“Mages can't just teleport.” His retort is about as unconvincing as it is laughably funny, and he looks over to the spot he thought he'd been standing in. “I think I just moved real fast. Dragonite used haste!”

He gets a playful clap on the cheek. “Could you not be so adorkable? It almost makes me feel bad when I have to beat you up.”

Julia reverses positions with a slide of her body, twisting him backwards, and pins him down. She looks downward, feathers draping her face. It is quite a pretty arrangement of colors, he thinks.

Wait. Why would I think that?

Gotta start that dragon harem sometime, Drenar. It's like a social contract in dragon culture. Alex’s boisterous laughter causes him to wince. Julia raises an eye crest when she sees his confused face.

“Okay, what's Alex saying now, and do I gotta beat him up?” she teases.

“Yes, you should, If I wasn't also attached to him,” he states dryly. “Also Alex, what else did you see with that?”

I think either your perception blurred, or you did move two meters in an instant.

“He's not sure either,” he relays, and Julia lets him up. “Okay. We need to replicate that. Nothing I’ve seen or heard indicates people can teleport like it's a Dragon Ball Z fight.” She snerks at this.

“We should establish some ground rules. No permanently damaging each other. Deal?"

“Deal.”

They take a few paces back, and Drenar tenses his claws, putting the weight on the tips of his taloned feet. Okay. Think. Alex, pay attention this time. Let's reconstruct the exact circumstances.

“Drenar, were you using any abilities with your telekinetics?” she calls out, and glances at her hand as if she's been yelling at him from afar. “Okay, I shouldn't keep saying this, but this is awesome! Gold and seafoam are growing on me!”

“Baka. Focus on your opponent. Study and learn!” Drenar barks out. “Also no, I wasn't focusing on anything. All I saw was a blast of light for a split second. I think.”

He digs his claw into the floor a little, tensing before he takes a deep breath. Alex. Did you have any special abilities?

No. But…someone else I knew did. Lyssa was one of a kind. She…did things that would be impossible in any Kin species. Oh hells. I…feel dizzy. Drenar did too, it was like a flood of sparks filled his head, and he swayed on his clawed feet unsteadily for a second.

“Uh, you alright?” Julia asks uneasily. He shakes his head vigorously and almost gives himself whiplash–this longer neck and body structure isn’t quite analogous to being a just human with wings and a tail, it moves differently. Or, he moves differently? He pockets the thought for the moment.

“I’m good. Trying again.”

He springs forward and feels that tingle across his body, but it's not enough. Julia sees his charge and immediately deflects him and he smashes into the wall. He grimaces when he cracks it, and Julia pins him against it.

He's not about to take this lying down and kicks down, buckling her stance and catching her off guard. She follows up with a thrust of a closed fist that leaves him almost winded, and he wills himself to stay standing. He grabs her to keep her from doing that again, and she's grinning at him while trying to break his grapple.

“What happened to the magical teleport? Thought you had smooth moves there, Drenar.”

“I felt…something.”

“Yeah. The floor!”

Yet another trip to the floor and padded tile, and she straddles on top of him and gives his feather mane a tousle. “Hey, my hair–er, feathers–are fine,” he growls.

“You’re still a wildling, Drenar. Just saying, give it some thought! Now back to the dragon-fu! We need to unlock this skill or something, maybe you need a level-up!”

“Julia, there’s no such thing as level-ups in real life. Even in this insanity we call our life at the moment.” He brings the tone down, and steps close. “We could get killed tomorrow. A lot of people could get killed tomorrow. We all need to be at the top of our game, if we're going to keep that from happening.”

“I know. I'm just…trying to keep upbeat. This hasn't exactly been a normal week by any stretch of the imagination, you know.” Her composure does break, even for a second. “Besides, I think we have a sound plan.”

“It's one step. Putting these creeps out of commission is the longer goal. Now, let's try this again.”

He takes his readied stance after a quick nod from her. But before he goes, she jolts his tail with a burst of plasma that stings and leaves a tingling sensation down his spine. “Maybe I just need to top off the tank,” she teases.

“How much can you use that plasma?” She shrugs.

“Dunno. I got mana burned on the mountain, definitely do not ignore any burning pain you feel internally. I still can't believe we need to eat three thousand calories a day–or more, if we spend a lot of time as a dragon.” She pinches a scale on her torso for emphasis. “Nick was saying we can eat raw meat? Like I get grossed out by that, as if I'm just gonna go gnaw on a deer or something!”

“Maybe it's an acquired taste? Let's focus.” He edges his foot along the flooring, and feels that distinct charge across his body. He springs into action and against her readied stance several meters away and–

Reality seems to pop out of existence for a fraction of a fraction of a second, a glaring white light envelopes him. He's right next to her, while she's still peering forward. It's almost like everything is in slow motion. He sees her turning in response, aware that something incredible happened.

She doesn't get a chance because time speed back up in interval, and he grabs her from the flank and brings her toppling down with a reserved blow, and pins her down.

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She should be furious about being bested, but she's beaming.

“I saw it. You did teleport!” she exclaims, and he cant help but grin like an idiot. “It was a few meters but that kind of tactical shift, it–”

He puts a finger to her snout, and she goes silent. “It wasn't just that. I saw a place somewhere in-between.”

“In-between where?”

“I dunno, it was…bright white light all around me. It was weird. Almost like–” he trails off. “I felt that place before.” He doesn’t know why it felt familiar yet.

“We should probably tell the others, and now I'm hella jealous!” She pokes him in the chest with a pointy claw. “Also, you're still on top of me. Now do be a proper drake and get off, before I have to steal back the moment.”

“Nah. Let's do a little bit more training. I've got some ideas.” He glances at the pile of training dummies, and a toothy smirk creases his snout. “We need to practice crowd control.”

----------------------------------------

“So, let me get this straight. You decided to *all* go do some training, late last night?” Nick says with a bite of ire to his words. “And, you made a mess of my pristine training center.”

“The scorch marks will come off, we promise!” Julia says all awkward-like. Drenar is still slightly fatigued from the effort, and had almost earned himself a case of mana burn in the process while trying out some new techniques, and refining others. Even his dragon form has limits, he realizes.

Nick taps his foot and sighs. “Assuming we live past to day, you guys are cleaning that mess up.”

“It’s not that bad!” Julia protests. “Seriously, the training dummies had it coming. They looked at me the wrong way. I kept picturing Val on their formless faces, and it just brought out the dragon rage in me! Rawr,” she adds with a disarming smirk.

“You two are just–” Nick pinches the bridge of his nose in frustration. “And you Angela, should have been more careful!”

“Look, I had to try out some techniques, too! I wandered down there and I just had to see what was up! We can re-set the concrete and smooth it over on the floor, it’s not a problem.”

“No, the problem I have,” Nick says with remarkable restraint, “Is that Drenar has a teleport–that no other dragon in the world has–and kept at it! Then you doubled down and allowed Julia to crack the concrete slab of the wall, with a very dangerous plasma envelope technique that allows her to become a living battering ram!”

“We call it the Tsunderebolt,” Drenar grins. Julia and Angela break out in laughter, while James gives a half wave.

“Your portmaneau is actually pretty good this time. I was down there for a spell. Practicing,” he adds when he snaps his hand and small puff of blue flame appears in his hand. “I can light a candle. Yay. Meanwhile I’m the understudy brother, and Julia is sending dragons ricocheting off the walls!”

“You’re lucky you didn’t break her neck,” Nick adds in a scathing rebuke to Julia that Drenar feels might not be warranted. “You guys are fixing that, assuming we live past today.”

“But we have some techniques mapped out! We rehearsed!” Julia says with a glare aimed right at Nick. “Look, we took the initiative. If we get into a firefight, our dragon forms are the best way everyone gets out alive, us or the people of Asqualia. Angela’s barriers can be held at distance while fighting. Drenar has that...that weird blink thingy that we don’t quite frankly know where it came from!

“Bloodline ability?” Levine proposes. “They’re rarer. Abilities not tied to a specific Kinship race, genetic mutations that carry over regardless of species."

“Yeah. Alex was saying Lyssa–a Valkyrie he knew–had some super weird ability.” He frowns for a second. “Wait. Alex, you hooked up with one of your teammates, and had a kid?!”

Um…when you put it like that…yes? Lyssa and I were…together, as they say.

“Yeah, I’m a great-grandson of a Valkyrie. That tracks,” he growls.

Levines jaw dropped in amazement. “Holy Gaia. You are descendant of the Valkyries. Lyssa the Steadfast, the fourth known Champion!”

“Okay Levine, we don’t need to know the history yet. We need to focus on not dying first, and getting through this day–”

"Do you have no idea the importance of that?” Levine says like he wants to start shouting.

“Dude, the dead parents kept us in the dark,” Drenar snaps after losing his patience. Julia puts a firm hand on his shoulder–it’s enough to keep him from getting further into a mood. “We can sort this out later. Right now, I know I have a tactical ability the Talons have never seen before. You want to bet anything that King didn’t parse out some juicy details to his minions on what we are capable of?”

“Maybe we should–” James starts to say before faltering. “Are you ready for this, Drenar? This is a point of no return, if I ever saw one. We do this, and put egg on their face again, we’re going to have the entire Talons’ army after us. Including Val, if we’re successful.”

“Driving megalomaniacs berserk is my skill specialty. Let’s gear up and get this done, we have our roles, everyone have their new systems ready?”

He’s referring to the subtle armband that most mages wore instead of using cell phones, everyone had one now, thanks to Levine’s tactical case he’d brought in with surveillance equipment, armor, and armaments. They functioned similar to smartphones, but were hardened against electronic surveillance, and couldn’t be as easily disrupted by the tech King had used last time. Nick and James had pulled maps and schematics the night before at some point, strategizing with Levine on what they needed, including escape routes and other information they might need on the fly. Everyone tapped in and nodded.

“Any last words, oh omnipresent authority figure?” Julia says dryly.

“Yeah. Let’s go put a win on the board for the Delvers,” he quips with a warm smile.

The plan is simple enough. It’s just risky, which is why Drenar is trying to take the biggest risk onto his plate when they get into the maintenance gear that Levine had appropriated. It should be serviceable enough–two apprentices working for a master tech, and Levine had enough general knowledge of arcanist systems he could fit the bill without question. Julia is dead-steady calm, and takes a slow, measured breath when they get into the vehicles–they’d have to leave them far away to avoid drawing suspicion. Using the teleportal would generate a signature if they ported into town, so that option was out–the timing would be too suspicious.

The bigger long-term plan was getting on the right side of SAF, and find out who was compromised. But that was a problem for another time.

“Guys, we doing a speech?” Angela asks. She has her hair tied back and her earrings out now, compared to what she normally does, and her glasses are gone–she must have tucked them away after realizing the guise of appearance wasn’t necessary. “I figure you’d have one, Drenar.”

“Nah. Let’s do that assuming we don’t get arrested, killed, eaten, or turned to ash by one giant nightmare-level dragon today. I mean with a plan this crazy, what could possibly go wrong? Our adversaries don’t know we’re that crazy.”

There’s an awkward cough from James in response. “Okay yeah, let’s do this before my nerves give out.”

“That’s better,” Angela says with a warm smile. “Just keep it real.”