"Are we sure we don’t want to keep anonymity–ah hell, if the Talons are gunning for us, might as well.” Kyle taps in a few commands to the golem. On their end, the teens and Nick see a small projection of Joey pop up from an emitter on the golem's back, and Julia flashes them with a toothy grin.

"Holy hell! You are a knockout dear, what are you doing working in a nerdy lab?" Julia asks excitedly.

"Uh…thank you? It might surprise you, but the nerdy lab pays decently. I like your hair, but, what's with the dark makeup, though?" Joey still can’t get over her eclectic personality–and that she's apparently a fierce warrior if the battle in the school is any indication of the rest of her skills.

"Radiant souls need a little dimming, hence the black and purple," she replies with a grin. "Don't worry, I don't bite. Hey, Drenar, quit having a stroke!"

"Eh? O-oh right, we need to keep grabbing equipment. S-sorry Joey, I'm sure once the pending crisis is over, we can talk more," he stammers after a second. He had been staring for a few seconds. Perfectly normal for an average male teen. Hmm. Should I lighten the mood? Mess with him a little? Her lips crease upward slightly.

“Something on your mind?” she says playfully.

“Uh, well, yes–no–um…” he's flustered and he keeps gazing upwards. What's with that, anyway? “Is it a little weird when I say you have purple, or lavender eyes? Wait, are you a dragon? I read that…which was it…I think the Baltic swiftwing has purple eyes?”

“Nope, just a mage,” she answers. Aha, he's so new to this. This is mildly surprising, not everyone can actually see my eye color. Even some mages can't. Of course, it's far more common in Kitsune, but I doubt he knows that. “You know, honestly, the first thing people comment on is my hair.”

“I’ve met people with red hair. I never met someone with lavender eyes.”

“Dear Fates, call Disney. Tell them that one of their princesses escaped,” Angela coos.

“Well, uh…thanks?” No one's ever called her a Disney princess before, even as a joke. “I don't sing, though.”

“I can fill in the role!” Angela says proudly. She does have that kind of voice that could carry a tune well “Seriously it's so red, tell me that's not a natural color! Also…wow, you do have purple eyes!”

“They're blue, you starstruck teens!” someone on the radio says in protest. “Get back to stealing world-altering evidence and earn more of a death wish with the Talons army, why don't you! Sorry Joey, they lose focus. I’m Angela’s brother, James. They’re all feeding me mission data.

"Nick, get your shit in gear, the school is clear, but we’re starting to get interference up here on the feed. Wanna guess that the Talons are trying to kill radio communications?”

“Done. Guys, we need to speed up,” Nick instructs. Everyone starts working faster, and Joey pans the golem around, looking for something hidden. She keeps it parked next to Julia for now, while she’s tearing apart server racks and grabbing everything not nailed down, and it disappears into a dimensional bag. “Careful, Julia.”

“I can work and talk. Joey seriously, I swear I’ve seen you before. I can’t put a finger on where, and it’s driving me nuts! Though, I think I’d remember someone with lavender-colored eyes.”

“Unusual eye colors are common in mages, it has to do with the mana in our bodies,” she explains. Now that she mentions it, Julia does seem a little familiar. Have they crossed paths in town before? What she leaves out is that she has never seen anyone else with eye color like hers. Not even Kitsune do–the next closest was the Baltic Swiftwings but it's much closer to a blue hue, and her mother had never mentioned dragons anywhere in the family line.

"Let's focus on our task, and figure out what these creeps have been up to, later. Nick, how's it going with that server rack?" Angela seems to be the one to get them back on track. Routinely, if Joey has any prediction.

"This thing is bolted tight in here, just need a minute. Julia, where are we at with the hard drives?"

"There are so many of them. Fates. This could be petabyte-level data storage. Levine is going to have a field day. Is Kyle recording everything? We're grabbing every hard drive we can carry. This place is just…unsettling. So sterile."

Joey sees something that catches her eye. "Kyle, go right, that board with strings. I'm zooming in." She looks on as he brings the golems gaze to the board. There are runes or glyphs written down. With attempts at translations, she surmises. Drenar is still photographing the boards as fast as he can. "Drenar, what are those runes?"

"I’m not sure. The device we saw briefly in the Mount Syren mine had glyphs that looked mighty similar to this." Drenar is now peering at the glyphs and traces one with his hand. "This writing is strange. They arrange writing in rows, or columns. Or in arcs. Perhaps there's a context for the orientation of the symbols?"

"There has to be. This is a dialect of draconic, maybe. I recognize a few of the symbols, but this isn't my area of expertise," she admits. "So, you think this device forced your awakening?"

"That's the theory. It's very unsettling."

"You don't happen to remember what it looked like, do you?"

"We took photos, before an incident involving being shot at and nearly being crushed in a cave-in. And there was a mine cart ride from hell, too."

“Holy Gaia, you were there at Mount Syren? Tell me you guys weren’t responsible for the Talons blowing up the mountain!” She makes the connection in an instant.

“Crosomer and his lackeys triggered a remote detonation after we broke in and stole evidence. We kinda had a hand in that demolition, accidentally. Oh, and Julia shot him with a .50 caliber dragonslayer rifle. It didn’t do nearly enough slaying,” he adds dryly. She stares bewildered at the display.

“Fates, Drenar. Don’t act so casually. I think you’re an adrenaline junkie.”

"Nah Joey, I'm really nothing of the sort. That said…there's been some pretty wild stuff going on." He traces the text as if trying to remember something. "I've seen this symbol before. It looks like a six-winged dragon, but in a stick-like form. What is this?"

"Oh, that? A very primitive depiction of Gaia, the silver justice." He peers at the golem with interest.

"So, who is she?"

"Only the guardian of our world against the abyssal evils of our universe," she replies from memory. "She's a goddess. Just like all the other ones from vanilla world history."

"Okay, so like church for mages," he replies. "For a second there, I thought you were going to tell me gods are real entities."

"Well, people believe," she answers halfway. "Not a lot, but they do. You saw this symbol on the artifact?"

"Yeah." He tracks his fingers across the images. "These rune controls could have near-infinite combinations. Cracking open the aether to let loose drakensouls sounds as scary as it does impressive right now."

"How do you not know about Gaia, anyway?”

"Sheltered life. Two weeks ago, we didn't have a clue magic was real. Or what we were." This answer genuinely surprises her. "I told you we got thrown into the deep end. That wasn’t an exaggeration.”

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

"You're handling it pretty well for someone who jumped in the deep end," she comments.

"We found one of Amaranth's volumes at Julia’s house. We didn't have a clue how relevant it was until we figured out we were Awakening. We found another book by Ergath and started piecing things together, and then when we heard about the Talons, we did what we really shouldn't have. We got involved."

"You just found those books lying around?" His answer makes her nervous. "People don't just leave them lying around Drenar, they should have been protected and secured! Normally anyone without mana wouldn't ever be able to even see them, they'd appear as some other mundane book."

“We saw them from the beginning, by that logic. Or Julia did. But that was well over a month ago…that’s weird.”

“Okay, what about the Awakenings, did you guys find anything out about that?”

“The experiment they were running was fast forwarding certain segments of the Awakening process and triggering our draconic genes to active state early, up to even three months ago. Nick found the blood work that tipped him off. So we likely had a trickle of mana generation in our bodies.” Even as horrifying as the result is, it’s still incredible that such a thing is possible, she reasons cautiously.

"So, what is their goal, anyway?" He finishes taking photos, and ponders for a second.

"Awaken about two million dragons. All at once. Chaos in the mage world works in their favor." This rattles her immensely. Such a worldwide breach would crack the Veil protocols into thousands of pieces. There would be no way to stop magic from spilling into the mainstream.

"Of course, I doubt the altruism of some of our adversaries. One of them reeks of being a Kefka clone, and Robespierre Crosomer already got burnt by the Conclave once, and is likely seeking revenge as a bonus. Then there's the third guy at the top named King. I don't know what his deal is yet. But if there's anything I'm good at, it's finding myself in some really weird situations."

"Drenar, help me with these server racks, we’re saying to hell with the drives and dumping the whole rack in," Joey hears Julia, and she pans the golem over while Kyle drives. "Hey uh, Joey right?"

"Yep, that's me. What's up?"

"Question for you. Where are you from? I totally hear an accent, but I can't place it." Joey smiles softly, it’s rare for people to ask her about that.

"Missouri."

"But I hear just a twinge of a British accent. Did you spend a long time there, maybe for academics?"

"Three years at the academy In London, plus post-grad studies." Aren't you observant, she thinks contentedly.

"Aha! We have our Hermione, Drenar!"

"I thought that was you, actually," he retorts while taking tools to the bolting interface and pulls hard drives out of the server rack. "Who's Ron?"

"Totally James." He grunts at this. "What, don't you agree?"

"James is useful at keeping our bad ideas in check. I'll tally him up as our Kim Kitsuragi."

“I am your voice of reason, you insane teenagers! Keep stealing unethical research!” James barks over the radio.

“You are five minutes older than me, brother,” Angela gnashes.

"You guys are so weird.” Joey can't help but smirk–here they are in a dangerous situation and still able to keep relatively calm and collected. She pans the golem around, and examines the rest of the room, watching Nick prowling around and extracting every electronic he can find from the remaining equipment. "Nick, when did you get back into town?"

"I've been in town for a few years. Man. How did we not cross paths by now? I even hang out at the Mercadian Promenade a few days a week."

"I've been mostly in Asqualia, it's pretty self-sufficient, and I've been busy with work. How did you get involved in this mess, anyway?" For a dragon, he may look young, but he carries the burden of having seen and experienced an awful lot. As a soldier and professional monster hunter, she did expect that to an extent.

"The Talons. They've been working their tendrils into town and the surrounding areas for a while. I worked undercover at the school, since it allowed me to keep an eye on the youth. People the Talons target early with guiding them down a bad path."

"Sounds like you just like them young," she comments with a grin. He sighs and shakes his head.

"Nah. I'm not the type. Speaking of…you seemed fixated on Drenar," he counters with a coy smile. She stops for a second because it catches her off-guard.

"He just happens to hog the spotlight." Was I really that fixated on him? Nah, it can't be, he's not my type! Not that I really have *a* type, but still.

"Uh huh, is that all?"

"He's a half-dragon like you, affected by a magical experiment! How often do you get to meet one of those wandering around? I need him not dead so I can get a few samples. For my job. And my academic curiosity. And totally not in a creepy way," she adds forcefully.

"See, I would have believed that, until you added that last sentence.” She grinds her teeth when he smiles, why had she said that to justify herself?

"Is there something you're trying to say?" She taps a finger impatiently on the armrest.

"Me? Nah. I'm just observing."

"Yes, keep doing that. Observing," she says with an air of annoyance. "Nick, how many other confirmed drakensouls have you made contact with in the past month?"

"Probably a dozen, counting last night too. Hey Joey, I have a question now that I think of it. How fast is Awakening supposed to be?"

"A few weeks, a month. Why?”

“Julia went from zero to a hundred inside an hour. You saw it.”

“She was using elemental plasma before, I think you mentioned?”

“Joey, I’ve never seen kids this young with this level of ability. Drenar’s martial abilities,” he says in a low tone, “Are unprecedented. Julia’s plasmakinesis is extremely well-tuned–I might say her martial training helped with that, and Angela’s telekinetics are exceptional. There is something not normal about any of this, the longer this goes on.” If even Nick is concerned, it has to be important.

"Nick, do me a massive, lifelong favor. Do not get them killed. As soon as we find a safe place to meet, I need to get samples from him, and uh…Angela and Julia too, for baseline comparison. This isn't supposed to happen! These Awakenings aren't supposed to happen, either!"

"Easier said than done. We might have gotten on the Talons' radar a bit too much. We uh, crashed a Talons get-together in the woods, and they're trying to brainwash kids into joining their efforts. Except that went badly. We put them in a panic, and I suspect more Talons soldiers are on their way.”

“How are we going to sort through this anyway?” Angela asks while bagging the last drive.

"We? No. There's no 'we' on this one. This is going to SAF. And by that, I mean my friend Levine, and anyone he vouches for."

"You trust him that much?" Angela asks. Nick takes a moment to set his tools down.

"I'd trust him with my life. Levine and I have been through some tight scrapes in the past. He is a man of immense integrity."

Joey hears a ping alert from the golem, and she looks at Kyle. "What was that?" He's looking at the other golem feed, his nose practically on the display.

"I don't know. Motion sensor went off, but I didn't…" his eyes widen. "Joey, get them out. It has to be soldiers in refractory uniforms."

"Nick, hostiles at the doorway, they've got optical camo!" she warns him, and he immediately opens his pack and pulls out an autobow before aiming it at the door and motioning to the others who all immediately focus their efforts, and flips out the crossarms to prime it.

“Levine, imminent contact with Talons soldiers, optic camo. Get SAF here faster,” Nick relays into the radio, but it’s static now. “Levine, James, respond.” There’s still nothing but static and Nick aims the autobow at the entryway. “Guys, forget the rest. We’re extracting now.”

“Crosomer’s gonna be pissed we jacked his research. I can’t wait to tell him to get stuffed,” Drenar says confidently while grabbing his dagger and sheathing his hand in a silvery glow. Kyle switches the golem to thermal optics, and sends it scrabbling towards the doorway.

The golem rounds the corner and they both see a blur of white hot light drive right past it, into the room. "Nick, he's by the entryway, three steps past–"

The figure notices the golem, and she sees a blunt object of some kind drive down and right through the golem. The image goes blank.

She looks at Kyle, horrified that the interloper had picked off the observer effortlessly. "Kyle, get the other golem in there!"