, and Angela and Nick both exclaim their disgust at the thought.
“We didn’t!” they both snarl at her at the same time. Kelly smiles like she’s gotten the reaction she wanted.
“Yeah, I give it a week. Dragons are super horny, don’t you know yet, Angie?” she says with a slap on her shoulder. The thought is very discomforting, considering she's still holding onto her Victor Express card, so to speak. “Oh my goodness, you are totally brand new at this! I transformed about a month ago, mom was so proud! Dad was a little anxious, but anyway, how did you guys end up in this mess?”
“You’re glossing over the huge landmine of ‘did you two bone’ and not even going to apologize?” Angela says with a piercing glare. “Really, Kelly, you think I’d just jump ship on Drenar like that?”
“Listen, Angie, this is just me thinking out loud, but Drenar’s got a lot of other things on his mind lately if tonight is any indication. Chief among them, making sure all his supernerd friends don't die. Speaking of which, I should probably go scold Violet–”
“Kelly. Thank you for your assistance, but I am the adult in charge,” Nick says firmly after Angela finishes with the bandage on his shoulder, and secures it before he rolls his sleeve back up.
“DeShandrea, you’re a skeevy creep hanging out with a bunch of teenage girls. You’ve got no claw to stand on,” she says with a snort.
“Oh?” He turns to face her, arms crossed and looking unamused. “Do you have any idea how backlogged I am on paperwork because of these four alone? How dangerous the Talons are? That dragon chasing us could have turned you to ash inside five seconds. There wouldn’t be enough left for a funeral, Kelly. That’s the stakes. And now I have to worry about your families and witness protection, as soon as I make calls. I am not done discussing this, so I suggest you start listening and cop the attitude. Leave whatever perceived relationship you think Angela and I have out of this.”
“Yes, Kelly, we really should discuss that later. I’m not cool with being accused of being a fey spirit,” she adds with a surly tone. “We could have died. Again. Do you have any idea what we survived last week alone?”
“No?”
“Good. Then just take my word for it. Julia, your twin from another mother needs a talking to, please oblige me,” Angela says before tying her hair back with a spare elastic she had in a pocket. Where had the other one disappeared to? She wonders if she can manage that mane of feathers in her dragon form into something stylish.
Ah that’s a weird thought. I haven’t seen myself in a mirror when I take dragon form. Probably the least pressing issue, now that we’re on the radar of a monstrous Siberian Hellkite. Risking their life is now becoming disturbingly routine, and now she can add a giant nightmare of a dragon to the growing list of people who want to make them into corpses. There is something seriously wrong with Valosterla, the way she looks at people, that aura of malice that makes her scales itch when she’s close.
Evil isn’t a real thing, is it? Is that even a word close enough to the wrongness she felt in her presence?
After a few minutes and one quick intervention keeping Kelly from punching Violet, Nick leads them out of the barn door and after locking up. The twilight hides the colorful trees wrapped around the house that’s now dimly lit. His home is a two-story log cabin style house, but updated for modern aesthetics. She can’t help but feel a little impressed. It’s like a vacation home in the forest, unlike that awful place they’d just been. He leads them into his command room–which is really just a den with several display screens and communications equipment, and Levine is already tuning in on a monitor, shaking his head.
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“Did you get the data?” Nick asks slowly after taking all the memory cards James and the others had collected and uploading them.
“I did. I’ll have to parse through it. Good job on the intelligence work, though I must call out a certain individual–”
“Excuse me–who the hell are you people?” Violet demands angrily. “You left the kids out to dry, you assholes! You let us walk right into the dragons’ den with no warning, except for Kelly, and used us for bait! Kelly I’m pissed at you, speaking of which–”
“Enough. We will get into that in a minute, you also put yourself in a position to be killed, Violet. Sit down, and be thankful that we were there to assist.” Nick takes command of the room in an instant. He’s really good at having a commanding voice without needing to be loud, Angela thinks abstractly.
“Levine, we need to move fast, tonight. I want your best guys here to keep an eye on the newcomers. Drenar and I are going to the school to dig up evidence, before the Talons burn the lab to the ground to hide whatever it is they’re hiding.”
“Uh, what now? You want us to go out again?” Drenar asks with surprise.
“Consider it a sign of trust--you guys did pretty good. We need to move fast. Levine, is that drone still in the air?” Nick asks, and Levine taps something on the console.
“We have two hours of fuel left. After that, it needs to return to the airfield and refuel. You really think we have a limited window?”
“Between us making that much noise, and Valosterla making moves on the global stage, yeah. We have to–” he looks at the console that he plugged the memory cards into, and gasps. “Shit, they’re blank–how?! Levine, pull the data feed, NOW!”
“Viral injection? How?! there was no physical connection–god damn it!” Levine roars. “Viral package just dosed the data on my end. It’s all gone. Gonna guess this is how King doesn’t leave a digital trail everywhere he goes!”
James lets out one, long, and well-earned explicative. “You mean to tell me we got zero evidence now? And Valosterla is about to walk off scot-free?! We’re witnesses!”
“Our hard evidence just got deleted. I’ve seen this kind of enchantment before–a data worm suspended by a digital mana converter. We use the same tech to wipe people’s phones when we have a larger-scale Veil breach, to ensure no evidence survives. King just wiped out everything.”
“Fantastic.” Drenar finally hits his limit break and slams his fist on a table. “How are they this many steps ahead of us? Did King plan this? He looked right at us when we were observing, I swear, he knew we were there in advance!”
“But…how?” Angela asks softly. “And why? Why would King wait that long? Was he waiting for us to play our hand, if that were the case?”
“No, I scoured the area. There were no sensors, no trigger enchantments, no tripwires. There was not a single thing that would indicate they would have been aware of us beforehand,” Nick says, and sits in a beat-up computer chair, tapping an armrest impatiently before spinning back to view Levine's’ screen. “What about the drone feed?”
“Still intact, separate feed. But it's not going to be much use, all we've got is a giant dragon blowing up half a ranger station and flying off, along with the flight. Nick, we are playing a dangerous game here. You want to go to the school now, and put these kids at risk again?” Levine now sounds worried.
“We’ll volunteer,” Drenar said stoically. “The Talons are led by a VIP of the biggest Magitech company in the world. We are so utterly screwed if we don't get ahead of this. Our chance of survival if they put two and two together? It's between zero and nada.”
“While I don't share your youthful prose…” Levine trails off for a few seconds. “You understand that I can't ask you to do this. This would break every regulation I adhere to within SAF. Even being aware of it, there's a good chance I lose my job or get detained, and then I'm useless to you guys.”
“Then keep that drone overhead, and make sure we don't get ambushed while we're digging for records. If they're set up like the lab in the mine, they don't have network connections, and it's all air-gapped. Single source control, or portable hard drives. We steal them, and their research is gone. That includes records of us.”
Angela smiles, once he gets into his strategic mode, Drenar actually does sound like he knows what he's doing. As opposed to being a slightly awkward teen with dragon issues.
“That's a big gamble, Drenar.”
“So is letting the murder-happy dragoness roam around. Letting her get the reins of Magitech Industries with a dragon army to back her and Crosomer up, even worse. Violet, Kelly, Tristan, you guys stay put, until we get back. James, and Evan, you guys coordinate with us and keep us spotted, you two are staying well out of danger this time. Julia, Nick, Angela and myself will search the school. I've got two places to check. The admin office, and the mechanic bay. We’ll search both, starting with the office. If the Talons show up, I doubt we’ll be able to pull the same trick twice where I crash-landed a dragon into a forest.”
“That was pretty impressive, if a little dangerous,” Nick comments warmly.
“‘The yeet be yotten'? Fates, Drenar, you're seriously messed up in the head, if you can sling one-liners while dodging deadly energy projectiles,” Kelly scoffs. Drenar looks at her unapologetically.
“Fine, next time, I'll gun and you fly. How'd you do that, by the way?”
“Azures and Maridians are besties! You're basically immune to the plasma, and I can direct the charge over your scales and supercharge your abilities. Mom told me, she uh…had some wilder days back a while ago. She doesn't tell me much about it. She also doesn't talk about how she looks so ragged lately.”
“Guys, wasting time,” Nick says with a tap of his fingers on the desk.
“We need to change loadout this time Nick, get us more of those alchemical grenades. We're aiming for non-lethal takedowns only,” Angela insists. “Um…autobows should probably stay reserved unless we get in a firefight.”
“Yeah, firearms at a school? That's uh…that's a pretty bad image there, Nick,” James says in a tacit agreement. One of the few things she and her brother agreed on.
“Resin grenades.” Nick pops open an ordinance case, and withdraws several canisters that look similar to the ones that acted as a flash bang. A slightly viscous yellow fluid sloshes inside. “Just don't aim at their face. They'll lock them in immobilizing foam. You were already at the receiving end of these before, Angela.”
“Don't remind me,” she sighs. “That stuff took forever to clean off, and it totally ruined one of my favorite shirts.”
“Uh, excuse me. You're just gonna let the dweeb and the hot mess junior babysit us?” Kelly fumes. “Nah. I'm in. If what you've said is right, they screwed with our lives.”
“You're also not on a short list of people whose heads Valosterla wants on a platter served over dry ice,” Drenar states firmly. “Kelly, we are trying not to pull more people into the danger zone on this.”
“Doing a really great job there, Rashalda. This whole room is a bunch of dead dragons walking!”
“Kelly, the adults are talking. Now I know that you want to help, but we're on a deadline,” Julia counters while Kelly fumes.
“Jewels, seriously cut the shit. You are all in over your heads by the sound of it!”
“Unless we get to the school right now, the Talons' efforts will continue,” Angela interjects. “This will get worse. So please, do me a huge favor. Don't do anything stupider than what we're already planning.”
“Oh, like hell you guys are. I'm going. Jonaleth flat out told me my own father is working with these creeps, or used to, and that's a lot for me to unpack!”
“Kelly? Sit this one out. Please. The last thing we want is more reckless teens like ourselves putting themselves in harm’s way. We have a plan, well, sort of,” Drenar says with a more persuasive approach.
“Why are you so damn special, anyway? You think that you're a hero?” She spat.
Oh boy, here we go. Teens being teens.
Vey. Reckless. It's cute when even Samarina agrees. Drenar and Julia both fold their arms and look at her crossly.
“Kelly. I am doing this, because I was already targeted. Jonaleth was going to try to recruit me into the Talons, with or without my input. He beat the ever-loving tar out of Evan, to drive the point home. Crosomer–the man who is leading these hyenas–is a seven-hundred-year-old wizard who now is sporting a healthy helping of scales, claws, and teeth, courtesy of the same artifact that triggered our Awakenings. He has a very personal grudge against me, simply for being born with the wrong name. You are sitting this one out, because I don’t want dead friends.”
There he goes again. Angela knows Drenar has a power of persuasion most people don't have, but he saves it for the moments that matter. At least his heart is in the right place, Samarina.
Leader. Make hard decisions...someday.
“Kelly, he’s right. Sit down, let the cavalry handle this one. Nicks’ friends will be here soon enough, and we have to book it, right now. Please try to see reason on this.” It’s worth a shot, Angela thinks.
Kelly takes one good long glare at both of them, then looks back at her. Angela she sees her processing this before her mood softens. “Fine. But I want details after. Angela, I’m holding you to that. And California here has to come clean!”
“That is such a derivative name. How many people call me that?” Nick ponders while loading up equipment. “We leave in five minutes. Drenar, we are making a call tonight, afterwards.”
“To do what?”
“Break the bad news and keep your foster parents well out of the line of fire on this one. Angela, you too. Julia, same.” He nods grimly, but Julia isn't having it just yet.
“Hell no. If my mom gets word on this, Valosterla will be the lesser threat to my existence!” Julia fumes.
“Do it.” Nick loses his patience and glares at her. “You know, I had a fellow soldier like you who thought they could take on the universe. There wasn't a set of dry eyes in the room when I led his coffin down the row.” He takes a breath, gauging her expression is less combative. “You have the skills and strength, but you also need the tactical acumen, too. You need to know when the danger level is too high.” Even she's taken back by his tone, and Angela winces.
This moment has probably been in the making for a little while. “A good agent knows when to follow, and when to lead. If not for their safety, then the safety of their team. We need to move, now. We are making this call after this is over. I need you to focus on the critical matters.”
“Julia, he's right. We need to play this one out the right way. Even if it's not the easy way,” Angela finally says after a second. It doesn't take Julia more than a few seconds to glare at Nick, before nodding firmly.
“Your playbook, then. Let's go grab this data, and smash some eggs in their face.”
“Good.” He grabs a GoPro, ties it to his vest, and hands out multiples to everyone. One by one, they sync to the monitors, and he gestures to James. “Levine, keep James on the line, same with Evan. Oh, and don't touch anything. Reona likes to play ‘peekaboo’ with people.”
“Uh, who's Reona?” James asks nervously.
“My pet glacian viper. Don't bother her. She bites people when she gets annoyed.” James finally just gives up.
“Ya know what? It's comforting when a monster who bites people is the least present danger to my life,” James sighs.
“What about us? Are we safe here?” Tristan says; he’s all pale and practically shaking. This disruption to his life is just getting started, and Angela hasn’t even weighed how to break the news to her parents, either.
“This house is warded. We are off the radar of everyone who could hurt us. Evan, James, keep an eye out for Levine, don’t open the door for anyone but him.” Nick finishes gearing up and readjusts his tactical armor. “Everyone ready?”
“Let’s go and disappoint that giant murder lizard. Delvers, roll out.” Drenar states with determination.
He…radiant soul. So few left. Julia, too.
Angela finds herself nodding softly to that small but impactful statement from Samarina. She’d used the same words for his departed mother, too–a radiant warmth that shone through, even when Drenar and Julia were facing their toughest moments.