Julia thought nothing could prepare her more for this moment than all the trials that had preceded this one. The Talons' soldiers are still coming out of the teleportal facility, shooting at the garrison reinforcements that are ducking behind decorative posts and low concrete barriers that would normally direct foot traffic. They’re also shooting haphazardly at civilians, and she knows that has to be put to a stop, no questions asked.

“Drenar! Bulldoze a path to the teleportal hub!” Levine barks out. “We need to make sure they don’t set up secondary one-time-use gates, this close to the primary hubs they can spoof the relays!”

“Push up!” He barks out. Julia releases the plasma across her scales and releases a torrent of energy at the soldiers. A few realize they have made a massive mistake trying to engage against dragons who have had more than their fair share of combat over the past week, and much more training preceding that. The blast cracks the cobblestone and zaps three of the foes with unrelenting fury. An acrid scent of scorched clothing wafts from the carnage.

She is still using low power, because if she charges it any higher, there wouldn’t be anything but blackened corpses, and that’s not a path she’s going down yet. Drenar leaps into the fray with his scales darkening and deflecting the heavy bolt rounds–he is saving his spell shield for the moment. Foot soldiers are no match for a three-meter tall dragon, even as they try to grab heavier ordnance off their backs.

“Maridian silver, switch to alchemical rounds!” One soldier belts out–a foe far more heavily armored in head-to-foot black-painted armor and grabs what looks like a grenade launcher off his back. “Deal with the goldie, and the scarlet!”

“Oh hell no, assholes!” Jackie thrusts out her claws and that shimmering, unnatural void forms between the standing soldiers, who suddenly flail and find themselves floating through the air, bobbing and weaving without sure footing to steady themselves. Drenar unleashes a kinetic blast that sends their weapons flying, along with them. One struggles to rise, and he slams him with a single fist, doubling him over. Julia hears at least a couple of ribs break, and he's on the ground, and out of the fight.

“Go! Protect the civilians, prioritize the wounded, and get them to cover! Julia, Jackie, with me! Levine, get Nick and Angie down here right now!” Drenar barks out in reflexive orders. “Get to the teleportal, more troops will be following up!”

“Ah, hell yes! It’s clobbering time!” Julia grins as she charges plasma into her scales. More soldiers open up with autobows from the far end of the atrium, and she sees one setting up a formidable weapon–a machine gun being brought to bear with a heavily armored soldier opening fire on Drenar.

“Go! Get the heavy down!” Drenar grunts under the heavy fire, and his scales are taking the barrage of bullets. It looks like these creeps didn’t get the memo that they need heavier ordnance against a Maridian with their ferrite-charged scales. She scoots behind him and keeps him charged with a healthy dose of plasma energy, and when he’s close enough, he sends out a focused kinetic blast that smashes the soldier and two adjacent to them into a stone pillar. They crack the masonry and are down for the count.

“Keep pushing! Stay behind me!” He yells out amid a barrage of bolts that ping off his scales. They might as well be pea-shooters, though an errant round does bounce off of her.

Things hit a slight snag when a Nightwing dragon with armor plating that had been hiding on the other side of the door slams into him, and he grapples with the new adversary. SAF soldiers are pinned down on one side of the large room filled with mosaic tiles of some probably famous mages on the floor, large vaulted ceilings, and the large glass and metal teleportal platform that someone is desperately trying to relight to get reinforcements.

This pristine polished marble floor is going to need one hell of a good cleaning as Julia launches forward in a blur of plasma energy, and knocks the Nightwing away. He crashes through a wall and into the street on the other side, roaring in pain, and plasma arcs off of him.

Drenar splits off to deal with the dragon, while she deals with the smaller threats. Bones break and squishy humans get sent flying, and those lucky enough to stay out of her range get the plasma treatment of an overpowered taser. She even practices flinging one at another with her plasma grapple, much to her delight.

They are so puny. She doubts this one-sided curb stomp battle is going to last, once Crosomer and company hear about a team of dragons trouncing their soldiers.

“Stand back! Gonna mop up!” Jackie sprints through heavy fire and has to rely on her arcane barrier, which is getting dangerously deteriorated. She launches another singularity that leaves a few foes floating through the air, then she directs all that force downward in a bone-jarring slam. They scream as they impact and are otherwise pinned by the gravity well. SAF soldiers see the opportunity and advance.

“Cover the guys in blue!” Julia bellows out and acts as a body shield while they advance across a hallway, clearing out Talon soldiers. Some have about given up, and Julia hears a distant, inhuman cry of pain.

She turns to see Drenar is bloodied but alert, having clawed up the Nightwing badly and landing an open-handed strike, a silvery blast sending the foe to the ground. He slams a clawed foot down on his ribs, and the foe howls in pain, clutching their chest. “Suck it up, jackass, they regen back!” Drenar belts out, reaches down and breaks the dragon’s wing as well with one crunchy twist. The dragon screams out in pain and makes no further attempts to resist.

Damn, my boy is getting savage? Why does that excite me?! She can’t let the wayward thought distract her and points an arcing claw at the remaining Talons soldiers, who have stopped firing and have contemplated fleeing.

“Surrender or get roasted! Your call!” she bellows out with every ounce of ferocity she has. Jackie sends one more flying with a swipe of her tail–he likely had it coming, and this redhead has bite to spare. SAF soldiers take cover by the two of them, and the Talons soldiers–those left standing on their own two feet–start lowering weapons.

Julia groans, and feels a bolt sticking out of her forearm–it just found its way past her scales, and she yanks it out. Luckily the penetration isn’t far, and the blood flow is a trickle. She conjures up the energy bindings she’d done for Jonaleth earlier, and motions for the soldiers to tie their hands behind their backs and leers at all of them menacingly.

“Which one of you tasty little treats wants to fess up to what you boneheads were planning?” Julia says with a toothy and menacing grin. “Speak up, first come, first paroled! Or something like that.”

“Miss,” one of the SAF soldiers says with a heavy sigh, “Thank you for the extremely timely assistance, but you’re a civilian, you should get out of here, we’ve got this. Check-in with the garrison–”

Julia can hear more gunfire in the background, and she looks down–her Arcanlink had been damaged on her vest, likely hit by a stray round! She feels more than a few bruised scales, now that she thinks about it and turns to Drenar, nursing a claw wound on the softer scales on the inside of his arm. “Drenar, we need to get to Angela and Nick!”

“On it! Jackie, you with us?!” The scarlet wonder nods softly and even lets out a toothy smirk.

“Sheesh, when did you two learn to kick ass? I want in on this!”

“We protect lives first, and we need to go!” Drenar bounds up and heads out into the open-air hallway, his tail nearly knocking one poor soldier off his feet. “Sorry, gotta mind the extra appendage!” he shouts over his shoulder. Julia and Jackie waste no time and follow him into the street, where SAF soldiers are prioritizing wounded and rounding up Talons soldiers. She’s still focused on the sound of gunfire, and Drenar shouting into the radio.

“Angela is with Nick, they’re pinned down on the second floor of that building off to the right! We need to watch our fire, it’s close quarters!”

“I got a better idea! Give me a fix on their position, I might be able to see their mana signatures if they’re mages!” Julia states and is already in motion. She scans the squat three-story building made of the same tan bricks as the rest of the area and hears gunshots, but the sound is difficult to pinpoint. She lets the color fade from her eyesight and she strains with all her might to see something–

“Drenar, give me your arcanlink, mine is shot!” He hands her the earpiece that she wraps around her elongated earcrest. She can see the shimmering outline of several individuals in two distinct groups, and several other fainter images. Three individuals are hunkered down, presumably behind a wall or a large object, and several others are motioning with hands raised like they’re firing rifles or other weapons. The automatic gunfire would suggest that. “Nick, I need your position right now! Are you guys on the south side of the building, at the east-most end?!” she barks into the communicator.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Good spotting! Half a dozen Talons soldiers broke off, and were trying to round up civilians, they were trying to force some kind of specialized broadcast! They opened fire on anyone who resisted, I have two wounded next to me, and we’re pinned down! I can’t transform into my dragon form here, it’s too close quarters!”

“Julia, you charge into that building, you could hurt someone–” Drenar starts to say, then extends his claws. “Let’s uh…try something a little more cerebral.”

Twenty seconds later, she’s digging her claws into the brick building, finding latch points wherever she can from concrete windowsills, though they do seem a little…shaky under her weight. She can hear the gunfire, and Drenar waits right below her, with Jackie already forming that shimmering void in her hands. “Hey red, how deadly is that little gravity blob?” Julia directs downward.

“Don’t know, never had the nerve to crank it up to full power. Watching someone implode sounds as terrifying as it does traumatic, you know?” she says with a nervous shake of her mane.

“Gross. Can you launch that inside of people?” Drenar is now waiting with a kinetic blast readied in his claw, and she can hear the gunfire just above her. “You know what, don’t tell me. My imagination doesn’t need more horrors to contemplate.” Julia taps the radio while hanging onto the side of the building in possibly the strangest thing people have observed a dragon do in the day.

“Nick, are they still in position?”

“Yes, please hurry! I need fire relief so I can get triage done, one civilian has a bolt injury to the torso! Angela, shield me when I peek!”

“Done!” she shouts in the background, and the splintering of wood and fracturing of plaster or brick is also audible.

No time to waste then. She peeks through the window and the black-clad soldiers are busy trading fire with Nick. She can see Nick and Angella’s outline with her mana sight just down the hall, along with two prone people–likely mages, since she sees blue. She snaps a charge into her hands, and waits for a lull in the fire.

She smashes the wall and it caves under her assault, and she claws back an opening past the brick and wood construction. The Talons shout in surprise, but they’re not standing for long when her plasma rips through them, scorching and sending them to the ground, writhing in agony.

“Your friendly tsunderedragon is here to save the day–dammit!” A few stray bolts smack into her arcane barrier and leave an instant bruise on her cheek. Good thing that is still working, even when shielded it hurts! She lurches in and grabs the bastard that managed to stay upright after getting blasted, and drops him down to Drenar in a panicked scream. He catches the man, who is still screaming while Drenar gently growls at him.

“Apologize to the goldie for shooting at her, or I can add a fresh layer of paint to the wall.”

“Sorry!” he screams out. Drenar rewards him for his efforts with a slam into the wall, grabbing his weapon away and bending it beyond repair. Julia uses a low-powered zap to knock him out. It is just like a taser, and he’s…soiled himself.

Gross. I better leave that part out of the massive report we’re probably going to have to fill out, she thinks with disgust. “Nick, it’s clear!” she bellows out. “Any more?!”

“No. Make sure they stay down,” Nick growls, with Angela advancing behind him, autobow drawn and poised at the prone hostiles.

They waste no time in tying up the adversaries with Nick’s near-unlimited supply of zip ties, and administering a regen potion to the injured civilians after extracting the bolts. Bolts, Julia realizes grimly, present a problem compared to bullets for using a potion. They have to be pulled for the emergency healing process to work, unlike if bullet fragments remain lodged. Levine joins them a moment later–he’d been in a brief firefight of his own after they bulldozed through the plaza to cut off reinforcements, and is sooty.

“Fireball almost got you?” Nick asks nonchalantly.

“Yeah, you could say that. We need to get out of here, now. How the hell did the Talons launch multiple attacks all in close synchronization, and we didn’t have any warning?”

“King blowing smoke, or Val just jumped the shark. I doubt Crosomer was in on this hare-brained plan,” Drenar growls. “King is losing a kidney when I’m done with him. Levine’s right, I think the main attack is still coming, we need to get down to Asqualia. Uh Julia, radio?” She hands him back the Arcanlink she'd borrowed, and he taps the transmit button. “James, did you guys–”

“We hit the jackpot, Drenar. Shielding is down,” James says in a low tone. “Evan and I tested it. There’s a door that opens. We’re trying to avoid drawing attention to it. We heard through the arcanlink something happened?”

“The Talons launched a massive attack wave on SAF positions in multiple cities. Us killing the teleportal was the sheer dumb luck reason that they weren’t successful here, I’m getting casualty reports and utter panic on every line,” Levine groans. “It’s a bad start.”

That's when the TV displays that hadn’t been hit by the uncannily large lawn darts start broadcasting in a staticky grain, and Julia tenses her claws. A new face appears on the screen, clad in gold and silver armor…and dripping with blood. Behind them is the bullet and bolt-ridden plaza of a city that looks like it could be eastern Europe. Julia can only make out a glimmer of coal-black eyes behind the magitech visor, projecting images on the inside of the helmet.

“Ladies and gents, your attention please! I’ll keep this brief. Welcome to your liberation day!" The man speaks in a gravelly, deep voice. He sounds like someone who has indulged in smoking, drinking, or is simply a hellspawn so evil they cast him back out of the abyss.

“As we speak, your overlords are being put on notice that Kin are done being pushed around and being oppressed, marginalized, beaten, and murdered behind that squeaky, sterile image of the Conclave. All those fancy white and silver decorations that adorn their halls are nothing but a window dressing to the ugliness and horror behind closed doors.

“The Talons have had enough of that, and today, we’ve put the Conclave on notice. They will no longer oppress us mages who choose an independent life!” The figure bellows, and a peeling grin is visible behind the visor. Julia sees it, and only can conclude one thing: this man revels in the violence he is inflicting. “All civvies should clear out of our way, or join us! Flyers will be posted for you to join our righteous cause!” It’s utterly reprehensible to her, that a man coated in someone else's blood is talking about bringing peace. Without warning, he hauls up a blue clad SAF officer by the neck, who is pleading for his life.

“Who is this asshole, so I can shoot him repeatedly with Matilda?” Julia says with deadly intent. Nick nods grimly.

“Davos Renshrak. I recognize that armor. He's a seven-foot-four titan of a man in armor that weighs as much as a dragon. The Butcher of Cape Town.” It sounds even more ominous, coming from Nick.

“So, he's kill-on-sight?”

“I prefer detainment…” Nick trails off, his eyes narrowed, “but SAF policy does allow for lethal force when there is an imminent threat to civilians or law enforcement." Nick waits a beat, then adds, "You're gonna need a bigger gun for Davos."

Davos holds up the SAF soldier by the neck in one hand, while someone off screen holds the camera. There is a manic grin etched on his face, a maw of stained teeth and scarred flesh that can't outdo the grotesqueness of his character. Davos squeezes the soldier's neck, who is grasping at his armored gauntlet with the desperation of a dying man, and his eyes bulge in fear.

“Now, this poor fella here made bad life choices, and shot at some of my comrades. That's a no-no, buddy!” he adds while looking like the devil collecting the souls of his victims. The man rasps, brown eyes trying to cling to life. “So, we need to set the pace. SAF soldiers are all enemies of the public! And we're gonna make you example number…I dunno, seven or eight?” he asks while looking smug.

“Twelve,” someone says off-screen. Julia tightens her claws in rage as Davos leers at the man, fingers bleeding from trying to pry away from that death grip. That lecherous grin twinges even wider behind that visor.

“Ah well, better to undercount. Well there…Curt, is it?” Julia sees the name tag, as does Davos. “Welcome to the new world order. Coming soon to theaters and main streets everywhere! But for you, buddy, I have one question for you!” Davos brings the man close to his face, and Julia knows what is about to happen next. And there is nothing she can do to prevent it. A wheezing gasp leaves the man’s lips.

“Does it grip?!”

Davos clenches his fingers, and Julia winces at the sound of crushing bone, like wet twigs snapping underfoot. There is nothing left in those brown eyes but a vacant terror, and Davos tosses him aside as readily as a trash bag on pickup day. “See ya soon, folks! Remember to smile, because our revolution starts now!”

The camera cuts out, and Julia is quivering in fury. But it's Drenar that sets the mood when he tightens his claws.

“He's made my list.” Julia knows exactly what list it is, when he utters those four words. A list he's kept empty until now, because she knows he's scared of what happens when he throws restraint aside.

Davos is now on the list of people he is going to kill, to make the world a safer place. And Davos just made hers, too.

Seconded only by Valosterla.