He hates the fact that all their plans are being defeated by fire like it’s a running gag. The orb and the tank detonate in a fiery roar of hot gasses, and Drenar staggers backward, digging his half-emerged talons into the floor to keep himself steady in a screech of tearing tiles. The blast shatters glass and leaves his ears ringing again. The gas puddle ignites as well, and one of the soldiers screams as the fire laps at his legs.

He doesn't think and pats out the flames as quickly as he can, the heat a muted feeling on his scaly arms. The man is groaning in pain, but out of immediate danger. Jonaleth in the meantime is transforming in the confines of the corridor into a Valencian red, all burnt orange scales and sharpened claws.

Drenar sends a stern rebuke by using a telekinetic slam and sends him flying backward, smashing through the already broken doors and down the hallway, where he struggles to rise. It's an impressive feat, even considering his low burning fury at Jonaleth trying to torch his own guys, and the fire is inching closer.

Julia dashes through the fire and comes down in a crouch, keeping low so that she can breathe, and fighting through her transformation. Sheer adrenaline is giving the process a much-needed boost. "Drenar, lift me up! We gotta get the fire suppressant system going, or these guys will roast!

He doesn't waste any time and assists her up, where she kicks at one of the sprinklers with a clawed foot. One hit isn't enough, but two sets the whole system off, dousing the flames. She lands on her feet and points to Jonaleth, who is up again, and sparks of flame are coming from his jaw.

"This is ridiculous, our enemies are now scaling with level! We gotta do something about him!"

"Plasma was useless! We're going to have to beat the fight out of him the hard way!" he shouts back. Drenar sees the observer golem skidding away from the fire to stay out of the fight. Jonaleth scurries forward through the narrow hall, deadly and incensed at the lack of burning corpses. Drenar feels his danger sense go into overdrive, and uses the residual charge in his scales, and–something new happens.

His scales prickle and feel rigid, like they’re sticking together, and they darken in texture in an instant when he directs the energy across his body. Jonaleth extends a claw and a brilliant beam of white-hot energy launches out lances into Drenar’s barrier, bursting it in a blast of gold sparks, and he feels the intense heat. He braces and keeps that charge going. Jonaleth’s attack takes a lot out of him and his arm shakes, the beam of energy dissipating into motes of red sparks.

His scales feel like they're on fire on his arm and chest, and he feels something release in the back of his throat, and something chilly emerges. He exhales softly and a blast of frost emanates out like he’s coughing up mucus, cooling the inflamed scales. It feels soothing and pleasant. The scales are still dark, but not nearly in as much pain as they should be after getting hit by a thermal lance.

“Yeah! Get hard, Drenar!” Julia roars out in triumph. “Also, you magically vomited on yourself, kinda gross!”

“We gotta talk about your word choices later!” He’s already closing the distance against the winded Jonaleth, who was still new to this and had overexerted himself in what he thought would be a devastating attack. Julia grabs his arm and sends another charge of plasma across Drenar's scales, since he's mostly taken dragon form by now. He surges forward to cut off Jonaleth in his plainly telegraphed attack when he rears back his head, and fiery sparks emerge.

He lands a brutal blow across Jonaleth’s snout just before he can exhale, and Jonaleth is left staggering, choking on black fumes. Julia, already mostly transformed, follows up and helps Drenar bulldoze him into the opening of the gym, shattering the doorway and sending Jonaleth sprawling across the laminated wood floor. His talons cut gouges into the surface, and he looks infuriated.

“What is your major malfunction, Jonaleth?!" Julia screams at him, and is already tensing on her legs, talons digging into the wood with small crackling sounds. “You aren’t going to win this fight!”

"Says you!" Drenar feels the danger again when he sees him outstretch his claw, and he ducks just as Jonaleth sends out a beam of intense, white-hot flame from his outstretched hand. He can smell singed feathers from how close he cut it. He doesn't wait for Jonaleth to get out a third shot and closes for a series of quick blows, keeping Jonaleth on the defense. He lunges and tries to chomp down on his neck, but Drenar pile drives him to the floor.

Jonaleth is not skilled in hand-to-hand fighting. He’s used to pummeling people unopposed, and when Drenar lands raking hit after raking hit with closed fists and channeled kinetic blows, Jonaleth feels pain he’s never felt before. He tries to grab Drenar and bite down on his neck again. He bashes him on the snout with his forehead and sends him reeling backward.

Ow. Could you not not bash the brain space we're sharing!?

Busy trying to not die, Alex! He is not about to get another bite wound anytime soon.

Julia takes the opportunity and grapples Jonaleth with plasma tethers binding him and landing repeated blows on his snout. Drenar hears a couple of teeth crack. She's livid at this monstrous human, who tried to barbeque everyone.

“How’s it feel to be the one losing teeth, asshole?!” Julia seethes. At this point, he is completely at her mercy, until his scales turn molten and bright red-hot, and she has to let go of his grapple, kicking him away and nursing singed scales. Part of the gym floor catches on fire from the intense contact heat. “Oh, that’s a lovely trick. Let me show you mine!”

Drenar has the same idea, and launches his kinetic grapple that he’d mimicked from Angela, along with Julia’s plasma grapple, and they reel him in with unrelenting force, dragging him across the floor. He’s mighty surprised, and tries to resist the massive tug, but both of them land a respective high kick that cracks a rib, and an uppercut that almost certainly dislocates his jaw. He careens to the floor, groaning, but is quickly back up and powered by monstrous rage, aiming a beam of fire haphazardly at Julia. She nimbly dodges and grimaces even as her transformation nearly finishes, a surge of blue-white energy visible across the seams of her scales.

She grapples him, and lands a few blows on his ribs while Drenar grabs his wings and holds him in restraint. One good flail of his tail dislodges him and he stumbles backward, groaning from the impact. His scales are singed again from this effort, those thermally charged scales are burning hot! It looks like he rolled around in a pile of soot, with dark marks across his body.

Julia in the meantime locks Jonaleth in position with a standing grapple, and he leers at her, broken teeth and blood dripping from numerous small injuries. Julia’s scales on her face appear dulled and bruised, but she gives Jonaleth a toothy grin when the surge of light from her scales intensifies.

“You know what, Jonaleth? Time to ride the lightning!”

You might want to duck for this one! Alex’s prompt warning spurs Drenar to snap a barrier to his forward side in an intense dazzle of energy, just when Julia’s transformation peaks. A surge of energy blasts in every direction, along with a scream of both triumph and pain.

Jonaleth is sent flying from the burst of energy, and smashes through the bleachers on the far of the gym side in perhaps the least graceful landing of dragon-kind. He splinters the wooden bleachers to kindling and twisted metal, and puts a massive gaping dent into the brick wall of the gym. A few cinder blocks drop down on him afterward, and he topples forward, groaning. He doesn’t even attempt to rise, and one wing is bent at an unnatural angle.

Julia stands unsteadily on her clawed feet for a few seconds before wobbling, and Drenar swerves to catch her before she can fall. Pinpricks of energy sting him and arc across his scales, and Julia is breathing heavily, her scales almost a rose-gold color. “Hey, easy there, I gotcha.”

“Did you seriously just catch me before I fell? That is adorably cliché–aaaand feeling a little woozy still,” she mumbles with a faint smile. He helps guide her down to one digitigrade ‘knee’ before daring a glance at Jonaleth. He’s immobilized and moaning.

“You also dared for a zippy-one liner in a finishing attack. That was cliché,” Drenar replies with a faint smile. A dozen different aches course across his body and wings, and the adrenaline fails to mask it.

But seeing Julia in this form for the first time, with burnished gold scales, and that saturated coloration of black, seafoam, and gold feathers in her feather crest, and those ocean blue eyes…it’s a surreal experience he will never forget. She laughs and ruffles his crest feathers, much to his annoyance. “Oh, we’re making this a thing now?”

“You still need a comb for these, geez. You just come across as a wildling. I’ll always know who you are, Drenar, no matter what form you take.”

“You two are so cute, but the broken ribs and broken wing are gonna cut short my enthusiasm,” Jonaleth groans before he attempts to rise. “Val's going to have fun killing you two. Enjoy your short-lived happiness.”

“You good?” Drenar asks firmly, and she nods before taking a cautious step forward and testing her balance. She narrows her eyes, and beelines towards Jonaleth, and puts one knee on his back between his wings before grabbing his arms and forcing them backward She ties off a semisolid energy tether. This one doesn’t dissipate, and he struggles.

“I’m more than good,” she says before kneeling down and looking Jonaleth in the eye with all her draconic fury. “You won’t be, though. You didn’t have to do this, we tried to give you an out. But if people like you are going to threaten to hurt or kill others, Guess what? You can be rest assured, as ‘broken’ as we are, we’ll still strive to do what’s right.”

He lunges forward and tries to bite her, but a closed fist cracks across his face, leaving him reeling. She grabs his awkwardly bent wing and pulls in the wrong way, and he screams, small tears forming at the corner of his ice-cold eyes.

“You want to keep doubling down and land yourself in the grave like your parents, Jonaleth? You seem to be so eager to join them, and I don’t know why.”

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Just kill me, and be done with it.” She takes a step away, and folds her arms across her chest before shaking her head. He looks at her, eyes awash in pain and sadness. “Please. Do you think Val will let me live if her agents keep failing her? No. She’s left a trail of bodies behind her everywhere she goes, and you have no chance against her, either of you.”

“No. We’re not like that. We’ll never be like that. That’s the difference between you and Drenar. He didn’t let his pain define him. And neither will I,” she says with her jaw trembling lightly. Drenar puts a reassuring claw on her shoulder, and stamps on a few lingering embers. For the bigger patches, he exhales that frosty blast, trying to control the flow this time.

There is some control to it, but by the time he's finished with the fire, hes sputtering and his mouth tastes gross. Like peppermint, but utterly bitter.

"Ew. Again with the magical vomit! Even though it makes a great fire suppressor!" Julia chimes in, and he growls.

"Its an alchemical discharge from a pressurized gland," he says frostily.

"Okay, I know you're quoting Amaranth, but still, wee bit gross," she replies with a toothy smirk. She's still giving her body a once-over, craning her neck to see her tail and wings. "Damn, I'm tall! And my head feathers are...black and seafoam?"

Drenar sighs, and just lets her have this one. "The mighty tsunderedragon joined the team, and the worlds baddies all collectively went 'oh shit'." She cackles madly at this, and Jonaleth stays as quiet as a mouse. Which is quite difficult for a dragon, in retrospect.

The rest of the crew eventually filter in, and Nick looks in dismay at the gymnasium. The skylight now has a perfectly unobstructed view of the night sky, thanks to the missing glass shattered on the floor, and the floorboards are quite scorched. After a little effort to extract the hog-tied dragon out of the destroyed bleachers, their new prize of a thoroughly beaten Jonaleth leers at all of them. Julia puts another energy tether around his jaw and he growls. He can just barely open his mouth to do little more than speak.

“Jeez. Maybe you two will be competent warriors in the future after all.” He points his autobow right at Jonaleth’s leering eyeball, and he kneels down. “Now, you’re going to tell me what’s so important about this lab that you were willing to torch the entire school, and your whole crew, to provide a cover for it.”

Silence is his answer. “Fine. SAF will be here soon to escort you to a jail cell where we’ll give you the same choice, except your options will be between seeing daylight sometime when you’re still young, to a lifelong internment that even your guardian can’t get you out of.”

“You’re dead, DeShandrea. Just like the rest of these misfits.” It was mildly impressive that he could talk through a dislocated jaw and a few broken teeth, and his eyes oozed hatred at all of them. “My father will–”

“Be joining you in a jail cell once I find enough proof.” Nick is unflinching in his rebuke, and Joneleth tries to rise, but Drenar stomps down on his chest, and gives him a warning glare.

“How’d he end up going from an orphanage back to someplace even worse?” Drenar asks. It’s telling when Nick is reluctant to answer.

“Jonaleth here got a fast pass through the foster care system to someone even worse, Levine let me know a couple of minutes ago. His foster father has dodged jail for decades as a high-level operative in the Talons. Funny how the witnesses always got cold feet, or evidence just seemed to disappear, or the lawyers found technical loopholes to let him keep running his operations. I just didn’t think the son was so involved.”

“No. The other part you’re not telling me.”

“...His parents murdered dozens of kin in their operation of black-market organ harvesting, and arms smuggling. They were so dangerous, that the Valkyries were called in to minimize casualties.” Drenar’s breath catches for a second. Hearing Nick confirm it…didn’t make things better.

It made this so much worse.

“You think that justifies what they did?!” Jonaleth screams.

“Their little shop of horrors was rigged with incendiary devices to torch evidence. If SAF had gone in per standard policy, your parents would have leveled the place. You would have died. Everyone would have died.” Nicks’ voice broke slightly, and there’s something in Jonaleth’s face…like the lights went out. “King left that part out, didn’t he?”

Nick lowers his autobow. “Do you really want to keep doubling down, Jonaleth? You stabbed a fifteen-year-old female wargen and she almost died, with this, you’re doing decades of prison time if you don’t cooperate. I can make a case that you were coerced unwillingly, but you have to want to change.”

“What about when they were beating me to death?” Jonaleth snarls and tries to writhe away, but he’s pinned but good. “You know that case was thrown out. More than one way to look at it, DeShandrea.”

“I’m aware of the circumstances now. Be glad that Drenar and Julia are merciful, because if it had been me fighting you, you’d be dead right now.”

Jonaleth weighs his options, and looks at each of them in turn. Drenar sees it. He knows that Jonaleth realizes this path he’s on ends the way all monsters end: hunted.

“Go get your stupid prize. Mechanic bay access panel. It’s a simple mana trigger.” His jaw is making a crackling sound every time he speaks, and he just radiates sheer contempt. “But it’s not going to save you, Rashalda. You, your friends, and your whole family are dead. She’s going to find out who you are, but it won’t be from me.”

“You just don’t know how to take an olive branch, do you?” Drenar asks rhetorically. Jonaleth laughs, and Drenar can see cracked teeth and blood trickling from his snout. I hope that regen hurts like a bitch for every second of your recovery. You chose this, not me.

“Aw, poor orphan boy still clueless? I guess you would be,” he sneers.

“If he doesn’t shut up, I’m gonna make him shut up,” Julia growls.

“No, start talking, Jonaleth. It isn’t news that I’m related to Alexander Rashalda, and he and the Luminaires threw the Talons a beating so thorough that they took seven hundred years to recover from.” Jonaleth responds by simply grinning. He’s now tempted to add to the broken tooth count.

“Aw, but why spoil it? After all, it’s a matter that cuts close to the heart.” Drenar resists the temptation. There is no point in rising to Jonaleth’s taunt.

“Bold of you to assume that I’m just gonna hang around and wait for your guys to murder me. I think it’ll be more fun to go on the offensive.” Drenar smashes his fist into the side of Jonaleth’s head with a kinetic blast, and this time, he goes out for the count. He rubbed at his now bruised scales. Nick simply sighs. “What? You wanna leave him conscious after what he just said? We need to get into that lab, and I don’t want him waking up while we do that.”

“I’m more surprised you didn't start beating him to death.” Drenar frowns and glances at Jonaleth's prone body.

“It’s not my style. It’s never going to be.” Julia simply rolls her eyes. “If we just start killing everyone who threatens us with bodily harm, we are going to end up with a massive corpse pile. That isn’t a solution I’m ever going to entertain.”

“So, we’re not going to become stereotypical murder hobos?” James asks hesitantly over the radio. Everyone shouts in protest. “It’s how you guys play Pathfinder. Drenar made a skull cap out of an actual skull for his barbarian, Sheliana!”

“Can we focus?! We’ve got shit to do, and villains to send a message!” Angela gracefully redirects the conversation.

“Good call. Joey, is the golem still intact?” Drenar asks, and the golem pops up from a set of damaged bleachers and brushes off a bit of debris.

“Not gonna lie, that was kinda badass. Now get us in there, we need to see what Crosomer has been cooking up, because my theory is that whatever’s in this lab, relates to how they’ve been making the awakenings happen, and there could be massive troves of data. Just, be careful guys?”

“SAF will be here in fifteen minutes. Let’s get in there and grab whatever we can, before the pending screaming match starts with my command chain,” Nick affirms. "Joey, how secure is that golem's remote feed?"

"Nick, I make magitech systems in my sleep. It's secure enough," Kyle says in the background.

The trip to the mechanic shop is only interspersed with tying up all the hoodlums and the Talons soldiers, none of whom looked happy at being under detention and laying them all out in a utility closet. “You chumps better be here when we get back,” Julia threatens before cracking the knuckles of her claws menacingly.

"You really think we'll be off the street for long?" one sneers.

"Ah shut up, don't dig the hole deeper. You know the drill, call the lawyer," the other soldier states. "They have rules." It's telling when they treat being beat up and being detained.

"I don't," Drenar states firmly. "You know what you've done? Recruited child soldiers. And I thought the Talons couldn't hit rock bottom, but we keep getting closer."

"That bottom is an abyss," the first one sneers. "We'll get you."

"Yeah, your guys were already trying to 'get me'. And look how that panned out. You sure you want to keep bullying the duo who just floored your whole team inside a minute?" The man falls silent after that.

"C'mon, we're done here. Let's get to the lab." Nick is quick to finish securing them together, and they make their way to the machinist shop. He throws open a panel on the vehicle pit and taps a glowing light. There's a slight surge of light, probably mana from his fingertip, that glows a sky blue before fading. The floor starts to recede and the concrete warps and distorts like liquid stone before revealing a staircase into the depths of the utility pit in the floor. At the bottom is a steel-lined door, with a simple access panel.

"Damn. Guess this wasn't cheap," Julia comments after whistling softly. “Nick, sidearm?"

“Do dragons need sidearms?” Julia shifts back to her human form over several seconds and continues to glare at him. Fortunately, her clothes aren’t a shredded mess, due to the mimetic wear she’s got on.

“It’s going to be close quarters in there. Sidearm.” He pulls out his dimensional armory and rummages for a second.

"Bolt pistol, Baur BP-6. The safety is off." He doesn't even hesitate to hand it to her while keeping his own primary weapon aimed at the door. "The magazine only has eight rounds." He hands her two extra magazines, and she stuffs them in a pouch.

"Then that's all I need." Drenar grabs the sword that Nick kept stashed in his dimensional bag, it would be too close quarters for dragons in here. A couple of resin grenades also provide tactical options. "Drenar, take point. Between you and Angela, you've got the toughest barriers."

"What am I supposed to do, use harsh language–ooh," she beams when Drenar hands her his sword and holster. It's weird when he hears that crystalline ringing sound again when he taps his own dagger at the ready.

Is that tinnitus from me being near deafening explosives, or is my dagger practically singing crystalline tones now?

It's spookier when it emits a single sharp chime, before falling dead silent again.

Weird shit happens around you all the time, Drenar. Thought you might want to know. Even Alex is disturbed by it.