Scales like Stars

Dragons in Space: Book 1

Dragon Cobolt

A Smoky Mountain Publication

Dragon Cobolt

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Cover by

 Marcus B. Smit

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Prismatic High

Chapter One: Roll that Bluff Check

        Princess Relix Castrovel of the Third Talon of the Spinward Front of the Chromatic Arm of the Galaxy reclined in her chair and considered destroying a planet out of pique. Not an inhabited one, of course. One of those dreadful balls of silicate and dust no one cared about. Her tail twitched and slapped against the divan that she sprawled across while her seneschal – a savant-slave that her father had purchased from the world of Torel – sucked down the vial of pure mana, smacked his lips, and recited the missive from memory.

        Relix yawned, her hand covering her muzzle, as he went through the litany, and tried to not fall asleep.

                “Your father, Emperor Dogan of the Five Talon Empire, wishes that you, his daughter by his fifth wife of the Third Talon, take a proper and noble mate from the sub-classes within the next galactic standard cycle. I hasten to remind you, Princess,” Seneschal Thuwit said, his head inclining in a slight bow. Relix thought it made him look rather silly, as his head was entirely bald and his long, pointed ears wobbled with the motion like a pair of radio antennas. She covered her mouth with a scaled, ring bedecked hand to stop the giggles from escaping.

        “I hasten to remind you,” Thuwit said, again, as if he had sensed she wasn’t really paying attention. “The FTE is not the most stable of political constructs. A feudal dominion enforced by unity between chromatic and prismatic dragons, with the houses of Qesemat balanced against-”

                “Yes, yes, Thuwit, I know.” Relix sighed. She laid her head back and let all seven of her limbs sprawl as they would. Her tail lay across the floor, dripping off the side of the divan, while her wings unfolded and hung limp. She cast her arms over her head as if she was a fainting maiden, and wondered if Thuwit was so addled by the mana extract and his savant training that he couldn’t recognize the beauty of her scales, her jewelry. Her breasts. Her body. She doubted it. Because she doubted it, she let her irritation show as she snarled. “Father wants a controllable male to keep tabs on me and get some eggs for his precious spinward sectors” She shook her head. “I won’t be his brood mare...”

        Thuwit coughed. “There is also the matter of tradition. Legality. The fact that in a centicycle, you will be of age to be courted, and chromatic dragons do not tend to take no for an answer… “

        “What? Is some red in his battlefleet going to come by and just steal me like we were back on Home in the age of magic?” Relix scoffed.

                Thuwit frowned. “Shall we ask Gunner the current disposition of the Red Baron’s fleets?”

        Relix paused.

        Thuwit had done something that irritated her immensely.

        He had raised an eminently good point.

        Relix stood, folding her wings primly behind her back. As she walked, she called up the holo-com with a click of her foreclaws. The small bundle of technology and magic hovered over on ducted fans that hissed nearly silently in the air, and then projected a perfect recreation of her body. Relix paused to check herself over. Her horns were growing out, curling along the edges of her rainbow hued frills, while her eye-shadow had started to run. She tapped at her wrist computer and the eye-shadow reset, the smart paint flowing back into circles that accented the gold of her eyes. She tapped through some colors before settling on a subdued black, which offset her silver scales. Her belly and breasts were mostly exposed by her filmy gown, which was more similar to a collection of ropes than a contiguous dress, the cloth reaching around and under her arms and her wings and her thighs to conceal everything that propriety demanded, while leaving everything else out to be admired.

                Relix considered it.

        She could scandalize old Gunner. Or she could actually get useful information from the crusty soldier. She sighed, then wiggled her fingers. Her robes plumped up, until she was surrounded in layer after layer of fabric and cloth and gold, glittering and gleaming. She looked like a great big cake, with hardened ridges of ornamentation surrounding her shoulders, cresting her head. Relix muttered under her breath in the vilest draconic she could think of, then tapped the holo-com on.

                Gunner was a mountain of a man. She had forgotten which world he came from – some backwoods place the Empire hadn’t even contacted or thralled yet. He said that he had fought in some big war against some people called the Nasties or something and the FTE had grabbed him from a hospital and run experimentation on him to see if his species was worth anything – that had been during a spree of inventive medical research being carried out on sub-thrall races. The experimentation had worked, as he had  legs again. They just happened to be the legs of some kind of insect. Carapace had grown over his shoulders and his eyes glowed coal red. If Gunner didn’t like what had happened, he had learned to keep quiet about it.

        It wasn’t like he could go home again.

        “Ma’am,” he said, inclining his head.

        “Thuwit says that I need to be concerned about military action aimed at me,” Relix said, sighing quietly. “Specifically, some kind of kidnapping? From a certain crimson cretin?” She trilled, pleased with her alliteration.

                “My men have been hearing rumors that several chromatic dragons have their eyes on your hand, ma’am,” Gunner said, shrugging. “Including Baron Bex, yes. Our men-at-arms are trained to stop kidnapping, but nothing’s perfect...especially not when set up against the man who cleared out four solar systems of Atomic Orcs.”

        Relix scowled. “Are those those mutant orcs?”

        “No, ma’am. Those are Radioactive Orcs. Atomic Orcs are just orcs with nuclear weaponry,” Gunner said, without missing a tick.

        Relix hissed. “Ugh. How unsightly.”

        “Let me guess, ma’am, you are thinking about what husband you want?” Gunner asked, his segmented limbs creaking as he crossed them over his chest.

        “I need a noble to shut my father up...someone from the sub-races, to continue to wed the empire together...and they need to be had before this cycle is up so no one tries to kidnap me...” Relix tapped her finger against her snout. “But someone I could control. Someone weak. And facile. And without magic.” She paused. “Say, Gunner, you said your people were mage blind, right?”

        “Uh-” Gunner blinked at her. Well. He did his best, considering the changes to his eyes.

        “Right!” Relix brightened. “And you only live a few decades without augmentations!” She clapped her hands. “Ship-soul, attend! Set course for...” She paused. What had been the name of that place?

                “Earth?” Gunner said, slowly.

        “That was it!” Relix beamed. “Set course for Earth .”

***

                The slavering wererat was approaching the window at a dead run. Its claws scraped into the stone of the abandoned church of Trypatus while Rene realized that his plan might have been ill founded. It had been simple: Distract the wererat from Mephilef and Tarak and Roslyn, and they would hopefully smash the wererat to pieces with their weapons before it could clear their melee range. Once it was dead, they could then deal with his minor ‘sucking chest wound’ problem. The only problem was Meph had no melee weapons, Roslyn was still trying to hold in her intestines, and Tarak...

        Well.

        Tarak just honestly didn’t like Rene that much. So, she didn’t try particularly hard to swing as the wererat scampered past her and towards the taunting bard.

                The wererat leaped through the window and-

        “Nat twenty!” Merton said. “...fuck.”

        He looked up from the dice to the horrified players sitting at the rest of the table. In his effort to maintain his diet, Carlos was chowing down on his fiftieth strawberry in the past half hour, while Trevor had his hands over his face, peeking through the fingers, as if willing might change the die result. Lisa was tapping away at her phone – likely yelling at white supremacists on twitter. It was what she did when it wasn’t her turn. Merton sighed, drew in a deep breath, then rolled the damage die. It’d be okay, he just didn’t need to roll max damage-

        “And that’s a hit,” Merton said, grasping at straws. “But you still have another death save!”

“The wererat has two attacks, doesn’t he?” Carlos asked. Trevor slowly turned his head to look at his friend while Merton gritted his teeth, then rolled again.

“And that’s another hit,” Merton said.

        “Which puts me at three failed death saves. I’m dead as shit.” Trevor groaned, slumping his head to the side of the table, almost putting his long blond hair into a plate of grease – all that was left from the pizza.

                “To be fair,” Lisa said. “It was a great plan, save for...” she pointed at the three twenty sided dice that had been each character’s attempt to slash the rushing wererat as it ran past them. “One. Five. Four. Sorry, Trev.”

        “At least we don’t need to keep listening to that French accent you were trying,” Carlos said, licking his lips clean of strawberry juice. Trevor glared at his friend, who held up his hands, as if to apologize. Merton, meanwhile, started to try and re-balance the rest of the dungeon with the idea of losing a fourth of the party. And he had already given them a non-player character to assist them, and she was currently bleeding to death. He rubbed his hands on his face...but he had already gotten the plan in mind.

                Unfortunately, the dice were having none of it. A cascading series of 1s left poor Meph slowly sinking in a pit of acid quicksand, which forced Rosylin and Tarak to decide to retire to the countryside – the whole table having decided that maybe they needed to try new characters. As they shuffled their character sheets away, Carlos grinned: “Well, we could play Exalted-”

        “No,” the rest of the table said at the same time.

        “Aww!” Carlos pouted. “Exalted’s cool.”

        “I don’t wanna spend half the combat encounter fucking around with a rules set so complicated I need a six hundred page book telling me what to do!” Trevor snapped, clearly still testy about his bard’s unfortunate fate as wererat droppings.

        “Ah, yes, because 4 th  Edition D&D is soooo  rules light!” Carlos shot back, throwing the half a dozen cards that he had been using to track his character’s powers before her unfortunate trip down the acid-shaft. The debate between systems consumed their conversation while Merton packed up his books, his maps, his notes. The group split shortly later – Merton collected the pizza money, pocketed it, and waved as Lisa ushered them all out of her apartment. The three boys ambled to the elevator, and as it buzzed down, Trevor slapped Merton’s chest. “So, Merton, you up for the new Keanu movie?”

        “John Wick?” Merton asked. “Nah. I can’t watch a movie where someone’s dog dies. Too depressing.”

        “Does it help to know that he shoots everyone? Literally everyone ?” Trevor asked.

        “What about the guys he stabs?” Carlos asked, grinning at the two of them.

                “Hmm, still not really interested,” Merton said. “What I want to do is go home and go to sleep. I have work tomorrow.”

        “You’re barely out of college, that’s when you start living, Merton!” Trevor said, walking with him as Carlos ambled after the duo. “That’s when you cut loose and see the world!”

                “When I’m saddled with crippling student debt?” Merton asked, laughing. “No. No. Trevor, I’m going home. I’m going to sleep. And tomorrow, I’m going to be literally flipping burgers.”

        “At least you work at In and Out!” Carlos said, grinning. “They pay pretty good.”

                Trevor shrugged. “Well, fine. Carlos and I are going to see John Wick. Right, Carlos?”

        “Si,” Carlos said, faux-seriously. The two of them walked left as the trio came out of the front of the apartment building. They rounded the corner almost immediately, vanishing into the parking lot that sprawled next to the complex. Merton sighed and rubbed his hand along his head. He closed his eyes and leaned against one of the pillars and pulled out his phone. He grinned and started to text his girlfriend.

                 Heading home! See you online soon! <3 <3 <3

         Something was wrong, though. There was a strange light shining from around his phone. Merton’s brow furrowed as he looked past his phone, lifting his arms, like he was checking his armpits. The ground underneath him was starting to shimmer and glow with a pale purple light.

He stepped away from it, his mouth opening, then closing. “What the fuck?” he whispered, then looked up. Was someone using a drone or something? No. The light didn’t seem to come from anywhere. What was worse, the purple circle shifted to settle back underneath his feet, as smoothly as butter. His skin started to prickle, as if he had been rolling around on a shag carpet. Static electricity crawled and he felt a growing sense of dread. Electricity sparked along his phone and crackled along his glasses. Merton’s eyes widened and he opened his mouth to scream-

        And that was when the lightning bolt smashed into the ground. When it was gone, there was nothing but a scorch mark and a single smoldering iPhone case.

        ***

        The smoke cleared and Merton waved his hand before his face, coughing. He was standing on a raised plinth of brass and wood, inset with six crystal plates. The crystal was a pale purple, and smoke rose from around the seam that joined it to the wood. The plinth had a series of steps leading down to a smooth black floor – it looked like obsidian, polished smooth enough to reflect anyone who stood on it. There was a control platform – or something that looked like it. Standing behind it was a…

        Woman?

        She had purple skin. Antennas. Large, dark black eyes. Hair the color of bleached teal. And she wore something that could have been called a ‘robe’ in the same way a BDSM gimp outfit could be called a ‘business suit.’ A thin strip of red cloth over her breasts, two plunging lines of leather between her thighs, barely covering her sex – she had to be hairless down there cause...uh...wow, hair would show. Her hands were each three fingered and covered with large work gloves. She tapped a few switches while a loud clicking came from the winding corridor that led out of the room.

                Then around the corner came…

        A…

        A dragon .

        Well, a dragon, if the dragon was also an unbelievably gorgeous woman. Her head came to a narrow, tapered muzzle. Her head had a shimmering array of feather-like ‘hair’ that came in a rainbow of cascading colors, starting with golds and reds and moving down the spectrum to blues and purples near her heart shaped rump. Her wings were elegant and hooked around her shoulders like a cape, while her breasts were roughly melon sized and as perky as if they had never known gravity or age in their life. The sheerness of her crisscrossing robe (only slightly less revealing than the purple skinned girl at the control console) made it abundantly clear that, yes, she had nipples.

        Her tail twitched from side to side as she stood before Merton. Beside her stood...well...a bald elf. And bald was not a look that worked for elves. His lips were stained silver-blue and he had this slightly fidgety, twitchy look to him. Like he was about to collapse into spasms at any moment.

                “Greetings, my honored noble guest,” the dragon said, her voice elegant and cultured. She was speaking English. Somehow. “And welcome to my ship, the Talon 9. I am Princess Relix Castrovel of the Third Talon of the Spinward Front of the Chromatic Arm of the Galaxy and I wish to offer you a chance few if any of your kind will ever see: The chance to win my hand...in marriage.” She bowed her head low.

        Merton blinked slowly.

        Princess Castrovel looked up at him.

        “Did...did you say...Chromatic Arm?” Merton asked.

        “Well, yes,” she said. “The Five Talon Empire controls the Chromatic, Prismatic and Gemstone arms, as well as the Core and the Clouds of Tiamat!”

                Merton opened his mouth, then closed it again. “Holy shit you control the Magellanic Clouds? How many planets do you have? Like, do you have a cool million, or are you more densely settled than the Imperium of Man?” He put his hand on his forehead. “Holy shit, what’s your FTL like? Is it point to point teleportation, alternate universe, or do you just have a warp drive, where you bend space? Are you actual dragons, like, dragon dragons? Or...wait, do you have magic? Or is it just super advanced technology? Wait, wait, how are you a Princess of just one part of the Empire? Or is this like...wait, you have more than one Princess, so it is dispersed, isn’t it?” He looked around the ship, trying to drink in every detail, his brain buzzing like he was spinning around at a million miles an hour.

        Then what she said sank in.

        “Wait, your hand in what ?”

        Princess Castrovel looked at her bald elf buddy. “I thought. You said. You grabbed. An idiot !” She snarled. “I want a husband, not a new harem .”

                “I did!” The bald elf said, looking just as surprised as Merton felt.

        “Hey!” Merton shouted.

        “The psy-scan said that he had been doing simple arithmetic while thinking of counterfactuals in a barely coherent manner!” The bald elf continued as Castrovel growled at him. “It fit the exact patterns of young children, and yet, his age was consistent with one who should be fully grown!”

                “It’s fucking Dungeons and...Dra... and...it’s a game!” Merton said. Here he was. In fucking space , talking to fucking space people , and they were still looking down at him for being a nerd! This was reaching a level of ‘fuck’ well past ‘absolute fuck’ and into the realm of ‘ubiquitous fuck.’ He tried to keep a clear head, but his brain just kept going around and around that point in an endless circle: He was being mocked for being a nerd by a space dragon .  Through sheer force of will, he managed to speak again.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t exactly the most pertinent thing to point out.

“Fuck you it was barely coherent, it’s not my fault our bard decided to play ratbait and I had to ditch fifteen pages of pre-written adventures!” Merton pointed at his chest. “I was running on improvisation and two cans of Coke zero and zero sleep!”

        Castrovel snarled. “Put him back  and get me someone more tractable!”

        “Well, he is mage blind-”

        “I don’t care!” Castrovel said, grabbing the bald elf’s shirt, shaking him. “Have you not seen a single holoplay ? Take in the seemingly simple savage, and before you know it, he’s bedded half the female members of the household and is toppling the Empire! It happens every time . What do you suggest we do next, give our men-at-arms face concealing helmets and standardized uniforms so that enemy agents can infiltrate us more easily?” She shook him again. “Send him back!”

Merton opened his mouth, then closed it. He lifted his finger, pointing at the princess. “Wait...what?” Did she just...was she just... his brain spluttered. He was reminded, suddenly, of the first time he had met his girlfriend and how his brain had gone from ‘oh, a girl’ to ‘oh a nerd ’ in about five seconds.

        The bald mage shook his head. “We can’t.”

        “You can’t ?” Castrovel snarled.

        But it was the purple skinned woman who broke in – and good thing, too. From Merton’s perspective, the bald elf looked ready to collapse into a heap. “Princess Castrovel, the law is clear. No mage blind sub-race can be returned with knowledge of the Empire to their homeworld, not unless they are being officially inducted as a Thrall World.”

                “Fine!” Castrovel said, flinging up her hand. “We’ll thrall the planet! Your people seem to be reasonably useful. We can do it with this ship alone.” She turned to the purple woman. “Tell Gunner to prep the vortex torpedoes and begin targeting unmanned orbital defenses…”

                “Isn’t that unwise, ma’am?” The bald elf asked. “The codex draconis states that thralling should begin with preliminary bombardment of major cities.”

                “That sounds like it’ll take way too much work, though,” Castrovel muttered.

        Merton’s eyes widened. Shit had gone from surreal to nightmarish pretty fucking fast. He had no idea what a vortex torpedo was in this context, but he was almost positive that there was no way that those two words could possibly be combined in a good way . “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he said, trying to use his best GM poker face.

        Suddenly, a lifetime of asking people to roll perception checks without making them get suspicious was coming in handy.

        Castrovel slowly turned her head to look at him. She looked furious - like all the irritation she had been feeling had a new target. Him . Tiny sparkles of lightning crackled from around her muzzle as she said, her voice as sweet as a summer day. “And why, human , is that?” she asked, and Merton’s throat felt dry and he thought: What would my girlfriend do?

         He GMed games for his friends. But he also GMed smaller, more intimate games with his girlfriend - using text messages and way more simulated fucking than his in face games. And one thing about Julia was that she had never played a character without maxing out two things: Charisma and Bluff. And...shapeshifting, if the system allowed for it. So, Merton thought of what Julia’s various characters might do.

        And he grinned.

“The human race doesn’t take well to being enslaved when other humans are doing it. People will leap to their deaths to escape slave ships, and murder their masters at the first easy chance they got...” He shrugged. “And so, humanity has created a defense against enslavement that will defeat any attempt that your Empire can throw at it.”

Castrovel snorted. “As if...”

        “It’s called...the Corbomite Defense Grid,” Merton said. “Run a scan of the planet for caches of, uh, tritium. Uranium. Plutonium.”

                Castrovel rolled her eyes. “Ship-soul, attend! Scan the planet for the elements he mentioned.”

        Less than a second later, a cool, male voice spoke: “Fourteen thousand nine hundred and sixty eight, spread primarily the northern latitudes of the two major landmasses. They appear to be affixed in long range guided missiles – primitive, but capable of launching into orbit. I believe they are weapons of mass destruction – comparable to primitive fission weapons used by stellar pirates and Atomorcs.”

        “That won’t stop a FTE fleet!” Castrovel sniffed. “Hell, that won’t even stop this ship!”

                “Exactly,” Merton said, his hands behind his back so she couldn’t see them shaking. “It’s not for you. It’s for us . That’s how seriously we take slavery. If any other country invades, they will be eradicated. And if anyone like you invades, we immolate the whole planet.”

        Castrovel narrowed her eyes, looking right at him. Merton crossed his arms over his chest and gave her his best, biggest shit eating grin. “So. Go ahead. Try us. Then go and explain to Daddy about how you got an entire life bearing planet full of viable thralls set on fire .”

Castrovel’s hands clenched. Lightning crackled along her body, smoke rising in its wake. Then, with a snarl, she tossed her head. “Fine! Thuwit, toss him in the brig!”

        “Wait!” Merton said, hope blooming in his breast. So far. So good. He just needed to push it just a little bit farther. He held up his hands, placatingly.  “I promise, I won’t talk if you send me home. I mean, I have family! Friends! Girlfriend!” He grinned, shakily. “I have every reason to keep the secret too, I don’t want the Earth to be thralled. Or destroyed.”

        “Oh, right. I wouldn’t want to separate my husband  from his family,” Castrovel snarled, her voice still furious. “Grab them too and throw them  in the brig and set course for the sector capital!”

                Merton opened his mouth to speak – but then the purple skinned girl was flipping switches.

        “Wait, wait, wait!” Merton’s hands were now waving above his head, desperately.

                A series of crackling lightning bolts slammed  into the platform behind him. When Merton spun around, he saw Trevor, Carlos, Lisa, his mom, his dad, a middle aged black man that he had never met in his life, and a bright orange house cat, all of them looking rather shocked. Trevor and Carlos both held huge buckets of popcorn. Mom was in her nightgown and was holding a small cup of bourbon. Dad was holding a Wii remote and was in workout clothes. The middle aged black man was dressed in a white T-shirt and nothing else. He protected his modesty by holding a laptop over his junk.

        The deck of the ship shuddered under Merton’s feet…

        And he realized they were underway.

        Rocketing away from Earth and their lives.

        And it was all his fault.

***

                The Talon 9 emerged from subspace with a cascade of magical radiation that blew out behind the spindly engines like the bow-wave of an olden age sailing ship. The Talon 9  herself was a beauty: A twenty meter needle of hardened adamantite and bio-engineered dragonscale mixed with deep-space life forms. Void whale blubber, to soak up radiation and emit electronic shielding. The crystal foci of the great brane-brains of Thalax to provide the apertures for the magical weaponry. Fanes of spinward protomolecule wiring to soak up solar radiation for some extra power.

Mixed with the bio-engineering, though, was good old fashioned artifice. Four railguns were mounted along the entire spine in a series of canted tunnels that looked like the snout of a dragon, while nearly a hundred plasma torpedoes were tucked under each atmospheric wing, with backup magazines holding the planet-scouring vortex weaponry that made the ship a true terror.

        The ship, thanks to a linked demiplane, was a considerably larger inside than out. Relix took advantage of that size to stomp a great distance before arriving at the bridge. She threw herself into the command throne as several of the men-at-arms that had been hand picked by Gunner looked at her curiously. They were a motley collection of people that Gunner had snapped up from slave markets and arena halls and pain-palaces. Scarred, tough, and bizarrely loyal, they normally struck Relix as being painfully boring.

        But now?

        Now, she was just glad to see sub-races that did what she expected: Bow their heads and go back to their consoles. Oh, come on,   a part of her muttered. You’re just mad he  made things complicated. It’s not like you’d actually have thralled the planet, and we both know it.

        “Forward view!” she snarled.

        “I take it the proposal went well?” Gunner asked as he ambled up behind her. His hands were clasped behind his back, his insectoid legs thumping on the deck heavily.

                “Fantastic. My husband’s family is moving into their quarters...” Relix snarled as the front of the curved bridge shimmered, flowed, and became a visualization of space ahead of them. The sector capital was built atop an immense red star called the Redshaka, suspended on a hover platform protected by immense shields to keep the fierce corona from burning the palace to ash, using energy harvested from the sun itself. Despite being old and cranky, Redshaka had more than enough solar energy to power the anti-gravity engines and the shields and everything in the palace itself. That just pissed Relix off even more. It was all so showy . It infuriated Relix. Then her brow furrowed. “What are those?”

        “They appear to be cutter-craft, flying House Thresh banners,” the man-at-arms in the sensors seat said, turning her head to look at her. “Ma’am, they’re opening lascoms.”

                Relix leaned her chin against her knuckles, cocking her head to look at the approaching cutter-craft. Each one was basically on par with her ship, though they had less luxuries. Sub-races didn’t need demiplanes and servants to man their deadly little ships. That, unfortunately, meant that if those cutters took down the Talon 9 , they’d kill hundreds of her servants.

        While sub-races were supposed to be expendable, Relix had been taught to not do so unless one had too. And besides…

                She had just gotten all her stuff settled properly. That was the only reason why she was concerned. She didn’t care about any of her servants, and anyone who claimed such in the gossip circles was decidedly mistaken. Relix lashed her tail, grinding her teeth together at the thought that her secret, er, that someone might make that up. That entirely untrue fact up. Ugh. Draconinc politics. This was why she cruised around in this backwards part of the FTE. She realized that her moodiness did not, in fact, translate itself into orders and that her servants were looking at her. She leaned back in her chair, then waved her hand.

        “Put them on,” she said, sighing. “It won’t come to violence. Probably.” Then, quieter, she muttered. “I wouldn’t have even thralled the stupid planet…”

                “Thresh are reds,” Gunner muttered. “And I’ve never met a red that doesn’t make it about violence eventually.” Then, quieter still, he murmured. “Shall I tell that to your husband?”

                Relix’s face heated.

        The forward screen rippled again. The image that filled it doused Relix with cold ice - fear washing away her embarrassment. Which meant it was not all bad.

                Sitting in one of those cutter-crafts, wearing obsidian power armor crafted by dwarves and covered with the trophies of his two thousand and two hundred and twenty two kills, was Bex Thresh, the Red Baron of the Singularity Principality. He was everything a red dragon was supposed to be: Broad shouldered and as muscled as an exceptionally deadly barn, his snout bristled with horns and smoldered with smoke. But the worst thing?

        He was smiling.

        Like he was happy to see her.

        “Princess!” he boomed.

        “Baron,” she said.

        “I hear that your hand remains unclaimed,” Baron Bex Thresh said, leaning slowly forward, resting his muzzle on his knuckles, his elbows cocked against the skull-covered armrests of his command chair. The orcs that he used as a bridge crew stood at attention behind him. “I have come to take it.”

                “My hand?”

        “With a sword. If I must.” He grinned.

        Did he think that was flirting ? Wait, no. Dismemberment was how reds flirted. He wasn’t joking. Shit. She beamed at him, putting a falsely sympathetic note in her voice. “Oh, no, I’m sorry. Didn’t you hear? I’ve been swept off my feet.”

        Baron Bex narrowed his red eyes. “Were you?”

        “By a noble from a sub-race,” she said. “Yes, he’s mage-blind, but he’s so intelligent. So charming. So...amazingly, incredibly hung . Like...an uberhorse . ” She grinned, cocking her head slightly. “Why, he and his family are moving in – the marriage is going to be held in just a week or two, once things are finalized.”

        Baron Bex’s eyes narrowed further. “Is it now?”

        “Yes!” Relix nodded.

        “And where is this fiance?” Bex snarled.

        “He’s settling in!” Relix said, quickly.

        “Then...I invite him. And you. To dine. With me. At our estates in the palace-city on Redshaka.” Bex’s eyes gleamed and he seemed to think that he had set out the perfect trap. Either Relix’s husband wasn’t real and she was easily claimed, or he was, and Bex could brain him.

        Relix frowned, slightly.

        And then beamed.

        “We’ll be there tonight!”

***

        “Well, it could be worse.”

        “How?”

        Lisa looked at Merton as he stood in the center of the palatial estates that the servants of Princess Castrovel had led him and his family and his friends too. Lisa was about five foot nothing of redheaded fury – her eyes crackled, her hands were clenched, and her jaw was taut enough to slice through glass. Merton couldn’t blame her. Lisa was married. And after the last time he had mentioned a significant other had gotten his entire family and group of friends kidnapped, he didn’t want to get Lisa’s wife yanked into this ship too.

Lisa, seeing his lack of response, hung her head forward and started to rub her hands through her hair.

        The rest of the group was also trying to adapt. Mom and Dad were sitting with the black man, who had gotten a blanket to wrap around his hips from one of the beds. Trevor and Carlos – both of them bachelors with shitty jobs and worse families meant that they were taking this better than the others. But, as Merton thought about it, he remembered that Carlos did have a favorite cousin, and Trevor loved his grandma to pieces. But neither were thinking about that now. They were just admiring the room they were in.

                To be fair.

        It was a really fucking nice room. It looked like a palace garden, with wide walls and a curved ceiling covered with a gleaming mural of the galaxy. Ferns in purple and green and blue grew from pots of earth, while a fountain sat plonk in the middle of the chamber, burbling and giggling happily as water splashed into the fountain. Large cushions were strewn about for place to sit, and there were several doors that led to other chambers. Investigating those had revealed palatial bedrooms and vast bathing chambers and more.

                “We could be on fire!” Merton said, at last.

        The orange cat rubbed against his ankles. Merton leaned down and petted it. The cat seemed to take this well.

        The black man stood, sighing. “I gotta get this out of the way,” he said, his voice soft and slightly high pitched. Mom and Dad watched him, looking concerned, as he walked towards Merton. Merton blinked.

                “Uh, yeah, I have no idea why you’re here-” Merton started.

        “I-I’m Julia,” he said. “Er. Jules. I mean.”

        Merton blinked.

        And as his brain tried to process that – with a roaring, snarling, screaming sound in his ears, with his heart hammering a thousand miles an hour – the door to the estates opened and the bald elf walked into the room, flanked by two servants heaped with cloth and leather and strips of metal. The bald elf clapped his hands.

                “Sir Merton! Your fiancee wishes your presence and has sent me to ensure you are presentable.”

        Merton put aside the roaring in his ears and swung around to face the elf. He scowled, walking forward. “For what ?” he asked.

                The elf gulped. “A-A-A dinner party!”

        He looked nervous. Merton felt too...too...everything. It was too much. The guilt. The anger. The confusion. The shock. All of it made him snap . And so he growled. “Unless you want me to tell everyone at the dinner party that I’m some random yahoo and that this Princess is just using me to distract people from the fact her scaled butt is up for grabs, you’ll do me some favors. Got it!?” He glared at the elf, who looked stunned and deeply nervous.

                The elf gulped. “Y-You do know that admitting that will kill you-”

                “Oh yeah, but it’ll ruin her too,” Merton said, letting what he was feeling flash across his face. “So, you going to do what I ask, or are you going to have to find a new fiance?”

        The bald elf’s face was breaking out in a fierce sweat. He reached up, daubing at his forehead with a handkerchief. His blue stained lips opened, then closed, and finally, he stammered. “F-Fine! What is it?”

                “You have magic?” Merton asked.

        “Yes,” the bald elf looked confused.

        “Can you change people’s bodies?” Merton asked. “Augmentations, shapeshifting, healing?”

                “...yes?” the bald elf looked even more confused.

        “Then make that man,” Merton said, swinging his finger back to the terrified and near-to-tears black man - the man who, in truth, was his girlfriend Julia - standing in the center of the room. “Into a beautiful woman!”

                “What?” the black man asked.

        “What?” the bald elf asked.

        “Kinky!” Carlos called out from the sidelines.

        “I-I-I-” the bald elf stammered. Merton locked his eyes on his. The bald elf gulped, then asked: “W-What kind of woman?”

                “Um, tiny?” The black man – no, Merton thought, Julia, the woman you love –  said. “Asian? Petite? Oh! Blue hair! And, um, can I be hairless? Like, down there?” He gestured vaguely at the floor.

        “Kiiiiiinky!” Carlos called out from the sidelines.

        “Dude!” Merton spun to face Carlos.

        “What?” Carlos asked. “Don’t kinkshame yourself!”

        Merton made a face that Carlos often provoked in him: A mixture between confused, baffled, weirded out, shocked and slightly impressed. He shook his head slowly and turned to the bald elf. “Can you handle that?”

                “It’ll be ex-” the bald elf gulped at Merton’s expression. “Yes! Easily! Come along, uh, my soon to be lady!” He gestured to Julia. Julia walked with him, looking like he – well, she – could hardly believe what was happening.

        Lisa, who had been watching all of this, looked at Merton. She smiled. “I’m proud of you, McFly.”

                “Thanks,” Merton said. His name, shortened, did not in fact sound like Marty. That didn’t stop the nickname. Lisa punched his shoulder and walked off to explore her part of the chambers. As she left, Merton took the time to walk over to his Mom and Dad. Both of them were ducking their heads together and murmuring to one another. Merton slowed and perked his ears.

        “It can’t be a starship that uses any propulsion we know,” Mom was saying, her voice hushed. “Do you feel any acceleration?”

                “No...” Dad tugged at his mustache. “But that doesn’t mean much. A single G of acceleration would be indistinguishable from natural gravity. Or artificial gravity.” He looked around. “It can’t be centrifugal, we’d have noticed some kind of Coriolis effects.”

        “Would we?” Mom asked.

        “In the inner ear, if it was a small cylinder or arm.” Dad nodded. “In liquid, if we were in a larger one.”

                “We haven’t tested that...” Mom rubbed her chin. “The most likely explanation is that it’s from acceleration. Which means either this vehicle is using non-standard methods of generating thrust, or the propellent tanks are huge . We’ve been accelerating ever since we woke up. How fast do you think that puts us?”

        Dad tugged at his mustache again. “Eh. We can round that to ten kilometers per second squared.” He cocked his head. “How long have we been here?”

                Mom put her fingers to her wrist, frowning. “Not sure...”

        Merton shook his head slowly. This was what he got for having nerdy parents. It did explain him. The nerdy apple did not fall far from the nerdy tree. Though his parents were professional nerds. They had been nerds for their country. Dad, then, said something that made Merton almost collapse.

        “I guess this means the Imperials have decided to stop keeping their hands off,” he said, sighing quietly. “I told them. I told them you can’t have a truce with dragons.

        “The fuck!?” Merton exclaimed.

        “Merton!” Mom said, looking at him. “Language!”

        “Sorry, Mom,” Merton said, glaring at her father. “The fucking fuck!? You fucking knew about fucking space fucking dragons?”

                Dad chuckled, even as Mom looked more and more sour at every single F-bomb. “Yeah, sorry kid. I told you that if I told you what I did for a day job, I’d have to kill you,” he said, his voice cheery. “Now, though, you should get ready for that dinner.”

        “I thought you were kidding !” Merton put his hands over his face.

        Dad stood up, his hands sliding into his pockets. “All right. A full explanation can come after we’re not all at risk of being killed. But the short story is Earth’s been visited by dragon scout ships twice. The first in the 40s led to the dragons nabbing heavily wounded veterans from hospitals across the world for surgical research. We’re mage blind – meaning we can’t cast magic – so that means we don’t get a bunch of… uh, rights  in the Five Talon Empire.”

                “Uh-huh,” Merton whispered. And he was going to get married to that ? He was starting to think being on fire was an improvement.

        “But during the 50s, the Soviets were testing tactical thermonuclear weapons,” Dad said, like that was a thing that people just talked about every day as if it was utterly normal. “To fry NATO armies. And they tested their tactical nuke anti-air missile during the next dragon scout ship run and managed to tag the bugger.”

                “The Russians shot down a dragon with a nuke ?”

        “Yeah,” Dad said, laughing. “Sucks, doesn’t it? Almost started an interplanetary war.”

                Merton put his hands over his face and tried to stop hyperventilating.

        “Fortunately for all of us, the dragon ship took its time crashing, with its stealth systems online for most of the way and it landed in Roswell, New Mexico,” he said. “Cause I doubt Stalin would have been particularly nice to a dragon crew, half dead from radiation burns and out of mana, you can believe me.”

        “And here I thought the Cuban missile crisis was the worst thing from the Cold War,” Merton whispered.

                Dad pffft’d through his mustache. “Please! It was the Norwegian Rocket Incident.”

        “Honey,” Mom broke in. “That was in the 90s, after the Cold War.”

        Dad, as befitting his years in the defense department and military space programs, snorted loudly.

        Merton dragged his hands along his face, tugging his cheeks back into a long, almost exaggerated expression. “Let me get this straight,” he whispered. “There are space dragons, who run a space dragon empire, and one of their scout ships were shot down by a soviet tactical nuclear weapon in 1947, and that scout ship crashed in Roswell, and we used that to basically tell the dragons to fuck off?”

                “Basically,” Dad said. “But the problem is, that hostage exchange deal was struck with the Prismatic Emperor, Dogan Castrovel. And Dogan, like most Emperors, would hate to admit that he gave away anything to anyone. So, Earth got quietly yanked from their history files, but every fleet nearby was given orders to not bother us. And that, son...” He clapped his hand to Merton’s shoulder. “Is why you do not fuck with Harry Truman.”

        The door opened.

        The bald elf had returned.

        “Sir,” he said, his voice severe. “Your, ah, prime concubine is in the transformation chambers and shall be transformed within the hour. Please. Come with me. We must get you dressed . ”

                Merton sighed, nodded, and turned to go with the bald elf.

        It was time to get ready for a dinner date. A banquet with a dragon.

        He was halfway down the corridor before he did a perfect double take and said: “My prime what !?”

Chapter Two: Roll that Performance Check

        Merton felt like he was wearing the most heavily armed wedding cake in the universe. His arms were thrust outwards and his legs were spread, and he simply stood perfectly still as intersecting layers of highly complex nanomachines and magical circuitry flowed around his limbs like thick, taffy esque water. He looked down at the billowy, white material, then over at the bald elf and the four armed scantily clad purple dominatrix slash science person who seemed to handle all the fancy gizmos on this spaceship.

        To think today had started off so normal . He had been going about his business, firmly sure that dragons and space empires were the realm of fiction. Now, he was on a draconic spaceship, betrothed to a woman he had met twice, and being dressed for a banquet to snub one of her former suitors.

        And, from the specifications he had heard, for potential battle .

        Also said suitor was also a dragon.

        Also, so was his betrothed.

        “The smart clothing is tasting your soul,” the purple woman said. “Hold still, we don’t want it to get confused. Calibrating for a mage-blind is like calibrating for someone without skin. Or bones.”

        “How comforting,” Merton said, his voice tight. The orange tabby cat - seeming to care as much for draconic security as it did for human whims - pawed around near Merton’s feet. Merton would have petted it, but he dared not move. The cat seemed to recognize he was helpless and began to knead at his shin, the tiny prick prick prick of its claws sending shooting pain through Merton’s body.

        “Before the dinner begins,” the bald elf said.

        “Wait,” Merton said, his voice vice tight as he tried to distract himself. “What’s your name?”

        “Thuwit,” he said, lifting his chin and puffing up his somewhat flabby chest as if he was on parade. “Seneschal of House Castrovel, tutor to the Princess Relix, Master of Assassins.” He pulled some glowing blue liquid to his lips via a clear plastic vial and sucked it all down with clear relish. He shuddered, licked his lips, then continued: “Slave-trained and chem-gelded on the pits of Torel, I survived ten years in the Blood Pits, five years in the Red Scholarium, and two at court as adjunct to Lord Dagon of the Fifth Circle of the Obsidian Eye, who himself served the Prismatic Emperor himself.”

        Merton nodded. “Right, got it, Thufir.”

        “Thuwit!” Thuwit snapped.

        “That’s what I said. Thufir.” Merton grinned, his knees nearly collapsing with relief. The cat had gotten bored and fucked off.

        “Maybe I did pick an imbecile after all,” Thuwit muttered to the purple skinned woman.

        “You haven’t read Dune ?” Merton asked.

        A red warning light flashed on behind the purple skinned woman. She turned to face it, her lower arms tapping at control crystals. She looked back at Merton, her voice severe. “Please,” she said. “Refrain from humor.”

        “Does it screw with the smart clothes?” Merton asked.

        “Yes,” she said. “Due to being mage-blind, it may misconstrue humor as a request for immediate exsanguinatative relocation.” She looked severe.

        Merton coughed. “R-Right. So. Thuwit. My name is Merton Miles.”

        Thuwit waited a few beats. “And?”

        “That’s it,” Merton said. “Merton Miles. Oh! Sorry, Merton Briggs Miles. My middle name was chosen by rolling on a random name table in an old edition of the FASA Mechwarrior game.”

        “I said refrain from humor!” the purple skinned woman said, her voice shifting from serious to utterly dire.

        “I am!” Merton exclaimed.

        Thuwit rubbed a finger along his temple. He licked his silvered lips and started to pace backwards and forwards, turning on his heel every time he reached one of the curved walls of the room. Merton’s arms were starting to ache. The idea of lowering them felt decidedly suicidal. He gritted his teeth.

        “We need something more,” he said. “What accomplishments have you completed in your short, pitiful, mage blind life?”

        Merton racked his brain.

Once more, his girlfriend came to his rescue. Even if she was currently in a transformation chamber, completing what had been a long, long, long time coming. He smiled at Thuwit.

“Okay...” he said. “Where to start ... ”

***

        The doors to the banquet hall on The Rad Baron’s solar palace opened with a blare of fanfare, played with traditional red dragon pigheadedness. It was brash and overpowering and hammered into the ears like the lance of a lightspeed charger. Relix bore it with stoic disdain and wished she could get away with a bit of shape-shifting. But shifting your form, even minutely, was a great way to begin a quiet war of subtle murder attempts. In fact, it’d be less provoking to be super obvious in your shifting. A subtle shift could add some tiny poison glands to your fingertip, or a biological flechette channel into your arm. Big shifts, like from humanoid to fully draconic forms, were less quietly dangerous.

        But...still dangerous. Since in her full dragon form she was thirty feet long from nose to tail and breathed plasma hotter than the surface of the sun that filled the windows.

        Despite that the temptation to make her ears vanish was overpowering.

        At last, though, the trumpets faded and the hundred and twenty one banner bearers who held aloft the plumes and flags of the Singularity Principality – with its swirling accretion disk done in red dyed fabric and the blaze of hawking radiation done in colors most races couldn’t see, forming an eye slit like a dragon’s pupil in the heart of the symbolic black hole – stepped back with a rattle and crash of boots and smashing onyxwood flagpoles.

        This formed a straight avenue to The Red Baron’s table. He was seated there – as big as he could be while still remaining vaguely humanoid – and to his left sat his fifty six concubines, each one a different race, each one wearing a collar and absolutely nothing else. To his right were the few members of the House Thresh that lived on this backwater. There was Gimtesh Thresh, a half-dragon, half-elf who looked as if she ritually starved herself (in truth, her pinched expression was just a feature of a personality that could shatter entire planets.) And next to her was a large black egg with a bow-tie affixed gently onto the top.

        Ugh.

        She hated dining with babies . They were always so messy .

        Next to her, Merton had actually done a halfway respectable job in fancying himself up. He was dressed in proper smart clothes, which had been reformatted into a suit and tie that struck her as understated, but fashionable. The multicolored gemstones in the tie, the golden color of the smart-fibers, the rainbow cufflinks. All quite demure. She nodded subtly to herself, even as Merton adjusted his collar and muttered under his breath.

        “When do we enter?”

        “Once we’re announced, fiancee .” Relix slipped her arm through the crook of his arm and nestled close to him. He drew himself up and pressed against her and Relix found another thing to appreciate: He was warm . Humans were delightfully exothermic! Who knew? Well, humans must have, but who cared what they thought? They were mage-blind.

        “Announcing the glorious Princess Relix Castrovel of the Third Talon of the Spinward Front of the Chromatic Arm of the Galaxy, Mistress of Fifty Thousand Worlds, Protector of the Dragon Maw Nebula, and Scourge of Pirates,” a humanoid man with pale green skin, of a race Relix didn’t care to recall the name of, boomed out. He was reading from a gilded scroll, and looked rather at ease and then his brow furrowed as he found the scroll unfurled, and unfurled more, and finally, touched the ground at his feet. His reading went slower as he leaned his head forward. “And her husband to be...”

        Merton whispered something that sounded an awful lot like: Heeeere we go.

        “Merton the Merciless, Emperor of Mongo, Ruler of Moldavia, Scourge of Carpathia. Galor of Ghosts, Prophet to Goblins, Builder of Dungeons, Friend to Dragons and to Children. Savior of Kharak and Hiigara...” he paused. “Adjunct to the Lady of Pain, YISUN and Zardoz. Mechwarrior and Mechcommander, Chapter Master of the Salamanders and Rogue Trader of his Holy Majesty of Glorious Terra. Smiter of the Swarm, the Horde, the Undead Scourge of Azeroth...” He paused again. “Champion of Hadley’s Hope, CEO of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, and...” He had worked his way almost all the way down the scroll. “...and...Master...of Orion.”

        Silence filled the hall.

        The Red Baron slowly set down his goblet – he had taken a sip near the beginning of the announcement and had slowly stopped as the list went on and on and on and on. He stood, then laughed. “We have a world eater here! Come! Let me get an eye on you!”

        “Oh wonderful ,” Gimtesh muttered, her snide voice carrying all the way to Relix’s aching ears. “This dinner conversation is going to be fascinating .”

        They came to their seats and sat down. Merton’s brow furrowed as he looked at the egg with the bowtie. He looked at Relix, mouthing confusion at her. She shook her head subtly. Then the Red Baron clapped his hands and waiters swept forward. Soon, the table was cluttered with normal red cuisine. There was a whole wild boar, who was snuffling at the table settings, stepping past goblets, large furry tail flipping from side to side. Merton grabbed his goblet before it got knocked over, showing he knew proper red dragon table manners. Next to the boat were several toughs of elkerian mind-eels.

        The Baron grabbed one with a scaled fist, and the eel started biting impotently at his wrist. He popped it into his mouth and started to chew, the squealing of the eel filling the air as he looked right at Merton.

        Merton, to Relix’ shock, looked back with a kind of cool, casual expression.

        “So!” The Baron growled. “Who was your most difficult enemy to best in single combat, oh world eater.”

        “Sans,” Merton said. “Sans Skeleton.”

        “One of this Undead Horde?” The Baron narrowed his eyes.

        “A freelancer, actually,” Merton said, leaning back in his seat.

        “Uuuugh!” Gimtesh groaned, then breathed a gout of flames onto the boar. The boar cried out, then dropped to the tabletop, knocking a few goblets over, splashing wine onto empty chairs. She reached out and grabbed some still burning boar flesh in her clawed hand, then chomped down on it.

        “My sister lacks an appreciation for the martial arts,” the Baron said, sounding irritated.

        “Well, fortunately, my wife and I think as one,” Merton said, grinning at Relix.

        Relix looked at him. Her brow furrowed. And then she realized...that her husband was actually trying to be something more than just a false front. He was trying to actually be a partner. If she and he got along, the Baron would see no weakness. No place to slide himself into her life and swoop her into his own household. Her heart started to race as she grinned back. “Yesss,” she said. “Should we tell him about, ah, Mongo?”

        “Mongo!” Merton laughed. “Mongo, Mongo, Mongo!”

        “Mongo?” The Baron asked. His veneer of joviality was starting to wear thin. He had grabbed up three more mind-eels, and they were squealing and writhing and chomping at the air and his fingers.

        “It’s how we met,” Merton said. “I was leading a fleet of, oh, five gunships. They’re primitive next to your ships. Fusion torches, no shields, no adamantine armor, no sophisticated magitech other than a few simple light spells, you know.” He waved his hand. “But we were loaded for bear . X-Ray lasers, railguns, tac-nukes...”

        “Don’t forget your drakes,” Relix said, grinning.

        “How could I forget the drakes?” Merton said, taking her hand, then kissing her knuckles. “I used to think they were the most beautiful draconic being in the galaxy...until I met you.”

        Relix flushed . Her hearts started to thump thump faster and faster. Her nipples tingled and she looked aside, grinning despite herself. Merton laughed and kissed her knuckles again. His warm, warm, warm lips were so soft against her scales. Her tail coiled around his ankle under the table – even as Merton looked back at the Baron. “We were in trouble. Mongo was defended by this tin-pot dictator, Ming, and while I had the orbital advantage, they had better heat sinks, since they could tap into the methane lakes. So, I had lost two of my ships when suddenly, this beauty appears...”

        “Youuuu!” Relix squealed.

        “Oh, honey, I meant the Talon-9 ,” Merton said, grinning.

        Relix slapped at his shoulder and Merton laughed.

        The Baron, meanwhile, had gone from pretend jovial, to forcing a smile, to literally crushing his goblet between his fingers while smoke roiled from his snout. He was still sitting there and fuming as Merton wrapped his rather colorful tale of impaling Ming, the former Emperor of Mongo, through the chest with the nose cone of his last remaining sublight fighter. “And, well, I don’t want to brag, but let’s just say that Ming’s daughter cried out a lot that night...but there weren’t many tears ,” Merton said, winking at the Baron.

        Relix chortled, her tail having gone from squeezing Merton’s ankle to wrapping entirely around his calf. Her hand had dropped to caress his thigh. She looked at him and wondered: Had she noticed how handsome he looked? Yes, he had no scales, but at least he wasn’t hairy . Beyond that tuft on his head, but it was quite well managed. And his eyes were the most remarkable shade of chocolate brown. She cocked her head, barely listening as he described the reason why he was called the Galor of Ghosts.

         Dear gods, his eyes are beautiful, she thought. Not just remarkable, not just arresting. They’re honestly beautiful .

        Then Relix sat up, her eyes widening.

        “And then I said: Yes, sir, this man indeed has no genitalia,” Merton said, grinning.

        The Baron snorted, despite himself, while his half-sister threw her head back and let out the most horrifying series of harpy laughs that Relix had ever heard. The egg wobbled from side to side, almost falling off the table with mirth. As the mirth faded, Relix tried to cover her own reaction by picking up a goblet of blood wine and drinking it down. Her throat bobbed – and she missed the warning sign until it was far, far too late.

        “You do tell many good yarns,” the Baron said, his tones light. Airy, even. “But I wonder, how do you handle when facing something more than local brigands and sub-magic pirates?”

        Relix choked on her bloodwine. She coughed, trying to speak, but Merton – too confident by half – said: “I expect I can handle myself.”

        “Shall we see that?” Baron asked. “How do you feel about a gentleman’s wager.”

        “Honey,” Relix said, putting her hand on Merton’s shoulder. Her claws pricked his skin through his smart clothes, trying to get his attention.

        “This is a talk between males, Princess,” the Baron growled, his own claws lifted, his fingers spread.

        Merton’s poker face remained game. He picked up his glass, tipped it back, then set it down. Relix noticed, then, that despite having been doing that the whole meal, the cup had never been even close to empty. Let alone refilled. Merton was picking his battles – blood wine was strong, even for dragons. “What would the terms of the wager be?”

        “Simple,” the Baron said, his voice growing flat. “If you don’t win, I rip your throat out, take your woman, your holdings, your house and your planet.”

        “Is that all?” Merton asked, his dryness only slightly marred by a tiny hint of fear.

        The Baron grinned, wickedly. “If you win...”

        “I get him,” Merton said, nodding to the egg.

        The Baron looked deeply confused. And for just a moment, Relix swore that she saw a flicker of fear in those golden eyes. Which was absurd. Reds didn’t have familial bonds, beyond what could be extorted or manipulated.  “You...want my cousin?” Listening to the confusion in his voice, Relix was assured that what she had seen hadn’t been fear. Just…

        Understandable bafflement.

        “I’m magnanimous,” Merton said, shrugging.

        “Yay!” A muffled voice came from within the egg.

        “Shush, Brash!” Gimtesh hissed.

        “So, are we agreed?” Bex asked. Out of the corner of her eye, Relix could see Merton considering. Strangely, his expression was more concerned as he looked at the egg - which was absurd. It was an egg , not something fragile or helpless. She’d have to talk to him about that later. But, for now, she needed to make sure that he didn’t make this any worse than it already was.

        She leaned her nose close to Merton’s ear, risking a quiet whisper. “Honey, you have to accept. The Baron’s challenged your honor and pride. Pulling back now means that the Baron will think you’re weak and we’ll be up to our snouts in assassins within the day.” Her hand caressed his thigh, as if this was a more sensual caress than a strategic one.

        Merton’s expression shifted into a fierce grin, as if the Baron had just slipped into his trap. “As the challenged party, I chose contests, yes?”

        The Baron shrugged. “Is that the mode among your kind? Very well.”

        Relix felt her belly turn to ice. Bex Thresh might be a braggart and a showboating bully, but he wasn’t the Baron of the Singularity Principalities for nothing. He had been using complex sublight strategic and tactical maneuvers since before he had cleaned off his eggshell. The many black holes of the Principalities meant a great deal of gravitational flux, as well as resource rich accretion disks full of Hawking Pirates and nihilists. He had been dodging railguns, plasma torpedoes, suicide assassin squads and death drones since before he had first gone into heat. Any avenue of conflict, from the strategic to the tactical to the physical…

        All led to disaster.

        “I challenge you to a game of my people – one that reflects the high regard we have for dragons, both Prismatic and Chromatic,” Merton said, then thrust his finger at the Baron. “I challenge you, Baron Bex Thresh of the Singularity Principalities...to DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS !”

        The Red Baron leaned back in his seat. Hardened metal groaned and wood creaked. His scaled hand cupped his narrow snout and smoke roiled from his nostrils. “Is it some kind of strategy game?” he asked, curiously. “Like Gateway?”

        “Uh, kind of,” Merton said, nodding.

         Oh no, no, no, no! Relix thought. Oh, my dear Merton, what have you done !?

        “I accept,” the Red Baron said, grinning broadly.

        Merton beamed.

        And Relix realized she had just called him ‘my dear’ in her head. Not as a falsehood, not as a lie, not as a manipulation. Very quietly, she whispered to herself. “ Drat .”

***

        Merton was feeling like he had been grabbed by a rather large, three headed dog and then wrung through a huge mess of nerd-mashing machinery. His head and shoulders were studded with knots of tension, while his lower back twinged as if he had spent his whole day lifting boxes at the box factory. And the fact that he was still half certain that he wouldn’t live to get out of these smart-clothes before they decided to relocate his blood was just a delicious, terrifying cherry on the top of the longest, most unpleasant dinner conversation he had ever been a part of.

        For one thing, Relix had been really into her act. That was technically a good thing, but it was kind of hard to think of bullshit and spin it into a convincing story when huge boobs were being mashed against your face every other word. Not that Relix was exceptionally stacked, but Merton was judging based off a comparison of the other, vast array of titties that had been mashed into his face.

        I.E, zero. Anything was bigger than zero.

        But there had also been the living food, the fact that the person across the table had been a feudal era psychopath, and the fact that Merton had gotten a good look out the window. The whole freaking palace had been built onto the photosphere of a fucking sun. The entire dinner had been his brain screaming at him about all the manifold ways that they were going to die. But now? Now they were back on the Talon-9 and Merton could-

        “What. Were. You. Thinking !?”

        Relix’s hands grabbed onto his shoulders and she started to shake him. She was roughly the same height as he was, but her muscles were corded with enough strength that Merton was positive he’d get whiplash if she kept that up. But in the moment between the shaking starting and Merton reacting to it, he had the most vivid flashback in his life. It was to him, seated at the table, looking at that egg that Bex had brought out to show off.

That innocent little egg. Holding an innocent little dragon - ready to hatch and be raised by that asshole . Sitting there, looking at the egg, there had been literally nothing that Merton could have wanted more than to save that kid.

There were enough abused kids out there. He was going to go to hell before he let there be another.

Then time snapped back to full speed and Merton felt his head jerking back and forth as he was shook and shook and shook.  He lifted his arms, crying out.

        “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!”

        Relix let him go, panting, her cheeks flushed. Her scales were a glittering silver, so that meant that her blush showed up as a warm blueness that spread along her cheeks. But as he watched, he saw the color shift to red, her frilly hair-feathers lifting up as she made herself look bigger. She stabbed her finger at his chest. This was even scarier than it would have been normally, since her finger came to a wicked, bladed claw-tip.

        “I told you! I told you that he was a tactical and strategic genius! You could have challenged him to Egg, Talon, Tail! Or dice! Something where you’d at least have a chance of winning!”

        “Yeah, like he’d have- wait, Egg, Talon, Tail?” Merton asked, making the mental cultural translation fairly easily. He wondered which beat which. “He’d have respected me if I tried that?”

        “Well. No , but...” Relix’s tail lashed.

        This marital spat was interrupted then by the arrival of Thuwit and a blur of blue hair and nubile flesh. Merton staggered and thumped to the ground as he was hugged so tightly that his clothes hardened and deployed some ablative layers to prevent any danger from energy weapons. The girl who had tackled him looked exactly like how he expected her too. She was slender, with a smallish chest, and a face that hovered somewhere between pixie, elf, and Asian. Her hair was blue and tied back into a pair of long, winding braids that reached down almost to her tiny rump. She was dressed in an incredibly loose T-shirt, which billowed out big enough to almost work as a mumu.

        She...was Julia.

        I.E, Jules, post magically induced gender transformation.

        “Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!” Julia squealed, between kisses and snuggles and licks.

        Merton laughed, winced slightly as the back of his head started to grumble about being mashed into the floor, and patted her on the back. “Uh, it’s...” He squirmed as she licked his neck, then kissed his chin. “Anyone would do it. Cool. Yeah.”

        Julia squeaked as she was grabbed – literally by the scruff of her neck – and lifted off Merton. Relix held her aloft, her eyes narrowing as she eyed the slender, blue haired girl who looked nearly consumed by her T-shirt. The T-shirt, now that Merton could look at it without being distracted by being tackled and licked and thanked profusely, was the same T-shirt that Julia had been wearing when she was Jules. Hence why it was huge on her now.

        “Who is this?” Relix asked, narrowing her eyes as she sniffed at Julia.

        “Uh...” Julia grinned weakly. “I’m...his concubine?”

        “Oh!” Relix looked relieved. “I didn’t realize you’d be biosculpting your household.” She dropped Julie back onto Merton’s lap, making Merton grunt with the impact. Julia might no longer be a two hundred pound black man, but she wasn’t exactly light as a feather.

        “She’s not my-” Merton looked at Julia, then up at Relix. “She’s not my concubine!” He started to stand, trying to keep an arm around Julia at the same time. This ended up being incredibly awkward and nearly finished with both of them faceplanted on the ground. Relix watched the maneuver with a faintly confused expression on her face.

        “And yet, when you said you wanted to bring your concubine and your family and your friends,” Relix said. “And I had my High Magos pluck all of them via a soul-scan of your desires. This former male was one of them.”

        “I was never male,” Julia said, snapping a finger dismissively. “I was just twenty, maybe, fifteen percent less cute.” She giggled and spun on her toe. “Merton, I can dance now! My bum knee’s gone! I feel like I’m fifte-” She coughed. “Er, uh, eighteen again!” She looked left and right, suspiciously. “Anyone who says otherwise is a fucking cop .”

        Merton blinked slightly.

        Relix waved her hand. “Never fear. It is normal for people to have concubines. Why, I had twelve rather strapping orcs until recently,” she said, turning away from him, her tail lashing from side to side as she spoke.

        “What happened to them?” Julia asked, her brow furrowing.

        “Oh, they died,” Relix said, sounding distracted. “I need to make some arrangements.”

        And with that, she was off.

        “Did she mean to imply she killed them, or is she just really good at sounding evil by accident?” Julia asked.

        Merton sagged against the wall. “Honestly, at this point, either answer wouldn’t shock me.” He closed his eyes, groaning. “What the fuck else can go weird today?” He sighed again – then smiled as Julia nuzzled against him, hugging and licking him again.

        Okay. Maybe he could handle this.

***

        “You idiot !” Gimtesh snarled at Bex as the immense red dragon coiled on his pile of golden coins. Bex had, after the dinner party, murdered several of his more annoying house slaves to try and take the edge off his temper. It hadn’t worked. And so, now, he was sitting on a pile of gold, in his largest, most draconic form possible, and was sulking. Well. Gimtesh wasn’t about to let him just sulk . She stood before him, her hands on her hips, her eyes flashing as she continued her invective. “What were you thinking ?”

        “I was thinking that I was dealing with a mage-blind backwoods fool,” Bex snarled, his voice a bass rumble that buzzed through the entire room – it even set the coins to rattling. “And your intelligence operatives said that he would know nothing . And yet, when faced with a challenge, he singled out the only thing that could reveal the plot and have us all up before the Prismatic Thrones on charges of treason . I couldn’t say anything about lest I give a hint that that damn Thuwit might use to have us impaled for !”

        His voice had lifted to a roar then. His body started to move upwards. When a dragon – thirty foot from nose to tail – stood, it was a ponderous thing. Coins cascaded from his back and pattered between his claws like rain. His tail swept to the left and sent more coins scattering across the vast chamber’s floor. His eyes – each nearly as big as Gimtesh’s humanoid form – narrowed as he swung his head to the side, bringing his teeth and snout in-line with Gimtesh. It was meant to be intimidating.

        It was intimidating. Gimtesh forced herself to not gulp.

        “And I think that the old adage of the Black Dragons remains true: Garbage In. Garbage Out . I cannot spin victory out of lies and mud and dung and that was what your spy in the Castrovel household fed me...” Bex growled. “A general needs good information. And if you cannot provide good information, then why shouldn’t I…” his mouth opened. His teeth were very long.

        And very sharp.

        Gimtesh lifted her hands. “Well. Then. I suppose, since you cannot withdraw the egg...then you must simply win.”

        “But I don’t wanna be withdrawn!”

        The plaintive, youthful voice came from the egg itself. It had been wheeled into the room, to rest near the immense magical-focusing apertures that it required to maintain its special properties. Those apertures were normally hidden. Any dragon, any magos, who saw them would start to put the puzzle pieces together and start asking questions. Questions the Thresh household needed to keep buried, as deep as a voidsman corpse in a black hole.

        “ SILENCE !” Bex roared at the egg. A quiet whimper came from within the egg, which shivered and started to roll slightly away from the immense red. Bex swung his head back to face Gimtesh. “I shall win at this Dungeons and Dragons game. I will rip that meddling human’s throat out...” he looked at the egg. “And our little egg will hatch when I say it will...”

        The egg quivered in fear.

        Bex grinned. “And when it does, I shall be the one to take the throne.”

***

        Merton rubbed his temples as Lisa, Carlos, Trevor, and his parents all looked at him. Lisa looked pissed. Carlos looked scared. Trevor looked argumentative. Mom and Dad both looked genuinely concerned. He’d be watching Julia, but she felt like she’d need a crowbar to get her off his back, where she was cuddling against him. And since being held by her felt like the only good thing going for him right now, Merton was okay with this.

        “Let me get this straight,” Mom said, slowly. “If you don’t win this game against this...dragon...we’re all at his mercy?”

        “Basically,” Merton said.

        “Did anyone tell him you can’t win D&D? It has no win condition!” Lisa exclaimed.

        “Oh, that’s very clever!” Dad said, chuckling.

        “No it’s not!” Lisa snarled. “Listen, this guy sounds like an authoritarian dickhead. Do you know what authoritarian dickheads don’t do? Follow the letter of the law when a wily trickster tricks them. No! That’s when the rectal feeding tubes and rubber truncheons come out!”

        “I know, Lisa,” Merton said, rubbing his temples harder. “That’s why we’re not going to play D&D.”

        “What are you going to play, Apocalypse World?” Trevor asked, his voice snide. “Oh! I know! Traveller! Get him killed during chargen, that’ll work.”

        Carlos snickered. “Okay, I know you’re just joking, Trevor, but I am totally down for AW. Or Monsterhearts. Or Broken World! Or Spirit of 77!”

        “Those are all the same fucking game !” Trevor’s voice nearly became a shriek at the last word.

        Merton leaned back into Julia. She nuzzled his neck and whispered in his ear. “I give you permission to take credit for my idea.” She sounded amused. Her teeth gently nipped at his earlobe and Merton felt the many, complicated, confusing feelings that Julia kicked off in him roil around. On the one hand, he loved her. He had loved her since they had met online. But on the other hand, he wasn’t sure how to take the fact that, even after almost two years, she hadn’t trusted him enough to tell him that she was trans.

        “I’m going to send him 4 th  edition,” Merton said.

        “Are you insane ?” Lisa said. “4 th  edition is like playing with fucking kid gloves! Babies can run in 4E and not get killed! Your Mom  could play 4E and I once saw her lose a game of Life !”

        Mom sniffed, looking somewhat insulted.

        Merton grinned, slowly as he sprawled back into the comfortableness that was a snuggle from his girlfriend. “I never said it was 4 th  edition D&D,” he said. “I’m going to send him the PDFs for the 4 th  edition of Hackmaster .”

        Dead silence from his nerd friends. Pure confusion from his parents. And the tabby cat that had been ported up with them walked over to start nosing at his thigh, clearly wanting some kind of pets or treats or tummy rubs. Merton picked the cat up and started to pet his belly.

        “That’s the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard,” Trevor said.

        “Merton, you’re a genius,” Lisa said.

        “Let's meet halfway,” Carlos suggested, his finger thrust into the air. “Idiot savant!”

        Merton lifted his hand, ticking the points off on the fingers. “Firstly, Hackmaster was written as a joke about how killer game-masters see the players as the enemy. It even explicitly makes fun of other game systems saying that roleplaying games aren’t competitive. It states that, to win, players get loads of gold and level up, while the GM wins by killing them. Secondly, Hackmaster is hugely complicated and written in the most obtuse manner possible – again, as a joke . It’ll take Bex the Bastard, what, two weeks just to get it translated, and a week after that to learn it, and a day to make a character. Thirdly, I can run it perfectly fairly and still end up killing his character with a goblin carrying a rusty pitchfork.”

        Lisa bit her lip.

        “Okay, I’ve never played Hackmaster,” Carlos said. “Why is it so complicated?”

        “The roll to determine how effective a critical hit is is an exploding one-dee-eight plus to hit armor class fifteen times negative one plus your base attack bonus plus the enemy AC, cross referenced on one of three one to ten thousand result tables,” Julia said, casually. “And don’t even get me started on Charlatans.”

        “More like Best-a-tans,” Merton murmured, holding out his hand for a high five.

        “Damn straight.” Julia slapped his palm.

        Lisa rubbed her hands against her face, blowing out a slow sigh. “Hell of a gamble you’re running, Miles.”

        Merton sighed. “It’s either that or try and learn null-gravity fencing in a week and then beat a guy who can bend steel girders with his bare hands,” he said, sitting up slightly.

        Carlos nodded.

        “Trevor? What do you think of my plan?” Merton asked, looking at his third friend. Trevor was looking down at his hands. Then, slowly, he sighed.

        “Well,” he said. “It could be worse. You could be trying Starfinder.”

        “Oh come on!” Carlos exclaimed. “It’s not that bad, you sourpuss!”

        Trevor looked mulish and stubborn. But Carlos was ready to have none of it: “Its got magic, its got spaceships, its got a cool ass setting, its got sexy bug ladies, what more do you fucking want, you goddamn un-fun having realism stickler douche canoe.”

        The door to their palatial chambers opened before the debate could get into full swing and Thuwit entered, flanked by two heavily armed and armored humanoids. Their races were concealed by face covering helmets, and they had heavy swords and rifles and pistols and knives and other tools of destruction strapped everywhere on their bodies. Behind them was yet another figure. This one was red robed, with a conical hood that concealed most of his face, save for the insectoid mandibles that thrust from underneath the cowl. His eyes were compounded and bulged out past the eye-holes on the cone-hood. He wore a large, hissing backpack, with tubes running into his arms and wrists, which themselves were covered with thick leather and metal armor.

        In short, he looked like a space KKK bug-man.

        “Presenting Xa’cock, the seneschal to House Thresh,” Thuwit said. “Here to take the rules and regulations for the Dungeons and the Dragons.”

        “Of course,” Merton said, standing up. He snapped his fingers. Julia, playing the part of good concubine, hurried over and grabbed his laptop from his backpack, which had been yoinked to space with the rest of him. He held the laptop aloft. “Do you know how to transfer files from this? I’ve labeled them very specifically.”

        Xa’cock hissed. “How difficult can it be?” He sounded snide.

        Merton grinned slowly. “Of course.” He held the laptop out – and felt a twinge of fear. But he could live without a laptop. He could get a new one if they survived this.

        Xa’cock and Thuwit left.

        “Merton,” Julia asked, her voice dreamy. “Did you ever update from Vista?”

        “Never got around to it,” Merton murmured.

        This time Julia was the one who held her hand down-low for a high five.

***

        Relix bit down on her pillow and tried to imagine anyone but Merton’s handsome face as her tail slithered into her own sex. Her claws dug into the bed as her hips lifted and rocked with every motion. Her eyes closed tightly, and her tail-tip spread her cunt wide as the ridges along the upper edge of her tail bumped against her clit with every inch that slid into her. Her wings fanned outwards as she rolled her head back, gasping quietly. Her tongue lolled from her muzzle.

        She wasn’t just soaked.

        She was so fucking horny that she was positively dripping . Her juices sizzled along her thighs, skittering against scales that had become the fierce, furnace hot of a real mating urge . At that moment, her body felt her soul’s desire, and an instinct as ancient as dragon kind was kicking on. Some dragons, when they first learned to shift, got lost in wallowing in pleasure. Every noble house had one or two of such ilk: Dribbling mounds of barely controlled muscle. Nervous systems suspended in an amorphous ooze of flesh that had a few mouths to breathe and eat and drink with, tended to by a few mute slaves. The rest of their bodies? Riddled with drug-glands, pumping their bodies with whatever narcotic joy they had grown addicted too.

        That was why Relix never shapeshifted save for cold, hard, tactical reasons and that one time when she wanted the entire dozen of her orcish harem to fit in her at once.

        But there were instincts deeper than training.

        Needs more intense than the simple pleasure of being rutted by a dozen incredibly well hung green boys.

        The heat between her thighs, surrounding her tail, ratcheted up a few scales, drawing a ragged, needy keen from her as her tail slipped from her sex. She couldn’t control it anymore. It was thrust into the air, arching desperately. Presenting her puffy, inflamed cunt-lips to any who might see her. Here she was, a Princess, a direct descendant of the Prismatic Emperor himself, and she was going into heat over a few flirtatious words from a mage-blind monkey . But as much as her logical mind tried to sneer herself into calmness…

        She needed this.

        She buried her face into the pillows, whining and rocking her hips against an invisible cock. Her arm snaked out and she grabbed onto the com-crystal that rested on her night-stand. The cold stone filled her palm and then warmed with magic. The urge to call Thuwit and to have him bring her husband to her was overpowering. It burned on her tongue.

        She turned her head against the pillows. No. No! NO ! The thought thundered through her and she roared in displeasure, hurling the crystal away from her. It skittered along the floor as she tried to force her tail back into doing what she needed it to do. But the heat was growing too intense. Her claws dug into the mattress underneath the silksteel sheets. Her nose pressed into the downy fabric and she whuffed out hot, humid breaths that were tinged with the natural lightning that was her breath weapon. The whole room was beginning to hum with static as she felt every single droplet of her eagerness pattering along her thighs, dripping onto the bed. Her tail, merciless in its instincts, thrust upwards and let the painfully cool air of the room caress her needing sex.

        The temptation to call Merton...to have his cock…

         To be bred by him…

         “No!” She growled again. “I...didn’t...get...that... mage  blind...” She rocked her hips with every word, the slight motion enough to send cascading fireworks through her eyes as her brain sparked with that intense need. “Monkey ...to be an actual husband . I needed a tool !” She roared in frustration and lust at the same time. Her back arched and she grabbed onto her headboard. Then her eyes fell upon the light crystal that was set on the other night-stand. It was sleek. Straight. Phallic.

        Her clawed hand grabbed onto it, clenching tightly enough to make it creak, and barely managed to get it underneath her quivering, twitching thighs before her knees folded and she sat on the bed. The crystal plunged into her sex. If she had been a weakling, like an elf or an orc or a dwarf, she might have felt pain. But a dragon’s sex was made of sterner stuff. Her thighs started to rise and fall, rise and fall, rise and fall as she felt the faux-cock plunge into her sex. It wasn’t enough . But it was close. Her eyes half closed and she let her mind wallow in the idea of Merton taking her.

        His delightfully endothermic body.

        His warm, soft, supple lips. Closing around her nipple.

        “Oh Merton!” she moaned. “Yes! Yes, fuck my hot scaled pussy, yes! Oh yes! Oh yes !”

        Her hips drove up and down with a sound not unlike a drum being played by a drummer whose conductor had just taken a hit of cocaine. Her lust addled brain felt a real cock between her thighs. She could feel Merton’s balls slapping her rump as he fucked her from behind. Then suddenly, the mental image shifted and he was above her. She was on her back and his fingers were lacing through her. That voice that had told such arresting tales, such funny jokes, was whispering in her ear.

         Relix…

        Just her name. Filled with real...tenderness.

        Relix shuddered and her back arched, her breasts bouncing in a perfect circle, her gleaming nipples drawing arcs in the air as her sex clenched on the light-crystal. The crystal itself started to glow, its magical generator kicked on by the raw lust pouring through her body. Her tail writhed behind her and her wings fanned outwards as Relix’s jaw opened wide. Her tongue lolled from the side of her mouth and she panted heavily, her eyes drooping as she looked sightlessly at the window that spread behind her bed.

        There, with the starry void as a backdrop, the window acted as a mirror. And she saw herself as her eyes slowly ticked into focus as the mind-shattering orgasm faded from her body.

        Cock-drunk on a mage-blind male who wasn’t even there, dripping with arousal, tingling and buzzing with the after-effects of going into heat. Going into heat , because of Merton Miles , a man who had – according to himself  – had no titles. No nobility. No kills. Nothing.

        Relix hurled the light crystal against the wall hard enough to shatter it. Her snarl came soft and deadly.

        “Never. Again.” She closed her eyes. Her heart hardened. In the Five Talon Empire…

        Her hand touched her breast. Her memory shifted, slowly, back to the only time she had ever shown something close to affection. She could still remember the squealing groan as the airlock began to peel open. The cries of her harem. The feeling of Kellen pushing her to safety moments before the bulkhead slammed shut.

        She gritted her teeth, banishing the memory. Her hand tightened on her chest. The heart was for pumping blood .

        Nothing more.

Chapter Three: Roll that Sense Motive Check

        The door to Merton’s room closed and, for the first time in what felt like several months, he could take a breath. He walked away from the door, let his shins hit the edge of the hovering bed that made up the center of the room, and flopped face first into the bed. He didn’t bend or fold. He just plopped there and remained perfectly still, his nose mashed against silken fabric.

        “So, uh...nice room,” Julia said, her voice shy and nervous.

        Merton rolled around onto his back and sat up. His hand went to his hair and brushed his fingers through, shoving his bangs back until he felt his scalp tug against his palm. He looked at Julia and pursed his lips.

        “We need to...” He shook his head. “Okay, no, we don’t need to talk.”

        “We don’t?” Julia asked.

        “Well, yes, we do,” Merton said. “But the phrase ‘we need to talk’ always sounds so fucking final.”

        Julia giggled. “We could, uh, say that we need to nose-nuzzle. But we’ll do it with our mouth-sounds!” She thrust her finger into the air. “Genius!”

        Merton snorted, quietly. “You’re being absurd to try and cheer me up. And damn you, it’s working.” He shook his fist at her.

        “I learned it by watching you!” she exclaimed, as if she was revealing a shocking truth. She flung herself onto the bed next to Merton. The hover-spells that kept it suspended in the air whirred underneath her impact and Merton reached down to pet her sprawl of blue hair. Her hair felt so silky. He wondered what it would have been like to pet Julia when Julia had been a Jules. He wondered if he could have pet her. He wasn’t gay. Well, okay, he was pretty sure he wasn’t gay. Or bisexual. But he loved Julia so much. Would that have let him override his physical feelings? He had no idea.

        The cat leaped onto the bed. But Merton wanted to focus on Julia right now. He shook his foot, hissing. The cat looked like he had been personally offended. With haughty condescension, he leaped off the bed, then walked   out of the room. Didn’t run.

        Merton shook his head, slightly, then looked back to his girlfriend. “How do you like the new bod?”

        “Is there a word for orgasmic chocolate?” Julia mumbled into the bed, her head lifting slightly – just enough to press her scalp against Merton’s hand. “Cause this new body is like, ten times better than that.” She went quiet for a bit, her knees drawing up underneath her as she rolled onto her side. She was a tiny fetal position of adorable...and deep thoughts. Her expression looked like she was looking at something light years away.

        Merton remained quiet.

        “Do you know how many trans people are murdered every week?” she asked.

        “Too many,” Merton said.

        “And too many are killed by people they...well, they’re going out with,” she said, quietly.

        “I’d never -”

        Julia sat up, looking at him. “Yes.” She put her finger to her temple. “This knows it. This knows it.” She touched her chest, then, her finger pressing to her heart. “But, uh, Merton. You’re white. You’re rich. You don’t know how you learn stuff here .” She put her palm on her belly. “Do you know how many times  I wrote out a full confession, late at night.” she looked down, her shoulders slumping. “B-But...”

        Merton nodded, slowly.

        “B-But you loved me and you thought I was pretty and for a few hours every day, when we were chatting, I could pretend that it was true...” Julia whispered, drawing her legs up against her chest as she leaned her chin against her knees. Her eyes brimmed with tears. “I’m so fucking sorry, Merton. I-”

        Merton leaned down and kissed her. It was an awkward kiss – he had to put his finger on his chin and tilt her head backwards. Also, he had to be okay with tasting the warm salt of her tears. His tongue slipped into her mouth and felt the dainty sleekness of her own tongue. She didn’t kiss him back. At first. Instead, she simply sat there, her body buzzing like a tuning fork that had been struck a glancing blow by a railgun. Then she was kissing back, desperation and lust and something more exploding deep inside of her. Merton could feel it as his palms caressed along her shoulders, down the small of her back, dragging her onto his lap. Her limber legs closed around his back and she ground herself against him, the thin, filmy shorts that she wore feeling like less than nothing. He could feel her moistness. Her eagerness.

        She broke the kiss with a quiet gasp. “Holy crap, you are hung!”

        “I told you I measured it!” Merton said, grinning slightly.

        Julia leaned down and kissed him with a hunger that matched her previous fire and then exceeded it. Her hands grabbed at his shoulders and started to push desperately at his shirt, trying to peel it away. The smart clothes stubbornly refused to move – it felt like she was pressing against solid steel, save that it moved perfectly fine with Merton’s movements. He knew this because he was able to grab her butt and squeeze it without being constrained by his shirt.

        And good thing too.

        The four armed purple chick had done an amazing job on turning a middle-aged fat black dude into a slinky eighteen year old asian chick.

        Julia drew her mouth back and Merton panted quietly. “Okay, I think you could have lied about way more...” he murmured.

        “I’m not actually a succubus,” Julia said, grinning.

        “Dang!” Merton snapped his fingers.

        His hands went down to her shirt. Julia put her hands on his wrists, stopping him for a moment.

        “Just to check, you are okay if I nibble on your soul slightly?” she asked. “I mean, I’m asking for academic reasons. I’m not a succ-”

        Merton snapped his teeth at her playfully and Julia squeaked – but before he could literally rip her clothes off her and do in real life what he had lovingly described over IMs for the past few years, the door to his room irised open and the four armed purple chick dressed in the dominatrix outfit walked in. Her arms were crossed over her breasts and along her belly, and her expression was somewhere between focused and monomaniac. Julia looked at her. Merton looked at her. Then Merton looked at Julia.

        Julia shrugged, spreading her hands.

        “Why the heck are you here?” Merton asked – and mentally kicked himself for not asking her name.

        “I have been sent by the Princess Relix,” the purple skinned four armed chick said.

        “Why?” Julia asked.

        “I have been instructed, as the primer student of draconic biology and the headmistress of the biomorphic engine and the rest of the ship’s magitech systems, to perform several tasks that the Princess believes will be required for your continued cohabitation.” The purple-skinned woman snapped her upper left hand. “Remove yourself from his lap, Concubine Julia.”

        Julia pursed her lips, but shifted herself to the side. She thumped her butt into the bed, then grinned at Merton. “ Concubine Julia?”

        Merton chuckled, nervously. “I’m just glad that, uh, my wife is so understanding.”

        “Remove pants,” the purple skinned girl said, in a tone almost exactly like the Omicronian who wanted to cut Fry’s dick off in that episode of Futurama where it turned out human noses were used as an alien aphrodisiac and holy shit that was a bit of a fucking reach, Merton. But Merton couldn’t help it. She sounded exactly like that!

        “Well, I was gonna !” Merton said. Then, remembering that the four armed purple skinned chick had control over his suit of magitech smart clothes (and he did not), he coughed and added: “How?”

        The four armed purple skinned chick sighed and rolled her eyes. “Right. Mage-Blind. I have programmed several command phrases in low draconic for your clothes. You simply need to say ruk’ghegh brantorash trikonan vorent va va lakresh maorkenintet k’grug-” she gnashed her teeth in a loud crashing sound, twice. That seemed to be the end of the sentence. Merton blinked at her.

        “What does that mean?” he asked.

        “Translated approximately into galactic common, it means: I wish to remove my clothing in an expedient means because I either desire the touch of a willing male or female or other, or I seek to clean myself, or I desire to use the restroom to relieve my aching bowels, or perhaps, I long to feel the wind on my scales, for nudity is pleasant.”

        Merton blinked again. “Dragons, uh, they kinda like covering all the bases, don’t they?”

        “It is considered rude to come to the point too quickly in Low Draconic. This is why most conversations use High Draconic or Galactic Common.” The four armed purple skinned chick gestured her lower-right hand. “Now. Come on. Remove pants.”

        Julia, meanwhile, had somehow managed to slip off the bed, get to a niche in the wall, figure out it was a food replicator, and got it to reproduce popcorn. She was chewing happily as she watched Merton with a slightly gleeful expression.

        Merton sighed, then said: “Can you reprogram it to follow my commands? Using my words?”

        The four armed purple skinned chick sighed a long, suffering sigh. “ Fine .” She tapped at her wrist – revealing a tiny gemstone that had been set in the skin. The gemstone flared and glowing magic arced outwards, stabbing into Merton’s temples. Merton’s eyes bugged and he felt like a pair of snakes had chomped down on his nuts and were dangling from between his legs. One leg kicked and his back knotted as he felt those snakes wriggle and start to set his balls swaying. Then he noticed the ice-knives digging into his brain.

        Through the haze of pain and discomfort, he felt the knives touching the bits of his brain that understood language, cause, effect. He focused as hard as he could – like he was trying to scream through a gag made of spikes. And to his shock, he felt the knives grow... curious . It was like they were waiting for just such a scream. And so, he started to program in code words. He wondered how far he could go.

        So…

        Merton went a bit nuts.

        Then the magic withdrew from his head and the four armed purple skinned chick nodded. “There. Does that function?” She asked, looking at him with a pursing of her lips.

        “Let me see...” Merton paused, then said. “Naked.”

        His clothes melted away like fog, leaving him completely bare. His cock, which had softened in the mental vice, twitched slightly. Then it started to harden as the purple skinned girl closed her fingers around it, her palm cupping the base as she started to stroke his member. Her hand pumped up and down and soon, Merton was hard as a rock. His eyes half closed as he tried to keep himself from moaning. But the four armed purple skinned chick had a way with her hands. She pursed her lips again, then scoffed.

        “Mediocre,” she said.

        “What!?” Merton squeaked. “It...he...what?”

        “He was scanning the horizon!” Julia shouted from the sidelines.

        “You will need to undergo rudimentary augmentation to please Princess Relix,” the purple skinned four arm chick said, pulling out a tablet from either her ass or some kind of dimensional pocket. She tapped at it with two of her hands, holding it with a third, her fourth still pumping Merton’s cock. “At least twice the length, a quarter the girth. Ridges. Possibly a mana-secreting glans keyed to proper lust-drugs. How do you feel about it being psi-selectable?” She paused. “Wait, damn, mage-blind.”

        Merton, whose cheeks were flaring with embarrassment and arousal, asked: “If me being mage-blind is such a handicap, why don’t you fix it?”

        The four armed purple skinned chick scoffed. “Fix it?” She shook her head, tucking her tablet away as she also let go of his cock – leaving Merton feeling tingly and anxious and irritable all at once. “Break every convention in the FTE? Mage-Blind races are made to be servants. The greatest of you can maybe, maybe , work hard enough that your children will be modded to have the mage genomics. If you die heroically.” She shook her head.

        “Then why did Relix marry me?” Merton snapped.

        “To keep the suitors off her ta-”

        “Like the suitors will give a damn if they know I-” Merton blinked. “No one else knows humans are mage-blind, do they?”

        The four armed purple skinned chick shook her head. “Oddly, there is a draconic fleet staged in your system’s Oort Cloud, despite the fact that your planetary data isn’t even logged. Humans are an unknown to all save the Manifold Caretakers, your nearest neighbors.” She shook her head slightly, looking thoughtful. “It’s almost as if humans dealt an embarrassing setback to the FTE and the Prismatic Emperor had it wiped from the records. Almost.”

        “Y-Yeah. Almost.” Merton coughed. His cock wilted slightly.

        Julia slowly set her popcorn down, her face growing more serious. “I think you need to make him non-mage blind, then,” she said.

        Merton looked at her, his cheeks flushing.

        “And be broken upon a singularity for it?” the four armed purple skinned chick asked, scoffing.

        “Then...then...” Julia blinked. “Well, I mean, obviously, no one can blame you for what a sneaky human does while you’re re-calibrating the duterium intake pipes.”

        “I do not know what you’re talking about,” the four armed purple skinned chick said, her brow furrowing.

        Julia put her hands over her face, then sighed. “Well, I mean, obviously , you’re not at fault if you put my biffer into the biomorphic modification tube thing, and then went to do your other super important jobs, and a sneaky human who definitely shouldn’t have been there messed with the program. They would be the one who broke the law, not you. You’d have loads of alibis. Why, I bet you could even have evidence putting the blame on anyone but yourself, since you control the security cameras.” She grinned. “Not that you’d do that , cause you’d hate to break a stupid law just because breaking it would vastly improve your Princess’ chances at getting through the next few months without getting married to a psychopathic red dragon who treats his underlings like cattle.”

        The purple skinned four arm chick looked thoughtful. “I believe that the...duterium intake pipes do need seeing too. Once I’ve set up the biomorphic engine, of course.”

        Julia grinned, then winked at Merton.

        Merton fought back the urge to pump his fist and shout: That’s my girlfriend!

        As the four armed purple skinned chick walked away, Merton took a moment to reach out, tug Julia close to him, and then kiss her. Hard. His tongue and hers met and played and he caressed her back. When he drew back for air, he felt light headed. “Julia, have I mentioned I love you and I need to get a What Would Julia Do wrist band?” he whispered between pants.

        “Yes, but you can stand to say it more often,” Julia said, grinning.

        “Any other way I can thank you?” Merton asked.

        “You could get me sick rad magic powers too. Duh-doy,” Julia whispered back.

        Merton bit his lip. A sudden worry flared in his belly. “I…” he paused. “Are you sure this is a good idea? I don’t...want to…”

        “Want to what?” Julia asked, narrowing her eyes in a kittenish kind of way.

        “I don’t want to stop being human ,” Merton admitted - the worries crystalizing into a single flash. He saw himself as some kind of immortal mage-god, ruling over mage blind humans, sneering at them as they groveled at his feet, desperate for his approval.

        “Oh, and humanity is defined entirely by weakness and sucking?” Julia rolled her eyes. “Being human is being Merton Miles . And if some magic and a stupidly huge genetically engineered dick suddenly makes you not Merton, then I don’t think Merton was all that special to begin with.” She smacked his butt. “Now go! Follow the dominatrix tech-priest slash Dabbler from Grrl Power combo! Immorality awaits!”

        “Wait, don’t you mean im mortal ity, not -”

        But then Julia was shoving him out the door.

***

        Carlos tossed the ball to the ground. It hit the floor, bounced up, hit the wall, rebounded, thumped into his palm. He sighed, then looked to the left. There was Merton’s Mom and Dad, chatting quietly about something rocket based. He looked to the right. There was Lisa, pacing back and forth, her face growing increasingly pissed off. And Lisa had resting ‘pissed off’ face that could melt steel. He looked backwards and saw Trevor laying on his back on the floor, looking up at the ceiling.

        “All right, fuck it,” Carlos said, then hopped to his feet. He had quite a bit of himself to move, and he kinda wished he could pull a ‘Merton’s weird internet girlfriend’ and go into a fancy space tube and get all swole and badass. But as he didn’t have that chance, he simply jiggled his fat ass over to Trevor. There, he gently put his toe against Trevor’s shoulder, shaking him.

        Trevor sighed explosively. “No.”

        “You don’t even know what my plan is!” Carlos said.

        “No,” Trevor said.

        “It’s simple!” Carlos said.

        “No,” Trevor said.

        “We go and we-”

        “No,” Trevor intoned.

        “-explore the ship and see-”

        “No.” Trevor’s voice had become like the tolling of the Black Bell from Warhammer 40,000.

        “-what we can see and-”

        “No.” Doom, that voice tolled. Doom .

        “-maybe figure out a way back to Earth or something?”

        Trevor did not say no. Carlos presumed this meant he was down. He turned to Lisa, who had gotten her phone out and was already flicking her thumb across it. She looked up at him, then grinned. “I’ve got it set on recording. We’ll make a video log of what we find.”

        “Swag!” Carlos gave her a thumbs up.

        As the three of them headed for the door, Merton’s Mom looked over. “Uh, kids, where are you going?” she asked.

        “An escape pod,” Lisa said.

        “Certain death,” Trevor said.

        “Oh these jokers!” Carlos said, sliding his thick arms around both his friend’s shoulders, drawing them against him and beaming. “We’re gonna find a pool!”

        “Well...have fun?” Merton’s Mom said, her brow furrowing.

        “We will!” Carlos said before either of his friends could speak up. Then he walked backwards and out of the room that they all shared. Once they were in the corridor, Trevor sighed and slid out of Carlos’ grip. Carlos shot him a wounded look – but then Lisa grabbed his wrist and squeezed at a pressure point that sent shooting pain up his arm. Squeaking, Carlos lifted his arm as she stepped out from under him, then started down the corridor. She held up her phone, swinging it around.

        “The corridor appears to be about three meters by two meters, with a convex roof. The lighting seems to come from the same source of energy as the rest of the appliances – supposedly magic. Gravitational forces are earth normal, and the air seems to be a nominal N/O2/CO mix.” She swung the phone around to aim at Carlos and Trevor. Carlos waved. “No negative effects have been spotted in any of us.” She swung the phone back to her face. “This level of technology combined with sociological evidence we’ve seen makes this Five Talon Empire the biggest threat to the future of the human race in recorded history.”

        “First officer’s log, supplemental,” Carlos whispered. “Fuck you Wesley Crusher.”

        Lisa hit pause, frowning. “Can you take this seriously?”

        “Uh, dude, we’re in space . With dragons ,” Carlos said. “I’m pretty sure I’m going to wake up any-”

        Lisa stepped up and smacked him across the cheeks. The blow was not hard, nor was it fierce. It was a dispassionately light smack that still was more physical violence that Carlos had ever faced in his short, sheltered two and a half decades of life. He staggered and Lisa pursed her lips.

        “Can you do that again?” Trevor asked, showing one of his first smiles in days.

        “No!” Lisa and Carlos said at the same time. Carlos stood up, rubbing his cheek slowly.

        “Okay. Fine,” he said. “This is not a dream. And it is serious. But what can we do? Merton’s the happily married boytoy.”

        Trevor smirked ever so slightly. “Yeah. Bet he’s really enjoying that.”

        “Maybe she’s sweet once you get past the total bitchy Princess angle?” Carlos suggested.

        “Don’t. Romanticize. The monarchy.” Lisa repeatedly stabbed Carlos’ chest with her finger, making him grunt with every poke. “Empires are built on the back of slaves, genocide and mass exploitation. From Rome to the United States, you look under the gilt and fanciness and you’ll find a pile of blood.”

        “Does blood pi-” Carlos started, but Lisa cut him off with a glare. Then Carlos’ face went white. Trevor’s did too, though that was less impressive. Lisa’s brow furrowed – and then she turned around to see what they saw standing behind her.

        It was a monster.

        Specifically, it was a two to three meter tall amalgamation of humanoid form and insectoid strength. Digigrade legs that looked as if they had been spliced from an armored grasshopper, with armor-carapace growing over his shoulders. His eyes glowed like red coals, and were set in a face that was furrowed with hideous burn scars and hatchet-like hacking cuts across forehead and chin. His arms were exposed and heavily muscled, while his clothing was something between battle armor and court dress. He had a pair of swords strapped to his back, a rifle slung over one shoulder, two pistols on his hips, a wrist mounted rocket launcher (with micro-rockets loaded along a bandoleer that slung up his arm in a corkscrewing helix pattern), a wand that was tipped with a slowly pulsating black sphere that made Carlos’ blood run cold, the handle of a whip that was connected to a neon glowing energy field that coiled in a tight circle, and finally, a pair of brass knuckles that spelled out the words: FUCK and NAZI.

        Lisa was the one who got her voice to work first. “I-Is that...descriptive or suggestive?” she asked, pointing at the knuckles.

        “Who won?” the monster asked.

        “Who won?” Carlos asked.

        “We did,” Lisa said. “We kicked Hitler’s ass so hard he shot himself in the head.”

        “What the fuck are you talking about?” Carlos whispered.

        But then…

        The monster laughed, clapping one scarred hand on Lisa’s shoulder. “Good! Fucking great , even!” He looked at Carlos and Trevor, then back at Lisa. “What about the Russians?”

        “It’s complicated,” Lisa said, then grinned. “So, what’s your name?”

        “I am so confused,” Carlos said.

        The monster shook his head. “Not exactly the fastest draw in the west, is he?” he stepped past Lisa, crossing his heavily muscled, heavily armed arms over his muscled, armored chest. “The name is Bertram Gummer. The Princess calls me Gunner. I am her Master at Arms. But I was, first, a member of the 11 th  Fighter Group, United States Army Airforce. Ace twice over before I got yanked into this nonsense.”

        Trevor and Carlos gaped.

        Lisa frowned. “Can you show us the escape pods?”

        “No,” Gunner said, his voice flat.

        “We’re kidnapped, just like you!” Lisa said. “We can take you with us – we-”

        “No,” Gunner said, again. He shook his head as he turned, gesturing with one hand. “Come on. I want to show you something.”

        Lisa looked at Carlos. Carlos looked at Lisa. Lisa looked at Trevor. Trevor raised his eyebrows. Carlos grinned. “Come on!” he said, then started after Gunner – following the immense man and his thumping progress down the hall. Lisa frowned, but turned her phone’s recording back on. Her voice was soft as she whispered her latest findings into the phone. They walked through the corridors of the ship – which seemed to just go on forever. They walked past doors that led into chambers filled with weaponry, with supplies, with machines that did something Carlos couldn’t guess at. They walked past rooms where servants of dozens of races worked and chatted with one another.

        At last, they came to a door that opened into a huge park area. Carlos’ eyes widened as he walked out onto the balcony that was set before the door. A pair of stairs wound down to either side of the balcony, but he didn’t need to walk down to marvel at the park. It was easily a mile, two miles wide, covered with greenery and trees. Houses were positioned here and there, and he could see families – groups of various races, some of them children. Some kids ran by underneath him, laughing as they played tag, or threw clods of dirt at one another, in classic children style.

        Gunner stepped up beside him. Lisa joined him, as did Trevor.

        “What is this?” Lisa asked.

        “This is why I am still here,” Gunner said, quietly. “This was the pleasure harem of the former owner of the Talon-9 , Princess Relix’s uncle. When he was assassinated and she took over, she took a glance at this, scoffed, said it was a terrible waste of space, tacky, overdone nonsense. So, she had the harem ripped out. But she didn’t sell off the pleasure servants. She kept them on. She had her seneschal find them wives and husbands. She took me in, out of the fighting pits I had been trapped in for...years.” He shook his head. “Every one of my men at arms, she rescued. Hell, she rescued Thuwit . And when she did select a harem for herself, she...”

        “So what?” Lisa asked, her voice not holding an inch of give. “She’s a good person because she throws you scraps ?”

        “She’s the best she can be in the context of the world she’s in,” Gunner said. “High sight better than you have any right to expect. And while I’ve served her, I’ve saved this ship five times, and her life ten.” He looked at Lisa. “And because I did that, I’ve saved every life here . Let's say the Red Bas, er, sorry, the Red Baron gets in charge here.” He snapped his fingers – making a sound like a gunshot. “The attractive women go into a harem. The men are sold at the nearest spice mine. This ship becomes a gilded slave factory again.”

        Lisa frowned.

        “During the war, we fought with the Soviets. And they were bad. The Nazis were worse.” Gunner shook his head. “And you know what? I don’t feel a jot of guilt working with the Princess.”

        Carlos watched a child run by.

        “Holy shit,” he whispered. “I have never been happier knowing that Merton knows Hackmaster.”

        Lisa, though, was frowning. “What exactly happened to the Princess’ old harem?” she asked, quietly.

        Gunner sighed. “Come with me.” He gestured. “We’ll need drinks for that story.”

***

        Bex was in a smallish humanoid form as he read the physical printouts he had ordered of the five “PeeDeeEff” files that the techthralls had yanked out of the primitive computing device that Relix’s consort had given him. He was slowly reading through The Zealot’s Guide to Wurld Conversion . He frowned as his eyes settled on the rules block for the Zealot character class. Specifically the Zealot of Shona, the Goddess of Games and Ritual Combat. His eyes narrowed as he read the following.

         They may purchase any of the following skills at half the initial BP cost: crane, cricket-in-the-peapod, eye of the tiger advantage, kidney bruiser, mortal combat and any Martial Arts combat procedure listed in the Combatant’s Guide.

         Bex pursed his muzzle. Smoke roiled from his nose.

        He picked up the Combatant’s Guide to Slaughtering Foes.

        He flipped to the Martial Arts section.

        He began to read.

        And slowly…

        Bex began to laugh .

***

        The four armed purple skinned chick looked down at the biomorphic engine control panel. She had carefully programmed in two routines. It had been quite tricky – but fortunately, she had the first program set to run after a five minute break. The second program should not run, not unless someone pushed a large ‘engage’ button underneath the snarl of spell-glyphs and code runes. Slowly, the four-armed purple skinned chick pointed at that button and said, clearly and loudly: “It would be highly unfortunate if anyone were to push this button. I now will go to perform routine maintenance.”

        She turned and walked out of the room.

        Merton, who was currently strapped into the biomorphic engine, looked at the large number of crystal tipped spikes mounted on articulated, gimbaled arms. Each one was starting to glow with a throbbing blue-white light. He winced, then said: “Uh, Julia, you failed to mention the fuckspikes!”

        “Pfff!” Julia said, stepping out of her hiding space. “I’d endure far more than fuckspikes for magic! Heck, I endured the fuckspikes for a super cute, totally legal cooter!” She giggled, then twirled herself around on her toes. Her T-shirt fanned out wide, exposing her flat belly, before settling as she stepped up to the control console. “Ready?”

        “No,” Merton whimpered, looking at the spikes that were slowly starting to aim at his eyes.

        “Don’t worry!” Julia said. “It doesn’t actually hurt.”

        “Oh, real-”

        And that was when it started to hurt. A lot. The pain bloomed inside of Merton’s head, fanned outwards and downwards. It tingled through his feet, buzzed along his cock, burst along his spine, and punched him into his very soul. Fortunately, it lasted less than a second. Then the pain subsided into a haze of half-sensations. He floated on a massive sea of space. His eyes went unfocused and he could see the ship around him slowly dissolving away into nothingness. He was adrift on tides of time, his body stripped naked before the cosmos. He looked outwards, though, not down, not at himself. He didn’t care about himself.

        The galaxy was a great, majestic dance of suns. They flared red and gold and black and purple and white, glittering and pulsating to the beat of a cosmic heart. He could see thin stands of connectivity reaching outwards between stars, like gossamer fibers being sewn by some great cosmic tailor. His brow furrowed as he looked at the lines...and saw that they glowed with an eldrich light. A quiet breath sucked into his lungs as he spread his arms wide.

        “Ley-lines...”

        Then the galaxy faded and his eyes opened as Julia’s face filled his face.

        “Merton?” she asked.

        “Hey,” he said, slowly, then blinked. “Are your lips blue?”

        Her lips were, in fact, not blue. They shimmered and rippled between blue, purple, white. Lines of light crackled from her tongue as she spoke: “Uh, no, but that sounds sexy as balls.” She grinned. “And I don’t even like balls that much.” She laughed nervously. Her voice caused the shining colors of her lips to crackle faster. Merton blinked and the colors faded, replaced with a more normal set of hues. She leaned forward, her eyes filling his.

        “You okay?” she asked.

        “I don’t know...” Merton blinked, then gently grabbed onto the edges of the biomorphic engine. He stepped out, staggered, caught himself. His arm shook and quivered and he looked down at his body. His muscles had been toned and tightened, while his skin had been freed up of blemishes. There was a noticeable lack of arm and leg hair. And pubic hair. He looked down at his shaft, gaping slowly as he looked at the thickness of his member, resting on balls that looked as if they had swelled up a few notches on the ‘ball-o-meter.’ He shook his head slowly, his palms going down to squeeze his scrotum.

        His cock twitched, growing harder and he saw that it actually got quite a bit larger as he felt a jolt of pure arousal rocket through him. Julia licked her lips slowly.

        “Okay, I’m not normally a size queen but, uh, yum?” she whispered, slowly kneeling down on the floor. Her palms closed around his cock as she looked at his cocktip, her teeth biting down on her lower lip as she furrowed her brow in concentration. A thick drollop of pre cum rolled along her knuckles as she started to pump her hands up and down his cock. Merton’s eyes half closed and his knuckles went white as he gripped the tabletop. He had to lock his knees to try and stop himself from collapsing on the ground.

        Then Julia closed her mouth around the head of his cock. Her tongue swirled tentatively around his member as she closed her lips tight around his glans, fastening herself and sucking eagerly. Merton had never gotten a blowjob in his life. He just had to go on descriptions he had read online. Those descriptions hadn’t been anywhere close to what the feeling was. It was...chaotic. It was spikes of sensation that were as shocking as lightning crashes – sensations that came without warning. When he touched himself, he knew what his hand did, what his thumb would caress.

        Everything Julia did was a revelation, even as she pushed her mouth forward an inch or two, choked softly, then drew back. She coughed, gasping as she turned her head to the side. “W-Wow, how do girls do that?”

        “Practice?” Merton asked.

        “No, I’m pretty sure it’s magic,” Julia said, grinning at him. “Also, I hasten to add...I expect some cooter nomming.”

        Merton grinned. “Oh horrors .” He licked his lips, then looked around the room. He spied a recovery couch. His hands grabbed onto Julia’s shoulders and he tugged her to her feet. The two of them hurried – giggling like high schoolers – and collapsed onto the cot. It was far too advanced to squeak under their weight. Their hands caressed one another, and Merton did what he had been waiting to do for years . He slipped his hands underneath Julia’s shirt and found the smallish, perky mounds of her breasts and squeezed. They were silky soft, capped with tiny nubs of hard, sensitive nipple, which he coaxed gently, bringing out a sweet giggle-moan combo that escaped between their locked lips. Then Merton found himself pushed back. He thumped down and watched as Julia swung one limber leg over his hips. She sat down and trapped his newly embiggened dick against his tummy.

        This brought out a series of giggles.

        Julia, who had been in the midst of looking sultry and seductive while tugging her shirt over her head, paused. “What?” she asked.

        “It’s a perfectly cromulent word,” Merton said, chuckling.

        Julia tugged her shirt the rest of the way off, then used it to gently slap him on the chest. Merton grabbed her shirt and tossed it away – and sighed the exalted sigh of someone slipping into a warm, soaky bath. Seeing a beaming, nervous, excited, red faced, hard nipped, bare chested, blue haired, real Julia was a like balm to a weary, nervous soul. Merton licked his lips – and sighed again with just as much contentment as Julia slipped herself forward, shifted her knees, swung around...and sat down on his face. Her sex was shadowed by the curve of her hips and her butt. His eyes closed and he kissed blindly, finding the smoothness of her sex.

        “By the way,” Julia whispered, her voice throaty and full of erotic promise. “I asked to taste like strawberries.”

        She settled herself down and Merton’s tongue started to delve into her sex. His hands grabbed her hips as her flavor – indeed, strawberries – burst on the tip of his tongue. Then she leaned forward and her palms caressed his balls with slow, wondering strokes. She kissed the side of his cock, nuzzled his member, then breathed in, then slipped her mouth along as much of his cock as she could. And it was a gratifyingly small amount of dick that she got into her mouth before she had to stop and draw back. Feeling the movement of her tongue and her lips and the soft, happy moans that she kept making…

        Well.

        Merton was an enlightened, 21 st  century, mostly liberal native of California.

        ...he still totally felt like a real man right now.

        His hands slid to her ass and he focused – or tried to focus – on his true love’s cooter. His tongue coiled up, trying to find a place inside her that brought the most quiet, happy gasps. Now, Merton wasn’t sure if being a mage made him supernaturally good at tonguing out a girl, or if Julia had just set her sensitivity to the max (which, to be fair, seemed eminently wise.) But either way, she was soon moaning her pleasure through  his cock like there was no tomorrow. The buzzing vibrations thrummed through his body and Merton had to draw his mouth back, quietly gasping.

        “J-Jesus, Julia!”

        “No, Julia Jesus,” she said, gasping as she jerked her mouth back – her hand continued to pump his cock with quick, eager motions. “Well, technically, Julia of Nazareth.”

        Merton choked out a laugh, then squeaked as Julia pressed her hips down and sat herself on his face again. Since she still tasted divine – and her sex was dripping liberally now – Merton was far from upset by this. His hands slapped onto her ass, squeezing her as his tongue slurped from clit to to cunt, thrusting in deep as he could manage. His tongue actually started to ache as he pushed himself harder and harder, his tongue swirling inside of her. It worked. Julia moaned against his cock and he felt her juices spurt against his mouth. He opened his mouth and drank her warmth as he let himself go.

        His balls clenched and a jolt of pure, fiery pleasure exploded from him. Julia managed to keep a hold on his member and drink as the first spurt filled her mouth. Then his surging, twitching cock escaped from her lips and he heard her giggle and squeak as cum painted her face, splashed against her chin. She moaned and shifted, arching her back, so that the next spurt coated her breasts. He could feel the faint patter of his own seed dripping down onto his belly and balls and cock as Julia giggled and whispered: “Hee! So much cum !”

        Merton slowly sagged his head back, panting heavily.

        The door to the bio ward opened.

        The four armed purple skinned chick pursed her lips as she looked down at the two of them.

        “So,” she said, her voice firm.

        Merton struggled to sit up, while Julia grabbed onto a sheet to wipe at her face. By the time Merton was upright, Julia’s face was mostly clean, save for a strand of cum on her chin. She licked it up shyly.

        “Uh, we were just testing it!” Julia said, quickly.

        “I can see that,” the four armed purple skinned chick said. “And good. But your training in pleasuring a dragon has been put on hold. The Baron Thresh has sent a las signal. His character is completed and he is ready for his first adventure and he is waiting in the gaming room.”

        Merton looked at Julia. A cold feeling settled in the pit of his stomach. “I thought it’d take him a week ,” he whispered, then stood. Julia slipped on her shirt as well. Her expression was just as grim as his.

***

        Bex sat across the table from Merton. Merton looked down at the five pages of character sheet he had been given. Bex’s handwriting was precise and perfectly neat, despite being done by hand. Slowly, Merton pointed at the statline.

        “How did you get this?” he asked. “Twenty five Strength, twenty two Dexterity, twenty four Constitution, twelve Intelligence, twenty five Wisdom, nine Charisma, six Comeliness?”

        “Flaws,” Bex said, his voice flat.

        “Ask a silly question, get a silly answer...” Merton muttered. He flipped a bit more and found where the Baron had listed his character’s flaws. Like D&D, Hackmaster relied on rolling three six sided dice to get your initial ‘statistics.’ Or, in other words, the rough physical and mental layout of your character. In Hackmaster, those stats were Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma and Comeliness. The average human had a nine to twelve. The Baron’s character – a human zealot of Shona named Reikstand – had a twenty five  in strength. That meant that he added an obscene amount of damage to his attacks, was highly accurate, and could even bend metal with his bare hands.

        He was nearly untouchable in terms of his agility. His constitution was so great that he was exceptionally hard to kill and would regenerate wounds like a slightly slower Wolverine.

        And the worst thing was, he had followed the rules . In Hackmaster, you could improve your stats by taking randomly generated flaws. Reikstand was a one armed, one eyed, bald, flatulent, lisping burn victim with an intense phobias of spiders, horses and monkeys, pyromania, sadism, a superstitious belief in the power of the color green, an intense hatred of elves, dwarves, gnomes, paladins and bards. Oh, and he was missing his right pinkie finger, had no nose, and a bum knee. But then Merton saw the list of skills. His eyes widened.

        Somehow, Bex had gotten Circle Kick, Flying Kick, Backwards Kick, Choke Hold, One Finger, Pain Touch, Levitation...a series of martial arts abilities that would allow him to, if he was reading these rules right, do obscene amounts of damage with his bare hands.

        Which was…

        Oh no.

        Merton looked at the character’s equipment. He had been about to call out Bex on making a rules error. In Hackmaster, you couldn’t add more damage to your weapon than the max number on your weapon dice. So, if you had a longsword that did an eight sided die’s worth of damage, you could only add a max of eight damage to the roll. But the one exception that that? Unarmed damage. So, he was doing 1d6+13 damage with his punches and kicks. And he did three per round, with an initiative mod that meant he’d always go first, and an Armor Class so good that it’d take a miracle to hit him.

        Merton looked up at Bex.

        “Is it a legal character?” Bex asked. “I have read the rules extensively .”

        Merton’s throat worked in a gulp.

        It was a legal character.

        He couldn’t simply disallow Bex – trying that would lead to disaster.

        Merton set the sheet down, then slid it back to Bex.

        Bex took the papers. His nose flared and smoke roiled into the air as the red dragon grinned at the human Dungeon Master.

        “Well played, Baron,” Merton said. “But it takes more than good stats to win at Hackmaster.”

        “I am aware,” Bex said, his voice a low purr. “Shall we duel, oh god of this minute realm? I have to admit. I had never heard of humans. But if all your kind ever created was this astounding interplay of rules and imagination, of strategy and cunning, of mathematical elegance and pure artistry...then I think your race’s time spent evolving from the mire was worth it.”

        “I’ll tell Gygax,” Merton said. He picked up his d20. He shook it. “Lets roll dem bones.”

        In the amphitheater surrounding the gaming room, where Merton’s family and wife watched, tensions mounted. Relix chewed her knuckle as she looked at her husband.

        “Kick his ass, Merton,” she breathed.

        “Popcorn?” Julia asked, offering her a bowl.

        Relix looked deeply confused.

        Merton grinned, slowly. “Roll Observation, my good Baron.”

        And thus…

        The game was on .

Chapter Four: Roll that Knowledge (Religion) Check

        “What’s he doing with those papers, concubine?”

        Julia popped some popcorn into her mouth and tried to control the nerves gnawing at her gut. She and Merton had met, years before, on Darknest. Darknest, despite sounding like a place where you’d spend bitcoins to buy child porn and assassins, was actually just a World of Warcraft fansite. Well, fan slash porn site. Mostly porn. Yes, they had both been there for night elf titties. But even then, even before she had fallen for him, she had realized just how good Merton was at game-mastering.

        But he’d never had stakes like this .

        She looked at Princess Relix – and noticed that Relix didn’t look bored or disaffected.

        She looked worried. As worried as the pit of Julia’s tummy.

        So, Julia swallowed her first responses and instead set the popcorn carton down. She wiped her palm along her sleeve, then pointed. “See that?” she asked. “That’s the GM screen. Basically, it has a lot of rules written on it, to make it easier to run the game without cracking the book open constantly. It also lets him hide his dice.”

        “So, he could simply change the results?” Relix asked.

        “No,” Julia shook her head and waggled her finger. “That’s against the spirit of Hackmaster. The dice fall where they lay. No, no, no. It’s so he can...well...”

        Merton picked up a handful of dice and dropped them. They rattled, clacked, clicked. The Baron’s shoulders twitched ever so slightly and his eyes narrowed. “What was that?” he asked, his voice picked up by a throat mic and transmitted through the speakers in the amphitheater.

        Merton’s grin was laid back. Casual.

        “We’ll have to see, won’t we?” he asked. “Now, that observation check?”

        “I failed,” the Baron said.

        “But the number he rolled was so high!” Relix whispered to Julia. Julia chuckled, whispering back.

        “Observation is a skill check . Those require you to roll underneath your skill level, which is reflected as a percentage chance to succeed. The good Baron only has a twenty two percent in observation. That’s one of the hard parts of the art of the Hack: Characters start with tanko garbage levels of skills.”

        “I regularly walked into walls when I was a young level 1 college student,” Carlos piped in.

        Then each hushed as Merton adjusted his collar, took a deep breath, and started to narrate.

***

        “It is a glorious day in the lands of Barsara. The jungle studded peninsula has seen a break in the seasonally rains, and the ferocity of the last blow has left the air feeling swept clear of all but the fresh smells of the wildlife and the salt smell of the sea breeze. The ship you, Reikstand, stand upon is a simple barque named the Kip. You have, for the past three days, been steadily sea sick as the barque made its slow, plodding way across the Aludian Ocean. Crumpled in your one surviving hand is a parchment that arrived at your home. The parchment that brought you here, so far, so fast...a parchment from your-” Merton paused. “Grandfather, uh...”

        Julia tensed in the upper seats. Her hands clenched and she whispered. “Come on...”

        “What’s wrong?” Relix’s voice was hushed.

        “He’s drawing a blank on a name!” Julia looked at the Princess. “That can totally ruin the flow of a scene.”

        “Galsgad,” Merton said.

        “Galsgad?” The Baron rumbled. “What did he send, that has brought mighty Reikstand so far from his home.”

        “He says that his, ah, lumber mill has been beset by monsters, brigands and raiders,” Merton said, moving quickly once more. “His guards have been unable to keep them away, and his people are dying. But more, he states that one of the monsters that was slain – perchance, by a lucky arrow – was bearing more than the expected amount of treasure . Since you have recently gained your vestments and desperately need both funds and converts...you have set off. And now you arrive, in the city of...” His eyes flicked down. “Varneer.”

        “I see,” the Baron said. He leaned forward, then slammed a clenched fist into the table. The screen jumped dramatically. “Tell me of this city!”

        “Well, it’s a city,” Merton said – classic GM buying for time. Relix’s tail lashed. “It’s a city on the bay, with a harbor and large number of whitewashed adobe houses. The bustle of pedestrians is clear.”

        “Very good,” the Baron said. “Once the ship comes within ten meters of the dock, I will leap from ship to the docking pier.”

        “That will be a minus ten strength check,” Merton said.

        “He’s using the wrong kind of dice!” Relix whispered to Julia. Julia snickered, quietly.

        “Stat checks use 20 sided dice, not two 10 sided dice. Or, as we in the biz call em, d20s and d10s. Or, well, more accurately, using two ten sided dice is using a d100. But having a single die with a hundred faces is a bit hard.” Plastic rattled and the Baron grunted in quite affirmation.

        “You take a single bound, leap, sail through the air, then land upon the docks, startling the poor dockmaster. He – a portly human man with a bushy mustache – almost drops his papers as he gapes at your malformed and hideous appearance.” Merton coughed, then put on a stuffy, British sounding accent. “Why, I never! You need to pay a fare to enter our fair city, ha-”

        “I grab him by the throat,” the Baron growled. “And crush it.”

        Merton raised his eyebrows.

        “Oh boy,” Julia whispered.

        “He can’t just kill that man! This isn’t real life,” Relix hissed, quietly.

        “Oh, he can,” Trevor said, his voice dry as he crossed his arms over his chest. “Looks like we really do have a socially retarded angel of death on our hands.”

        “I’m going to need you to roll initiative,” Merton said, leaning back in his seat. “And since you’re going to go first, I want you to roll your attack check. And since you’re going to hit, I want you to roll damage!” He didn’t seem perturbed. The Baron’s dice fell – and a moment later, the poor dock master’s back hit the rough wood of the docks. As he sprawled, Merton cracked his knuckles. “As the man twitches his last – dying slowly on the ground, I-”

        “How many experience points?” the baron asked, his voice intent.

        “You get XP after combat,” Merton said, his voice slipping into an almost drawl. “You hear cries of shock and alarm, and then a woman shrieks: Guards! Guards! And before you know it, five guardsmen wearing chain and bearing swords rush forward. Their armor clinks and clatters, but they draw up short when they see you.”

        “I crack my knuckles,” the Baron said.

        “How, exactly?” Merton asked, already rolling some initiative checks.

        “By placing my fingers thus,” the Baron said, pressing his palm against the edge of the table, then using it to flex his fingers back. The crackling sound of his knuckles were gunshot loud in the room. “Against a nearby post that the ships tie up to.”

        “...fair enough,” Merton said, grinning. “You go first, by the way.”

        The guards rushed forward. Reikstand met the first blade by catching it in his palm, then smashed his foot into the poor fellow’s throat. As that man fell, gurgling and clutching at his neck, Reikstand smashed his forehead into the second – shattering the helmet in a single blow. His elbow then smashed down a third. Merton rolled for morale and clucked his tongue. “The fourth man turns to flee-”

        “I chase after!” The Baron said, grinning.

        “Ah, wait just a second. You need to roll initiative – this is a new round. The man is spending his whole round running, so you’ll need to roll with a pretty serious initiative penalty as you rush forward.”

        The Baron growled. “I care not!”

        His d10s rolled. Two of them came up as tens.

        “I go on initiative count...” the Baron paused. “Negative three, three and four.”

        “Wait, I thought rolling low was good,” Relix said, her brow furrowing. “but then the attacks required him to roll high. Now it’s good again?”

        “For skill checks and stat checks, yes. And for initiative checks – since the round goes tick 0, tick 1, tick 2, and so on,” Julia said – but before she could speak, Merton sprang to his feet, pointing at the Baron.

        “Thock! Thock! Thock! The sound fills your ears: Heavy crossbows! You barely have time to look away from the arm-lock you’ve put around the running Guard’s head to see that five others have arrived, and these have unslung their crossbows!”

        “Betrayal!” The Baron roared back, standing up. “They did not roll initiative.”

        “That’s because readied ranged weapons don’t roll  for initiative. They go on their ROF tick – for heavy crossbows, that’s tick 1 on any round they’re readied on, then every other round after that!” He grinned, wickedly. “They-”

        “Wait!” The Baron grabbed at his sheets, turning pages over. “I roll catch arrow skill!” His d100 flew, clattering.

        “W-What!?” Relix asked. “But he’s a priest, isn’t he? How can he catch arrows!”

        “The Baron’s playing a class that follows the God Shona, meaning he can get access to...” Julia’s eyes widened. Then her grin became wicked. “Ah. Clever Miles, very clever...”

        Four of the crossbow bolts thudded not into the furious, bloody handed Zealot of Shona. Two were smacked from the air by his rapid moving palm, while another sailed into the water behind him. The third thudded into one of the ship-posts that he stood beside. But the fifth whistled out and smashed into his hip. It thudded home.

        “You take-” Merton picked up two d4s. He rolled. 4 and 2. He grinned wickedly, then rolled another d4. Another 4. He rolled again and sighed, getting only a 1. But still. He quickly added the damage, factoring in the fact penetration damage dice were reduced by 1, and that the critical hit he had rolled on the crit-table added more damage...he looked up at the Baron, his eyes glittering. “You take ten damage as the bolt buries itself into your leg.”

        “Woooo!” Julia called out and Trevor shook his head.

        “Fucking Hackmaster.”

        Down at the table, Reikstand had leaped the distance betwixt him and the crossbowmen. They were running in terror as his palm smashed in faces, his legs devastated genitalia. Then he swung – and his d20 came up with that most dreaded number. A natural 1. As he glowered at it, Relix looked at Julia.

        “That means he has made a misstep, does it not?”

        “Yup,” Julia said, cheerfully as Merton began to roll a 1d1000 – via the simple expedient of rolling three d10s and cobbling together a number in that order. He ended up looking at two hundred and sixty two, and grinned over his GM screen at the Baron.

        “Make a dexterity check, oh Baron,” he said.

        The Baron frowned and rolled. His dice rolled, tumbled, and came up a 19. On any other character, that would have been an utter failure. But thanks to his flaw-tastic origin, he still passed with flying colors. A good thing too, as Merton continued.

        “As you smite down yet another cowering guard...” Merton said. “Your fist lashes out and a guard manages to jerk aside at just the right moment. Your knuckles smash into a pillar and, as you had not readied yourself for the blow, a shock of pain shoots up your arm. Roll your own unarmed damage, halve it, then apply it to yourself.”

        The Baron growled angrily, but dutifully picked up his dice and started rolling. In the end, he took six damage – which brought his health to nearly 3/4ths. But his wounds were already starting to reknit as the guard started to try and rally. Merton rolled their morale check and they succeeded.

        Merton took a moment to pull out a piece of paper. He scribbled some notes on it, then looked up at the Baron. He rolled his shoulders and continued to speak: “And so, fifty guardsmen march towards the docks. Their faces are grim and determined. The front two rows bristle with pikes, while the rear are filled with crossbowmen and archers.”

        The Baron…

        Smiled.

        Reikstand didn’t simply stand there, to be impaled. Instead, he simply sprinted away from the enemy. They gave chase – and he led them into the most thickly built up parts of town. There, the Baron demonstrated how he had earned his wings, when he had been but a small hatchling in the Singularity Principalities. Reikstand would spring out and slay an entire party of guards in a single flurry of furious blows, then fade back into alleyways. Wagons that had been left parked beside houses were tipped over, their contents sent spilling down, creating confusion in carefully ordered ranks of guardsmen, opening up weaknesses for Reikstand to strike. The cleric used his levitation ability to reach rooftops without needing to climb or make noise, then drop down to slay with feet and head and hand. It was a total, one sided slaughter .

        Merton took all of this with a smile, a nod, and a pen scribbling on paper.

        On and on it went. The dice rolled – and they came up with nasty results more than once. A lucky pike stab there. A crossbow bolt there. But the intricacies of the Hackmaster system seemed to play all into the Baron’s hands: his absurdly high armor class meant each critical hit was reduced to almost total ineffectiveness, his regeneration allowed him to keep ticking far longer than one might have expected. And the Baron’s brutal, cunning tactics meant he always had ways to escape, to strike again.

        At last, the guard’s morale broke, shattered, and they fled, leaving thirty of their number dead or dying in the choked streets of Varneer. Which had been the name of the city, before Reikstand started rumbling about how he was going to rename it Dragontopia. As he spoke, Merton continued to make notes.

        “Now!” The Baron laughed, his voice exalting. “Tell me. How many experience   points do I get ?”

        Merton grinned. “Why, my good Baron, you get... nothing !” He sprang to his feet, slamming his palms down onto the table. “You lose ! Good day sir!” He grinned. “Reikstand has been reduced to a commoner, with no skills to his name! He is found a day later and impaled on a pike for the world to see! His name is spat upon!” He laughed.

        The Baron gaped at him, then roared. “You cheating -”

        “And now he plays the trap card,” Julia whispered as Merton picked up and slammed down in the center of the table, for all to see, the piece of paper he had been writing on. It was a colorless print out, dominated by a large, granulated circle. Charted on it was a series of dots and lines, creating a line that went from Lawful Neutral – which was marked on the lower left hand side of the circle – almost directly across the circle to Chaotic Evil.

        “It’s all here, in black and white, clear as crystal!” Merton walked around the table, thrusting his finger at the paper. “You have changed your alignment, Baron. You are a zealot, which means you must remain exactly the same alignment as your god! Furthermore, you have acted completely dishonorably as a lawful neutral character. Fighting unfair, not giving quarter, looting ?” He shook his head. “Your honor is dropped to the dishonorable category automatically – along with an automatic level loss – when you change alignment. After computing your other honor losses, you hit negatives. Which means...” He grinned. “Your character suffers that most ignoble of fates...”

        The Baron’s nostrils had thinned to slits.

        “Becoming. An. En. Pee. Cee.” Merton said each letter with pure relish.

        The Baron’s nostrils flared and smoke poured into the air. “You lying ...”

        “Baron Bex,” Relix said, standing up. “Are you saying that you contest your loss on the field of honor today?”

        The Baron’s hands clenched. He was literally shaking . Merton stood his ground, as cool as a cucumber. Julia’s heart was in her throat as she watched. All she could see was Merton falling to the ground, sans head. The Baron was right there. And he was so incredibly strong. But then the Baron stepped backwards. His voice was stiff as he growled. “I will send these rule books to the finest minds of the FTE dueling commissions and your evidence . This recording will be dissected from top to bottom. If they find a single irregularity, a single evidence of cheating, a single particle of something out of place, I will come and I will nukefuck your pitiful ship into cosmic dust  and then rape your bitch of a wife to death in my largest form while she’s humanolocked! Do. You. Understand. Me.”

        “Get the hell of my ship,” Merton snarled. “And hand over your egg.”

        The Baron grabbed the table and flung it upwards. Papers scattered. Dice crashed. Minifigurines clattered across the arena floor. The table itself cartwheeled upwards and smashed into the protection field that surrounded the grand-stand. Metal fragments hazed through the air as the field cracked and sparked. Before the chunks had even struck the ground, the massive dragon turned and stormed out.

        As he left, Merton breathed slowly out. “And I thought Trevor got mad about what happened on Bespin.”

        “That’s cause it was bullshit !” Trevor shouted.

        “I-Is he allowed to threaten you like that?” Merton’s Mom asked, her voice horrified as she looked at Relix.

        Relix let out a long suffering sigh. “It’s a chromatic thing.”

        “ Racist ,” Julia hissed.

***

        Merton managed to remain standing until the doors to the arena opened and his wife, his girlfriend, his parents and his friends hurried in. Then he collapsed onto his ass, his face going sheeting white as his knees shuddered. His palms shook so hard that he was pretty sure that he was actually drumming on the deck. Relix and Julia knelt to either side of him, their eyes filled with concern. Julia, he wasn’t shocked by. But Relix actually took him aback. Then she slapped his head gently.

        “If you knew you were going to win , why didn’t you make your demands more extravagant? House Castrovel could have killed to have a few trade routes in this arm of the galaxy!”

        “Insert trite 1950s standup routine about married life joke number 39,821,” Julia muttered in Merton’s ear.

        “R-Right...” Merton shook his head as he started to stand up. Julia and Relix both helped him. Relix, actually, did most of the lifting. She mashed herself against his side, her arm sliding along the small of his back. Merton was deeply confused until he remembered her mentioning how exothermic humans were. Which was weird, considering how many dragons breathed fucking fire . As he considered that, Trevor shook his head slightly.

        “Seriously, Bespin was bullshit,” he said.

        “You were the one who made a freelance mercenary company on Cloud City three years after the destruction of the first fucking Death Star, dude. What did you expect would happen when the Empire showed up?” Merton groaned.

        Trevor smirked slightly. “You...are a fucking killer GM, dude.”

        “I know, he’s great, isn’t he?” Julia asked, giggling slightly.

        “No, I mean, he keeps killing us,” Trevor said, frowning.

        “So, what happens now?” Dad asked, butting in. His mustache was at full bristle and he looked at Relix intently. “Will House Thresh back off?”

        “Yes,” Relix said, sounding amused. “He only lost face and a minor cousin. With the loss of face, he’ll have no reason to continue bothering me.” She chortled quietly. “After all, if he tries again, then I can simply bring this event up at the next Galactic Gala and ruin his reputation and the reputation of his house before the other Great Houses. And as the Baron and his House rely on their reputation as asskickers to get merc contracts throughout the spinward reaches and the unsettled core...” She chuckled. “We have put paid to that .”

***

        Servants picked up the shining black egg. They were slave collared and had restraint implants in their foreheads, and they had been enchanted to only follow the orders of Baron Bex. But despite all of that, Bex and his half-sister, Gimtesh, kept their eyes on the four servants as they gingerly moved their egg onto the cart.

        “Well,” Gimtesh growled. “This is one serious  fuckup.”

        Bex’s hand closed around her throat. He lifted her up and the half-elven girl made a loud gurgling, gagging noise, her feet kicking, her hands going to his wrist, trying to hold herself up. Her stunted half-wings spread and she tried to choke out a word. “S...So...Sorry.”

        “I know  it was a fuckup, Gimtesh,” Bex snarled.

        “T-Then...keep?” Gimtesh looked at the egg.

        “I can’t ,” Bex hissed, jerking her forward. “That human bastard and that spoiled cunt of a royal princess are backwood bumpkins . We have at least a few weeks before they discover the secret. That’s time enough for...” He looked at the egg. A shimmering stasis field snapped around the shining black surface. He looked back at Gimtesh. “For the Ousters.”

        He dropped Gimtesh to the ground. She gasped, clutching at her neck. Coughed. Coughed again. She looked up. “B-But...”

        “We can breed a new egg for Xosh,” Bex said, looking down at the stasis field – shining like a chrome soap bubble, concealing what it held. A slave typed in a pass-key code to the side of the stasis emitter. Bex punched the pass-key pad. The buttons shattered and sparks flew from the side of the machine. He grinned slightly. “Add a few days to our estimation. Just in case.”

        Gimtesh watched as the egg was wheeled away by the servants.

        She didn’t fear the servants giving anything away.

        They, after all, had no tongues.

***

        The Talon-9 flipped, then burned hard away from Arcturus at almost 5Gs. And the fact that Merton could say or think a sentence like that almost made up for the fact that he had been kidnapped by a spoiled space dragon princess. Or was that spoiled dragon space princess? Either way, he felt like his whole body had turned into rubber. A few years of sheer terror had been compacted into the past two days. And now, at last, he was able to relax, lounging in a chair as he looked at the stasis bubble that contained the newest member of his increasingly bizarre family.

        Relix and Thuwit both sat at the other sides of the table. Relix’s tail kept bumping against his ankle, then jerking away. Then, a few moments later, it would creep back to bump against him again.

        “It’s a stasis bubble,” Thuwit said. “Simple divination spells have determined that it does contain a dragon egg. We believe that the key-input was destroyed intentionally, though.”

        “Of course it was,” Relix muttered.

        “Okay,” Merton said. “Three questions.”

        Thuwit looked at him. Rather than the withering looks he had sent Merton at the beginning of their relationships, Thuwit now looked at him with something close to actual fucking respect. It was almost heartwarming.

        “One,” Merton said. “How do stasis bubbles work?”

        “They’re rudimentary alterations to teleport spells,” Thuwit said. “But rather than choosing a destination, they simply choose no destination and rework the spatial warping elements into sustaining the teleport. Since teleportation is instant, this extends that instantaneous moment until the magical energy bleeds away. While that ‘moment’ exists, nothing can change within the sphere.”

        “Huh.” Merton blinked. “What teleport spell did they use as the basis?”

        “Intergalactic,” Relix snarled.

        “So, we have some time until this wears off.” Merton nodded. “Question two: how do dragons usually work? Egg wise?”

        Relix crossed her arms underneath her breasts, leaning back in her seat. She arched her back slightly and Merton found it hard to ignore the perkiness of her chest, which strained against her sheer robes. Her voice, though, was pure irritation. “An egg is laid. Between six to nine months later, a dragon comes out. It drinks in magic and information from the surrounding area, so they’re very knowledgeable. But dragon children lack any context for the information they know, and thus, are... extremely irritating.”

        Merton nodded.

        “And they try to have sex with everything ,” Relix muttered.

        “Yeah. What?” Merton looked at her.

        “And your third question, m’lord?” Thuwit asked.

        “Uh…” Merton blinked and filed that away for later ‘what the fuckery.’ He looked at Thuwit. “What local pirates, thugs, low lifes, assassins and assorted riff-raff exist in the Orion Arm?”

        Relix and Thuwit’s brows furrowed.

        “You think this egg has some incriminating intelligence on House Thresh?” Thuwit asked – his fingers already tapping out a command code sequence on the table – his finger touches creating tiny flashes of lights under his long, thin hand.

        “Why else delay our contacting it?” Merton suggested.

        Relix shivered, then scowled at the chrome-sheathed egg. Her tail started to lash as she muttered. “F-Fucking goddamn it.”

        Merton smiled. “Hey, it’s okay, we-”

        Relix glared at him.

        Merton’s smile faded away. Fortunately at that moment, the door opened and in walked a fucking monster. It was a bug-human hybrid, covered with chitinous armor, with glowing red eyes. It had dozens of weapons strapped to its body, and weirdest of all, it was walking in with Lisa. Lisa, who seemed to be completely unphased, was saying: “Oh, yeah, and we had a black president named Obama.”

        “A negro president?” the bug monster asked.

        “What the who the fuck?” Merton stammered, springing to his feet in shock.

        “Oh!” Lisa said, jerking her thumb. “You haven’t met Gunner? This is Gunner. He’s a World War 2 fighter pilot who got abducted and experimented on by the fuckfaces in the FTE. Gunner, this is Merton Miles.”

        “I’m aware, Lisa,” Gunner said – his strangely accented voice deeply amused. “She was telling me that the gays can get married now? Why? There can’t be that many of them, right?”

        Merton just...let himself sit right the fuck back down. He shook his head as Gunner thumped forward, his arms crossed behind his back. His head lifted and he spoke in the clipped, steady cadence of someone giving a briefing. “The current threats in this arm of the galaxy are many and varied. Lightly settled by the Five Talon Empire and even more thinly settled by client races, it is home to several dozen pirate gangs. The most dangerous are the Geotari, a race of rock men who feed on the waste heat of planetary tectonics...but now that they have transitioned to space based living, they prefer the heat of blasted starships.”

        He sighed. “The other danger is the Ousters.”

        Merton and Lisa exchanged a glance .

        “They’re a race of nomadic humanoids,” Gunner said.

        “Three meters tall, tailed, big on glassing planets?” Merton asked.

        “No,” Gunner said. “They’re small and they don’t glass planets, they drop asteroids on them.”

        “Worth a shot,” Merton said, drawing a confused look from Relix and Thuwit. He sighed, then decided he might as well lay it out on the table. “Fine. Okay. I’ve been noticing recurring themes in the Five Talon Empire that reflect human, well, fiction. Dungeons and Dragons, for instance, has the split between chromatic and metallic dragons. Then there’s the Ousters – a name from a sci-fi novel I read back on Earth. And the organizational similarity of the FTE to the Imperium from Dune. It’s...all...kinda weird.”

        “This will be something we need to investigate,” Thuwit said. “but for now, I believe the more pressing issue is the egg and the potential ambushing. Yes?”

        “Yes,” Merton said.

        “I suggest we burn hard for the Core,” Gunner said, his voice soft. “Then, once our thrust plume is making it quite clear, we instead plot a subspatial jump to the nearest friendly House. I suggest House Yeltanzo.”

        “A copper  dragon?” Relix asked, her tail coiling up in disgust. Then she sighed and nodded. “Fine. Fine. Hamin Yeltanzo might be an utter boor, but he won’t shoot us with nuclear weapons.” She shook her head and stood. “Set the course, Gunner, I shall be in my chambers.”

        She stalked off, her tail lashing hard. Merton sprang to his feet, squeezing Julia’s shoulder quickly. He started after his wife, his jaw clenching slightly. Relix put a bit of extra bounce to her stride – actually growing her legs slightly so that she ate up the distance between him and the elevator. The door hissed open and Merton jogged forward. The door started to close and actually scraped against his butt and belly as he squeezed in, thumping against Relix. She put her palm on his forehead and shoved him back, glaring at him.

        “What do you want ?” she asked.

        “Excuse me , Princess,” Merton said, angrily. “I kinda thought we should talk about the egg, the future of my friends and family, the upcoming Ouster ambush, the fact that I’m no longer mage blind and need to-”

        “You’re what ?” Relix hissed, swinging her head around to face him.

        “...right...” Merton whispered. He hadn’t asked the four armed purple skinned chick if she had told Relix that.

        The door to the elevator opened and Relix grabbed him and dragged him by one arm into their shared bedroom. Not that they had ever shared it once in their short, tempestuous marriage. She literally tossed him into the room before slamming her palm onto the shut and lock function. The door hissed and thunked and she glared at Merton as Merton staggered away from her to the bed. The bed was rumpled and messy and a strange, tangy scent filled the air. It wasn’t bad , though. In fact, the more Merton sniffed it, the more faintly familiar it was.

        “Explain,” she growled.

        Merton rubbed his shoulder. “A clever primitive never reveals his tricks.” He grinned, slightly. “But since I’m not that clever: My lovely girlfriend Julia talked your engineer into doing it, with plausible deniability.”

        Relix shook her head. “You... arrogant  monkey. Magic is the fundamental force of the cosmos, blessed to those who have it. Dragons have spent thousands of years learning its complexities, its nuance, and you think you can just swagger in with your confidence and your gorgeous brown eyes and just take it like a princess chained to the bed. Thrusting into it with your...maleness...” Her voice grew softer as she glared at him. Merton blinked. “ Conquering magic like an eager little bitch...” She purred, her clawed finger caressing his chest.

        Merton blinked again. “Relix?”

        She grabbed onto his shirt. Picked him up. And bodily hurled him out of the room. It was shocking, the transition from simply standing there to flying through the air. He hit the ground, rebounded off rubber, then landed on his feet, skidding backwards a few feet before he came to a stop. He blinked, gaping at the door as Relix stood in it, her arms shaking. She looked as if she was struggling against some massive weight, her mouth fogged in a haze of frost. Rings of steam burst from her nostrils as she snarled.

        “Get. Out. Now.”

        Merton stepped backwards, his eyes wide as he saw her tail lifting.

         Lifting .

        That smell hit his nose again and he realized why it was so familiar.

        Relix’s rooms... stank of her arousal. Her tail was lifting upwards and arching and as he watched, her breasts seemed to firm up, becoming more taut and eager. Her nipples stabbed out against her robes, begging to be caressed and squeezed. Merton blinked at her.

        “W-What’s happening?” he asked.

        She jerked her head aside. “I’m in heat ,” she snarled. “Y-You stupid fucking lovely monkey, you get me so fucking wet, I...I can’t stop it. My body triggers the heat. Hormones. All of it.” She hissed. “I...g-god, just throw me down on the floor and fuck my brains out. Humans like that? Women so desperate they’ll do anything? I’ll let you do anything. I’ll suck your cock and lick your balls. I’ll even let you knock me up. Please. Just... fuck me...” She whimpered, arching her back. Now she wasn’t standing in the door.

        She was posing . Her breasts were framed by the door-frame, as were her hips. Her sex was moist enough to cause her robes to slick against her thighs, drawing the outline of her cunny. The pale light of a thousand stars glimmered through the windows behind her, giving her body an exotic allure that rivaled anything Merton had ever seen in his life.

        “Please...” she whispered. “M-Make love to me, my husband. I’ve...never...”

        Merton closed his eyes.

        And he did the hardest thing he had ever done in his life.

        He turned away.

        “Merton...” Relix whispered. Her voice felt as if it was choked .

        “J-Just give me five seconds!” Merton said, holding up his finger.

        He stepped over to the elevator. He tapped the com unit, and said: “Can I speak to the head, uh, doctor?”

        A few short seconds later – seconds that felt as if they lasted five eternities, as Merton felt the increasingly nonplussed draconic princess looking at his back – the four armed purple skinned chick appeared on the screen.

        “Can you send me a drug that counteracts a dragon going into heat?” Merton asked.

        “These drugs exist,” the woman said – looking like she was deeply confused and trying to grasp exactly what was going on.

        “Then. Send. Me. One.” Merton forced the words out through clenched teeth. The face blinked off the screen and a few seconds later, a small slit opened above the screen and dropped a tiny ampule into his palm. Merton turned and walked back towards the gorgeous, confused, horny, desperate dragon-girl, and plunged it into her neck. The tiny hiss clicked on and she blinked, her eyes growing focused. Her tail remained lifted, and her nipples remained hard, but she was no longer struggling against the door-frame. No longer locking her knees to keep herself in place.

        “W-Why?” she whispered.

        “I kinda have this rule against taking advantage of people,” Merton said, smiling slightly at her. “Besides. This isn’t exactly a-”

        Relix leaned forward. Her muzzle touched his lips. The contact was electric – and her tongue swept into his mouth. It was long and cool and flexible, and it wrapped around his and squeezed. Once. Twice. Her scaled hands slipped along his shoulders as she pressed herself against him. Her muzzle shifted subtly as he kissed her back – growing more flexible, shorter, more humanlike. Eventually, he was simply kissing a small, delicate mouth on a face that set somewhere between draconic and humanoid. It felt divine . Her breasts mashed into his chest and her tail wrapped around his back, holding him close.

        Then the kiss broke and Merton panted. “R-Relix...” he blinked. “D-Did the ampule not work?”

        “Of course it worked, you idiot ,” Relix hissed. Her eyes closed and she ducked her head forward. “I love you. Y-Y-You... fucking asshole.”

        Merton blinked. But before he could say anything, Relix was on him again. Her mouth pressed to his, her tongue thrust in deep. And this time, Merton kissed her back . He kissed her back with the fierce eagerness of a man tossed a life preserver in the chop. His hands reached down and slapped against her scaled rump, squeezing fierce and hard. Her flesh dimpled under his fingers and she hissed into his mouth – a pleased, happy sound. She broke the kiss, ducking her head forward as she pressed her forehead against his. “Yessss...” she breathed. His hand reached up and squeezed the base of her tail. It was strong and twitched against his palm. He forced her tail up, pressing hard.

        Relix rolled her head back. “Yes, god, yes, make me lift that tail...”

        Merton kissed her neck. He tasted the warmth of her scales. He growled into her, his voice soft. “I was always wondering...” he murmured, before kissing her chest, above the swell of her breasts. “What kind of dragon are you?”

        “A pure dragon. Obviously.” She scoffed, then gasped as Merton’s hands slipped underneath the edge of her robes, tugging them away from her breasts. The smart clothes came away unwillingly – as if he was tearing them off. Strands stuck to her scales before popping free, giving him the feeling of peeling a delicious candy. The beauty he exposed was so very worth it. Her breasts heaved, with scales glittering like stars. Her nipples were void-black, and hard enough to cut glass. Merton closed his mouth around one, sucking gently on it.

        Relix gasped, rolling her head back. “Pure dragons, ah, we’re also called...mmm...feathered dragons. Quetzalcoatl was the first Emperor, he bred our line.”

        Any other time, Merton would have jerked back in shock.

        But right now, he was too busy kissing and sucking on the galaxy’s most perfect pair of breasts. His eyes closed and he reveled in the contrast of her scales. Silky smooth, yet textured and tough . He could squeeze her breast hard  and it provoked not a squeak of pain or a cry of annoyance. Instead, Relix moaned like she was battery powered. Merton drew his mouth back, a few thin lines of salivia connecting his mouth to her nipple.

        “Gods you’re so warm ,” she whispered.

        Merton pushed her back, his own clothes melting off his body like wispy smoke. Relix let herself fall backwards, the bed absorbing her back striking it with a faint bounce . Then she was spread wide for him, her thighs opening, revealing the perfectness of her draconic pussy. Merton crawled atop the bed, his palms touching the fabric to either side of her head. But he didn’t plunge in. Something in him knew that this time was special . He looked into Relix’s eyes. His voice was soft.

        “You’ve...never...” He paused. “Never done it like this, have you?”

        She turned her head aside. “I have done it like this many times...” she muttered, her voice sullen.

        Merton shifted so that he could cup one hand on her cheek. He turned her head to face him again. Her eyes roiled – shifting hues and colors so fast that it was nearly hypnotic.

        “You’ve had sex. And fucked. But you’ve never made love, have you?” Merton whispered, his voice soft. Husky.

        Relix’s muzzle flushed. Hard.

        “No...” she breathed.

        Merton leaned forward. He kissed her nose. Then he kissed the line of her jaw. His lips feathered along her neck, gentle and soft. His lips trailed that pattern – a kiss here, a lick there, a warm breath there – on a slow, winding course. He went along her neck, then across her chest. He nuzzled the valley between her scaled breasts, then lingered lovingly over the cute, sleekness of her belly button. He didn’t know that creatures born in eggs had belly buttons, but he was not about to fucking complain, because Relix had the cutest fucking belly button he had seen in his fucking life. His tongue delved in and she squealed, then jerked her head to the side. One wing flapped spasmodically, slapping against the bed with a drum-like whump . Her tail slowly looped around Merton’s neck – not in a choking way. More in a gentle pushing way.

        Said gentle pushing mashed his face against her sex with enough force that a wet slap sounded where his nose and cheek pressed to her dripping, eager slit. Merton laughed, spluttered, then pushed himself back and up.

        “Princess!”

        “Sorry,” she said, looking quite flustered. “I j-just thought that was where you were going...”

        “I was,” Merton said, grinning at her as he kissed her thigh. He nipped her scales gently. “But now I’m just going to keep exploring.”

        “But I-”

        “Shhh,” Merton breathed against her thigh. He kissed up to her knee, nuzzled the side of her leg. His palm caressed her calf as he whispered. “You’re too beautiful to rush this, Princess.”

        “M-Merton...” she paused. Merton kissed the underside of her calf as her leg straightened out obligingly. He half stood, so that he could nuzzle against her ankle, his hands stroking up and down her legs. His eyes were closed tight as he breathed in the sensations of her . The smoothness of her scales. The faint reptile scent that mingled with the intense musk of a woman’s arousal. The elegant curve of her foot as he kissed the ball of her heel.

        “Yes, Princess?” Merton whispered, opening one eye. She was looking away again, one arm caressing her breasts. No. Not caressing. Covering them. She looked as shy and quivery and eager as any girl he had ever seen. And since Merton had only had sex with one girl in his life, and she was currently downstairs, likely telling the others her life story, Merton didn’t exactly have a lot to compare too.

        But Relix looked as shy as a deer.

        “Call me Lix...” her voice was soft.

        “...Lix?” Merton asked.

        “Don’t laugh!” Relix snapped her head up to look at him. “I-It’s...it’s a sign of trust.” She paused. “That part of my name is the smallest part that retains meaning. It’s the core of the name that the rest is built around – it’s...well, it’s the basis of most spells used to enchant someone at a distance.”

        Merton blinked, then felt a sudden rush of emotions – more intense than simple lust. “Okay, Lix...” he whispered. The name made Relix shudder in delight and fear and something more. Her eyes closed to slits and she breathed out a slow, happy sound that wasn’t words, and yet spoke volumes.

        Merton’s hand slid down to his cock. He was so achingly hard that it was hard to think straight. And so, he didn’t. His hand went to her leg – the one that was lifted was in the right posture. But her others needed to be opened and spread outwards, to open her up enough to accept him. As she unfolded like a flower, Relix – or Lix, in that moment – sucked in a quiet gasp of eagerness. She was leaving a tiny puddle under her rump, soaking the sheets. Her voice urged him on: “Yessss...”

        Merton ground the fat tip of his cock against her sex. She was molten hot and his cock glided against her – she was nearly frictionless and welcoming. His eyes narrowed to thin slits. He wanted to close them so that he could revel in the physicality of the moment. But he also didn’t want to tear his eyes off his Princess, his wife, his love…

        For in this moment…

        Merton knew that he’d never have a heart small enough for just one soul. Not after seeing Princess Relix Castrovel bare her soul before him.

        “Hi!”

        The voice jerked both their heads up.

        A small black dragon – roughly the size of a large dog, or a small pony – sat on the dresser that was perched against the wall. His tail wagged happily and his wings were folded against his sides. He was in his quadrupedal form, and his bright, golden eyes were watching the scene with clear excitement. He waved. “Hi!”

        Merton looked at Lix. Lix looked back at him.

        They both looked at the tiny dragon.

        “Hi!” he said a third time. “I’m Brash! Brash the Dragon!” He puffed up his chest. “I was in an egg, but it was boring, so I hatched! Oh!” He looked around himself. “This room is fancy! Oh! Oh!” He gasped, then spotted his tail out of the corner of his eye. “Something’s behind me!” He started to run after it. This caused his snout to bump into the wall as he spun on the top of the dresser, which tottered on its foundations, then slowly fell forward.

        “Wheeeeeee!” Brash squealed as the dresser hit the floor with a bang . The small dragon skidded along the metal floor, his paws and claws clattering like metal on metal. He bounced, jounced, then finished his skid underneath the bed. “Oh! Oh! You dropped this!” Brash came out from under the bed, one of Relix’s bras on his snout. “I found it! Brash saved the day!” He started to do a little dance.

        Merton wasn’t sure what shocked him more.

        This...dragon…

        Or the fact that Relix wore bras.

        But before he could comment on either, Talon- 9 was simultaneously hit by two dozen fifty megaton fusion warheads and almost a hundred railgun slugs going a pretty significant factor of C.

Chapter Five: Roll that Initiative!

        There was an unfortunate (or maybe that was a fortunate) truth about nuclear weapons and their use in space warfare. Without an atmosphere to transmit the concussive force, or the intense heat, nukes had to depend entirely on radiation and the light burst of their detonation to cause actual damage.

        The two dozen fifty megaton warheads that slammed into the Talon-9 and detonated didn’t actually strike the hull of the ship. Drawing that close would have activated various defenses that would have slagged the intricate weapons before they managed to go fusion. Instead, they flew about five kilometers away from the sleek dart of a ship and went fusion with a vengeance. They bathed the ship, from draconic snout to fluted, almost whale-like fins, with enough hard radiation to fry a roc’s eggs. As the adamantine hull blazed with a blue-white heat and the armor plating shifted like tectonic plates, the Ouster pirates fired their railguns.

        Ten railguns, from ten different ships, all firing at a steady shot-per-second pace, each one launching a dart of crude iron through magnetic accelerators that ran from stem to stern of the little, arrowhead ships. Magic had been used to wring extra acceleration out of the railguns - and extra length, considering how many of the guns had been ‘doubled’ by placing flickering teleport-portals at the midway point.

        The slugs struck the adaminte hull and tore holes the size of cars through deck after deck after deck. Greedy vacuum ripped crew and passengers into the depths of space. A naked Merton struggled and flailed as he was blown outwards and saw the glorious, horrifying sight of the Talon-9 ripping to pieces as its magical reactor core went critical and ripped open a hole straight to the Plane of Positive Energy. The wave of healing energy struck him – overloading his biological functions and burning his every cell with a terrible radiance.

        He was drowning. Drowning in pure life .

        And then, like a soap bubble popping, he was standing on the bridge of the Talon-9. Next to him stood Relix, looking quite irritated.

        “Oh what now?” she asked.

        “Pirates, ma’am,” Gunner said, looking up from his console. “They’ve burned through three of our ablative wish layers.”

        “I...what!?” Merton yelped.

        “Uuuuugh!” Relix threw up her hands. “Those spells are so freaking expensive !”

        “Whaaaaaaaaat is happening?” Merton asked.

        “Hi! I’m Brash!” The small dragon hatchling that had interrupted Merton’s lovemaking leaped onto his head, sticking his nose into Merton’s face.

        The Talon-9  accelerated hard enough that it kicked Merton in the chest and sent him falling backwards into a couch that slipped smoothly out of the floor of the bridge. Merton blinked a few dozen times as he tried to grasp what had happened. He had felt the killing radiance. He had felt his eyeballs freezing. He reached out and touched Relix – feeling the strong curve of her shoulder, the softness of her scales. Brash, meanwhile, had curled up on the top of his head like the world’s second most adorable hat and gone promptly to sleep. His snores were a bit like a purr. And, like a purring cat, it set Merton at ease. Slowed his heart rate down to something close to normal.

        Relix put her hand on Merton’s hand and explained: “Well, obviously, considering how dangerous ambushes are, we have some perfect defenses.”

        “Perfect defenses?” Merton asked. “Like... perfect perfect defenses?”

        “Wish spells!” Relix said, cheerfully. “We have three layers of them weaved into the skin of the ship. It’s expensive , though. And a pain in the tail. Fifty thousand credits worth of hard diamonds, not to mention the century and a half of training for each wizard-technician to cast the bloody things.”

        Merton blinked at her. “Why. Don’t. I...wishes!?” He shook his head. “Why don’t you use them for more than a fancy Omega-13!?”

        “Uh, because it’s against the law ?” Relix asked, her brow furrowing.

        “That hasn’t stopped anyone in the history of ever ,” Merton said, putting his hands on his head as he squeezed his hair. Brash nosed at his fingers curiously. Merton didn’t have the heart to remove him.

        “Merton. There are laws. And then there are laws . There are only three laws that have ever seen an entire household eradicated to the last cell .” Relix put her finger on his chest, teasing one of Merton’s short chest hairs. It was then  that Merton realized that he was completely naked. His hand reached out and he found one of the cushions on the curved couch, then placed it above his crotch, his cheeks flushing dark red. “The law against genetic engineering dragons. The law against contacting the Night City. And, finally, the law against the use of wish spells in anything but stabilization and approved terraforming.”

        Merton gulped, slowly. “Okay...so...wishes can be used for defenses. And terraforming?”

        “Yes,” she said. “I mean, we dragons live forever, but we’re not that patient . ”

        “And whole houses have been eradicated over this?” he asked.

        “Why do you think there aren’t any Radium, Tungsten, Teal or Zebra dragons anymore?” Relix asked, with the air of someone who couldn’t believe someone could be so dense. Merton nodded, slowly, then looked out at the rest of the bridge. He had kind of expected more to have happened . But as he took in what was happening on the bridge, he realized that space battle seemed to be that kind of battle that went very very slowly, until it went very very quickly. He had time enough to take in the bridge. It was roughly triangular in shape, with consoles along two of the edges and doors along the back. The center of the bridge was dominated by the incredibly comfy command couch. Or at least, the ‘lounge around and watch Gunner do the actual work’ couch.

        Speaking of Gunner, he was standing beside several of the consoles – which were worked by a motley collection: A dark skinned, one eared elf who was currently tapping on controls that translated to faint shudders and pulses of acceleration. There was a dwarf without a beard, who was currently listing off targeting solutions with a stutter so intense that it made every sentence take twice as long as it should have. Finally, there was a gobliness, who was dressed in a spacesuit as designed by a fetish catalog, who kept breaking into the firing solutions with the same question.

        “T-Th...The Ou...Ousters are c-coming in at v-v-v-v-vhu- vector -”

        “Can I use the flamers!?”

        “For the last time,” Gunner said, his voice calm and casual. “No. You cannot use the flamers, Pyria.”

        “But they’re flame throwers!” Pyria groaned.

        The door to the bridge opened and in came the four armed purple skinned chick. She looked pissed .

        “Why was I not informed of incoming ordinance?” she asked. “I could have activated the PRCs!”

        “Because we didn’t know they were coming, Specy.” Gunner said and, at last, at long last, Merton had a name to hang on the four armed purple skinned chick. She crossed two of said arms over her chest, frowning.

        “Well, the PRCs are up now,” she said. “We’ve got some planar whipple shields up.”

        “We’ve noticed,” Gunner said, frowning. “How’s the power leads?”

        “Four of the five portals are up. If you play up our energy requirements anymore, we’ll be tapped out-” Specy said, frowning as she cocked her head.

        “We’re just dodging ,” Gunner said, shaking his head. His mandibles clacked together audibly. “We have to keep this up until they run out of-” A series of bright flashes filled the forward view-screen, making Merton wince. Beside him, Relix had dozed off. What was with dragons and taking naps during space battles?

        “Uh, question,” Merton said. “What the hell is going on?”

        Gunner and Specy looked at him. Gunner looked faintly amused. Specy looked like she was trying to evaluate how well he had put his newly enhanced dong to use. Merton felt a flush crawl up his cheeks as he coughed and said: “I think, as Relix’s husband, I should know how to fight a space battle. Just in case.”

        Gunner pursed his mandibles, then nodded. “Fine. The Talon-9  is a top of the line draconic demiship. It’s about twenty meters long, but the interior is expanded via the use of demiplanes. Her reactor is a direct portal-feed to the Plane of Positive Energy – essentially limitless, save that we can only pop five portals at once to run energy out. For passive defenses, we have a layer of adamantine with a sublayer of bio-engineered dragon scales for flexible kinetic dispersal, followed up by three level 9 spell slots preloaded with class two wish spells, which are triggered on catastrophic drive failure to return the ship to normal, to return the crew to normal, and to put us a standard DU away from the enemy.”

        “A dragon unit?” Merton asked.

        “Yeah. It’s the distance that a dragon needs between another dragon before it feels comfortable leaving its hoard unguarded,” Gunner said. “It’s roughly ten thousand kilometers of hard vacuum.”

        Merton slowly looked at his wife, who had started to wake up. She blinked, yawned, then said: “What? He said un guarded. With proper guards, I can leave my hoard much earlier than that.” She rubbed at her muzzle. “Have the enemies been destroyed yet, Gunner? I was in the middle of sex.”

        “No, m’lady,” Gunner said – shooting a look at Merton. Merton felt his magically enhanced dong shrivel under that glower.

        “Ah well,” Relix said, leaning back as she started to close her eyes again.

        Merton shook his head, trying to get the conversation back on track. “What are the active defenses?”

        Gunner pointed to one of the consoles – where Pyria was sitting, with her green feet up on the console, a small hand-held flamer in her hands. She was firing it into the air, looking transfixed by the flickering orange streamer. “That console controls the planar whipple shields. If the ship detects incoming kinetic or directed energy ordinance, it’ll pop a portal to the Elemental Plane of Water. Anything that gets past that gets hit by the PRCs – the Polar Ray Casters. They’re a series of two hundred wands enchanted with frost beam cantrips, with meta-magic augmentation worked into the focusing apertures to maximize damage. Via focusing, the rays can knock most missiles out of the air, as well as small fighters, assuming their planar shields are down.”

        Merton was starting to come to grips with just how vast the difference between humanity’s technology and draconic magitechnology was and it was making him feel very...very small.

        “Now, for weapons!” Gunner said, his voice casual. Like he’d belted this out before. A lot. “Four railguns along the spine, and five LRPTs under each wings, capable of ripple firing ten plasma torpedoes each. We’ve got five magazines, each one holding a hundred torpedoes. Then we have a backup cache of vortex weapons, in case we really need to get serious.”

        “How much ammo for the railguns do we have?” Merton asked, rubbing his palms against his face.

        Gunner looked at him oddly. “They...they’re fed directly by portals to the Elemental Plane of Earth. Technically, their firing starts about ten clicks back in the EPE, with only the last twenty meters of the gun coming out on this ship. Ammo’s not a concern.”

        “ Jesus ,” Merton whispered.

        “Now,” Gunner said. “Our enemy are ten different Ouster pirate ships – their clan markings are obscured, but they’re running on black market antimatter reactors. Hot, efficient, dangerous. Their railguns are all shorter lengths than ours, but they have more of them, and their nukes are a serious pain in the ass .” He waved Merton over. Merton, feeling distinctly underdressed, stood and kept his crotch covering pillow against his junk. Brash, who had remained on the top of his head, snored even louder.

        The screen that Gunner showed Merton was instantly recognizable to Merton, because he was the kind of nerd who knew how to recognize orbital and space combat maneuvers. The ten Ouster ships were basically on the Talon-9’s tail, firing a constant stream of railgun fire, which was portaled away into the plane of water. Nukes swept outwards in jinking patterns, zig zagging towards the ship before being struck down by the PRCs. Some of the nukes did get through and detonated close enough to the ship to leave the hull glowing a cherry red. But Merton was pretty sure there weren’t enough of them to really cause them problems. However, Merton could see that the only reason the Ouster ships couldn’t get closer was because the Talon-9 was burning as hard as she could go.

        “We can’t go faster without shutting down some of the portal defenses,” Gunner said.

        “And if they get closer, they can saturate our defenses with close range fire. I bet they have knife fight weapons. Lasers or something.” Merton rubbed his chin, thinking.

        “Telescope them,” Gunner said. “Check.”

        “Aye, sir!” The one eared dark skinned elf said. A moment later, she said. “Yup, they have a few dozen industrial lasers each. They’re made for mining ore, but they’re dwarven make. They’ll cut adamantine, given enough time.”

        “How long?” Merton asked. Gunner looked amused.

        “Thirty six seconds,” the dark elf said.

        “Well,” Specy said, stepping up slightly. “Less, if we’re still red hot. More, if we can cool down before we get to them.”

        “Can we make our defensive portals bigger?” Merton asked.

        “Yes, if we want to suck up all our energy...” Specy said, frowning.

        “Okay,” Merton said. “Okay.” He thought. He thought of every sneaky, stupid, bullshit trick that his players had thrown at him. He played through the possibilities in his head, trying to get a feeling for what was plausible. It was just like gamemastering. Just higher stakes. Slowly, the ideas sifted in his head. Just as slowly, Merton began to smile. “Okay. Gunner, I’m going to tell you my plan. And you are going to tell me, on a scale from one to ten, how good it is.”

        They listened.

        Slowly, Gunner started to grin.

        “That’ll be a ten, sir.”

        And Merton heard real loyalty in that voice.

***

        Pirate-Lord Kursk tapped three of his five fingers on his thigh as he leaned back in the acceleration creche of the Ouster ship Fuck You I Got Mine. The steady wham wham wham of the railgun going off had gone from a comforting pattern to an aching hammering against his already aching exterior ear-sacks. Kursk was a trullup, one of the sentient arboreal squirrels that had evolved on the elven garden world of Gladefellow.

        He had hated it.

        He had hated every last second of the saccharine sweetness. He had hated the midnight dancing parties around the fairy circles. He had hated the twee elven princesses, so innocent in their sheer robes, giving roses and flowers to everyone who came to visit. He had despised the cities, where elven councils had genteelly given over every last scrap of dignity and magical resources to the Five Talon Empire.

        Now, here he was, about to nukefuck a princess of that empire into radioactive slag. He could feel the closeness of his victory, like the closeness of a woman in heat.

        “Cap,” his gunner – a short, squat dwarf who, like all Ousters, had been made smaller and smaller by the years of magical transformations that people who joined their clans had to undergo. Ousters built small ships, and built them to survive in space. If you joined, you had to get small too. Kursk had himself lost two feet of height, and hadn’t regretted it a bit. “We’re running a bit low on the nukes.”

        “Get the gobblers to build more. We have enough spare parts...”

        “The wrangler says the gobblers are getting antsy. They wanna invent something.” His gunner looked back over her shoulder, her own sideburns a fierce, bristling pair that had been dyed and spiked into a sawblade pattern. It made her look like she had eaten an industrial workshop.

        “Put them on the screen,” Kursk growled.

        The main screen flickered from the view of the space battle to the gobbler wrangler. The incredibly tired looking blue skinned torriie who had been put in charge of managing their pack of goblins was smoking what seemed to be her tenth cigarette. Behind her, several goblins were running about. One was swinging on a lamp. Another one had set himself on fire and was rolling around on the floor while the others chanted: “Drink! Drink! Drink! Drink!”

        “Yeah, cap?” the torriie asked.

        Kursk put on his best smile, despite the throbbing headache that was starting to burn through his brain. The hammering of the railgun, plus the nearly three Gs they were burning...it was hard to take, even with contra-gravitic enchantment reducing the actual practical gravities to almost draconic norms. “I hear your gobblers want to invent shit.”

        The goblins all shut up and, in an instant, were standing before the camera. “Yes sir sir, sir yes!” one of them said, saluting so hard he almost knocked his goggled helmet off his head.

        “Which one of you has an idea ?” Kursk asked.

        The goblins shuffled. Then one of them raised his hand. “I had this idea for a torpedo that like, fires other torp-”

        “Space him,” Kursk said. The goblin had time to say ‘wha’ before the gobbler wrangler had grabbed him by his scrawny throat, jammed him into the goblin airlock (which doubled as a trash dispenser) and slammed down the leaver. The sound of the goblin’s scream was irritatingly silent. Kursk would have enjoyed hearing it. The other goblins had gone very still. “Anyone else want to not build nuclear weapons?”

        The goblins shook their heads in unison.

        “Then start building some fucking nukes,” Kursk growled.

        “SIR!”

        The shout of his gunner jerked Kursk’s attention away from the gobblers – the screen winked back to a view of the space battle. The view was everything he had wished for. He grinned, fiercely, as he watched the dragon’s demiship start to slew to the side. Their engines were sputtering incoherently, and while their portal shields did flick up occasionally, they didn’t stop every single shot that was hitting. He looked at his gunner.

        “Hit the scryer,” he said.

        “Aye...” She paused. “They’ve had a total magic cascade failure! I think it’s their armor .”

        “The bane of arcane magic,” Kursk chuckled. Everyone knew that wizards and sorcerers and arcanists and bloodchanters and ciphers couldn’t so much as light a candle if they were in heavy armor. The same was true of ships – dragons could make the arcane spell mishap chance close to zero. But they couldn’t make it zero . And that meant...he rubbed his chin and then said: “All ships. Hold off on the fire. Lets board this bitch and see if we can sell some dragon steaks!”

        A lusty cheer came in from every com band as the Ousters accelerated forward. Several looped left. Several looped right. Kursk put himself on a zenith arc. But the bulk of the Ousters headed straight in.

        Straight in.

        Straight.

        In.

        Something buzzed along Kursk’s brain. A tiny suspicion that, he thought, was the root of why he never liked Gladefellow.

        He could sniff when things were just too good. The demiship wasn’t even firing its cold jets, or its non-magical ordinance. He snarled and tapped at his coms, bringing them on again: “Decelerate! Decelerate now ! ”

        And that was when every defensive portal on the draconic ship snapped open on the same flank and dumped sixteen billion tons of liquid water from the Elemental Plane of Water into space between them and the primary Ouster boarding thrust. The liquid water flash froze and flash boiled all at the same moment, expanding outwards like a kinetic shotgun, and six Ouster ships smashed in so fast that they barely had time to kick on deceleration burns. The searing flashes of their anti-matter self immolations was enough to make Kursk cry out in fury and rage both, even as the wave of hard radiation bathed his ship and caused every single system to spark and crackle and flicker.

        The demiship’s engines roared back to life, swinging it around to bring railguns to bear on the left flank of the Ouster attack. The two ships that were approaching there turned into stars, their internal oxygen burning up in a single flash.

        “Nooooooooo!” Kursk screamed. “Fucking ramming speed! Now! ”

        Every last droplet of anti-matter felt as if it was being set off behind Kursk. Several giants were tea-bagging him, their massive balls smashing him into the chair. That was how it felt, at least. The needle of his ship plunged towards the demiship, which was still trying to bring its railguns to bear. But Kursk’s ship and the other remaining Ouster ship both crashed into the adamantine hull with a rending tear . Every single pre-bought spell slot that the Ouster ship had left port with went off in the same motion. Ant-Carry was cast on each crew-member, to let them carry the sudden weight pressing on them as gravity ripped at their forms. Mage Shield and Mage Armor both flared to life, turning aside the impact and making the prow into something close to a magical knife.

        And, of course, magic missiles kicked on too.

        Kursk saw it on the screen as the nose of his ship thrust into a large corridor. Several men at arms who had been rushing to their positions were cut down by a sudden streamer of perfectly aimed darts of pure force. The one who managed to dive into cover before the spray was finished was screaming for reinforcements. But then the front of the bridge opened – as if the view screen had turned to reality. Kursk undid his crash webbing, drew his chain-saber and pulled his DK-Bolter from his holster, then leaped onto the demiship.

        “Kill everyone !” he bellowed. “Every last fucking one!”

***

        Relix was on her feet before the ship had even stopped shuddering from the boarding impact. “Evacuate the decks!” she said. “Get the civilians to the storm cellar! And get me my sword.”

        “Yay!” Brash clapped, then leaped off of Merton’s head. He transformed as he flew, landing on the deck before the two of them. He had shifted into a sleekly muscled, humanoid form – toned and strong, with human skin and raven black hair. The only clue he was a dragon was his golden, slitted eyes, the fine patina of scaling on his chest in the place of chest hair, and his eighteen inches of dick. Because dragons had a theme , it seemed. He pulled a tricorn hat from literally nowhere and set it on his head. “Avast, maties!”

        “Where did you get that hat?” Merton asked, slowly, still clutching a pillow to his junk.

        “Oh! I shapeshifted my palm so that it was holding a hat! The hat’s actually my cells, but it just looks like a hat!” Brash picked up his hat, showing a very tiny filament wire of black hair connecting the hat to his scalp. “See?”

        “...then why didn’t you shapeshift to have clothes ?” Merton asked.

        Brash looked utterly confused. “I...those words were all in Galactic Common, but...none of them made any sense in that order.”

        Gunner, meanwhile, had grabbed onto Relix, frowning. “You are going to the storm cellar right now. We have less than twenty men at arms left. Each Ouster ship carried its own goblinoid swarm and the Ousters. They have DKs and chain-blades and power armor.”

        Relix snarled. “This. Is. My. Ship. And you’re my people . And I will be damned if I let some space pirate do anything but die aboard her.” She snapped her fingers, holding out her palm. A flash of magic surrounded her hand and a glowing blade of pure, purple light formed in her palm. She swung it around, then rolled her shoulders...and transformed . Her scales thickened and expanded, from the smooth snakeskin of her normal form, until she was covered in armor plating. Her wings actually folded back until they were gone, while her tail became short and stubby. Her muzzle lengthened and a pair of horns grew from her forehead, then fanned outwards, creating an almost samurai-helmet style look around her head. She rolled her shoulders again and Merton could hear the creak and groan of her armor-plates shifting.

        Then, without a word, she started stomping towards the exit.

        Merton looked at Gunner and Brash. Brash looked a bit chagrined. “I could do that, if I wanted too! The psi-sword, I mean. I just...haven’t. Yet.” He blushed, then gasped. “Oh! I know!” He leaped onto Merton’s head.

        Before Merton could say anything or do anything, Brash spread. It felt a bit like having warm, moist latex slurping over your whole head. Merton didn’t even have time to scream. The tight, moist membrane slurped along every inch of Merton’s skin, until he found himself entirely enclosed in darkness. After an agonizing second of blindness, a pair of pinpricks thrust into his ears and there was a loud clunk and he could see out of his eyes again. He looked down at himself and yelped . He was covered in gleaming scale and hardened armor. Claws thrust from his fingertips, and he felt a thrumming, pulsating strength. He felt the wind breezing along his back and his shoulders.

         Hi! I’m ARMOR NOW! Brash’s excited voice boomed in his head.

         Firstly, Merton thought. Volume. Secondly...WHAT THE FLYING FUCK!?

        Gunner, meanwhile, was gaping at the pair of them. The rest of the bridge crew was gaping. Every one of them looked utterly and completely shocked, as flummoxed as Merton felt. Which was faintly comforting, now that he thought about it.  But before he could ask any questions, the loud roar of something between a chainsaw and a lighting storm and the end of the world echoed down the corridor, and he could hear the faint cry of Relix’s voice. His heart squeezed and Merton moved without thinking. He leaped forward.

        And smashed his head into the ceiling. He rebounded, hit the ground on his scaled belly, then skidded five feet.

         Wheeee! Brash giggled in his head. At least he wasn’t booming anymore.

        “Ow...” Merton growled, then put his palms under his feet. He forced himself up – and that motion sent him flying backwards, shooting into the bridge. He yelped as he realized he was about to hit the front of the bridge – and reflexively beat his wings. Wait. Wings? The sudden pressure at his back stopped him cold in the air, and a wind billowed around his body. Merton spread his hands wide, trying to balance himself. His feet clicked onto the ground. But then the roar of gunfire came again. This time, he ran forward but modulated his movement. This meant he cleared the bridge in two bounds and was in the corridor a moment later.

        The view swirled with a sudden sandstorm of information. Outlines flickered on around each of the Ousters that were swarming forward in the corridor. Health bars snapped up over each one and a haze of targeting reticles and sword-swing indicators. Merton saw Relix staggering backwards as a swarm of goblins – each one armed with a shimmering, midnight black knife – leaped onto her armored form. She spread her arms wide, growing extra arms underneath each goblin to fling them aside. This filled the air with goblins, and made Merton realize what he needed to do.

         Brash! Target lock ! Merton thought – looking at a specific goblin. The rest of the targeting data faded away and Merton saw exactly where he’d need to kick. His bare foot kicked out and he saw that his leg and foot were both black scaled and draconic. The impact of his foot into the goblin’s belly folded the cackling creature in half, sending it arcing over to smash into the helmeted face plate of one of the Ouster boarders.

         Look out! Brash thought, his voice more excited than afraid. Warning indicators jerked Merton’s head down as one of the Ousters leveled a gun that looked like it was a cross between a crossbow and a lawnmower and a plasma gun. It fired a searing buzzsaw of plasma that shot past where Merton’s head had been, the blade exploded against the wall behind him. Merton took a single step forward and punched the Ouster in the head, as hard as he could.

        He had expected a lot of things.

        None of them had been the Ouster’s head vanishing like a soap bubble of blood, and their headless corpse flipping through the air, trailing crimson.

        Merton felt his gorge rise. But it got worse.

        He felt Brash’s disgust and horror as well.

        And both Merton and Brash got sick at the exact same time.

        Which meant Merton went flying out of the Brash-suit’s mouth, hit the ground, and skidded on a belly slick with lubrication that he didn’t even begin to want to identify. Merton skidded to a stop right before the tallest looking Ouster – which still meant he was pretty short. But that didn’t matter when one was naked and on their belly, and the other was in power armor, holding a roaring chainsaw cutlass and a pistol that looked like it fired entire swords out of its huge barrel. The Ouster’s helmet was off, revealing an incongruously adorable squirrel-like face, marred only by a pair of huge, puke-orange orbs for ears.

        The ouster grinned.

        “The husband,” he purred.

        He lifted his sword. The chainsaw edge roared.

        Merton lifted his arm, knowing it was useless.

        The chain-saber came down, sputtering with smoke and oily fumes.

        And smashed into a shield of crackling green energy. The impact jarred Merton’s arm and left it completely numb. But the Ouster rebounded with a shuddering jerk, his sword groaning as the teeth failed to bite into anything. Merton stood, his lubricated feet skidding along the ground. The green shield on his arm was formed exactly like Captain America’s shield. Complete with the star. He whispered, slowly: “When he throws his mighty shield...”

        “A mage!” The Ouster growled, righting his posture.

        “All who oppose his shield must yield !” Merton bellowed and threw in the same motion. The green shield flew outwards and smashed into the Ouster’s chest plate with a sound like a gong. The Ouster went flying backwards and the shield rebounded to slap against Merton’s arm.

        “Merton, look out!” Relix shouted.

        Merton turned and saw one of the goblins running at him, holding a hissing cartoon style bomb over her head, cackling like a maniac. Merton simply had to think  his shield into a weapon and it transformed into a ray-gun. A stream of green light struck the goblin’s bomb and the corridor between Merton and Relix got painted with a fine red mist. Then Relix was at his side and both turned to face the Ouster.

        The Ouster leveled his pistol and Relix froze.

        “Take another step forward,” the Ouster growled. “And I riddle your pathetic monkey with enough Lethe shards that even if you rez him, he’ll be a dribbling infant.”

        Relix’s hand tightened on her sword. Her eyes flashed.

        “Who are you?” Merton asked. “Who sent you?”

        “I am the Pirate Lord Kursk of the Ouster Clan Smoke Jaguar-”

        “Clanner scum!? Really?” Merton asked.

        The Ouster glared at him.

        Which is why he completely missed Relix opening her mouth and hitting him with her breath weapon. As her nose had steamed earlier, Merton would have bet money on either cold or lightning. It turned out that his first guess was the right one. The blast of raw ferocious cold almost turned his own skin blue, just by standing next to her. When the swirl of white and flash-frost had faded, the Ouster stood – statue still, his face still trapped in a quiet glower.

        Relix breathed slowly out.

        Merton smiled at her, then turned around. He knelt down and picked up a tiny, shivering Brash. The small dragon had turned into his quadrapedal form, save he was barely large enough to fill Merton’s cupped palms, and was hiding his head under his wings.

        “Hey, little buddy...” Merton whispered, caressing the dragon on his back with a single pinkie. He felt very soft right now. Brash peeked out from under his wing, his eyes filled with tears. He flinched slightly at Merton’s smile – and Merton felt a sudden almost blinding level of utter and complete rage. It started with the very idea of Baron Bex Thresh of the Singularity Principalities being anywhere near Brash, let alone being a father figure. It spiraled outwards to include the entire Five Talon Empire for being a place where Brash would need to learn to hide his tears.

It was the rage that was at the heart of his decision to ask for him in the first place. So much had happened, and other than a few questions, no one had actually asked Merton why  he had asked for the egg. And the reason he been so simple, so mushy, that he was kind of glad he hadn’t had to admit it. Not to that hard nosed wife of his, nor her many gruff advisors.

He had wanted to save Brash from Bex and the psychopathic assholes filling the Thresh household. He couldn’t believe that every red dragon was just born evil. It took evil parents, evil tutors, evil examples. In that moment of rage, Merton knew he had made the right decision. A s quickly as the dizzying fury came, it passed, leaving Merton feeling a mixture of exhaustion and relief. He slowly slid his palm along Brash’s soft back. “You did good.”

        “I-I did?” Brash whispered.

        Relix – shifted out of her combat form – stepped over. She looked haughty and imperious. But at Merton’s look, that expression shifted to confused softness. She nodded, then reached out to pet Brash gently too.

        “Very, uh, brave,” she said, as if she wasn’t sure if they were the right words.

        “Yay!” Brash leaped up and landed on Merton’s shoulder. “Brash is the bravest dragon in the whole galaxy!” And he started to dance – while the men at arms came forward to start clapping the surviving Ousters in chains.

        Even their leader, the dread pirate Kursk, was wheeled to the brig.

        After all. He was only frozen.

***

        “Errr. Mah. Gahhhhhhwwwwwdhhhhhhh!” Julia had said the phrase ‘oh my god’ so many times and in such rapidity that her capacity to enunciate, let alone speak English, was rapidly falling to pieces. But Brash had, just as the old XKCD comic graphed out, a cat-like ability to reduce human intelligence and coherence with mere proximity. Julia was holding Brash in her hands, and letting him floop from one palm to the other – something Brash was more than happy to do. He giggled and cheered as he flowed from palm to palm in that curiously boneless way that young kittens could do. “He’s like a tiny scaled sausage of utter adorableness!”

        “And apparently into soft vore,” Trevor said, dryly.

        “Dude!” Julia, Carlos, Lisa and Merton all said at once.

        Merton’s Mom, who had been watching Brash being petted and fawned over, blushed. “What is, uh, soft vore?”

        The nerds all exchanged a glance.

        “You don’t want to know,” Lisa said, nodding.

        Dad harrumphed. “So, this is the famous son of Baron Bex Thresh, the dragon that he was willing to try and assassinate the entire ship for...” He rubbed his chin. “Have any idea what makes him special?”

        “Oh!” Brash waved his clawed paw into the air, excitedly, starting to jump up and down in Julia’s arms. “Oh! I know! I know! Pick me! I know!” He waved his paw more. “I know!”

        Dad chuckled. “I’m not that kind of professor, Brash. You can just say so without me needing to call on you.”

        Brash started to bounce even more excitedly. “What kind of professor are you? A love professor?” He wiggled his tiny eyebrow ridges excitedly. “Oh! Can I become a love professor?” He craned his head around to look at Merton.

        “Uh...” Merton said. “Aren’t you a bit young for that?”

        “Dragons age at an extremely accelerated rate, then an extremely slow rate after that!” Brash said, cheerfully. “I’m eighteen human years old as of ten seconds after I hatched. Then I age at the rate of one human year every two hundred and thirty two million years as per the orbital speed of the draconic homeworld!”

        They all exchanged looks.

        “How can you compare human ages and dragon ages?” Lisa asked.

        “I’m psychic !” Brash said, cheerfully. “I learned while snoozing in the egg. Then it got boring and I left! Hi!” He waved at them.

        “Okay. Why such a big number for, uh, dragon years?” Merton asked.

        Mom chuckled. “Well, it sounds like the draconic homeworld has a similar orbit to SOL, then. Earth takes between two hundred and twenty five to two hundred and fifty million years to orbit the galaxy. Which is also known as a galactic year.” She nodded slightly.

        “Dragons be old , man,” Julia said. “That’s hip street language.”

        “No it’s not,” Lisa said, frowning.

        “True, I worked in data entry, I have no idea what street is,” Julia said, giggling, then leaned forward to mash her face against Brash’s side. “He’s. So. Freaking. Cute!”

        Brash started to vibrate excitedly. “I’m cute!”

        “Yesssssssss!” Julia started to pet him all over again.

        Merton was about to ask more questions when the door to the room opened. Relix entered, dressed in her finest robes. She walked forward, opened her mouth – about to say something to Merton. Then she stopped as she saw Brash looking up at her with huge puppy dog eyes. Relix blushed along her muzzle, then knelt down and patted his head. Brash cheered excitedly. “Yay!”

        Relix looked at Merton – and since she was kneeling and he was sitting on the ground, this actually meant their heads were on even keel. Her voice was soft: “The Ousters have been interrogated, but House Thresh did a good job of putting intermediaries between them and their assassins. Even truth spells haven’t wrung anything out. And Ouster ships destroyed their own computer cores. We have no evidence. Nothing.” She sighed. “Fortunately, we’ll be reaching Hamin Yeltanzo’s territory in a few hours. There, we should be able to examine this little bundle of...cuteness.”

        Brash rolled around happily. Then he gasped. “Right! I forgotted!”

        “What did you forget?” Relix asked, her brow furrowing.

        “What I was going to say. Oh! Right!” Brash nodded. “I was designed to take over the galaxy! That was why I was special.” He shrugged. “But it’s not like galaxies are important, unlike cookies.” He nodded sagely.

        Everyone in the group exchanged a look. Again.

***

        “So, Specy-”

        The four armed purple skinned chick slowly turned her gaze on Merton and Merton’s casual smile faded.

        “My name,” she said, clearly. “Is Spectral Timeweaver Compounding the Infinite. Gunner calls me Specy because he has no understanding of the insult inherent in such a shortening.”

        Merton gulped. “R-Right. Sorry, uh, Spectral Timeweaver Compounding the, uh, Infinite.” He coughed. “What, uh, what do your scans say?”

        Brash, meanwhile, had completed his third complete rotation within the scanning sphere. He was pushing himself in circles with tiny wingbeats, giggling incessantly as he enjoyed the scanner beams sweeping over his body. Apparently, they tickled. On the screen next to the scanning sphere, Merton could see a load of scrawling runes, as well as an internal view of Brash’s body. It looked like a Where’s Waldo  picture of organs, with so many things smooshed into a single space that it was hard to tell where one organ started and another organ began.

        The four armed purple skinned chick sighed. “This dragon has been genetically engineered.”

        Relix hissed, quietly.

        “How?” Lisa asked. “Like...augmented abilities?”

        “Augmented is putting it mildly ,” the four armed purple skinned chick said. She took hold of the side of the glowing screen, detaching a chunk of it. She unrolled that chunk like a scroll, the crystal becoming flexible as she unfurled it. The edge of the crystal clattered against the floor – that was how long it was. “This is the genoscroll of a normal dragon, like Relix. This is her shapeshifting, this is her cryonic breath, and so on.” The four armed purple skinned chick twisted her wrist, and the scroll wound back up again, hiding away the glowing purple runes that had been scrawled across it. She tapped on the edge, then unrolled it again.

        This time, the scroll unfurled to the floor, then continued unrolling until it went out the door. The faint rattling and clicking of it unrolling continued for a few seconds.

        “That’s-” Merton started.

        “It’s not done,” the four armed purple skinned chick said.

        Merton shut up – and heard the continuing click and clatter of the scroll unrolling.

        “Holy-” Merton started again.

        “Still not done.”

        The clattering continued a bit more.

        Merton looked at the four armed purple skinned chick. She waited a moment...then nodded. “Now it’s done.”

        “Holy balls ,” Carlos, who had been sitting in the corner of the room, said.

        “You can say that again,” Lisa said, looking at the scroll.

        “Holy balls ,” Carlos said again.

        “Does everyone have to keep using such foul language?” Merton’s Mom asked.

        “Yeah, stop fucking swearing!” Merton’s Dad growled, then laughed, then subsided as Mom glared at him.

        The four armed purple skinned chick looked right at Relix. “He is a cross between blacks, reds, greens, golds, silvers, coppers, tungsten, zebra, teal, yellow, astral, radium, and time dragons. There’s altered DNA from the drow, dwarven, goblinoid, humanoid and elemental species. But more, there are genetic sequences that actually force his shapeshifting into certain configurations. No matter what form this hatchling takes-” she pointed at the spinning dragon in the sphere. “-he’ll have contact points for a wide range of magitech augmentations. There’s pre-built slots for targeting arrays, plasma beamcasters, anti-matter bowdarts, spinfusors, bolt guns, vol-tech ray launchers, goblin spheres, death wands, hellwhips, shrike catapults, long ranged anti-personnel plasma missiles, tactical nuclear mine layers, and a water cannon.”

        ‘What’s the water cannon for?” Carlos asked.

        “Vampires,” the four armed purple skinned chick said, without blinking.

        “And he’s able to transform into an augmentation suit,” Merton said. “Brash. Uh, what did it feel like to be my armor?”

        “Like the bestest thing in the whole world!” Brash said, his voice muffled as he pushed his face against the side of the scanning sphere. “Like laying on gold! Or eating cookies! T-That is, until, um...well, there was that one bad part, but the rest was fun.”

        Merton rubbed his hand along his face. “What’s stronger than a dragon...but a dragon inside another dragon? Every bit of a dragon’s magic can be spent on external spells - no magic required to buff your strength or speed or toughness. And you have all the upsides of a cyber-warrior, without draconic regeneration rejecting the implants. You become a walking doomsday device.”

        Julia piped up. “And, uh, from my reading-”

        “What reading?” Relix asked.

        “I asked the ship to give me history books,” Julia said, grinning.

        “Oh...” Relix looked like she wasn’t entirely sure what to do about someone who actually went out and learned things on their own.

        “According to the history books,” Julia said. “Half those dragons that he’s got genetically booped into him are extinct.”

        “They broke one law or another and oh my scaly butt!” Relix hissed, sitting up, her eyes wide as saucers. “Each one was eradicated by House Thresh! They’ve been the finest warrior household for the past ten thousand years!” She put her claws against her face, her eyes wide as saucers. “House Thresh has been planning this for millennia!”

        “Wait, it doesn’t track,” Lisa said.

        They all turned to look at her.

        Lisa frowned. “You don’t win wars with Death Stars. You win them with the Imperial Army and with the Stormtroopers and with TIE fighters and with the Senate. One super-strong dragon suit, no matter how super strong, isn’t going to conquer the whole fucking galaxy. Just by sheer attrition alone , the Imperial House and its allies will win.”

        “Thuwit!” Relix bellowed.

        The door opened and Thuwit came in. He had weathered the boarding action fairly well – having been one of people in charge of making sure civilians got to the most secure parts of the ship. His bald pate gleamed with sweat as he puffed and panted and he bowed, low. “Yes, m’lady?”

        “House Thresh’s allies. Name them,” Relix said, her eyes narrowing. Merton leaned against the wall as Brash started to crawl out of the scanning sphere. Once he was out, he flew over to land on Merton’s shoulder and started to nose against his cheek.

        “House Forin, House Xosh, and House Byraugh. They’re greens, blues and blacks, in that order,” he said. “House Forin are aggressive terraforming specialists – they’ll essentially use terraforming wish spells and macro-fungal bombs to turn planets into worlds that suit them, usually to destabilize or disadvantage an enemy house. Xosh are hoarders and run several large banks. And Bryaugh...well...” He sighed. “They’re breeders.”

        “As in they breed...people?” Lisa asked.

        “No, dragons,” Thuwit said, nodding. “They make up for their lack of technical specifications by breeding large numbers of dragons, to overwhelm enemies by sheer numbers.”

        Merton scowled, slowly. “Or, in other words: The brains, the purse, the brawn and the leadership, counting Thresh.” He looked at Relix. A cold wind seemed to blow through the bridge. Merton shivered and he opened his mouth to say something. To try and say something. But it all felt too big. Too vast.

        A sudden alarm wailed out. Gunner’s voice spoke over the PA.

        “All hands to battle stations. Princess Relix, get to the bridge. Now.”

        Merton and she were sprinting off, followed by the rest of the group. They ran as fast and as hard as they could – and within a few moments, they reached the bridge. Merton stepped slowly forward, his eyes wide.

        Red light, like the fires of hell, filled the bridge’s forward view screen, reflecting off every pane, every panel, every facet of the bridge’s metal construction. Gunner stood there, his face set, his hands clenched. Even the gobliness, Pyria, was sitting there quietly. The drow pilot had her head in her hands, and was whispering quietly in her own language. Brash shivered against Merton’s neck and he reached up to bundle the tiny dragon into his hands.

        The star system they had just dropped into was burning.

        An accretion disk of ship-hulks, many of them still burning with out of control flames that poured from vast rents in molten armor, spread across a vast world that had, in the pictures Relix had shown him, been verdant and green. Now, a firestorm swept from pole to pole, painting the world in ruby and smeared black and caustic orange. A huge polyhedron that had once been the orbital defense fortress was shattered. Great flaming chunks of station were adding their own bolide bright streaks to the holocaust on the planet’s surface.

        “How many?” Merton whispered.

        “Three billion,” Gunner said, quietly.

        “I-I’m detecting a single active ship,” the drow pilot whispered. “It’s...it’s House Xosh merchant freighter.”

        “Calibrate your scanners for Brash’s biological signature,” Merton said.

        The pilot blinked, looking baffled.

        “Do it!” Relix snapped.

        The pilot jerked her head back around to the console and tapped a few buttons. The ship sudden glowed brilliant red. It was crammed full of Brash’s. Thousands of them. The ship was slowly turning away from the burning planet and starting to accelerate towards the Talon-9 .

        “We could have saved them...” Relix whispered. “Just telling them what to scan for. All it would have taken was one torpedo to stop the whole sneak attack. We-”

        “Plot a course out of here!” Merton shouted.

        The merchant ship’s engines kicked on, shooting out a drive plume that was lost against the vastness – the horror – of the planet it flew above. As it drew closer and closer, the sides of the ship opened and Merton could see the teeming masses of dragon-armored creatures within. The black dragons of House Bryaugh, ready to attack.

        “Our subspace engine needs twenty four hours to recharge,” the pilot said.

        Once more. The question came down: What to do? How to save the day? Merton’s brain seized up, seeing red dots spreading outwards around the freighter. An idea sprang into his mind. It depended on his knowledge of Dungeons and Dragons being actually useful in this scenario. But since there were already Elemental Planes of Water and Earth, he might as well roll the dice and see, no? He tightened his jaw and nodded.

        “Open a defensive portal into the Elemental Plane of Negation and fly us in!” Merton said.

        “Are you insane !?” The pilot asked.

        The front elements of the on-rushing fleet began to open fire. Merton wasn’t sure what it was they were shooting, but searing white disks of plasma, rocketing streams of micro-missiles, searing ruby red beams of laser light, and the invisible zipping lines of gauss shells seemed to make up the most of it. Portal shields rippled along the rear of the Talon-9 , whisking away incoming threats to extraplanar destinations. The shield generators did remarkably well. At first. But then portals started snapping open just a fraction too late, or were only able to open for one projectile while another shot through. The Talon-9  rocked, and one of the consoles on the bridge exploded in a spray of sparks, causing the man at arms manning it to throw up their arms in alarm.

        Merton had stopped worrying about the overlap between Earth’s fiction and this reality. He had no time for it. He glared at the pilot and, as the head of House Castrovel, husband-prince to Relix Castrovel, he snarled: “Do it.”

        The pilot grabbed onto the controls, while the defense station started to chirrup – Pyria stabbing at buttons with her fingers. The portal snapped open, revealing a place of infinite blackness. It was something worse and deeper than the stars. Something that said, in every language of the body and soul and heart, to never enter. To flee. But behind it, rushing towards them through real space, was an army that had reduced a world to ash and longed to spill their blood. And so, the pilot slammed down on the accelerator and the Talon-9 plunged.

        Into blackness.

        Into negation.

Chapter Six: Roll that Search Check!

        Bex Thresh, of the Singularity Principalities, knelt low and touched his snout to the obsidian floor of the Pulsar Castle of House Xosh’s freehold. His palms spread and despite hardening his scales for the kick, the impact of the Bryaugh bruiser that stood to the left of him still felt like being hammered by a gravity-drill. Bex rolled and tumbled, then came to a stop. He clutched at the place where his scales had been fractured and broken and gasped in ragged pain as he tried to regenerate as quickly as he could.

        “Explain again,” the dark voice that came from the Neutron Throne sounded like a mountain grinding against another mountain. The dragon perched there was remarkably skinny and angular for a blue – his elbow spikes had grown long and he had let his forehead plates extend upwards and outwards, flaring into something more akin to a ceremonial headdress than a normal crest. His body was clad in nothing, save for a single glittering ring with a pale emerald set in the center of a swirling mass of quark-soup that had been hammered into a solid shape. It was the signet ring of House Xosh - the last subatomic gemstone in the galaxy.

        Their forgers, the star-fey of the Tiamat Clouds, had been wiped out by Xosh enforcers, to punish them for their failure to deliver tithes.

        That thought filled Bex’s mind as he knelt before Xosh. That and the ache from the kick to the stomach.

        “I...” Bex closed his eyes. “I lost the control egg, Lord Xosh...”

        “In a game,” Lord Xosh said, quietly, his thumb claw rasping around the emerald on his ring.

        “I thought-”

        “You didn’t ,” Xosh snarled, thrusting his finger at Bex. The Bryaugh bruiser that was the only other person in the throne room stepped forward, his claws clacking on the ground. His hands grabbed onto Bex’s shoulders and he hauled the other dragon to his knees, then slammed his knee into Bex’s jaw, before punching downward. The impact sent Bex sprawling and his teeth scattering across the obsidian floor. Blood dripped – and where it fell, eldritch runes flared to life for a moment, before fading. “You bulled ahead and thought that a basic understanding of Hackmaster rules would let you just slaughter your way to victory. You couldn’t even play to your fucking alignment, you-”

        The bruiser kicked Bex in the belly, managing to match the timing of his master’s words to a T.

        “-fucking-”

         Thump .

        “-red-”

         Thump .

        “-idiot!”

        The last blow was hard enough to send Bex skidding backwards, almost bowling him into his half-sister. Gimtesh stood perfectly still, her eyes wide as saucers. Bex lay upon the ground, wheezing heavily. His mind swirled with questions - how did Xosh know of the pathetic human’s game? He looked up through slitted eyes at Gimtesh.

        Lord Xosh rubbed his jaw with one finger. “Did you try to dissuade him, Gimtesh?” he asked.

        A flare of hope began within Bex’s breast.

        “Of course, m’lord!” Gimtesh said, bowing low. “But Bex never listens.”

        Bex groaned, low in his throat. But no one was paying him any heed.

        “Oh, he can listen ,” Lord Xosh said, grinning slowly. His teeth glittered. “That was why I wanted him on the Prismatic Throne, married to the last survivor of House Castrovel, to the only breedable feathered dragon in the galaxy. Those who sit atop that throne tend to be targets. And I’ve not lived this long by drawing targets on my chest, Gimmy-” he paused. “May I call you Gimmy?”

        Gimtesh nodded, quickly.

        “You have one chance to save your brother’s life,” Lord Xosh said.

        Hope flared again and Bex lifted his head, trying to catch Gimtesh’s eyes.

        “Oh, fuck him!” Gimtesh said, quickly. “He’s a shithead!”

        Lord Xosh blinked. Then he shrugged, spreading his hand.

        “No, no!” Bex gasped as the bruiser stepped up. The black dragon lifted his arm – and unfolded a sleek silvery blade from his forearm. It was unlike anything that a dragon had demonstrated before. For the black dragon wasn’t simply a black dragon. His outer layer of skin and muscle and bone were actually the genetically engineered muscles and skin and bone of a second dragon, with its mind blanked and slaved to his own. He merely needed to think and activate his favored weapon.

        Unfortunately for Bex…

        The shrike catapult was neither swift…

        Nor painless.

        Gimtesh walked out of the throne room and into the corridors leading to it, her back ramrod stiff. Her servants – tongueless and meek – moved to follow her. She snapped a pair of fingers and the silvery orb of an automated servant flew up from behind her. She snarled to it.

        “Go and tell my crew. Prep the ship. And tell my arms-master...” she looked directly at the orb. “Get guns. And get nukes. Lots and lots of nukes.”

***

        First, there was nothing.

        Then, with a scream of dimensional energies, there was something . Smoking and sputtering from dozens of plasma impacts, shedding armor like a dog with mange and spinning on all three axii, the Talon-9  tumbled into the infinite blackness that was the Plane of Negation. On the bridge, Merton coughed and waved his hand under his nose, looking around himself at the low red lighting that had replaced the normal hues. His wife was sprawled on her belly, her arms flung out before her. Merton hurried to her, but before he had even knelt next to her, she groaned and started up.

        “Merton,” she said, her tail lashing from side to side. “Remind me why I married you.”

        “You kidnapped me and threatened to blow up my planet,” Merton said, smiling slightly as he took her wrist in his hand.

        “Yay!” Brash landed on Merton’s head. His tiny, clawed hands gripped at the front of Merton’s face, and Merton froze, remembering the many times the had played with kittens. He could distinctly remember the intensely painful experience of tiny, needle like kitten claws. As he remained still, Brash hugged his head tightly, his claws drawing fine, threatening lines of pressure along Merton’s face. “Youuu saved the day!”

        “Hatchling, be quite gentle with that,” Relix said, her voice harsh. “That’s my husband’s face. I have grown to...tolerate it!” Merton could see through Brash’s enthusiastic hugs - which had begun to include the small dragon’s wings - that his wife had her hands on her hips.

        “Tolerate?” Merton asked. “That’s not what-”

        “What happens in our bedroom is proprietary information!” Relix squeaked. Then, bustling over, she grabbed Brash and yanked him off Merton’s head, provoking a loud ‘whee’ from Brash and a scream of pain from Merton.

        “Oh, don’t be such a baby,” the gobliness - Pyria? Pyroia? - said. She had been bustling around the bridge with a small wand, but what the wand did had been a bit unclear. Merton, after all, had been just a little bit distracted at the time. And now he had his hands cupped over his face, and his eyes were screwed up tight.

        “Owwww!” He whimpered. “I think I’m bleeding.”

        “Sorry!” Brash squeaked.

        Pyria slapped Merton’s thigh with the wand. A sudden burst of energy filled him and he drew his hands away from his face, blinking. The pain was gone. The feeling of the energy that had coursed through him was very familiar. Focusing on the sensation, he had a ghostly deja-vu memory. Floating in space. Dying from being too healthy. Right. During the Ouster attack, the reactor had breached and basically swamped him with healing energy. He looked at Pyria, who was now prodding Gunner with her wand, causing a chunk of carapace to regrow over the burly World War 2 veteran’s shoulder.

        “Hatchling,” Relix said. “I am very disappointed in you.”

        Brash shrank from her tone of voice. Literally, his body actually began to grow smaller and smaller as he tucked his head underneath his wing, coiling his tail around himself. Merton bit his lip. “Relix, it’s okay-”

        “Dragons need to learn that their claws don’t get used on anything unless they want to hurt it,” Relix said, her voice quite firm. “Or unless they have scales too. Understand, hatchling?”

        “...yes…” Brash mumbled from under his wing.

        “There,” Relix said, nodding fimly. She looked so proud of herself for laying down the law that Merton had to fight to hide his smile. Even if he did want to sweep Brash into his arms and spoil him with head pats. As he warred against his urges between being a good parent and getting to pet  Brash, the door to the bridge open and in bustled Speccy. Speccy was dressed in slightly more clothes than she normally wore. In addition to her bondage style mixture of wraps and straps, she had added an impressive, hip hugging belt that looked like it was stuffed with every wrench known to man or dragon.

        “Whose fucking idea was this!?” she asked, her normally ice calm voice tinged with pure rage. “Whose idea was it?”

        The entire bridge crew pointed at Merton, save for Brash, who instead lifted his hand above his head like he was in class. “Oh! Oh! Oh! Me! Pick on me!”

        Speccy scowled, drawing a huge wrench that looked like it had been used on at least one Ouster’s skull. She aimed it at Merton. “The portal engines aren’t made to transport the whole ship, you simpleton , you mage-blind oaf, you…” She snarled. “Ugh!”

        “Damage report, Spectral Timeweaver Compounding the Infinite,” Relix said, her wings folding behind her back like a cape. The familiar order seemed to snap Speccy out of her tantrum spiral - good thing, considering how close her emphatic waving of the wrench had gotten to Merton’s head. She sighed and slipped the wrench back into the pouch she had pulled it from.

        “It’s bad, my lady,” she said. “The Talon-9  realspace engines got slagged by several high energy impacts. Gauss and railgun rounds blew through the armor and pierced the demiplane, hitting several vital systems. The computer cores are half melted from the EMP produced  by quasi-nuclear impacts. Oh! And some idiot ripped a hole into the planar equivalent of a black hole and jumped right in. So our PDS and slipstream drive are both bubbling piles of slag.”

        Relix nodded. “How long do you think it’ll take to get our wings back?”

        Speccy rubbed her chin. “Well, since it’ll take going EVA in Prime Negation…” She said. “Forever.”

        Merton started. “Forever?” he asked. “I...how fast does this place kill you?”

        “Oh, the actual plane is perfectly safe for biological functions, so long as you remain within the life shell of the ship,” Speccy said. “The problem is that it drives non-dragons insane to even look into it.”

        Brash gasped. “I’m a dragon!” he said, perking up immediately. “I can do the work! I can do the work ten times!”

        “Does it drive humans crazy?” Merton asked.

        “Hmm…” Speccy pulled out yet another device from her pouches. This looked like something between a magical wand and a tricorder from Star Trek . She held it up and aimed it at Merton. Brash leaped from Relix’s shoulder to Merton’s shoulder, and Merton had to admit, the weight of the little dragon was nice and comforting. Brash waved excitedly at the wand, but Speccy was more focused on the screen of the device. She adjusted a knob, then nodded.

        “Right,” she said. “Humans and dragons share several alpha and beta wave patterns in their cerebral cortex.”

        “Really?” Merton asked. It was less of a shocked sound. And more of a ‘ah, another clue’ sound. Before he could elaborate on it, Relix let out her most haughty of a snort.

        “Oh? What could they possibly share with dragons?” she asked.

        “The ability to find anything sexually attractive,” Speccy said, her voice flat and brutally honest.

        “Ah,” Relix said, her muzzle darkening. Several members of the bridge crew were all grinning. Relix spun around to glare at them, her hands clenching tightly. “Get back to work, you lot!” She said, cracking her tail like it was a whip. Everyone hurried to start tugging apart smoking machines and pulling out broken components. But they were still smiling. Relix nodded, satisfied that her work here was done.

        Merton slipped an arm through hers, drawing her close. She looked at him, confusion in her eyes.

        “What?” she asked.

        Merton grinned, then lazily reached out and tugged a wrench from Speccy’s hip holster. Speccy scowled at him, until she saw him press the wrench into Relix’s chest. Relix whimpered.

        “Can’t I...oversee...things?”

        “Sorry,  Princess,” Merton said, already dragging her for the door. “But your administration position is in another castle.”

        Brash followed after, padding along on all four legs, the biggest wrench he could find in his jaws.

***

        Calling the elemental plane of prime negation black was inaccurate.

Blackness implied a substance, a possibility.

Black is a color – a color of beauty and profundity and terror. Black had a soul.

The Talon-9 didn’t float upon anything nearly so comforting. But the human mind and the dragon mind shared a similar immunity to the effects of this infinite, existential nothingness. Where other species might have taken one glimpse into that endless absence  and realized just how futile and small they were and then immediately cracked and gone full H.P Lovecraft protagonist...humans and dragons could both look into the space and take comfort in their own immense, overweening egos.

Either that or the fact that they wanted to, at some subconscious level, fuck the infinite nothingness. That was the similarity, wasn’t it?

        Merton shook his head as he turned away from the nothingness to Carlos. Carlos grinned at him through the thick plastic faceplate of his space suit. “Hey, you know what I think of at times like this?” he asked.

        “No, what?” Merton asked.

        “At least we have Rick and Morty !”

        “We what?”

        Carlos laughed, pausing in his waddling along the hull of the Talon-9 .  Carlos’ one super-power, his ability to make any suit of clothes no matter how well tailored and designed for him, look rumpled and disheveled was on full display for the space suit that Speccy had thrown together for him: The helmet looked slightly off center, one of the gloves seemed to have fingers a full inch longer than his actual fingers, and his pants looked slightly twisted. Despite this, Carlos had a huge smile on his face, ill fitting clothes or not. Meanwhile, Merton was dressed in his skinclothes, which responded to minor magical impulses like a collection of the world’s most helpful puppies, giving him a spacesuit that he could move around in with as much ease as his T-shirt and jeans.

        For some reason, Carlos had still insisted on being the one to carry the plates of adamantine hull plating. His left arm was stretched to the limits to keep the plating tight against his chest. His right arm was fastened to the grapnels that the Talon-9 had helpfully extruded to help them walk around on her wounded skin. He looked back up the grapnel and started to walk along the skin. They were in microgravity, so the ‘walking’ involved a lot of careful placement of the magnetic boots, an act that Carlos made as awkward and flailing as he made everything else.

        “I was just saying,” Carlos said, puffing as he dragged himself up to stand on one of the flanges that spread outwards from the upper right ‘shoulder’ of the Talon-9 . It was the part of the ship where one of the whale-fin “wings” that spread around the engine connected to the normal hull. The ship was deeply beautiful from the outside, and Merton felt an almost physical pang at seeing the dozen or so holes that railgun slugs had punched through the armor here. He shook his head while Carlos panted for a few seconds. “I was just saying...the TV reception is great for the fact we’re floating in the fucking plane of negative energy.”

        Merton laughed.

        “Though, just saying, the guy who wrote Planescape should sue ,” Carlos said. “Chris Avelon, right?”

        “That’s the guy who wrote Planescape Torment ,” Merton said. “Planescape as a setting was written by...Cook, something.” He paused, thinking.

        “David Cook,” Lisa’s voice cracked over their radios.

        “Right, right,” Merton said, nodding.

        “Soooo, is anyone going to talk about the fact that a Dungeons and Dragons supplement from the nineteen fucking eighties accurately described the makeup of the polycosmos?” Lisa asked. “I mean, yeah, it’s called the City of O and not Sigil and there’s some kind of evil alternate version called the Night City-”

        “Huh?” Merton and Carlos asked at the exact same time, in the exact same tone of voice.

        “Yeah, we got a map!” Julia said, her voice breaking into the conversation. “Since we finished our part of the repair jobs, you bozons.”

        “You’re a bozon!” Carlos said.

        “Dude!” Merton said. “That’s my transgendered internet girlfriend slash partner in crime. Only I get to call her a bozon .”

        “Something unprintable,” Carlos muttered under his breath.

        Julia giggled. “Anywho, we bugged Gunner to bug the Princess to get us a map of the multiverse. Or polycosmos. Or whatever . Did you know that there’s another dimension with a dragon high school ?” she sounded delighted. “Oh, and another one with freaking robots with lightsabers !”

        “That’s great, Julia,” Merton said, chuckling. “But do you have any useful information?”

        “Noooo I donnnn’t!” Julia sang.

        “Though, uh, I have some information here,” Lisa said, her voice growing grim. “We’re getting news feeds from the whole galaxy. The attack on House Yeltanzo is lighting up all the bands. Imperial Legions are mobilizing.” As Lisa spoke, Carlos held out one of the chunks of adamantine armor. Merton took it with a quiet grunt. “And we’re stuck out here until we fix this ship up.”

        “Right,” Carlos said, then turned, looking out at the vastness surrounding them. “It does creep me the fuck out.”

        “Which puts humans one step above everyone but the dragons,” Merton said as he laid the armor plating down. The rectangle of hardened adamantite started to unfold as magic worked itself into the skin of the ship. The replacement hull plating slipped into the jagged line of damage and started to glow with a brilliant heat that was nearly comforting when compared to the vastness of the plane of negation.

        “Lisa, Julia,” Merton said, then paused. “Where’s Trevor?”

        “I’m working on the engine fins back here,” Trevor said, his voice tight with annoyance. “Stop fucking distracting me.”

        “Distract Trevor with fucking, got it,” Julia said, cheerfully. Then, less cheerfully. “Merton, I’ve been doing some rough matheguesstimation, and it looks like the Five Talon Empire has enough armies and ships to explode the Earth, like, ten times over.”

        “No offense, but fucking duh !” Trevor snapped. “They’re a galactic fucking empire .”

        “Buuuuuuuuut!” Julia sounded like she had just thrust her finger into the air. “Most of those fleets and armies aren’t controlled by the Emperor. We got space feudalism in full force here. It’s all collections of personal merc armies with fealties to individual dragon dudes and dudettes. Meaning that House Xosh can only throw House Xosh - and their allies, I guess - at Earth.”

        “Don’t their allies include a legion of super-dragons?” Carlos asked.

        “Did someone say... snuggle dragon!? ”

        The voice that called to the two humans didn’t come through their space suited helmets. It echoed through the plane of negation as if it was just an ordinary room. Brash flew directly into the small of Merton’s back, shifting as he impacted, so that he went from his full dragony form into a humanoid form that could more properly glomp onto someone. Merton nearly went flying off the side of the ship as Brash’s arms  and legs wrapped around him. Meanwhile, the replacement component that Speccy needed to get the Talon-9  ready to fight another space battle started to drift off in an erratic direction, floating deeper into negation.

“Super, Brash,” Carlos said, casually.

“Brash!” Merton squeaked. “Dude!”

“Oh, sorry!” Brash said, then shifted. Through his thin space suit, Merton could feel Brash shifting from bishonen fuckboy to something considerably girlier . And less hung. And...girl. His eyes widened and he stood perfectly still.

“I meant the component !” Merton said.

“Oh! Right!” Brash grabbed onto his shoulders and launched his - er, her  - self up and away. For a single moment, Merton’s faceplate was filled with the sleek, hairless folds of the cutest, most fuckable pussy he had ever seen, nestled between two sleek, pale thighs, which themselves were attached to a peach shaped, spankable rump. All quite human, save for a tiny patch of black scales where her pubic hair should have been, and a single whipcord thin black scaled tail. Then Brashette grew out her wings, flapped once, and slammed into the component. “Get back here, component!”

Carlos whispered. “Dude. Your son-daughter is hot ,” he said.

“Carlos!” Merton hissed.

“Thanks!” Brashette called down to them.

“He’s...she’s…”

“She!” Brashette said. “Oh! Now I’m a he!” He giggled, his voice definitely sounding slightly deeper. “Now, I’m a she! She, he, she, he, she, he, they!” Brash sang out the changes, his/her voice modulating tones with each word.

Merton shook his head. “Brash is less than two days old.”

“Didn’t he say that dragons age to be eighteen years old three seconds after they hatch?” Carlos whispered. “Also, we’re in space, fighting evil space dragons. Is now really the time to have moral quandaries about whether or not one can dibs on a cute dragon’s butt?”

“You are aware that I can hear all of this, right?” Lisa asked, her voice a low growl. “Carlos, if you touch Brash, I’m breaking your arm.”

“ Thank you!” Merton said.

“Awww!” Brash said, shifting into his full dragon form to grip the component more securely. With a single beat of his wings, he shot towards the rear of the Talon-9 .

        Merton shook his head, slowly. All of that was a new scale of weirdness and provoked weirder feelings. He decided to pack all those questions away for future Merton to deal with. However, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that Carlos had laid down the last of the armor plating...and then reached up and flicked off his radio transmitter with a click. He gestured with one hand for Merton to get close. Merton figured out almost immediately. He flicked off his radio and started to walk forward. If you shouted in a helmet, you could be heard through the vibration of plastic and glass. And if your radio was off, it made for a nice and private conversation.

        “So, are we going to talk about the fact that Planescape is real?” Carlos shouted - his voice sounding like it was coming through a thick wall.

        “Not sure what there is to talk about,” Merton said. “We’ve got nothing to say beyond ‘gee, that’s fucking weird.’ Also, seems a bit lower on the scale than you checking out my adoptive daughter . And the fact that I have an adoptive daughter, who is sometimes, an adoptive son, slash adoptive...puppy...dragon thing. ”

        Carlos blushed. “Yeah, sorry. I...that might have been a bit far. Like, off color jokes at the D&D table are one thing, but…” He shook his head in his helmet. “Sorry.”

“Apology accepted,” Merton said, smiling.

“But, on the subject of the whole multiverse thing, it’s fucking weird! ” Carlos said, his chubby cheeks shining with perspiration. Merton had to admit he was right. He sighed.

        “Okay, here’s my current theory,” Merton said. “Dragons learn stuff psychically, right? Maybe they broadcast it too, like some kind of big psychic field, and the human race has been picking it up?”

        “Why has no one else picked it up?” Carlos asked.

        “We don’t know that they haven’t. Every other race we’ve run into has either been magic, which might fuck with the reception, or they’ve been enslaved by the FTE long enough to have their original culture buried underneath the draconic one.” Merton shrugged, then stepped over to the many patches that he and Carlos had been laying down. It had gone from white to red hot, and as he watched, even that heat faded, leaving a perfect patch-job. He gently patted it with the toe of his boot, to ensure that the material was hardened properly. He grunted, then flicked on his radio.

        “I’m just saying,” Julia was saying. “We should get some allies with the metallic dragons, right? So, priority one should be warning them that House Xosh is the big bad.”

        “Any draconic house is a threat to Earth. Any of them,” Lisa said, her voice flat.

        Merton smiled, glad to hear the brain trust was working on the bigger issues. He adjusted the dial on his radio, clicking through the frequencies until he finally heard Speccy saying: “Checking engine thrust nozzle four-B. Okay, we’re good, shut her down and move onto five-B.”

 “Yo, Speccy!” Merton said. “We’ve got one zone patched. How many more damage zones we got?” He closed his eyes, remembering how many times Speccy had gritted her teeth at the diminutive of her name. “I mean, uh, Spectral-”

        “Two more,” Speccy cut him off. “And I...am given to understand by Princess Relix that-”

        “-piece of murder fuck shit crap damn tail eating scale rotting-” Relix’s voice was filled with more anger and fury than Merton had ever heard in his entire marriage. Which, to be fair, was not very long. But still .

        “-that I am to accept you calling me...Speccy...” Speccy sounded less than pleased.

        “Awesome, Speccy,” Carlos said.

        “I better check on the waifu,” Merton said.

        “Don’t you fucking dare call me that !” Relix’s voice boomed over the radio.

        “Sorry, snoogums,” Merton said, grinning as he demagged his boots, kicked off the ship, then turned on the cold-jet thrusters on the back of his suit. He skimmed along the ship, leaving Carlos behind. It wasn’t until he was nearly at the snout of the Talon-9  that Carlos realized Merton had left him with the hard job of getting more patch plates, then lugging them to the other damage zones, then applying them. Merton saw the instant that Carlos figured it out: It was when Carlos started to shake his fist furiously.

        When Merton cleared the nose of his ship, he found his wife floating next to one of the exposed railgun barrels that she was trying to fix. A collection of parts were floating around her, glittering like stars in the light shining from the front of the Talon-9’s bridge, and she was using a wrench to try and undo a screw. Her muscles bulged as she gritted her teeth, braced her clawed feet against the hull, then strained even harder. Merton put his palm against the ship to slow himself down, and felt the low groan of stressing metal.

        “This railgun shall bow before me!” Relix snarled.

        “Honey, honey!” Merton started. “It’s-”

        In the three way battle between Relix, the wrench, and the bolt she was working on, the wrench surrendered first. It bent with a squeal Merton could hear through his palms and the sudden relaxing of pressure sent Relix flipping back into space.

        “-righty tighty,” Merton groaned. “Lefty loosey.”

        Relix beat her wings, demonstrating why this place wasn’t a true vacuum, and flew back into the nose of the ship, where she wrenched the wrench free and started to shake it. “Traitor!”

        Merton pushed himself down to float beside her, putting his hands on her shoulders. He pressed his space-suited helmet against her ear and whispered. “You do know that you don’t need to help, right? I was mostly kidding. ” His voice was soft, and it made her tense up as she lowered the wrench down, letting it fall from her fingers. Which meant it started to float away from the ship, gently carried away on the invisible forces that seemed to determine the drift in this place.

        “I know,” she whispered, her voice husky. “A-And if I truly didn’t want to, I could have stopped you. I’m stronger than you.” She smiled for a moment, but it faded like a nuclear explosion in space. “I’m not just a spoiled space princess. I can help. If Brash can help, I can help.”

        “Brash seems to be preprogrammed with the engineering data on a worrying number of weapons,” Merton said, smiling as he squeezed her shoulders. “You, meanwhile, spent most of your youth learning magic and politicking and stuff.”

        “Mostly dance,” she said, quietly.

        “What?” Merton blinked.

        “Dad’s been on my tail-scales since I came of age to attract a mate, honestly,” she said, shrugging as she glared at the bolt that had forced her wrench to surrender. “And I resisted him for so long.” Her voice grew bitter. “I didn’t just want to be a brood mare. Kellen…” She stopped.

        Merton put a gloved hand on her muzzle, then flicked his radio off. He pressed his helmet against her again, speaking quietly. “You can tell me, Relix.”

        Relix tossed her head. But her arm still slid around Merton’s back, drawing him close to her. Under the nose of the Talon-9 , they had privacy. They had quiet. The vastness of the nothingness that surrounded them felt, for once, like a comfort. In the stillness, Relix could speak.

        “Ten years ago,” she said. “I had a harem, to quiet my father. W-We never tried to actually make eggs, though. They were all people I saved from various chromatic nastiness.” She shook her head. “Gladiators. Slave miners. People who...I...d-don’t tell anyone, but I...I don’t like seeing people in pain.”

        “Your secret is safe with me.” Merton took one of her hands, squeezing it. He was being honest - he had seen only a sliver of how the FTE worked, and he knew that it could not be a kind place for the gentle. The meek. Relix looked into his eyes, her eyes narrowing as if she was trying to spot some kind of mockery. Her nose almost bumped against his faceplate, and her breath fogged it. She smiled, shyly.

        “Even metallic dragons, who aren’t in favor of hurting others...they’re not soft about it,” Relix said, her voice very quiet. “A silver can slaughter a million villains to save his people. And he won’t cry himself to sleep.”

        Merton nodded.

        “B-But...the problem with helping people?” Relix licked her muzzle, the movement nervous. “You make enemies. And you show that you care. I-I still don’t know who sabotaged the airlock. But they...all of them…” She shook her head slightly. “And that was when I realized I needed to be hard .”

        Merton smiled, slightly. “So that’s why you kept all of their families on your demiship?”

        “W-Well-”

        “And why you blustered and bragged about glassing my planet, but rather than doing it, you just left?” Merton grinned.

        Relix blushed, her feathered crest rising in affront. “I would have. Maybe. Don’t push me, husband.” She grinned, slightly.

        Merton snorted, then leaned his faceplate forward, bumping her nose with his. As best as he could. Relix giggled, quietly, then shook her head. “I admit, part of me wasn’t sure about rescuing Brash, when he was just an egg.” She smiled. “But it was the right decision.”

        “And not just because he’s a super weapon?” Merton asked.

        Relix giggled and rubbed her forehead against his faceplate, her eyes closing as she hugged him with arms, tail and wings.

        A faint thump thump thump  that he could feel through the soles of his boots made Merton look up. Up meant looking at the upside-down face of Lisa, because space . Lisa had clearly moved to the bridge of the Talon-9 , and Gunner had activated the forward window screen now that the battle had finished. Technically, Lisa was a few demiplanes away from the skin of the ship, but thanks to the magic of portals and advanced visual projections, she looked as if she was right there for Merton to talk too. She mimed flicking at her ear, her face pure irritation.

        Merton and Relix moved apart as quickly as they could, and Merton could see that Relix felt as flustered as he did. He reached up and flicked his radio back on.

        “You’re not going to fucking believe this,” Lisa said, her voice firm over the radio.

        “What?” Relix asked, looking up, her eyes narrowing.

        “We’ve detected something on wide-band scrying,” Lisa said. “We confirmed it with the telescopes and LIDAR. It’s...” she made a face. “It’s a castle .”

        “You gotta be fucking kidding,” Merton whispered. Then he swung his head around. He was getting the hang of asking his skin-suit to do something using his magical connection to it. But even so, it took a few tries to get a vision enhancing augment online. It zoomed in on the infinite blackness that wasn’t blackness and, there, on the edge of vision, he could see a grayish spec. It was definitely coming slowly closer.

        “What is it?” Relix asked. “I was told nothing can survive in this plane. We’re only alive because of our reactor and the life bubble.”

        “It’s...” Merton paused. “It’s...”

        “What?” Brash asked, landing on his shoulder with a rustle of wings. Fortunately, he had chosen to be in his small, cat-sized form. “Is it candy!?”

        Merton scooped Brash into his arms and started to rub his belly. The tiny dragon immediately forgot all questions and started to bat at his fingers while giggling.

        “It’s the Fortress of Regrets,” Merton said, looking at Relix.

***

        A light brighter than the sun exploded into being. It cast shadows both jagged and curved with the starkness that only a truly bright light could provide. Dust swirled in the sudden heat-vortexes created where that point of brightness appeared. Then the point swept in a circle about a meter wide, leaving a cherry red line along a wall that had been untouched for uncountable years. As the red light throbbed from the line of sliced metal, a muffled conversation could be heard.

        “Can I knock?” A youthful voice.

        “It’s not a d-” A gruff, clicking voice.

        “Knock knock!”

        The hammering booms that filled the Fortress of Regrets echoed off of the walls with such force that they almost obscured the crash of the wall falling inwards. Brash the Dragon hopped onto the center of the meter wide circle, singing: “A candy gram made of actual candy who also has sex with you named Pinkie Pie!”

        “I told you you shouldn’t have shown him e621,” Carlos said.

        “Who showed him e621!?” Lisa shouted from behind Gunner and his two armsmen, who hurried forward into the fortress, their laser rifles at the ready, sweeping them about to cover the large chamber that they had cut into.

        “What’s e621?” Brash asked, then cocked his head. His eyes whirred and he went. “Ooooooh! That’s what e621 is! ”

“Carlos, stop corrupting my son-” Merton started.

“Boom! Daughter!” Brashette said, exploding from small cat-sized dragon to sleek, svelte looking girl. A svelte looking entirely naked girl. Her small, a-cup breasts bounced perkily, while a fine patina of scaling was clustered around her incredibly adorable belly button and right above the cleft of her pussy, like shimmering pubic hair. Her hair was long enough to hang down to her rump, but was brushed entirely back, so her pale chest was completely exposed. She started to bounce happily, which set delicious jiggles through her whole body. Well. The parts that could jiggle.  Merton clapped his hands over his eyes.

“Brashette!” he yelped.

“Why bother looking at cuckoldry pictures if you’re just gonna complain about it?” Brashette muttered. “Also, blacklisted! Blacklisted! Blacklisted...”

“Brashette, clothes !” Merton snapped.

“Oh, right!” Brashette said. Merton uncovered his eyes and saw that Brash had returned to his cat-sized form. Now entirely non-sexual, he started to walk in circles, singing out.

“Blacklisted! Blacklisted!”

        “What’s he doing?” Trevor asked, stepping onto the door with Merton. “Also, dude, why is your face so red?”

        Merton paused, thinking it through. By now, he was starting to get used to Brash’s thought processes. It went sex, snuggles, sex, candy, pet, sex. In order from most to least important. With that in mind, he nodded: “He’s blacklisting kinks on e621.”

“Ah,” Trevor said.

The rest of the group stepped finished striding through the door. Thanks to the Ouster attack, the Talon-9 was really low on armsmen. That was why Gunner, despite his grumbling, had given impact armor and laser rifles to Trevor, Lisa, and Carlos. Of the three, Lisa was the only one who should really have been given a gun, which was why she was covering their asses. Relix brushed some dust off her cufflinks as she swept into the mysterious castle.

        The first chamber they had cut into was clearly an entrance. It was a hall, grand and alien in its design. Several ‘statues’ loomed throughout the area: Jagged and snarled looking things that looked more like energy cannons than anything decorative. Their barrels aimed into the ceiling or at one another. There were broad stairs that swept up towards landings that loomed almost twenty feet higher than the rest of the chamber, while broad doors made of metal thorns and flowing quicksilver were set into frames studded with black gemstones. The entire place was only illuminated by the circles of light that spilled from their laser rifles – giving everything a jagged, half finished look to it as the pools of light swept here, there, everywhere.

        “What is this place?” Relix asked.

        “Uh, if my information is right, a solidified fortress made purely out of the regrets of a very bad man,” Merton said.

        “And how would you have information?” Relix asked, narrowing her eyes slightly. “Your people are mage blind. You don’t even fly in space.”

        Merton licked his lips. Carlos and the others had every reason to not trust Relix, or any dragon. She had kidnapped them after all. He looked at Julia, to see what she thought. His girlfriend was leading up the rear with a four legged hamper that followed after her, waddling along like a rectangular dog. She was holding a tablet in one hand and what appeared to be a plastic wand in the other. Merton was about to ask before she said: “We’re honestly not sure, Princess.”

        Relix crossed her arms over her chest. “Fine, give your suspicions.”

        Merton sighed. His hands slid into his pockets and he shrugged. “Human culture seems to have...guessed...a lot of what is going on in the galaxy. The split between prismatic and metallic dragons. The existence of this place. The layout of the multiverse, if not their exact names.” He pulled out his hand, waving it at the castle for emphasis. Then his hand went right back into his pockets. “I think that humans are picking up some psychic backwash from dragons. Like, a side effect of how you learn.”

        “That’s not possible.”

        Speccy had entered. She had her own four legged hamper following her, and was holding up something that looked like a rectangle with a glowing crystal orb set into the middle of a hole cut into it. She held it up like a Nintendo Switch and started to look through the crystal orb at the surroundings. “Dragon learning,” she continued. “It stops after they hatch.”

        “Maybe Earth sits on a ley-line,” Trevor said, shrugging.

        Merton looked at his most taciturn friend.

        Trevor shrugged again. “Hey, if Planescape is true, Rifts might be.”

        “God, I hope not,” Lisa said, shuddering.

        Speccy lowered her device. “This place is clean. If anything lived here, it stopped a long time ago. I’m detecting several purely arcane portals linking to the Outer and Inner planes, though. Give me a day, maybe two? I can re-target them.”

        “We can go home!” Lisa said, her eyes widening.

        “Those portals are connecting right to House Castrovel holdings, their allies, and the Prismatic Throne,” Speccy said, her voice firm. “We have to get the warning to the Imperial House immediately  that the attack on Yelnatzo was no pirate raid, no exterior invasion, but treachery.”

        Carlos coughed. “If this place has multiple portals, you can spare one for us. Right?”

        “No,” Speccy said. She crossed all four of her arms over her chest. “My duty to House Castrovel is clear.”

Merton felt a hand slide over his shoulder and squeeze. His hand cupped it and he looked at Relix, who was looking as if she was marshaling her thoughts as she looked about the castle. Relix met his eyes and smiled.

        “Get to work on the portals. Cite one on Earf,” she said..  

        Speccy’s teeth audibly ground  together. Like boulders.

        “Earth,” Merton whispered.

        “No, I believe that it was pronounced Earf.” Relix lifted her nose. “Your concubine showed me the proper pronunciation by Earth’s mightiest warrior while we were flying to the castle. He was very brave in the historical documentary. By the way, you never said that humanity stopped such a horrid race!” She shuddered.

        Merton shot a look at Julia, who gave him two huge thumbs up.

        Gunner sighed and stepped up. “Ma’am, before you do anything, I want to do a complete search. Lisa, set up the guard perimeter around this door.” He pointed a chitinous finger at Merton. “You? Suit up.”

        Brash gasped excitedly. “Yes!” He leaped and before Merton could ask for him to not too, Brash had landed on his face like the world’s most adorable facehugger. Merton’s arms cartwheeled, but it was too late. Brash’s body shapeshifted into the skintight power armor that he had been genetically engineered to form. Once he had finished, Merton felt the faint sting of the connections clicking in, and suddenly, he wasn’t wearing Brash. He and Brash were one thing, fused together in a level so deep that Merton wasn’t sure where one started and the other began. He looked down at his scales and felt a curious thrill .

        He was…

        “Uh, dude,” Carlos said. “Pants.”

        Merton looked down. Brash’s body had covered and subsumed his clothing. End result? Brash was showing off what a draconic schlong looked like. And the raw power that crackled through every single one of Merton’s nerves was having its natural effect on his manhood, meaning that he was popping almost eighteen inches of hard, red dick. He coughed and thought: Brash, can we have internal genitalia?

         “I’m sorry, I don’t understand your request,” Brash said in his ears and Merton felt his balls grow slightly. Lisa was covering her eyes with her hand, but Brash helpfully highlighted her hard nipples in Merton’s HUD. Julia, meanwhile, had pulled out her cellphone and was tapping the picture button with the regularity of a metronome.

         Brash! Merton thought.

        “No hablo inglis!” Brash sang.

        “Okay, we’re searching!” Merton said through Brash – his voice sounding deeper and more masculine than his normal voice did. He strode forward, hoping to find something to punch. He strode up one of the stairs and to one of the doors that looked like thorns and quicksilver and found the door opening for him automatically. Once he was out of earshot of the others, he whispered to Brash. “Seriously, dude. We need to work together.”

        “Yeah, but sexy stuff is fun,” Brash said, cheerfully. “Also, as a dragon prince, you kinda lacked some of the abilities of a dragon... until now .” He said those last two words like a movie trailer announcer. As he spoke, Merton noticed something else had changed. In his defense, his dragon dong had been a little bit distracting - but now that he was looking around the interior of the abandoned castle, he could see that Brash had refined the HUD slightly.

        For one thing, he had a pair of bars in the upper left hand corner of his vision. One of them was red and had a small red cross as a capstone. The other was blue and had a small blue shield. On the lower right hand corner of his vision, he had a white circle that was flecked with several blue dots, each one standing in the rough position of his friends. And, of course, the upper edge of his vision had a series of small, numbered boxes.

        “Brash…” Merton said.

        “Oh! You like the HUD?” he asked, cheerfully. “Focus on the boxes! Dooo it!”

        “No, wait, before...any of that, what the fuck else did you give me?” Merton asked. “I already got the augmented donger.

        “Oh! Uh, you can now secrete lust pheromones, add psychotropic precum to your cock, and can flavor your scales to taste like whatever! Chocolate! Butter! Bacon! Oh! Oh! Oh! Can we have some bacon!?” Brash asked. Merton laughed. He couldn’t not . It was nearly impossible to do anything but.

        “Once we get back to the ship, I will feed you a whole plate. If you give me an internal genitalia.”

        “Aww...” Brash sighed. But he did retract the massive donger, which made a tiny knot of embarrassment loosen in his gut. Merton shook his head and started to walk towards the edges of the room. He focused on the letter F - on a hunch - and was pleased when a beam of light shone from the side of his head, like a flashlight had just turned on. “See, I knew this redesigned interface would work!”

        Merton chuckled. “It’s pretty swanky. But what’s the shield?”

        “Armor spells,” Brash said. “Oh! Oh! Focus on the numbers!”

        Merton stepped up to an angular doorway that led off the edge of the main chamber. It opened into a narrow room that looked as if it might be some kind of bedroom...but Merton wasn’t entirely sure. That could have been a mattress, or it could have been a very oddly shaped rock. But he decided, hey, why not? He focused on the 1 box. It unfolded, revealing his options for 1 was claws and water cannon .

        “Two is short ranged weapons - the spinfusor and the shrike catapult. Three is the medium ranged weapons, the plasma beamcasters and the vol-tech ray emitters. Three is the long ranged weapons: The anti-matter bowdarts, the goblin sphere catapults, the death wands…” Brash said, matter of factly.

        And that was when Merton turned around and came to face with a three meter tall, four armed walking blender made of evil, hate and spikes.

***

        Lisa and Relix walked together. Technically, Relix was being guarded by Lisa. But Lisa was uncomfortably aware that she was less strong, less tough, less fast and less magical than the princess. The princess who was forcing Lisa’s opinion of her up, despite everything Lisa felt about being torn away from her husband, her cats, her comfortable apartment, her long running Facebook feuds with that neo-nazi, and her planet in general. For one thing, Relix wasn’t complaining, even though she was the one carrying the heavy magical machine that was apparently required to begin modifying one of the portals.

        The conversation before the two of them had been sent off had been simple.

        “We shall begin modifying the nearest portal,” Relix had said.

        “We haven’t secured the castle,” Gunner had said. “Your husband is still-”

        “The nearest portal is fifteen meters down that corridor. We’ll be in line of sight the whole time. And I want...my...husband’s friends to get home and safe,” Relix had said while patting Lisa’s head.

        And lo, they had been set off.

        “So,” Relix said. “Are you going to join Julia in my husband’s harem?”

        “What? No!” Lisa exclaimed.

        “But you’re an attractive woman, and he’s the head of the household!” Relix said, scoffing.

        “I...no!” Lisa shuddered. “Ugh. No. Fuck no. Jesus fucking Christ, absolutely not .”

        Relix looked bemused. “Then-”

        “ No ,” Lisa said, with such finality that it put Relix’s feathered crest back against her head. She snorted out twin rings of steam, then thrust her snout into the air.

        “Pff!” she said. “As if I wanted to sleep with you anyway.”

        “Fucking dragons,” Lisa muttered. Then she paused. She spun backwards, lifting her rifle – and the flashlight slung underneath it swept across a plain brick wall that had not existed five seconds before. Relix looked back over her shoulder, then snapped out her wings in shock. She spun around, setting the magical machine on the floor. She stepped up to the wall, then put her ear to it. Her eyes narrowed.

        “I can’t hear them through it,” she said.

        Lisa lifted her wrist. This part of her suit, she had been told, was the communicator. She tapped at the screen, then said: “Gunny? Gunny, can you hear me?”

        The faint buzz of static was all that reached her. Lisa frowned. “Of course...”

        Relix punched the wall. Her fist smashed into brick like a cannonball, and smoke filled the corridor, causing Lisa to jerk her hand up to shield her face. A few fragments pattered off the chest piece of her combat armor, falling to the floor with a sound not unlike rain. Coughing, Lisa said: “Did you get through?”

        Relix frowned, then jerked on her arm. “I seem to be stuck.”

        Lisa blinked, then swung her flashlight around to aim it at where the dragon princess had punched the wall. Her fist looked as if it had merged with the brick. Stone and motor pressed up against her wrist and she jerked back, trying to tear her hand free. But either she couldn’t get enough leverage, or the brick wall had decided to get its revenge. She gritted her teeth, her wings beating in agitation. “Come on...” She flashed with pale white light, and when the light faded, she had become a tiny kitten. Said kitten had its paw stuck in the wall. She transformed into an earth-worm, and that was half stuck in the wall. She resumed her normal humanoid form, looking a bit worried now.

        “What do we do?” Relix asked.

        “Shoot the wall?” Lisa suggested.

        Relix looked at her. “Like a wall that can withstand my strength is going to be stopped by an anti-personal laser!”

        “Uh...” Lisa paused. “We...could...uh...” She looked down at the laser rifle. Then at Relix. She squirmed internally. She hated the monarchy and everything it stood for. But looking at Relix’s widening eyes made her stomach flop.

        Then a loud roar of gunfire, echoing from elsewhere in the castle, jerked Relix’s head up. “That was a spinfusor.” she snarled. “Cut it off! Cut it off!”

        “But-”

        “Merton is in danger!” Relix snarled. “It’ll grow back!”

        Lisa nodded, then dialed the laser rifle from pulsed fire to a cutting beam.

        “Wait!” Relix said. She closed her eyes. “Let me…” There was a faint slurp noise and suddenly, her wrist looked like a limp sock. “O kay. Now.”

        ‘What did you do?”

        “I removed the bone, most of the nerve cells, and as many blood vessels as I could. No need to actually have it hurt,” Relix said, flashing a toothy grin at Lisa. Lisa, despite herself, smiled back. Then she shouldered the rifle. She thought to herself: It’s just like cutting a rubber chicken in half with a lightsaber. She still closed her eyes as she swept the beam down in a smooth arc. The smell was intense – a stink of burning lizard – and when she opened her eyes, Relix was pulling her arm free. She flicked her wrist and a new hand grew out of the smoking stump.

        “Jesus,” Lisa said.

        “Oh, that’s not regeneration,” Relix said, turning and starting down the corridor – leaving the box behind her. “I just shifted the wound somewhere else. Come on! Let’s find another way to them!”

        “Wait!” Lisa hissed. “Get the box!”

        Relix glared at her.

        “It’s an irreplaceable magical dongle that we’re going to need later. We bring the box, and I guard it when you fight-” Another rattling boom echoed out. “-whatever that is.”

        Relix snapped her teeth, but picked up the box with a grunt. She heaved it onto her shoulder and started to charge forward. Lisa sprinted after her – her heart in her throat. And despite the fact that they were probably going to die horribly, part of Lisa had to admit…

        She’d miss this adventure.

        But not nearly as much as she missed her cats. And her husband. And her comfortable apartment.

***

        Merton and Brash stood stock still as they looked at the thing that stood before them. It had two legs and four arms, but other than that, it bore no resemblance whatsoever to Speccy. For one thing, its body was made entirely out of midnight black obsidian. It was like someone had taken the jagged rock-flats that surrounded an active volcano and given it malignant life. Jagged blades of paper thin rock made up the shoulders and the elbows and the knees and the chest of the thing. Its eyes swirled with the blue-purple light that Brash’s HUD identified as Hawking Radiation. It was standing stock still. Not breathing. Not moving.

        “Should we say hi?” Brash whispered to Merton.

         Brash, how many weapon systems do you have online? Merton thought.

         “All of them! I grew them when I ate all those metal pieces in the engineering bay!” Brash said, cheerfully. “That’s why they’re in the numbers bar!”

         That’s where the spare metal went!? Merton asked.

        The creature cocked its head. It was a strangely insectoid motion, like a spider uncoiling a limb. It had the same terrible deliberateness of a spider too. Then, between moments, one of its arms slammed towards Merton’s chest. Merton reacted as he had to the Ouster, bringing up his forearm and the obsidian blade plunged into a glowing green replica of Captain America’s shield. Rock and magical energy made a sound like a gong played by a methhead in a death metal band, and the impact transmitted kinetic energy through Merton that sent him flying backwards. He crashed into the wall, rebounded, then landed on his feet. He skidded as Brash growled.

        “Fink!” he said, in the same way most people would say fucker. “He’s messing with time!”

        The obsidian blender proved this by appearing behind Merton – like a soap bubble popping.

        Merton ducked an arm blade and spun around to face the creature.

        “Fortunately, I’m as awesome as I am sexy,” Brash said. “Hit it!”

        The unmistakable record scratch sound, followed by driving bass themes of the song Spybreak by the Propellerheads started to play in Merton’s ears.

        “Seriously!?” Merton asked.

        “Yeahhhhhhh boooyyy!” Brash whooped as the obsidian blender started to run forward. He was moving incredibly fast – but he wasn’t moving ‘literally faster than the human brain could comprehend it.’ So, Merton lifted his arm, selected ‘spinfusor’ and watched the knuckles on his right arm unfolded and three disks of glowing, blue-white plasma appeared.

An obliging crosshair snapped up in the center of his vision. Merton grinned, fiercely, then thought of pulling the trigger. The disks zipped out in a barrage of flashing death. The obsidian blender unfolded its upper arms, knocking two disks aside, then twisting to evade the third, which struck the wall behind it and exploded.

        The obsidian blender smashed into melee range.

        And it turned out, Brash had been a very well designed dragon.

        The monster swung two arms in a downward, chopping motion – with all the grace of an industrial logging machine – and Merton found himself stepping backwards. He willed a sword into his hand, and his magical talent was all to obliging. A sword made of the same green energy as the shield appeared and he swung at the creature’s chest. The creature parried with fingerblades, then opened its mouth. It had the same kind of horrible, chomping teeth as the animations from Freddy Frazbears, and used the same relentless desire to chomp on human faces. It stepped forward and crashed into Merton’s shield, reaching with three arms to try and sink scalpel fingers into him.

        “Fuck off!” Merton snarled, then selected something he had always wondered about.

        He felt rather than saw his ankles unfold. A pair of piton guns snapped out of the black scales where his Achilles tendon would be, then fired off a pair of red-tipped darts of silvery metal. The glowing metal sunk into the ground with a pair of hisses, and then auto-screws whirred as the pitons affixed themselves to the floor hard enough that they’d need to be cut free.

        Then Brash beat his wings of his own accord and sent Merton sailing down the corridor.

        The obsidian blender stepped after them.

        And the two spikes went off with the force of two very very very tiny nuclear bombs.

        Because that was what they were.

        The roar of hot air was like a physical wall, and it sent Brash and Merton tumbling down the corridor, into a more literal wall, through another equally literal wall, and finally, through the air. He smashed into the ground on his back and skidded to a stop next to Gunner. Gunner looked down at him. Merton groaned, and didn’t even try to figure out the geometry of this place.

        “So, I take it, the place ain’t secure?” he growled.

        Merton hopped to his feet, shaking his head as he looked at the smoking hole that he had been flung from. He looked back and saw no Relix. No Lisa. No Julia. His eyes widened. “Where the fuck-”

        “Fire in the hole!”

        Julia’s voice dragged his eyes to a doorway that looked as if it had been replaced with a brick wall. Julia was standing next to it, guarded by one of the armsmen. She had just finished inscribing a rune on the wall – a series of runes actually. Brash’s HUD helpfully translated it to: I prepared explosive runes to-

         And then Merton flung himself flat to the ground.

        The wall exploded inwards with a roar and Julia whooped, thrusting her fist into the air.

        Merton saw the Hawking Radiation before anyone else did.

        “Julia!” he shouted.

        The second – or maybe the first – obsidian blender emerged. It casually swung its arm out.

        If Merton’s life had been Game of Thrones, Julia would have been decapitated.

        But Julia had clearly been studying. And, as her scribing of magical runes proved, she had been studying very hard . Because that bladed arm smashed into a magical force field, which shattered into a thousand pieces and sent her tumbling back and away from the obsidian thing . It stepped fully into the room, eyes aglow, arms spread.

        Merton selected close ranged weapons, then the hellwhip. His wrist unfolded and then shot out a small, lightsaber like hilt. He grabbed it, using the enhanced reflexes that Brash gave him, then flicked on the tiny switch at the base of the hilt. A crackling roar exploded from the hilt as a shimmering loop of coherent fire slid out, skittering along the obsidian ground with a spray of sparks.

“Ah,” Merton whispered. “It’s literally a whip made of hell . Got it.”

He lifted the whip, then cracked it hard. The hissing, spitting end of the whip wrapped around the obsidian blender’s malformed head, releasing a series of whirrs and hisses as it completed its wrap. Merton snarled, fiercely, as he dragged his arm to the side as hard as he could. The motion translated to flinging the obsidian monstrosity off its feet and smashing it into the wall with an explosion of stone and metal and chips of obsidian.

        Julia sat up, looking shocked. “Did you just Ghost Rider whip an off brand Shrike to death!?” She paused. “I almost died, holy shit.” Her hand went to her chest, as if she was checking to make sure her heart was still beating.

        “Get back here!” Merton shouted.

        Other doors were opening. And he was realizing that that was the second obsidian blender. Because almost three dozen of the things were emerging from every doorway, every shadow, every corner of the room, their eyes swirling with emotionless focus. Their blade fingers snicked to the ready.

        Merton gulped.

        “Well,” Brash said. “Um. Pants to be darkened, I suppose.”

        Merton had already selected the anti-matter darts.

***

        The castle shook. Shuddered. It pitched and yawned, as if it was a ship under a terrifying storm. Or, to Lisa’s mind, like California during an earthquake. Relix drove forward with remarkable dexterity, her feet skidding only slightly under herself as she kept the box on her shoulder. As she ran, Lisa held out one hand to try and keep herself upright. But it was hard. Every shake and shudder made her legs want to drop out from under her. She gritted her teeth against the faint sea sickness that threatened to overwhelm her.

        The two of them came to the end of a corridor – the doorway opened into a circular room that, unlike every other room they had rushed through, was actually bright . This was enough to make Relix and Lisa slow down and look around, their eyes wide. The chamber was illuminated by a pool in the center, which frothed and bubbled with pure white energy, the water arching upwards almost three meters before falling back into the pool. Standing before it, Lisa felt her aches and her pains – most of them the minor aches and pains that anyone who had hit the big three oh got used to feeling – fade away.

        “It’s...it’s some of the plane of positive energy,” Relix said.

        Lisa was about to respond – but then she saw a rectangle of cardboard flip through the air from behind the frothing fountain. It landed in a rumpled hat that had been set out on the ground.

        Another card flew out a second later, landing in the hat again.

        A third card followed – this one skittered along the ground.

        A female sigh came from behind the fountain. “I’m still absolute trash at this...”

        Lisa lifted up her laser rifle, glancing at Relix. She went left. Relix went right. The two of them converged on the far side of the fountain – flanking the woman who sat there. She was…

        Human.

        A human who had aged and aged and aged some more. She had aged to the point where her age had gone around the other side of age and become a strange, exotic youth. Her hair was pure silver and hung down to her shoulders, while her face was a near uniform brown and the wrinkles were so fine that they became invisible. Her skull pressed to every thin part of skin, giving her the facial features of a cheap alien from one of the shitty episodes of Voyager, while her body was rail thin and clad in only a simple loincloth and breast band. There, the ravages of age were easier to see, writ large on her body and her legs. She showed no shame of her sagging breasts, her strangely folded belly, her pruned thighs.

        Instead, she looked at Lisa, then back at Relix, then snorted. “Figures.”

        “Who...the flying fuck are you?” Lisa asked.

        “What she said,” Relix said, imperiously.

        “Quiet, scaly,” the woman said. “The adults are talking.”

        Relix spluttered like a teapot. Lisa decided that she liked this old lady.

        “You can’t speak to me like that!” Relix snarled. “I am Princess Relix Castrovel of-”

        “Blah blah blah!” The woman said. “Why do you think I trapped your hand. I wanted you out of this conversation, because you’d distract me with irrelevancies. A stolen throne only matters to carrion birds.”

        The castle shuddered - but the distant explosions seemed extremely muted in this room. The water did slosh and splash over the lip of the fountain, soaking some of the cards. The woman pursed her lips in irritation.

        Lisa blinked. “ You  blocked off the passageway?”

        The old woman inclined her head, spreading her arms wide. “That’s me.”

        “Did you attack my husband? My people ?” Relix snarled, her hands clenching as she took a step forward. Cold energy crackled around her mouth and she actually looked as if she was becoming larger with every moment, her muscles hardening. This made the woman blink. Slowly, she looked back at Relix.

        “You care ?” she asked.

        “I...what?” Relix spluttered. “Of course I-”

        The old woman stood so fast that Lisa could hear her knees popping. “You don’t merely care! You’re worried !”

        “I heard spinfusors! Of course I’m worried!” Relix snarled, her claws flexing, her wings flaring out. “My husband is out there with a hatchling to-”

        “Oh praise the gods!” the woman laughed, then flumped backwards onto the side of the pool. Her head rolled backwards and she closed her eyes, grinning. “I won. I told you I’d win, you cynical bastard .” She snapped her fingers with a lazy, languid motion. The whle room shivered for a moment, then was still.

        Lisa looked at Relix, then at the woman. “Okay. Um, maybe you should explain, and fast, because-” she paused. She realized she couldn’t hear, nor feel, the combat going on in the rest of the castle. “I really hope that means they won.”

        “Oh, that battle is on hold for now,” the woman said. “I tucked us into our own little demiplane a few seconds ago.” She waved her hands. “Come, sit, my children. And let...” She chuckled. “Let Granny Goodness tell you a story .”

        It was a good thing Lisa was not Merton.

        Merton would have shot the woman right then and there.

        Lisa was more of a Marvel girl, after all.

        Sitting down before the old woman, Lisa set the rifle next to her. Bathing in the radiance of the pool felt astoundingly restful. ‘Granny Goodness’ cracked her knuckles with a series of bangs and pops nearly as intense as the spinfusor fire from earlier, then started to speak. “In a time before the fall of Atlantis. Before the rise of the sons of Ares and the spread of the Hellenic Way. In a time before the Ming domesticated the great wyrms of old, and the Great Count was new, and the fourth world was young...” She sighed. “It was a time of magic and wonder and terror the likes of which you could not imagine.”

        “Where?” Relix asked. “I’ve never heard of-”

        “On Earth ,” Granny said, reaching out to rap on Relix’s head. “It’s bloody obvious , innit?”

        “What!?” Relix asked.

        “B-But we’re-” Lisa looked at Relix. “Mage blind!”

        “Says the woman with the eyes plucked from her head,” Granny said. “A great wealth of magic flowed through Earth, like a river. A feature of the mantle and the moon was the theory. A large moon. An active mantle. All developing when the early buzz of the Big One kept roaring.” She shrugged. “Who knows. Maybe that’s the case. Maybe not. What matters is Earth had a glut of wonder.”

        “What happened to it?” Relix asked.

        Granny slowly turned her gaze on Relix.

        Relix didn’t get it for about thirty seconds. Then every single feather on her head drooped.

        “Oh...” she whispered.

        “Oh. Indeed.” Granny frowned. “The dragons were the first of our inventions. We took the best here, the best there, of all our favorite animals. The wings of the bat. The splendor of the great lizards. The intellect of the parrot...” She grinned, wickedly. “The fuckability of the ewe.”

        “Ugh!” Lisa made a face.

        Relix started spluttering like a teapot again.

        “And things were good,” Granny said, quietly. “But do you know who fucked it up?”

        “Men?” Lisa asked.

        “Of course humanity would force our hand!” Relix said, sounding defensively.

        “No, not man. Men.” Lisa shrugged. “For the past three thousand years, men have been responsible for the massive share of humanity’s incredibly piss poor decisions. Nearly every war, genocide, spree shooting-”

        Relix blinked, then looked at Granny.

        Granny nodded. “It was a man. A terrible man named...” She opened her mouth. But no sound came out. Instead, there was a blank spot in the world, a blankness that felt as off putting and discomforting as nails on a chalkboard. Relix and Lisa squirmed. “...and his weaponized dragons. He made the chromatics, you see. It was a proof of concept - some macho bullshit, showing off what nice toys he could make. And he was right, they were really good at killing people. And fighting. And planning for fights.  The wars they started were devastating and decisive and left him in charge...but when the killing was done and he had his empire , the chromatics realized they had a taste for it. And the killing began all over again...”

        “Why couldn’t I hear his name?”

        “It was struck...” Granny looked down and to the side. “Struck from the annals by the strongest magics there were.”

        Relix bristled. Then she sprang to her feet. “Not all men!”

        “Hashtag what?” Lisa asked.

        “You both are so eager to throw down an entire gender because of the mistakes of some of history’s greatest monsters! But...but...but...” She trembled. “But that’s throwing aside every gentle heart and strong soul. Every Merton and every Brash and Carlos, and even Trevor! There’s so much passion  in each of them, and when they harness it they can do amazing things! It’s easy to be cynical, but...but...” She closed her eyes, her snout glistening. Tears gleamed in her eyes. “But if we don’t believe in them , then what the fuck are we doing anyway? If we cannot love, then why even fight?”

        Lisa smiled, slightly.

        Granny looked as if she had been clubbed in the side of the head. “Which breed of dragon are you, missy?”

        “Feathered,” Relix snapped. She jerked her head to the side, wiping at her snout with her forearm. Her tail lashed. “And open a damn portal to my husband, or-”

        “Wait...”

        Granny and Relix both looked at Lisa.

        Lisa looked at Granny.

        “What cynical bastard were you talking about before?” Lisa asked, watching Granny.

        Granny sighed. “If there’s a Granny, there’s a Grandfather.” She shrugged. “I control the castle. He controls the shadows inside. They’ve kept me here.”

        Lisa paused, thinking through what Granny had said so far. And she thought of what she had seen - of magic and of dragons, of the universe writ large. She took her time, considering it from every angle...save one. But when she allowed herself to look at it from that angle - from the angle of a tabletop roleplaying game - she immediately saw the hole.

Lisa grinned. “I don’t buy it.”

        Granny looked at her, her brow furrowing.

        “Every other human with magic like yours is dead. Any human left, like this Grandfather, they wouldn’t have spent thousands of years just keeping you prisoner. And if you guys didn’t build dragons with failsafes, then I’m a monkey’s uncle.” She stood slowly up. “Grandfather would have taken over the galaxy millenia ago.  So, that means, either Grandfather is hiding among dragons...or there’s something you’re not telling us.” She looked around the room.

“For example, you could be not telling us how how you can control a fortress made of solidified regret with your mind .” She looked right at Granny, her eyes narrowing.

        “You think you’re a real smart bitch, don’t you?” Granny asked, her voice sour.

        “Nah,” Lisa said. “I just always know to look for obvious plot twists.”

        Granny looked obstinate. Relix, though, looked like her patience had run out. With a snarl and a streamer of smoke from each nostril, she grabbed Granny by the throat. She lifted the incredibly elderly woman up and snarled, her voice a low growl. “Explain. Now . ”

        Granny’s feet kicked. Her face purpled.

        “Humans can’t talk while you’re holding them up like that!” Lisa exclaimed.

        “Oh, right,” Relix said, looking abashed. She set Granny down. Granny coughed, rubbing at her throat.

        “Fucking gods ,” she gasped. “I forgot how dim dragons can be...”

        Relix’s growl was loud enough to shake the room.

        Granny rubbed her shoulder. “Fine...” she looked down. “I’m him. I’m...” She spoke the name again – and again, Relix and Lisa shuddered. “I was the only one left, after the war, save for the slaves.”

        “Slaves...” Lisa whispered. “You didn’t mention the slaves earlier.”

        Granny scowled, showing her blackened teeth. “Hey, bitch, nostalgic editing!”

        “So, you made chromatic dragons,” Lisa said. “And after the genocide, you fled here, the last place in the multiverse anyone would look for you.” She shook her head. “Surrounded by your own self hatred, sustained by your own stubbornness...”

        “Why did you become a girl?” Relix asked. “Beyond us being the clearly superior gender.”

        Granny shot her a look .

        Relix scoffed. “Just because not all men are terrible doesn’t mean that women aren’t clearly better. Duh.”

        Granny sighed. “I thought if I changed...the castle would let me out. Back then, I thought it was someone else. It was one of the good gods, or Ethosa, or the the Judges of O, something, someone. I thought it had to be someone keeping me here, someone who wanted vengence, who couldn’t recognize my genius .” She slammed her palm against her chest, her eyes flaring.  “I tried every form, every spell, for years and years...until…” She trailed off, her eyes closing. “Until I realized that it wasn’t the form. It wasn’t them. It was just...me.” She spread her hands, slowly. “And that I would never leave.”

        Relix nodded.

        Lisa looked down at her rifle. “Is there a failsafe?” She asked. “Some kind of magical self destruct that works on dragons?”

        “If there is,” Granny said. “I’m not sharing it.” She looked at Relix. “Some of them, at least, deserve the chance to prove they’re better than their creators.”

        Relix’s muzzle flushed. Lisa closed her eyes. She breathed in, then breathed out. “All right.” She shouldered her laser rifle, swung it around, and fired into the pool before anyone could stop them. The pulse of laser light smashed into something deep within the water, sending up gouts steam of blessed heat. The pulses kept pouring from the rifle, causing a stuttering drum of steam bursts, until the pool flickered, then went out. Granny gaped at her.

        Lisa looked back. She smiled.

        “An exit, ama sani, ” Lisa whispered.

        Granny smiled as the light faded more and more. Darkness surrounded them. Then the door opened – and Lisa and Relix stepped out into a courtyard of slagged glass and smoldering piles of ash and scorch marks and spent shell casings and still humming spinfusor disks and a discarded hellwhip – still crackling with heat. They walked slowly past a shadow of past regrets that had been sliced cleanly in half.

        Merton sat on a pile of obsidian bodies, still sheathed in Brash.

        “Hey,” he said, panting. “This dragon is OP as balls .”

        Relix tackled him with delight.

Chapter Seven: Roll that Diplomacy Check!

Merton pinched the bridge of his nose as Brash snored atop his head.

        “Run this by me again,” he said.

        “Okay,” Lisa said. “Dragons originated on Earth as weapons of warfare and magical creations made by human wizards. One wizard decided to use them against his enemies, and the resulting war devastated the planet. It’s probably what’s behind pretty much every ancient flood and story of Atlantis and why every human culture in the world has art and legends about dragons. In the end, the wizards were dead and the dragons left behind a devastated planet and the mage-blind slaves. Us.” She inclined her head slightly. “The dragons formed the Five Talon Empire-”

        “Technically,” Relix cut in, taking a pause from her snuggling of Merton. “They formed the Empires of Qesemat and Asamat, split between chromatic and metallic dragons. It was only after the Dragonstar Wars and the creation of the War Spheres that the Draconic Empire was formed under the Prismatic Throne. That was then stable until...well, by this point, I usually fell asleep during history class.”

        Then she went back to squeezing Merton’s naked body. Merton smiled and hugged his wife back. Then he felt a bump and saw that Julia, his girlfriend, was pressing against his other side.

        “Can I snuggle Merton too?” Brash asked, waking up.

        “You’re already his hat,” Lisa said.

        Brash gasped. “That is the most important job. Hats are the snuggles of the head.”

        “Quite,” Lisa said, then shook her head. “Still, there was one survivor: The man who created the first chromatic dragons and set them to war. He fled here...and his regrets created this place out of pure willpower. ” She gestured around herself.

        “Fuck me sideways,” Merton said.

        “Well...” Relix murmured, sounding tempted.

        “Later, honey,” Merton whispered.

        “I’ll bring the lube,” Julia said, giggling.

        Merton shook his head. “So, this is literally the Fortress of Regrets? And these shadow things are...” He looked down at the pile of obsidian monsters that he had been busily hacking up while Lisa and his wife had stumbled on the originator of this mysterious floating castle. “What?”

        “Her conscience,” Lisa said, sighing. “What a guilt brain can do after a few thousand years of wallowing next to a pool of radiant energy. While also being the brain of an arch-mage that makes the most powerful draconic sorcerer look like Gandalf the Grey.”

        “Planescape and Phlan, Jesus Christ,” Merton said, putting his hands to his face.

        “What?” Trevor asked, frowning. “I usually get your fucking stupid references and in-jokes, but I’m lost.”

        “It’s not important,” Relix said, drawing her snout away from Merton’s arm. “What is important is we get to Earth.”

        “... que ?” Carlos asked.

        Relix sighed and then slipped her arms around Merton’s belly. Her scales rasped gently against his taut belly muscles and Julia took her chance to bury her face against Merton’s abs. She started to lick him affectionately. Which reminded Merton to remember to ask her later how the flying fuck she had not only gotten magic, but also learned magic. But so many things had been happening so quickly that he felt like he was doing all right if he managed to keep abreast of the important stuff. Like the dragons. And the space politics. And the assassination attempts.

        “If Earth is the homeworld of dragon-kind, and not Draconis Prime,” she said. “Then there will be artifacts left of the old empire. Maybe we can find something that will give us an edge against the other dragon suits. Those were powerful enough to wipe out a dragon freehold, we’re going to need every fragment of help we can get even after we gather up our allies in the FTE.” She shook her head. “There must be something left.”

        “After...what? Ten thousand years?” Lisa asked. “Not to mention, humanity has never found anything . Zip. Nada. Zilch.”

        “Where was Atlantis?” Carlos said. “If we never found it, maybe there are artifacts there?”

        “...where could Atlantis possibly be?” Trevor asked, slapping the back of his head. “Man, if only there was some kind of Atlantic  ocean to search!”

        Carlos looked at Trevor, crossing his arms over his chest. “Dude. Trevor. You can’t go looking in the obvious places. Where do you find your car keys? In the obvious place? No, you find them behind the couch.”

        “Uh, no, actually, I find my car keys in the place where I put them. Which is on the fucking counter, which is where everyone puts them!” Trevor snapped, his eyebrow twitching. “Listen, this is all insane . Why the hell would a ten thousand year old artifact do diddly to a modern starship? There’s this historical myth called the dark ages, which is where most of fantasy fiction gets the ass-backwards idea that older stuff is better than newer stuff. Well, guess what, we aren’t goths squatting in the Roman Empire wondering how they built aqueducts. Fuck. If we’re going to Earth, we might as well go for the nukes .”

        “How many nukes could Earth possibly have?” Relix asked, sneering slightly.

        “Twenty thousand,” Merton said.

        “Fifteen thousand,” Lisa said.

        “Between fifteen and twenty thousand!” Carlos said, cheerfully.

        Relix blinked. “Oh. Right.” She clearly had just remembered Merton and her’s first meeting.

        “Hey, question,” Carlos said, lifting his hand. “What happened to the old wizard?”

        Lisa shrugged, the strap on her laser rifle shifting along her shoulder. “I shot up the pool of radiant energy that was sustaining her life. It seemed like she was ready to go.” She nodded. “Why?”

        “Sooo...you...took the wizard whose regret keeps this place stable off life support?” Carlos asked. “Before we stabilized the portals so that they’d head to Earth?”

        Lisa and Relix both blinked. And, with fantastic timing, the castle took the cue. The ground heaved as if they were in a 7.5 earthquake, sending the few armsmen, Gunner, Speccy, and Merton’s friends sprawling onto their backs and bellies with cries of alarm. Brash went soaring off of Merton’s head with a squeal of delight, while Relix held Merton in place by by wrapping around him like a snake and plunging her tail into the ground as if it was an anchor. The shake was followed by aftershocks and a groaning, crashing, rending noise. Chunks started to fall from the metallic ceiling and Merton screamed.

        “Back to the shiiiiiiip !”

        Relix unwrapped and dragged him to his feet.

        “Brash!” Merton shouted. “Help everyone!”

        Brash flapped his wings, then dodged away from a massive head that fell from the ceiling, tumbling through the cracks as if some vast statue that had been part of an upper level had come spilling down. The head struck the ground with a tolling like a gong. Brash swept forward, his arms growing to absurd Schwarzenegger beef-slabs sticking out of his small, cat-like body. He scooped up Trevor and Lisa with a sweep. Carlos, keeping his feet with remarkable skill, grabbed onto Speccy and helped the four armed purple skinned engineer to her feet.

        Gunner grabbed one of his armsmen and dragged the woman out and away from a tumbling chunk of wall slab which would have pancaked her.

        The whole group rushed towards the airlock, which was starting to shake and jar free.

        Merton looked over his shoulder – one last glimpse at something that had stood the test of time longer than any structure on the Earth had. He saw the darkness, lit patchily by the mage lights that Speccy had set up, being split by the deeper, purer blackness of the plane of negation. He could see those bizarre machines, crumpling as stones the size of small houses fell on them. He could see the floor dropping away like teeth from a kid with scurvy, dropping into blackness and infinity. He shook his head slightly, then leaped onto the airlock.

        The door slammed shut behind him and the Talon-9  bucked as it skidded away from the castle. He got to his feet in time to look out the airlock window and see the castle collapsing inwards, swirling and groaning as the chunks lost definition, becoming dust, and then tiny particles, all of them twisting on a whirlwind of destruction. At the center of it, he could see a sputtering, strobing light.

        The debris fell inwards.

        And then with an unceremonious pop and minute poof of smoke that dissipated nearly instantly, the castle was gone.

        “Well,” Relix said, sourly. “I guess we’ll have to take the long way to Earth now.”

        “No,” Merton said, shaking his head - with the loss of multiple portals, he had to make the hard call, even if it put his friends in danger. “If we have to choose between going to Earth and going to Draconis Prime, I say we go to Draconis Prime. We have to tell your father about the threat from House Byraugh, Xosh, and Forin before they make their move. Nothing on Earth can stop them, unless the Atlantians left some super weapon there.”

        “Like the draconic command words that let them control the entire species for millenia?” Lisa asked, her voice dry.

        Merton paused. All of them considered what Lisa had just said. Trevor looked irritated - resentful that his point about older magic being less useful being torpedoed like that.

        “Fuck,” Merton whispered, before pinching the bridge of his nose. “Speccy, where can our planar whipple shields bring us too?”

        “They’ll bring us right back where we started from,” Speccy said, brushing some dust from her shoulder as the inner door of the airlock opened and each of them started out into the corridor.

        Julia chuckled, quietly. “So, in other words, right back into the guns of House Byraugh.”

        “Essentially,” Speccy said, frowning. “There is an advantage. This detour has given our subspace drive time to refresh itself. If we arrive and instantly translate to subspace, we’ll get away.” She paused. “If only we had our ablative wish armor.”

        “You know,” Trevor said, sourly, crossing his arms over his chest as he glared at Lisa. “If only someone hadn’t murdered the ancient archmage.”

        Lisa glared right back at him.

        “No,” Speccy said. “Even with a wizard of the 17 th  level or higher, we’d still need a hundred and fifty thousand credits worth of diamond. Even with our nanofabricator, we couldn’t produce that much without finding a planet or asteroid.” She shook her head. “We need to find another way to survive the few seconds it’ll take to arrive, chart the course, then drop into subspace.”

        They all went silent.

        Thinking.

        “We could go to The City of O?” Julia suggested.

        “The City of O?” Trevor asked.

        “Uh, it’s the city at the center of the multiverse?” Julia said, blinking. “It sits at the top of an infinitely high spire in the middle of the Outlands. Ruled by a mysterious order of genderless, immortal arbiters called the Judges? I also am guessing that it’s a place where everyone talks like a cockney gangster and is full of dead god corpses used as apartment buildings. You know. Standard city-at-the-center-of-the-multiverse things.”

        Speccy frowned. “The Judges aren’t exactly friendly to the FTE.”

        “Why? Too hungry for gold?” Trevor asked, still sour.

        “Yes,” Speccy said, half distracted. “We can recalibrate our planar whipple shields for the outer realms and arrive in the Outlands. Then we fly for the City of O and find a portal back to our universe? Is that what you’re suggesting?”

        Julia shrugged. “Hey, I’m just saying what I’d do if I was the prince. I’m just a concubine. But, just saying, even if we can’t find our way back, it’ll just mean we’re stuck i n the afterlife with nukes. Which sounds funny as hell .” She grinned, wiggling her eyebrows. “Get it? Hell . As hell? Cause...I’m saying we can find Hitler in Hell and poke him with sticks.”

        Speccy, Relix, and Gunner all looked at Merton. Merton realized that they had actually started to think of him as a leader. It would have been funny if it didn’t also make his gut knot  like a pretzel. But since he was the one here...he gulped and nodded, his hand sliding up and down Relix’s back, his other arm looped around Julia’s shoulders. Holding the two of them relaxed him. Centered him. He nodded again, more firmly.

        “Let’s do it.”

***

        Merton sprawled in bed, his eyes closed, feeling the adrenaline of the past few hours ebb from his body, like tides slurping down drains. That was a mixed metaphor, but on the other hand, fuck off, Merton was tired. As he lay there, the door opened and he felt a warm body thump across his belly. Merton wheezed and sat up – and saw Julia sprawled across him, as if they were a sexy, humanoid + sign. Though finally, he had some fucking pants on. That was nice.

        “Oh!”

        Brash landed on Julia’s butt and curled up there, like a kitten. “I claim this butt for dragon kind.”

        “Welp,” Julia said, her voice muffled. “You heard him, Merton. Relationship over, I’m a dragon’s pet now.”

        “Yay!” Brash cheered, then sobered. “W-Wait, no, I don’t want you to stop nose nuzzling!” To demonstrate this, he shifted to his humanoid boy form and rolled off of Julia, with the side effect of mashing Merton back onto the bed, since he now had a girl on his belly and a dragon-boy on his chest.

        “Why am I under at least two people?” Merton asked, his voice muffled by Brash’s hip.

        “Because Speccy is a slave driver. Who knew that sneaking into the biotech lab and secretly giving myself magical powers would lead to some kind of ramifications?” Julia asked.

        “Gasp!” Brash said. “Ramifications? They’re my least favorite kind of ifications! My favorites are centaurification, girlification, goldification...”

        “Brash...” Merton said, slowly, his voice constricted. “Why is your favorite centaurification?”

        “Cause centaurs are cute and also, if you have the biggest dong, they’ll be like, ‘yay, you have a dong of exactly the right size, for I am a horse!’” Brash said, cheerfully. He was still sprawled on Merton’s chest. “Also, you should bang!” He gasped. “No we  should bang!” And suddenly, Merton had Julia and Brashette on his chest, which provoked several reactions - mortification, arousal, being crushed.

        “We should bang,” Julia said around a truly epic yawn . “Save that I’ve been dumping level one spell slots into the whipple shields to start the re-calibration process. By the way, Speccy says we should be heading out within the hour.”

        Brashette snorted. “I’ll use magical powers to make you all excited for sexy times!”

        “But I’m tired too, Brashette?” Merton wheezed out.

        Brashette scoffed. “That’s why I, Brashette, am here to help you!”

        “Brashette, wa-” Merton started – but it was too late. The by now very familiar feeling of Brash’s body enfolding and connecting to his swept Merton from head to toes. The click in his ears was almost missed in the sudden rush of energy that surged through Merton. He wondered how Brash was doing that. The first thought was gross, but effective: He was likely circulating Merton’s blood and hormones through his dragon body, and using the natural regenerative powers of a dragon to clean out fatigue toxins. The end result was that it only took six heart beats for Merton to feel as perky as if he had snorted a line of cocaine.

        Space cocaine.

        The third most addictive form of cocaine. Right after snuggle cocaine! Which was totally a thing!

        “Brash, are you influencing my thoughts?” Merton asked, his hands going to his muzzle and rubbing against his eyes.

        “...no...” Brash said, sounding guilty. “That’s...natural...wibbly...interference from...snuggle fields...”

        Julia had rolled off of Merton’s lap. Looking down at her, Merton felt the normal rush of love and happiness that seeing Julia inspired in him. He might also be feeling feelings for Relix – feelings that her confession about her softness had only made more intense and malleable – but Julia had been with him longer. And seeing her lithe perfection transformed from words on a screen to real life (with a slight detour into “finding out she was trans and hadn’t transitioned yet”-ville) was enough to send Merton’s heart racing. His cock hardened and he gulped as he saw the unique, draconic shape of it. Red, with ridges along the bottom edge, and a triangular tip, already welling with eagerness.

        Julia’s tongue flicked along her lips as she looked his cock.

        “Want me to, uh...spice it up?” Brash whispered in Merton’s ear.

        “How so?” Merton rumbled as he watched Julia pull her arms under her body and push herself up to her hands and knees. Julia crawled forward, her rump in the air, giving her a sleek, kittenish look. Her tongue darted along her lips and Merton felt his dick getting even harder.

        “Well, we’re a living, breathing, shapeshifting fuck machine. I can add more dicks. Or less dicks, if you wanna be a lady like my Brashette form! Or I could add an aphrodisiac to our pre-cum, so one lick will drive Julia so wild that you’ll have to fuck her into the deck to get her satiated. What’s your favorite?”

        “Julia,” Merton said around a clenched jaw, his fingers digging into the matress underneath him as he tried to keep from just pouncing on her. Her lips touched the firm scales of his balls and she shivered slightly as she slipped her tongue between his nuts, her eyes fluttering shut as she breathed in his musk. Part of him wondered if she was already drugged – but she merely drew her mouth back and whispered, huskily.

        “Yeah?”

        “Do you want, uh, an aphrodisiac? On my cock?” Merton asked. “Our...cock? Is this technically a threesome?”

        “Technically, it’s an awesomesome ,” Brash said, loud enough for Julia to hear it.

        “I’m not sure what the proper terminology is for a fuck-session with a dude, a girl, and his kamui,” Julia said with a wicked grin.

        “A god robe?” Brash asked, sounding confused.

        “You speak Japanese?” Julia drew her head away from the bright red cock that she had started to quietly lick – more like a kitten than a girl getting ready for a blowjob.

        “Well, I am a dragon ,” Brash said, sounding smug. “But seriously, what is a kamui?”

        Merton bit his lip, then closed his eyes and thought  everything he knew about the anime Kill la Kill at Brash, since Brash had already demonstrated an ability to do information retrieval, considering the HUD he had whipped up. And the songs that he had played. And the puns. A moment later, he heard Brash gasp. What happened next was utterly disquieting and completely discombobulating. Merton felt as if his entire body had been grabbed . But it wasn’t just his skin. No.

        His bones felt as if something had them in a vice grip. He felt his heart beating against the pressure of a wrapping that didn’t penetrate his skin, and yet managed to enfold his every organ. It was not painful, but it was weird as fucking hell. Then the grip shifted and squirmed and within a few seconds, he felt as if bits of him had been tossed into the air and juggled. Again. No pain. But in the same way that a dentist picking at plaque isn’t painful , but still feels weird as hell...this felt weird as hell.

        He screamed the whole way.

        And thus, he was able to hear his voice stretch up the register, like Captain Rhodes from Day of the Dead.

        From the scene where zombies tore his head off while he was screaming at the top of his lungs.

        Yeah.

        Again, not painful.

        But it still left Merton panting as he sat on the bed, blinking.

        “Tada!” Brash said, cheerfully.

        “Oh. My. God.” Julia had drawn back, her jaw hanging open. Merton stood stock still, shivering, looking at a fringe of black that hung before his head. He normally cut his hair pretty short, since he hated bangs. But now he had them. Then his brow furrowed and he saw a band of...red. In his hair. His hands went to his head and he saw he was wearing a thick red glove on one hand and a red wrist band on the second. Also, his fingers were...not dainty . But they were a fuck of a lot thinner.

        “What the-” Merton heard his voice pitched up a few registers. “EEEEEEE!” He squealed.

        Or, more accurately.

         She squealed.

        She looked down at her breasts and saw that not only did she have breasts, but they were contained in a black and red patterned Japanese school girl uniform. A familiar looking black and red patterned Japanese school girl uniform.

        “ Brash !” Merton screamed. “What the fucking hell !?”

        “Y-You don’t think it’s neat?” Brash asked, sounding like a puppy, post newspaper booping. “I thought you liked my Brashette form!”

        “Ahhhhh myyyyyy gawwwwwwwwd!” Julia squealed. “You look similar to but legally distinct from Ryuko Matoi! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh you’re so freaking cute !”

        Merton stood up. He – she – tottered, her arms flailing in the air as she tried to keep her balance with a brand new body. She scrambled to the mirror that was set in the dressing room of the palatial quarters she shared with Relix. Looking into the mirror, she saw that not only did she look exactly like Ryuko Matoi from Kill la Kill, but Brash had even replicated the anime aesthetic in real life as close as he could manage. So, she actually looked a little inhuman. But, in the same way that an anime character could look really attractive within the framework of an animated picture, Ryuko looked cute as heck in the real world, skirting the edge of the uncanny valley with a deftness that shocked Merton to the core.

        “S-Sorry for not asking permission first. I just kinda got excited when I figured out how to do the shifty shapes with you. Basically, I just surrounded your cells with my cells, and snuggled them and since they’re snuggled, they feel safe and I can keep them happy, and then put them together again when you wanna shift back!” Brash said – and yes, the replica of the sentient school girl uniform that granted superpowers ( Kill la Kill was a weird fucking show, even by Japanese anime standards) wriggled as Brash talked. Just like from the show.

        Merton breathed slowly out. “Well. T-This...is good.”

        “I’ll say...” Julia purred, her tiredness forgotten. In the mirror, Merton could see her checking out her new ass. Merton spun around, her cheeks flushing as she glared at her girlfriend. Julia grinned back at her, unapologetic.

        “This opens up a lot of tactical options. Can you...” Merton paused. “Can you shrink while I’m wearing you?”

        “Sure!” Brash said. “I’ll just extend a magical whatsit field to make your cells tinier!”

        Merton crossed her arms over her breasts, then blushed as she felt her own breasts squish underneath her arm. She wasn’t sure if Brash was jacking her sensitivity up in an effort to make this sexier, or if that was just a thing that was different between girls and boys. But she did feel her nipples hardening underneath her clothes. “I’ve noticed dragons use their shapeshifting in their combat. Now, if...when we fight dragons, I won’t be disadvantaged.”

        Julia grinned. “And you have a…” She paused, sat up, then pumped her fists. “ Grrrrrrrrrrrreat ass.”

        Merton blushed and giggled. Then she stopped, at hearing how she sounded. “G-God, is this what you felt like for years?”

        “No,” Julia said. “Firstly, I was...” she paused, then looked aside. “I was ugly. Not just because I was a dude. I love dudes. But I was an ugly dude, you know?” She nodded, slightly. Merton stepped forward and almost tripped over her own feet. She tottered over and knelt down beside the bed. She took Julia’s hand, squeezing. The feeling of Julia’s soft fingers against Merton’s new fingers was enough to send lightning bolts of erotic sensation crackling along her spine. “You might not want to be a girl. But you’re a pretty one.” She smiled. “Also, knowing you can become a dude again at any time prolly helps.”

        “Yeah. It does.” Merton murmured. She leaned forward and kissed Julia on the cheek. Julia giggled, then turned her head and kissed Merton back. Their tongues played together. Their breasts pressed together and Brash obligingly became as thin as silk, so that Merton could feel the deliciousness that was two breasts squeezing together, two pairs of hard, sensitive nipples teasing against one another. And it wasn’t like dudes didn’t feel pleasure from having their nipples played with, but...this was a whole new level . Merton drew her mouth back, gasping, a line of saliva connecting their mouths for a moment.

        Merton’s cheeks flushed . “I...I think I...” She blinked. “I’m...”

        “What?” Julia asked, grinning.

        “Y-You know!” Merton stammered, her cheeks growing even redder as she looked aside. She had never known that she could feel so flustered. Let alone feel so fucking turned on by it.

        “I wanna hear you say it...” Julia’s voice husked in her ear as she leaned forward. Her teeth nibbled along the sensitive edge of Merton’s earlobe. “I wanna hear my pretty new girlfriend say it. Out loud.”

        “...wet...” Merton whispered, her fingers clenching on her skirt. She felt the thin strip of panties that was all that she wore... tighten . That press of silk against the sloppy folds of her eager, eager pussy was enough to remind Merton that she was wearing another being. Another male being. The caress of a bra on her chest wasn’t a bra, it was Brash’s body, pressing to her more intimately than anything she had ever felt in her life. Somehow, it felt different when she was female. And horny as hell.

        “I didn’t hear you,” Julia murmured in a playful sing song.

        “Oh fuck this,” Merton snarled, grabbing onto Julia’s shoulders, pushing her onto her back, then kissing her as forcefully as she ever had while male. Julia moaned wantonly into Merton’s mouth and her hands grabbed onto Merton’s ass, and Merton delighted at the feeling her her ass-cheeks dimpling between Julia’s desperate fingers. Julia grabbed onto Merton’s skirt, flipping it up, then grabbed onto her panties. Merton drew her mouth back, hissing as she felt her sex becoming exposed to the warm air of the cabin. Her eager, dripping pussy felt as if it had been set on fire. She wanted…

        Oh god, Merton thought. I-I’m horny as fuck. But…  She paused, then said. “B-Brash, I’m...gay? Like, as a girl, I’m gay. As a man, I’m straight?”

        “Yup!” Brash said, cheerfully.

        “Why? You curious about trying the D?” Julia asked, her fingers working on the ‘buttons’ of Merton’s shirt. Merton flushed as her striped bra was revealed. The flush seemed to creep down her neck towards her breasts, making them all the more inviting. Julia was practically salivating.

        “N-No...maybe. I don’t know,” Merton said, grinning. “But, you know. I s-say, uh...when in Rome?”

        “Have an orgy!” Brash said, cheerfully.

        “Have I ever mentioned I like the way he thinks?” Julia asked, grinning as she undid the last button. Merton gulped as her breasts were only hidden by a thin, gauzy bra. She was about to whisper something – but she wasn’t sure if she was going to ask for more time, to get her brain around all that had happened, or if she was going to beg for Julia to hurry the fuck up. Before either could pop out of her mouth, the door to the room hissed open and Relix walked in, stretching her arms behind her back as she sighed.

        “Well, that was annoying, but the whipple shields are calibrated and we...” She paused, looking at the bed. She scoffed. “Oh that husband of mine. Always finding new women to add to his harem. Ah well.” She shrugged, then walked over to Merton. She leaned forward and looked into her eyes, then nodded. “Open your mouth.”

        Merton opened her mouth to respond, but then Relix hooked her jaw, opening it further.

        “Nice teeth,” she said.

        “Lix!” Merton shouted around the finger pressing against her tongue. It came out more like ‘iiks’.

        Relix drew her finger back. “Oh! Right, sorry. May I please look at your teeth to ensure your good health? Also, where did you come from?”

        “I’m Merton!” Merton said.

        “Well, that’s...” Relix blinked. She drew her head back. “What the absolute fuck ? You’re not a dragon! And this level of shapeshifting requires a spell slot! And you’ve only just learned psi-swords and psi-shields, I haven’t even taught you cantrips!”

        “I did it!” Brash said, cheerfully.

        Relix blinked as she looked at the speaking clothes that had been discarded onto the bed. “Oh! Of course...” She rubbed her finger along her muzzle. “That’s very impressive Brash.” She grinned, broadly. “And you’ve made my husband such a tasty looking woman. And you know...that’s one of the upsides of being married to a dragon that I had resigned myself to never indulging in...”

        Merton gulped, noticing the bulge growing between Relix’s thighs. Her eyes widened.

        “Uh, whoa, okay, uh-” Merton stammered.

        “I will fall upon that draconic dong for my boyfriend!” Julia piped up. “Merton is new to being a girl. You can’t just... whoa ...” She sounded awed as Relix cast off her robes, revealing the thickness and length of her bright teal cock. It twitched with eagerness, even as Relix’s tail lifted in eagerness. She sauntered forward, her hips rolling as Julia opened her mouth, then closed it, then stammered. “Y-You can’t just...uh...go straight to...holy shit, are all dragons so fucking hung?”

        “Duh doy?” Brash said as Relix put clawed fingers on Julia’s shoulders, then shoved her onto her back with an eager growl. Julia moaned as Relix leaned forward and planted a kiss on her mouth. Merton felt a flash of purest joy, and it was for the most petty reason. Yes, Relix was clearly enjoying the kiss. Yes, she could see the faint ripple along Julia’s throat that meant that Relix was uncoiling her long, tentacle like tongue all the way down there. Yes, Julia was curling her toes and arching her back, as if she was already getting off.

        But it still didn’t hold a candle to the raw, overwhelming passion that Relix and Merton had shared when they had first confessed feelings for one another.

        And it had nothing to the first time Julia had kissed him – the joyful exuberance of her passions as she was finally in a body that she belonged in.

        This kiss was fun and sex and happiness.

        But…

        Those had been love. Purest love.

        Merton smiled as Relix broke the kiss, her tongue sliding out of Julia’s mouth a moment later, leaving Julia gasping and panting. “Oh fuck me...”

        “I shall oblige,” Relix purred, her hands going to Julia’s shirt and casually tearing it off her body. Claws and incredible strength combined with care to leave Julia in tatters and without slicing her skin to ribbons. Then Relix leaned forward and started sucking on her nipple, her flexible mouthparts. She drew her head slowly back, stretching Julia’s perky breast out slightly, and wringing a low, eager moan from Julia. Her thighs spread and her back arched and Merton slid two fingers against her own sex. Touching her folds.

        It was like touching a button that linked to her brain and screamed... pleasure .

        Her fingers slipped into her sex and her thighs spread wider as she couldn’t stop herself from moaning. Her cunt felt so slick and slippery, and she found a place inside of her that sent a jolt of pleasure through her. She moaned and arched her back, and heard Brash’s purr in her ear.

        “You like that?”

        “God yes...” Merton breathed out.

        Relix, meanwhile, had taken Julia’s thighs and spread her wide, opening her up like she was spreading peanut butter. Then...with agonizing slowness, Relix started to slide her cock into Julia, whose back arched and head rolled back. Her mouth was open. Inviting. Merton crawled forward, swinging one leg wide, then placed her eager, eager pussy against Julia’s open mouth. The feeling of another girl’s tongue on her sex sent a skyrocketing surge of pleasure through Merton. Her back arched and she moaned loudly. Wantonly. She couldn’t stop herself. Then Relix leaned forward. Keeping two hands on Julia’s hips, Relix caught Merton’s head with a third hand, then squeezed her breast with a fourth and kissed her. Merton’s eyes widened, then slowly closed as Relix’s tongue slithered down her throat, fucking her throat with casual eagerness.

        Merton sagged against her, her hips twitching as Julia’s tongue lapped along her sex, teasing her clit gently. Merton moaned, then whimpered, then drew her mouth back, gasping as Relix left her tongue in for a few seconds before drawing back. Once Merton could breathe again, her head pounding with raw lust, she whispered.

        “This is fucking amazing ...”

        Julia’s tongue bumped her clit.

        And Merton let herself go.

        She rolled her head back and howled in pleasure, her back arching into a near perfect C shape. She trembled and felt her sex clenching , as if she was trying to draw a cock into her body. But there was nothing but the pure joy, the orgasmic yes that Julia had given her. She felt her fluids dripping and spurting from her sex as she squirted into Julia’s hungry mouth. Julia moaned and swallowed, then gasped out.

        “Strawbemmphh!”

        Because Merton had sat back on her face. She was too sensitive. It was too much. But she couldn’t stop herself from grinding against Julia’s wanton mouth, or stop herself from gasping out a quiet: “Yes!” as Relix’s hands squeezed and cupped her breasts. She could even hear Brash’s panting gasps in her own head as he...well, he surely felt the same pleasure that she did.

        Relix’s fucking sped up and she thrust faster and faster, making Julia’s breasts bounce in perfect circles with the ferocity of her thrusts. The wet slap of their hips meeting made Merton grin. She couldn’t tear her eyes off where the two women met. She continued to watch for the moment...and was rewarded. Relix’s teeth clenched and she growled something so low and deep that it couldn’t have possibly been a word...and yet, somehow, it was: “Fhu-huuuck !”

        And there it was.

        A thick explosion of white cum burst from the seal that Julia’s pussy made around Relix’s thick draconic girlcock. It splashed against Relix’s belly muscles and along Julia’s pale thighs. It dripped and pattered onto the bed as the two gasped. Panted. Shuddered. Relix hung her head forward. Her tail was still lifted invitingly. Merton watched – and felt a sudden desire explode in her body. She thought, and Brash thought with her.

        The change was faster this time.

        And far easier to take.

        When Merton grabbed onto Relix’s tail, it was with a hand coated in scales, and with a cock that throbbed with eagerness, despite his earlier climax. Relix squeaked and had only enough time to shift her cock away before Merton had bent her forward, so that she was nose to nose with the cock-drunk Julia. Then Merton roughly lifted her tail up with one hand. The sudden return of testosterone hit like a mac truck driven by a muscle bound dudebro. His cock pressed to Relix’s pussy and he grinned slightly. “Nice and wet, huh, Lix?”

        “N-Not in front of the concubine!” she squeaked.

        “She’s not a concubine,” Merton growled. He wasn’t sure if it was a playful growl or a growl growl. Whatever it was, it sent a quiver through Relix’s body and a fresh coating of girl juice dripping along the tip of his dick. “She’s your wife. And my wife. And I’m her husband and your husband. We’re...equals.”

        Relix looked back, her eyes wide. “T-That’s a whole new level of kink, my husband.”

        Merton laughed – but just in case Relix wasn’t joking, he also gently smacked her scaled rump. The jiggles that set off were worth the gentle spank and the indignant squeak that came from her – which transformed into an eager moan as he ground the tip of his cock up and down her sex, teasing her folds with his thick dragon cock. “It’s not a kink, Lix...”

        Relix hung her head forward, pressing it against Julia’s breasts. Julia had recovered from her fucking just enough to reach up and ruffle Relix’s feathers gently.

        “O-Okay,” Relix whispered. Then. Shyly. She smiled. “I think I like that more. It’s better to share with equals. Isn’t it?”

        Merton closed his eyes to slits – trying to keep himself from cumming right then and there out of sheer joy. Instead, he gritted his teeth...and slammed into Relix. The folds of her sex accepted him as if he was born to fuck her, and his scaled balls swung into her clit with a wet pap . The slick sounds of their joining made Merton groan . He grabbed onto her hips and shifted her back and up, holding her up with ease to put his wife into exactly the right position to go to town on her. The bed creaked and shivered on its hover-bound firmament, even as her breasts swayed in counter-point to the slamming of his hips. Her tail wrapped around his left arm, squeezing in time with her moans as Relix accepted his cock.

        “Yes! Yes! Put me into heat, breed me, fucking breed me, yes!” Relix gasped, her voice so wanton that Merton didn’t doubt her instincts had driven her to a pure heat frenzy. From the way her sex was fluttering with near constant orgasms...fuck...he closed his eyes tight, his brain scrambling. He tried to remember everything he could to not just cum right then and there.

        He thought about FATAL – the worst tabletop RPG ever made.

        He thought about Tommy Weissau’s ass in the classic bad movie The Room .

        He thought about the one horrifying time he had seen Trevor’s grandma naked.

        It wasn’t enough.

        The orgasm that surged through him was, in some ways, less overwhelming than climaxing as a woman. For one thing, it hadn’t been utterly unique. He had cum before. Never while sheathed in the cunt of a dragon princess who he had fallen in love with. But he had cum as a dude before. But it was still one of the most intense feelings he had ever felt in his entire life, and he was lost in the white hot joy of it, his balls clenching as he arched his back and drove himself so deep into Relix that he was worried he might get stuck.

        And he… painted her womb with his cum.

        Each surging blast that shot deep into her felt as if it rocked her whole body. And Relix actually had chomped down onto the pillow next to Julia, who was still sprawled underneath her, still dripping from her own blast of dragon cum. And as Merton watched, he saw Julia’s body twitch as cum dripped from Relix’s pussy to patter onto her thighs. Julia grinned, slightly.

        “Makin it rain...gold digger...” she whispered.

        Merton chuckled.

        “W...whuz...zat mean?” Relix mumbled, her head hanging forward as she twitched slightly. She sounded like she had literally almost had the capacity for language fucked out of her head.

        “Well, he’s the one marrying a space princess just for access to her spaceship...” Julia said, grinning as she stretched. “Total gold digger.”

***

        “So glad of you to join us, Lord Merton,” Gunner said, inclining his head. “Finally.”

        “Dude,” Carlos called from the seat he had taken on the bridge. He shot Merton two huge thumbs up. “Fucking noice . Two hours? Like, damn  son! ”

        “Don’t be crass, Carlos,” Lisa said, reaching over to slap the back of his head. She was seated nearby – so was Trevor and Merton’s Mom and Dad. They were all lined up on the left corner of the bridge. Out of the way, but able to watch and participate. Merton’s command sofa was waiting for him and Relix and Julia. He took it with a groan, his knees aching as he settled there. He felt as if he had run for several miles straight. And while being combined with an awesome dragon did mean that he could run several miles, it still made him ache. Relix, meanwhile, shared a similar rosy glow with Julia. They both looked like kittens who had fucked the milkman and he had given them double shots of cream in addition to cum.

        Brash, meanwhile, was on Merton’s shoulder like a small black cat on the shoulder of an OC self insert character in a fan-fiction. He was snoring happily.

        Gunner sighed as they took their seat. “We’re ready to engage the planar shields. No dragon ship has ever headed into the Outlands before. We don’t even know if we’ll arrive there...but...it’s better than heading directly into the guns of however many Bryaugh ships have arrived since we left.”

        Merton nodded. “Have the shields ready. And the guns warmed up.”

        Gunner smiled – something that had once been a hideous sight. But now Merton was used to him.

        The forward view of the plane of negation suddenly bloomed with a portal. As the shields were designed to just snap open for a few moments – and only create holes the size of railgun projectiles to boot – the Talon-9  had only a few seconds to jet forward. Those few seconds of acceleration felt like getting kicked by a mule. Merton grabbed onto his thighs, gritting his teeth as weight mashed him back – and then deceleration smashed him forward. Only the protection field surrounding his seat kept him planting. One of his friends was less lucky. Trevor went skidding across the floor with a cry of alarm.

        The forward view showed an utterly bizarre mishmash of shapes. It took Merton a few seconds to realize that he was looking at what seemed to be hundreds of bricks, mashed against the cameras. He blinked.

        “We’ve HIT something!” the drow pilot exclaimed.

        “What?” Relix asked, her head lifting up.

        “A...wall?” The drow pilot said, slowly. “Uh...one second.” She took hold of the controls, then wiggled them. The movement sent new groaning, grinding sounds through the ship. But it also dislodged the bricks. They skittered forward and away, sliding off the nose of the demiship. Soon, the view was cleared and Merton could see that they had crashed into an Escher painting. Specifically, they had crashed into the famous Escher painting, the one that everyone recognized.

        The one with the stairs, leading off at right angles and curves, heading into possible doorways set at gravitational odds with one another. The one that gave any right thinking architect a pounding headache and eternal blood oath of vengeance against surrealists.

        “Where the hell are we?” Julia asked.

        “Detecting a life sign,” the pilot said. “Half-elven.”

        “Put it on the main screen,” Merton said.

        “They’re right there,” the drow pilot said, pointing. And, well, there the half-elf was. They were a huddled figure, seated on one of the landings that the stairs led towards. They wore robes and were hunched forward, looking as if they had been sitting there for a while. And as Merton looked closer, he realized that that...was...true. The walls and floor near the half-elf were covered with tally marks. Merton’s brow furrowed as he started to try and guesstimate them.

        The robed figure slowly reached up, then tossed back their hood, to reveal that they were female. Their hair was short cropped and black, their eyes cat green. Their ears were pointed, but not as long as a full blooded elf’s might be, like Thuwit. She slowly stood up, then started to wave her arms over her head, shouting.

        “Uh, open the airlock,” Merton said, standing. “Lets ask the natives.”

        The front of the bridge whirred and clicked, unfolding open as if a mouth was being pried apart.. A ramp unfolded like a tongue and Merton realized that he could literally just stand up from the couch and walk forward. “I...didn’t know there was a front airlock.”

        “It’s for boarding,” Gunner said.

        Merton shrugged and slowly walked forward, onto the ramp, then down to the balcony. As he walked close, he realized that there were roughly three hundred notches on the wall. Maybe more. Maybe less. The robed figure had stood and was looking at him with eyes as wide as saucers. She spoke. Her voice was raspy and hoarse, as if she hadn’t used it for a long time.

        “A-Are you real?” she asked.

        “Yup,” Merton said.

        The half-elf flung her arms around him and buried her face against his shoulder, sobbing as she clung to him. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m so so sorry!” she gasped out. Merton, feeling as if he had walked in on someone else’s plot, started to pat her back gently, biting his lip. The woman sagged further and Merton started to have to actually holding her up to prevent both of them from falling to the floor.

        “I-It’s okay?” he asked.

        The woman drew back, then blinked. “W-Wh...did...did you come on a mage-ship?” she looked at the prow of the ship.

        “A mage-ship !?” Relix spluttered, sounding utterly offended as she walked down the ramp, her hands on her hips. “The Five Talon Empire hasn’t used mage-ships for five thousand years! They’re utterly antiquated! This is a PER powered demiship! With a full complement! Sans, um, seventy five percent of our armsmen. Also, uh, who are you?”

        The half-elf sniffed, then blinked. “M-my name is Dart...” she said. “I’m a wizard. And I...I...” She gulped. “I did bad things.”

        Merton looked around, slowly.

        “This is... hell ? ” he whispered.

        Dart nodded, slowly. “I...I almost destroyed a whole dimension . Out of greed.” She closed her eyes. “I j-just wanted people to respect me. To be...to be…” She groped for words. “I’ve been alone for so long . D-Do you know how much it hurts? To be alone?”

        Merton nodded. The interior of the escher place felt as if it had shifted - going from surreal to eerie. He felt as if distant footsteps were beginning to echo through the corridors. He wondered if he was just imagining things.

        Relix growled, slightly. “Give us one good reason to not leave you here? The last evil wizard trapped in a pocket dimension almost killed my husband with the embodiments of her own guilt!”

        “You live odd lives...” Dart said, slowly, her voice rasping. But her eyes were filling tears. “I...I ca-can someone pinch me. If this is another dream-”

        Julia reached around and squeezed her butt.

        Dart squeaked and leaped into the air, as if she had been jabbed by a pin.

        “See?” Julia asked. “Not a dream.” She paused, watching as Dart started to sob in earnest again. Her hands went to her face and her shoulders shook as she started to sink to her knees. Merton stepped forward, sliding his arm around her back, holding her up. Julia’s voice was hard as iron. “We’re not leaving her here.”

        “Absolutely not,” Merton said.

        “But-” Relix started.

        “I don’t care what she did,” Merton said. “This punishment? It’s inhumane!”

        “It’s hell , what do you expect? ” Relix hissed. Then, sighing, she said. “F-Fine. I didn’t want to leave her anyway.” She narrowed her eyes at Dart. “But absolutely no destroying our universe. Understand?”

        Dart blinked, her eyes still brimming with tears, her cheeks blotchy. “O-Of course not...” she whispered.

        The adjoining doors were beginning to glow with reddish lights - and the sound of footsteps and laughing, jeering sounds was growing louder and louder. “Uh, do you know the way to the City of O?” Merton asked. Dart flinched, recoiling from the very idea.

        “The Judges would just send me right back here!” she hissed.

        “Okay, okay, it’s just we need to get home!” he said. “To Earth.”

        Dart looked at him. “W-Which Earth?”

        “Uh...ours?” Merton asked. He turned and then started for the boarding plank, followed by the others. The airlock started to seal behind them - and the footsteps had become a thundering, roaring sound. Shapes were beginning to pour from the doorways.

        Dart closed her eyes. She breathed in, trying to compose herself. She stood up straighter, then spoke with a firmer tone. “Does it have magic or is it magic free? Who is the President of the United States. Is it the United States, or the Confederated States, or are both there? Who won the second or third world war? Were there a second and third world war? How did the first world war go? How many zombies are there. And, uh...” she paused. “You know, stuff like that.”

        “You’ve been to that many Earths?” Julia asked, her eyes wide.

        “Of course,” Dart said, chuckling. It was a brittle sound. Like she was barely hanging on. The airlock door finished shutting behind them. She slowly looked around the bridge – and the bridge crew looked back at her, clearly curious. Dart trembled like a leaf, as if she could hardly believe where she was. The drow pilot, meanwhile, was pressing buttons. Through the forward screen, Merton could see demons - thousands of them. They charged at the nose of the Talon-9 , leaping onto it.

        The pilot yeeped and slammed down the retro-thrusters. Flames roared outwards, sending demons flying backwards as the Talon-9  skidded backwards and out of the wall of the pocket dimension within Hell, revealing that it was merely a cube floating in a vast, red space, filled with flames and mountains and bubbling lakes of lava. Floating islands filled the air, each one bearing a crucifix, each crucifix studded with writhing bodies.

        Merton jerked his eyes away from the screen, his face pale white.

        “Uh...” he coughed. “There’s the United States. There is magic, but we didn’t know there was any. Basically, dragons came from Earth, and when they left, they left behind mage-blind slaves. The President is, uh...” he coughed again, then muttered under his breath.

        “Who?” Dart asked.

        Merton adjusted the collar of his shirt.

        “We don’t like to talk about it,” Lisa said scowling.

        Dart’s brow furrowed.

        “Oh!” She said, her eyes widening. “Oh that Earth. Oh. Oh.” She blinked again. “Oh, I’m so sorry.”

        “It’s okay,” Merton said, shrugging. “I mean, okay, technically, it’s not okay, but...”

        Dart squeezed his shoulder, gently, then smiled. Like her chuckle, it was brittle. “I know the way. It’ll take three portals, but they’re all in the Outlands. We’ll pop through a portal near the Skull of Ru, then have to dip through Eberron. Eberron will take us to Highpoint, and there’s a portal built into the back of the city-mech of Ultarmort. We fly through that and you’ll appear on the south pole of your Earth.”

        “There’s a dimensional portal over Antarctica?” Trevor asked.

        “Well, yeah,” Dart said, nodding as she drew her robes around herself. “It’s right over Atlantis.”

Chapter Eight: Roll that Will Save!

Gimtesh Thresh, of the House Thresh and current captain of the unhappy needleship Banemaw, had been sweating bullets for the past twenty eight hours. As she normally didn’t even bother with sweat glands to begin with, this was a pretty stark stress reaction.

        “Scrying report number three six two eight nine...” A bored sounding voice burred in the background – barely heard by Gimtesh. “No change.”

        Gimtesh continued her pacing, her red scaled fingers tapping her chin as her small, whippy tail snapped back and forth, back and forth. The Five Talon Empire had started a civil war that had been nearly five thousand years in coming. The chromatic dragons of the old Asemat Empire would rise up and overthrow the parody of peace that was the Prismatic Throne, using advanced genetic weapons known as D-suits.

        The only problem was that while the first shots in the civil war had been fired by the chromatics, and the prismatic and neutral dragons in the rest of the empire had no idea that they were soon to be in a life or death struggle...the second shots had been put on hold.

        Postponed.

         Delayed .

        All because Lord Xosh – soon to be Emperor Xosh of the first Chromatic Dominion – didn’t wish to risk attacking Draconis Prime, the homeworld of dragon kind, until he knew that Princess Relix Castrovel, the true heir of the Prismatic Throne, was dead and buried. And he had set the objective in Gimtesh’s hands. If she failed, then she’d end up like her brother. The very thought made her want to curl up into a ball and whimper.

        “Scrying report number...” the soft voice came from one of the many war-wizards that were working on the Banemaw to keep her magical systems running. But what made Gimtesh lift her head up and narrow her eyes was the hesitation. “Sire! Sire!”

        Gimtesh ran over to the scrying pool that the war-wizards stood around. The one who was speaking was a burly looking elf whose body had been slabbed with an immense amount of crude magitech augmetics, all of them designed to bolster magical abilities. There were cogitation units sticking out of his forehead to assist with memorization, and arcane symbol weavers that thrust from his shoulders like the limbs of some great clockwork spider. Those were used to make somatic gestures easier, faster.

        But the thing that made Gimtesh shiver were the eyes. Specifically, the eye-tubes that were wired right into the scrying pool. It had something to do with sympathetic magic. Whatever the reason, it turned her stomach to see those segmented, worm-like tubes fastened to those empty eye sockets, like the man was being continually attacked by cybernetic predators.

        “What is it?” Gimtesh asked, her tail clicking against the corrugated metal of the Banemaw’s deck.

        “The signature of Princess Castrovel has vanished!”

        “She’s left the plane of negation?” Gimtesh asked.

        “No, no, our tracking spells...lost her.” The war-wizard cocked his head. Then he chuckled. “Sire. The feathered bitch headed for the Outlands before we lost her life signs.”

        “So?” Gimtesh asked, irritably. She dug her hands into her armpits and tried to not dig her claws into the soft flesh there. But her claws refused to retract. She was that on edge.

        “It means she died,” the other war-wizard said. “I knew her ship couldn’t survive in the plane of negation forever!”

        “She...died?” Gimtesh asked, blinking. “She died!”

        “Well, we should-” the first war-wizard started. But Gimtesh waved her hand.

        They had waited long enough.

        “Send a laser com burst to Lor-” She caught herself, shaking her head. “To Emperor Xosh! Tell him that the last princess of the Prismatic Throne is dead.” Gimtesh grinned, rubbing her hands together. “Just in the nick of time. Oh! And set course for Draconis Prime! I want to be in...in at the death .”

        The two war-wizards exchanged a glance.

        Remarkable, considering that neither had eyes.

***

        Draconis Prime.

        Population: 1 billion citizens.

        It seemed really small for the capital planet of an empire spanning three galactic arms, the galactic core and the Magellanic Clouds. But there was a simple reason why the planetary population on all the official census hovered at the one billion mark.

        Dragons counted dragons, half-dragons, quarter-dragons and sorcerers with draconic bloodlines on their census. The fifteen billion slaves, servants, civilian bondsmen, artisans, craftsmen, magisters, wizards, clerics, zealots, mercenaries, whores, whoremongers, holo-vid personalities, reality show producers, writers, wanna-be-pro wrestlers, actual pro-wrestlers, school teachers, historians, amateur historians, wargamers and assorted low life scum were listed as civilians . Or as servants . Or as chattle.  Not that that prevented their taxation.

This was an Empire after all.

        The planet itself looked like a world that had been unwoven. Continents had been lifted from the mantle and suspended on vast magitech engines, while the metallic core had been tapped and spun up with solar powered thrusters the size of small cities. Planetary surfaces had been carved from molten stone and planted with new landscapes that were kept in place with artificial gravity and force fields. It had taken almost five thousand years and the life-long careers of literally millions of wizards, but the end result was a megastructure capable of giving each dragon living on what could be theoretically termed a ‘planet’ the ten thousand kilometers of distance between other draconic holdings which they needed to feel comfortable leaving their hoards behind.

        It was vast.

        And it was deeply fragile. A statement, really, about the unassailable nature of the Five Talon Empire.

        Because of this structural fragility, it was defended by, at any one time, four War Spheres from four of the different draconic houses. Those War Spheres were matched by the First Imperial Fleet – almost five hundred ships, suspended above the spiraling beauty of Draconis Prime. And watching over this entire majestic display was Admiral Lionteshkar Throakhawn. Sitting on his command throne, surrounded by holographic displays and the warm chatter of his bridge crew, Lion considered the bowl of tea he had been brought by an elven woman dressed in gold paint and carefully placed holograms.

        “Is this really tanna leaf?” he asked, looking down at the woman.

        “Yes, Lord Admiral! Conqueror of pirates, master of the spectral frequency, dominator of nanocytes, castigator of cybernetic consciousness-” the elf said, beaming as she recited the litany of sobriquets.

        “Oh, stop it, Fiona,” Lion said, his tail cracking out, smacking her rump with exactly enough pressure to cause her butt to start jiggling. The elf giggled and rubbed at her backside.

        “Admiral!” she gasped.

        Lion chuckled, deep in his golden breast.

        “Admiral!” This voice was less playful and flirtatious. More confused .

        Lion looked over and saw one of his underofficers. The half-dragon was dressed in the green-gold of the sensor service, with a complex code of button pins that indicated that he was a subspace scanning specialist. He looked as if he had sprinted from the far end of the six hundred meter wide bridge, holding a crystal sheaf in one hand. Lion’s brow furrowed and his long mustachios twitched as he leaned his large head down to eye the officer.

        “Yes, Tasmin?” he asked.

        “I-” Subspace Scanning Specialist Third Class Tasmin Yorle looked a bit taken aback to be addressed by his first name. He shook his head. “I, uh, I’ve been doing signal intercepts, Admiral. And we’ve stopped getting any data from, uh, the outmost holding of House Yeltanzo.”

        “Which holding is that?” Lion asked.

        “A, uh, minor planet. Population two dragons, three billion menials,” Tasmin said, looking down at his scanner. “But here’s the weird thing. The last data signal we got was a House Xosh merchant freighter arriving.”

        Lion rubbed his chin. “Xosh and Yeltanzo are in a trade war. Why would any Xosh freighter be arriving openly? Unless Xosh has decided to captiulate in the marketplace.” He paused, one long claw stroking one of his equally long mustaches. Slowly, the gold dragon shook his head. “This doesn’t smell right...”

        “Should we dispatch scoutships?” Fiona asked, cocking her head. Despite the fact that she was just a concubine, Lion spent a few moments considering her words. He shook his head firmly.

        “No. Scanning branch!” he shouted. “I want a broad spectrum scrying spell – tell me if there are any Xosh ships approaching Draconis Prime.”

        This set a few dozen people across the bridge into new flurries of motion. Lion felt the same crawling, creeping nerves that he had felt when, as a young hatchling, he had first led a squadron of fighters against a Hawking Pirate raid-wing that had turned out to merely mask a Mumbler deathsphere. The hideous black hole monster had ripped through half his wing before he had put it down with a gravitic grenade right down the throat. He started to look at the space around him, thinking. If he was going to do something sneaky , what would it be…

        He rubbed his muzzle.

        And there, in the foreground, he saw what every Lord Admiral of the First Fleet had seen for the past five thousand years: The four Warspheres that protected Draconis Prime. Each one was the size of a small moon and bristled with weaponry. Each was shaded in the colors of a different house. None was House Xosh. But, by long tradition, two were metallic, and two were chromatic. He leaned back. “Fiona...which metallic whelp was it who was badgering the daughter of the fifth wife of the Emperor?”

        “Uh…” Fiona looked a bit confused. “Why? She doesn’t matter.”

         Ah, yes, Lion thought. The misdirection did work quite well, didn’t it?

         But then Fiona snapped her fingers. “Oh! Wait! I remember, it was Bex Thresh of-”

        The bridge turned to ruby red as the main weapon of the red painted Warsphere of House Thresh activated its primary weapon and fired it into the silver and copper Warsphere of House Tranyo. For a single, horrifying moment, all was still. Everyone looked up from their consoles and away from their work and merely gaped at the sight. The flagship was positioned perfectly to see the effect. The beam of pure redness, belching from a divot on the Warsphere’s equator, smashing into the skin of the other ‘sphere. There was a few moments of boiling as adamantine plates ablated under the hellfury of that immense energy weapon...and then it punched through and scythed through the Warsphere, cutting and cleaving until the moon-sized weapons platform was uncoiling like a peeling onion.

        Lion felt less shocked than he would have liked.

        For the past several centuries, he had been feeling as if another shoe was about to drop.

        “Red alert! Bring the portal shields online! Ready weapons and fire a full spread of torpedoes at the traitors!” Lion bellowed. “Signal the fleet that Plan Gold Plated Iron has gone into effect. The chromies have stabbed us in the back!”

        The flagship whirred as its reactors snapped open portals to the plane of positive energy, drawing power in nearly incalculable amounts to power the main guns and the shield arrays. Hanger bags on attack carriers opened and fighter-craft screamed into the void by the hundreds, while smaller cruisers put their burrowing spell-torpedoes into the astral plane, where they would dart towards the enemy Warsphere before returning to physical reality (hopefully inside the moon sized warship.) But even as the fleet began to react, the low whump whump whump of ships emerging from subspace hammered on Lion’s sense of soul.

        An old dragon gets quite good at hearing disruptions in space time.

        Comes in handy for an admiral.

        And there was the third Warsphere, painted a brilliant Xosh blue. Surrounding it was the entire Xosh fleet, like a vast cloud of carrion birds. With a quick glance, Lion estimated at least three hundred ships of the line, maybe twice that in smaller frigates and destroyers, all arranged in an arrowhead attack pattern. The kind designed to rip through enemy fleets in a single, brutal pass. But rather than plunging towards the First Fleet, the Xosh fleet held back.

        “Sir! They’re launching...something...” a sensors officer said, sounding confused. “It looks like...dragons?”

        Lion harrumphed.

        Sending your dragons out to fight was poor sportsmanship. Dragons took a long time to breed and were quite valuable. Committing them early was just...rude! To their families, if to no one else. But then the screens surrounding Lion flared with hundreds of thrust plumes. His brow furrowed and his mustache twitched. “What is this?!” His roar shook the bridge as his wings mantled.

        “I don’t know!” The sensors officer shouted back.

        Across hundreds of kilometers of space, the ‘dragons’ were shooting towards the First Fleet on plumes of fire that stretched across the stars like bolides cutting through the upper atmosphere of a doomed planet. They flew towards swarming formations of fighter craft. The instant they were in range, the fighter craft opened up with their PRCs. Beams of killing frost zipped through space, seeking targets. The dragons banked and twisted, evading most of the oncoming fire. Then their wings flared, bringing them to a near perfect stop in the vacuum of space.

        The fighters, unable to slow, shot through the draconic formation.

        And space exploded .

        Plasma beamcasters scythed lines of purple fury. Spinfusor blades hummed and sliced and roared. Deathwands flared with their black-white killing radiance. Shrike catapults filled the void with flechettes that somehow managed to whine with ear-splitting fury despite the utter lack of sound in space. Bolt-guns hammered and vol-tech rays swept about in cones of pure white heat. Plasma missiles arced and captured targets in balls as hot as the surface of a sun.

        Then the dragons were rushing forward, leaving behind smoldering wreckage and vented space suits and gaping, stunned faces – frozen in the embrace of space. But while the battle was quiet from a distance, the bridge of Lion’s flagship was filled with the radio broadcasts from his pilots.

        “What are they?”

        “This is Talon B, he dodged a point blank missile!”

        “Eject!”

        “Bring the AMS online!”

        “They’re cutting through the-”

        The first dragon smashed into the bridge of the flagship a second later. He smoldered with the waste heat of his weapon systems and his claws dug into the metal plating of the deck. He decapitated a few deckhands with the edges of his wings before six arms unfolded from his chest, each one tipped with a different killer. Lion grabbed his bed slave and crammed her into the escape pod reserved for his egress – then triggered the launch with his tail before leaping at the boader.

        The boarder rolled aside with indraconic speed then fired a spread of flechettes into Lion’s side. Gold scales cracked and Lion roared in fury, then breathed six centuries worth of dragon fire straight at the pseudo-dragon. The boarder lifted an arm and extruded a shield that shimmered with a blackness deeper than space, drinking in heat. Lion, though, was old enough to know that a breath weapon was merely half the battle. He snapped his jaws shut at the same time he swung his claws, catching the boarder in the gut. Scales and scales under those scales tore and caught, the boarder went flying.

        Lion caught the boarder before he could get more than a half meter – literally tossing him to his other palm like a cat.

        Lion was also old enough to know that when facing something new, you made sure it was dead.

        And so, he lowered his head and bit down. The creature split in half in his mouth and he spat the upper half away, before tossing the other half as far away from the torso as he could manage. Only once he was done did he pay mind to the metal darts digging into his flesh.

        A metallic controlled cruiser - the Fairchaser  -  chose that moment to detonate spectacularly. Then a battleship, the Last Resort . Then another battleship, the Reliant Gold Pile . Then a third - and by now, Lion was unable to keep track of which ship was going up and which were merely burning. One after the other after the other, each one flaring with a pure radiance that announced the cause of death: Reactor breaches. Lion didn’t need to be told the battle was lost. He ducked his head forward, then growled.

        “Signal the fleet to retreat...and set our course...” Lion snarled.

        “Where, sir?” a stunned looking helm officer – one of the few left after the horrible violence of the boarder.

        “Right. Down. Their. Throats.”

***

        Emperor Dogan stood before the holographic display table. The view was horrifying – worse than the worst predictions of the dourest prognosticator. Half the First Fleet was burning wreckage. A quarter was so badly damaged that it couldn’t even try to retreat. The last quarter was retreating. But the worse news was coming from subspace listening posts. Smaller fleets were attacking metallic holdings across the FTE. Worlds were burning. People were dying. And there was almost nothing he could do about it.

        “Signal the evacuation of Draconis Prime. Use every mage, witch and hedge caster we have to open portals to...to anywhere! The City of O, the Night City, Purgatory, I don’t care, get our people out of here!” he growled.

        “The magical components alone are-” Secretary Rolin started – his claws tacking as he tapped them together.

        “Raid every last hoard on this planet if you have too!” Emperor Dogan snarled. “I don’t care about property rights, we have three enemy Warspheres overhead and only one-”

        Once more, that terrible, ruby red light spilled in through the windows of the palace.

        On the holographic display table, the symbol for the last surviving defense winked out.

        “I’ll begin the confiscations,” Rolin said, bowing as he backed away from the table. Dogan barely heard him. He walked slowly to the window, looking out and upwards. There, he could see the brilliant glow of the three Warspheres coming closer. The thrust plumes of their immense engines could be seen as lights smeared across heaven – intermixing with the fading throb of the burning ships and smoldering wreckage. He took hold of the sill and knew that everything he had planned was for naught. He licked his muzzle.

        “At least it will be quite a show...” he whispered, softly.

        “Sire?”

        Looking back, he saw that only one servant was left. The rest of the council had fled with Rolin and the other servants. He wondered how many were teleporting away from Draconis Prime as quickly as they could wrangle wizards together. The servant was an older looking halfling – his face seamed with lines, his hair turned a dignified silvery gray. Dogan tried to recall his name, but he found it escaping him.

        “Do you know what the primary weapons of a Warsphere do to a planet?” Dogan asked, reaching up to take the circlet that signified his imperial status off his head. He twirled it, casually, on one finger.

        The halfling shook his head.

        “On their full setting, they shunt the entire planet into the lowest level of the Abyss,” Dogan said. “That’s why we call them hellwhips, you see. That’s all the primary weapon is, a hellwhip the size of a small continent. But on a half setting, they merely...are...” He trailed off. “Quite hot.”

        The halfling gulped.

        “Since they have three ships, I believe they won’t bother with the full power. They’ll need to use the spheres again, after all.” Dogan looked back out the window. The halfling walked over to stand beside him. He rummaged around in his vest pockets and took out a tiny cigarillo case. Tapping the bottom with one long finger, the halfling got out a slender stick of concentrated pipeweed. He stuck it into the corner of his mouth, then started to rummage around, trying to find a match.

        Dogan held out his thumb. A tiny twist of magical energy caused flames to leap from the tip, lightning the cigarillo up.

        The halfling grinned shakily up at his Emperor. Then he tapped out a second cigarillo and offered it.

        Dogan took it, shifted away his natural resistance to such drugs, and tucked the slender tube of paper and powdered leaf into the corner of his muzzle. He set off the tip with his thumb, then shook his hand to banish the flames.

        “What’s your name, anyway?” Dogan asked.

        “Well, it’s kind of stupid,” the halfling said, chuckling. “I preferred being called ‘you there’ for most of my life for a reason.” He blew out a smoke ring. Dogan puffed his own smoke ring through it.

        The sky started to glow ruby.

        “Oh?” Dogan asked. He forced himself to look out the window, like he was just watching the sunset. The beams lanced down – painfully bright. They impacted on the edges of the coiling horizon, and the shockwaves billowed outwards. They moved slower than light. Slow enough to seem like they should take days to reach them: massive, roiling clouds of flame and smoke and fury. Chunks of earth the size of small cities, bouncing and rolling and crumbling apart before a shockwave sweeping along Draconis Prime.

        The sound hadn’t reached them yet, so the view was eerily silent.

        “Well,” the halfling said, chuckling. “My mother, for some harebrained reason, decided to name me Baggins.”

        “Baggins?” Dogan laughed.

        The halfling punched him in the hip, grinning.

        The invisible curtain of pressure that was pushed ahead of the flame and smoke and debris reached the castle without warning. Bricks flew apart and metal was flayed and for a dizzying moment, the entire castle seemed to roil in the air as if the whole building had been transmuted into an air elemental. The tornado of debris writhed for a few moments before the heat arrived, and turned everything into fire and fury and ash.

        And then…

        Nothing at all.

***

        Gimtesh blinked and shivered. Like a small dog exposed to an air raid siren, she was unable to move. Think. Breathe. She just sat there and shivered . Her eye was about two inches away from the needle sharp tip of the prow of the former flagship of the former First Navy. The ship had struck the command decks of the Xosh Warsphere and penetrated through almost two kilometers of adamantine armor before inertia and pressure forced it to stop. By the end of the progress, the flagship had been crumpled and crushed and mangled, until it was essentially turned into a scrunched up needle of mishmashed metal.

        A scrunched up needle that had almost impaled her through the head.

        “Oh, get up, you’re fine,” Emperor Xosh growled.

        Gimtesh sprang to her feet, gasping.

        The rest of the bridge showed just as much disarray as one might expect. But the crew – mostly bond slaves and kobolds – were already working to clear out the debris the impact had created. The few other dragons – representatives of house Bryaugh – remained poised in their lounging pits. But Gimtesh could see that the big black dragons were all quite agitated what with their near death via ship smashing into the bridge.

        “Lion was quite an admiral,” Xosh said, his voice dropping the furious growl that it had held. Gimtesh swung her head around – and saw that Xosh was standing, brushing his hands along his broad crest. “But, well, you know what they say. A traitor’s blow is legion...” He chuckled.

        “Sire,” a kobold with a tall shako stepped up, doffing his cap. “Draconis Prime is destroyed. We detected several portals, but none in the Imperial Palace. S-Save for a minor teleportative disturbance. B-but!” he added, quickly. “It wasn’t large enough for a dragon!”

        Xosh inclined his head, then threw it back. He laughed. Long and loud and proud . “The Prismatic Throne is dead ! The Five Talon Empire -”  he spat the word as if it was a curse. “-is dead . The Chromatic Dominion is ascendant!” He spread his arms wide. “The Emperor is dead, long live the Emperor!”

        “Long live the Emperor!” the dragons, kobolds, and bond slaves shouted.

        They had to shout.

        Xosh, after all, was clad in a B-suit. He had shifted it to match his coloration, but Gimtesh couldn’t forget the number of hyper-tech weapons worked into his new skin. Xosh walked forward, putting his hand on the needle of the former flagship. He opened his mouth.

        And a low bleep deep rang out.

        It was the sound of a signal being received.

        Slowly, Xosh turned to face a kobold who was quickly trying to turn off the bleeper.

        “What is that?” Xosh growled.

        “U-Uh, uh, uh, uh...” the kobold stammered.

        Xosh glared at him.

        The kobolds gulped, then stammered. “W-We’ve detected the Prismatic Throne.”

        The entire bridge turned to frost. At least that was how Gimtesh felt. She felt like it was time to maybe start thinking about running away, and she wasn’t entirely sure why. She had no idea why the Prismatic Throne was important. It was just a thing someone sat on, wasn’t it?

        Xosh’s tongue flicked along his muzzle. “Where?” his voice was deadly cold.

        “Um, on a, uh, planet...” the kobold stammered. “Called...Ea-Arth?”

        “Earth,” Xosh said, slowly.

        “Yes. It teleported there before the castle was...destroyed...” The kobold quailed underneath Xosh’s glare. But that glare didn’t rest there for long. It swung around and transfixed Gimtesh. Gimtesh gulped, loudly.

        “The Prismatic Throne teleported to Earth .” The Emperor walked towards her. He moved slowly. His feet thumped on the deck like mini-earthquakes. Gimtesh wanted to move. But she couldn’t. “How could that have happened, my dear Gimtesh?”

        “I-I-urk!” Gimtesh grabbed onto Xosh’s wrist as the Emperor lifted her from the ground and smashed her into the wall. Deck plating buckled and her back cracked as he snarled into her face.

        “It’s keyed , you ignorant bitch, to the fucking genecode of the true heir!” Xosh roared. “The heir you told me was dead !” He drew Gimtesh back, then smashed her into the divot her body had left. Gimtesh saw black spots in her eyes as her head rang.

        She managed to choke out. “J-Just...throne!”

        “It’s not just a throne !”

        Xosh turned.

        Threw.

        And Gimtesh grunted. Something huge and thick pierced her belly. She put her claws around it – and saw that it was the nose of the flagship. The long, needle thin spur that had been a forward antenna was now slick with her blood. She gasped, then coughed. Xosh turned his back to her.

        “How long until we can send the fleet to Earth?”

        The kobold navigation officer gaped at the still writhing Gimtesh.

        “How long !?” Xosh roared, lightning crackling around his muzzle.

        “T-Two weeks!” The kobold stammered. “Firing the hellwhips at even seventy five percent-”

        “Begin the process! Now!”

        Gimtesh closed her eyes, gritting her teeth against the pain.

        She wondered how long it’d take before Xosh finished her off.

        She wondered in vain.

***

        The air above Antarctica was crisp and clear at this time of year. The sun hung at a perpetual twilight, painting the skyline in a pastel of purples and pinks and blues. There was not a cloud in sight. For Dr. Tobias Finley, it was the best kind of day. The helicopter that perched in the center of Dallman Base was being fueled by a pair of technicians while a third one was scraping some of the frost from the window with a thick metal scrapper. The quiet chuff chuff chuff of ice scraping suited Finley’s mood. He sipped from his thermos of hot chocolate.

        “So, think we’ll be able to find the source of the magnetic disturbances?” Dr. Sophie asked, stepping up to stand beside Finley. As per usual, her French accent sent a kind of delicious cascade along Finley’s spine. He grinned at her. Despite the chapping from the desert dry air and the sun-burn that any pasty European would get in the Arctic white, Dr. Sophie was the finest thing he had seen...in...ever.

        Shame about the wife.

        “I think so,” he said, nodding. “Assuming the gizmo your buddies cooked up works.”

        “Well, it’s not exactly a gizmo,” Dr. Sophie said, chuckling. “It’s just a simple extrapolation of-”

        The technicians servicing the helicopter jerked away from the pontoons, which was where the gizmo had been strapped. One of them bellowed in heavily accented English: “Dr. Sophie! It’s going off!”

        “ Merde ,” Sophie hissed. She started forward, her shoes crunching along snow.

        The sound that followed was like the end of the world. Roaring and screaming and a wind that tore the thermos out of Finley’s hand. His scarf went flapping and he was knocked onto his shoulder. The snow caught him and softened his fall. Meanwhile, Sophie skidded a few feet on her derriere . She fetched up against him and Finley took a moment to enjoy the softness of her body before she was shoving him away and springing to her feet.

        And to his shock…

        She was laughing.

        Whooping.

        Jumping up and down and waving her arms over her head.

        Finley blinked away snow and saw that the wind and the roar had been brought by a twenty meter long needle of purple-silver metal. It soared through the air in a slowly descending trajectory, carried forward by a trio of pure blue flames, leaving behind contrails of smoldering air. Finley stood and gaped – unable to believe what he was seeing.

        Sophie grabbed him. Shouted. “Dr. Finley! Dr. Finley! It’s a, a, a, a-”

        “A spaceship...” Dr. Finley whispered – his voice lost in the ringing of his ears. “Where’s it going to-”

        The needle-shaped ship smashed into the side of a mountain. It was one of the many harsh, foreboding cliffs that made up this part of Antarctica. But rather than an explosion of dust or flames, all that happened was a neat hole appearing in the mountainside as the ship punched through what should have been solid rock, followed by a rush of dust, and then an attenuated scream of engines.

        Dr. Finley scrambled for his binoculars. Putting them to his eyes, he saw that the hole had punched through five meters of rock...and then opened into an open space. As if the mountain was hollow. Before he could even open his mouth, he was being dragged towards the helicopter by Dr. Sophie.

        He didn’t even try and resist.

***

        “Okay. Just saying. That was not the best landing I’ve ever seen.” Merton grabbed onto the pile of Brash that was mashed against his face and lifted the small dragon up. Merton’s back was pressed against the side of a console, and his feet were up in the air. But other than a few bumps and bruises, he mostly felt okay. A few groans came from other crew and passengers who had been tossed about when the Talon-9 landed.

        Brash waved at him. “Hi!” he said, cheerfully. “I’m Brash!”

        “In my defense!” the pilot said, pushing herself to her feet. “That fucking giant mecha was shooting at us!”

        “They were using cannons !” Relix snarled. “Shooting iron cannonballs! They couldn’t have dented the armor!”

        “My question is why we’re still alive,” Lisa said, groaning as she started to help Merton’s Mom to her feet. “We hit a mountain.”

        “Well, uh...” Merton blinked. “Whoa.”

        Looking out through the front screen of the Talon-9 , Merton could see why they hadn’t simply pancaked against mountain. The Talon-9  had hit the side of the mountain, punched through, and come to a rest inside of a massive chamber that looked as if it hadn’t been disturbed for thousands of years. The entire mountain was hollow . And the ship had come down in the center of the city buried within. The buildings were uniformly beautiful and carved of stone and crystal. Spiraling images that reminded him of something between Aztec and Mayan art covered each structure. The streets were broad enough to admit multiple dragons – which was how the ship had come down without smashing any buildings. The street was paved with black stone that had crumbled under the impact, leaving great drifts of sloughed sand, like they had come down in the middle of a desert.

        “Where are we?” Brash asked.

        “Atlantis,” Dart said, groaning as she sat up. “At least, part of it.” She winced, wrinkling her nose. “Ugh. It looks like it’s seen better days.”

        Merton leaned back against the side of his command throne. The orange tabby cat leaped onto the seat. Merton smiled, slightly. “So, you’re still alive?” he asked. The cat had been scooped up by Relix when she had snatched up his family, girlfriend and best friends. No one had been sure who owned the cat, but since it was a cat, it had accepted being petted and fed with the assurance of a god-emperor accepting tribute.

        “Yes,” the cat said. “And she’s right. Atlantis has seen better days.”

        Merton was surprised to learn he could still be shocked.

        “What!?” Relix shouted.

        And that was when a small sphere of glittering, prismatic light appeared out of thin air and beaned her in the head. Relix slumped to the deck and the stone landed beside her, then started rolling towards Merton. Merton gaped at it until it bumped against his thigh.

        “We’re under attack!” Gunner shouted, drawing his pistol.

        Brash leaped over to land on the stone, as if it was a grenade. He yelped at the top of his tiny lungs. “Ouchies!” And started to flap away, his belly smoking. Then Relix groaned and started to push herself to her feet. Merton grabbed the stone and threw it into an unoccupied part of the bridge. The stone got about five feet away from him before whizzing back and beaning him in the face. Merton slammed back onto the deck and lay there, groaning.

        Once his head stopped ringing, he sat up and saw that the entire bridge was gaping at Relix.

        Because Relix was sobbing. Her hands pressed to her face and her shoulders shook. And in that instant, Merton forgot orbs and Atlantis and technically being back home on Earth. Instead, he simply scrambled over and got to his wife at the same time Julia wriggled over. The two of them hugged her, tightly. Then Brash fell ontop of them, having shifted into a massive tiger. His belly fur mashed into them as he started to purr at max strength.

        “Are you okay?” Merton asked once they had managed to wriggle themselves into a position where they weren’t being smothered by Brash being cute.

        Relix shook her head. “N-No...” She whispered. “T-This...” She held up the glittering gemstone. It had flown into her palm at some point and sat there, glowing. “This...”

        “Is?” Julia asked.

        “This is the Prismatic Throne,” Relix whispered. “I-It...it being here means my father...” She closed her eyes. “B-But it doesn’t make any sense . I’m not the next in the line of succession! I-I’m the daughter of his fifth  wife!”

        The orange tabby hopped up onto the curved piloting console. He sat there and spoke, his voice as deep and full of gravitas as James Earl Jones.

        “That was a deception, my granddaughter,” he said.

        The entire bridge crew gaped at the cat. Julia reached slowly over to close Merton’s mouth with her hand. The orange cat looked down at Relix.

        “You may be the daughter of a fifth wife and a minor functionary in the Imperial Bureaucracy but you are, in truth, the heir to my bloodline.” The orange cat lifted his head. “For I am Quetzalcoatl. The feathered serpent. The first dragon and the one who has...has...” He paused as a hand patted his head. He shook his head, then looked back at Brash, who had teleported behind him and was still petting him. “Stop that!”

        “So fluffy!” Brash whispered.

        The orange tabby cat flashed with a pure white radiance. When the light cleared, the whole front of the bridge was dominated by a serpent that coiled in and on itself again and again. His snout was long and narrow, and it had no legs – rather, it merely had a set of six glittering wings, each one feathered and shining in a rainbow riot of colors. His scales were metallic and shone with luster, smoothly transitioning from copper to bronze, with gold and silver tiger stripes along its sides. His snout was framed by a pair of elegant mustaches, and his eyes blazed with a light beyond light. Brash sat on one of his coils, now rendered kitten sized by Quetzalcoatl’s glory.

        “Oh my god...” Merton whispered. “Y-You were a dragon the whole time?”

        “Yes,” Quetzalcoatl said.

        “You could have fucking helped at any time?” Relix snarled. “You sat back while we bumbled around and let my people get killed!?”

        Quetzalcoatl leaned forward. “You are my daughter because you care . But do not think this means you can give me cheek, little one.”

        Relix literally bristled, her own feathered scales flipping up as she hissed.

        “I could not reveal myself in the greater universe, lest Xosh and his allies know that their plans were opposed,” Quetzalcoatl said. “And more, I needed to ensure that you truly were my daughter.”

        “You couldn’t have fucking tested my blood ?” Relix growled, stepping forward. “You could have done it the instant you came on board!”

        Quetzalcoatl drew his head back, his own feathers ruffling. It gave him an almost lionlike mane. “You think that mere genetic similarities make you my daughter?” He tossed his head. “Ridiculous. Dragons are more than genetic sequences and cybernetic implants and magic. We are creatures of soul . And your soul is the first in ten thousand years to be equal to bearing the weight of the Prismatic Throne.”

        Relix looked down at the glittering gemstone.

        Merton slowly stood up. He was trying to not give in to the intense urge to simply bow before the shining glory before him. Seeing Brash do a little dance on the coils of the immense dragon did help. But what helped more was seeing Relix’s indignation on the behalf of her crew. He walked slowly over, then put his palm on the gemstone.

        “What does the Prismatic Throne do?” he asked, quietly. “Tell me, for the audience members in the cheap seats.”

        Quetzalcoatl slowly turned to look at him. He snorted out two thin streamers of smoke.

        “Why, my annoying little mage-blind human, the Prismatic Throne was constructed by the one who made us - and finding it was how the first Prismatic Emperor forced the kingdoms of chromatic and metallic dragons together. The threat made those ancient dragons bend their knee to him. They swore to keep its true power secret. For the Prismatic Throne is far more than a symbol .” He reached out with one claw, tapping the glittering orb. “I t contains the spiritual essence of true dragonkind. A mage with this can unweave dragons at their whim .”

Quiet gasps came from the entire bridge crew. Quetzalcoatl bowed his magnificent head, his voice becoming solemn. “A true daughter of mine - one who knows the value of life - can finally do what needs to be done . T hey can erase the great mistake of the Magi from the Universe. They can free the galaxy of our arrogance, our-”

        Relix smashed the gemstone on the ground. It hit the ground with a crunch, the edge denting inwards slightly.

        Quetzalcoatl opened his mouth.

        Relix lifted her foot, then brought her heel down on the back of the Prismatic Throne. The orb crunched. She slammed her heel down again - the loud crunch crunch crunch noise of her heel smashing the delicate components into powder filled the utterly silent bridge.

        “W-Wait!” Quetzalcoatl stammered.

        Then Relix hit the remains of the Throne with her cold breath. Then she stomped on the frozen chunks again, grinding them under her heels until nothing but a fine powder was left.

        Quetzalcoatl blinked slowly. “Well...” he said. “I thought, uh...I didn’t...expect that.”

        “You expect me to just commit mass intergalactic genocide just because some dragons are assholes?” Relix growled. “Fuck you! Fuck that!”

         “I mean...” Quetzalcoatl rubbed his scaled palm along the back of his neck. “I thought...I mean...”

        Relix flipped him off. “Dragonkind might have a lot of sins to answer for. And I’m going to see that things get fixed ” She growled. “That’s what Merton has shown me. There’s nothing you can’t do if you have quick wits, a big heart, and balls of fucking steel! So sit down, granddad , and let me get to fucking work. ”

        She turned to face Merton.

        “Husband,” she said, her voice pure imperial majesty. “Take me to your leader.”

        Merton blinked. He was pretty sure he had never been more aroused than this moment. He coughed. “Uh, uh…” he nodded. Then he remembered who his leader was right now. “Uh, actually, can we go to the United Nations?” he asked.

        “I second this motion!” Julia called out.

        “Leader. Now !” Relix snarled, pointing to the exit.

***

        Finely bit his lip so hard it nearly bled as he gently set the helicopter down on the top of the mountain. The perch was precarious, but trying to get near the hole the alien spacecraft had punched through solid rock would be impossibly hard from the base of the mountain. But looking down at the hole from where he stood, Finley wasn’t entirely sure how to get down to the hole without far more supplies than they had in the base. And he and Sophie had brought all the climbing supplies they had.

        “Should we...get a drone, maybe?” Sophie muttered.

        “From-”

        That was when the goddamn motherfucking dragon flew out of the hole. It was as black as Toothless from How To Train Your Dragon  and just as fast. It was followed by a second that was teal blue and gold. Finley had a few moments to simply reel before the two dragons banked, swerved, then landed before him and Sophie. They both flashed with pale light. A moment later, two humans stood before him and the other researcher. One was a man – white skinned, black haired and green eyed. He looked like a total dork, if said dork had hit the gym and got really shredded. His three piece suit showed it off rather nicely, without being overstated.

        The other woman had olive brown skin and long brown hair. Her eyes were golden-amber, like a cat’s, and she looked like she was dressed for a Parisian fashion show, with a furred ruff around her neck and a long cape. Her breasts were rather magnificent and rather magnificently outlined by her thin, sheer, silky clothes.

        “Hi,” the boy said. “I’m Merton Miles. Well, Merton Miles Castrovel. This is Relix Castrovel.” He jerked his thumb at the woman. “She’s a dragon. I’m a human. Well, uh, technically, I’m a human wearing a dragon.”

        “Hi!” the boy’s tie said.

        “This is Brash,” Merton said.

        Finley fainted.

        Relix looked at Merton. “Is that normal?”

        “Merton! Merton!” Merton’s tie started to wriggle.

        “Yes, Brash, I know, you’re very cute,” Merton said. But before Sophie could ask any questions, the voice from the tie spoke up again.

        “No! I’m detecting something!” The voice said. “To the that way!” The tie flopped up and aimed to the east. All of them turned – save for Finley, who remained unconscious. Both Sophie and Merton lifted binoculars to their eyes, though Sophie had no idea where he had gotten his from, considering they seemed to have appeared from literally nowhere.

        Looking through the binoculars, Sophie could see a pair of black dots coming from the coastline. Merton hissed.

        “Two Osprey. But I don’t see United States symbols on them.”

        “There shouldn’t be any military craft within a hundred kilometers of Antarctica!” Sophie growled, lowering the binoculars.

        “Well, this is all to the good!” Relix said, scoffing quietly. “I need to speak to your military anyway.”

        The two VTOL craft came closer and closer, rushing forward at max speed. As they swelled, Merton licked his lips.

        “Should we take cover?” Sophie whispered.

        “Nah. She’s a dragon and I’m wearing a dragon. Nothing on those two things can touch-” Merton started.

        The Osprey swerved to the side, revealing their opened bay windows. A heavy, mounted weapon thrust from each side, like the machine guns on a helicopter. Before Merton could finish the sentence, a crackling net of blue light flew out, wrapped around his body, and started to surge with electricity, knocking him flat on his ass. Relix sprawled a moment later, also wrapped up tight as the two VTOLs hovered overhead.

        Soldiers slid down ropes – dressed in heavy, unfamiliar armor.

        Sophie stammered. “Who are you !?”

        A woman wearing a slightly lighter vest and helmet, with a broad Japanese flag painted across her back, thumped down. “Lt. Kisogawa!” she shouted over the roar of the helicopter blades. “I’m going to have to ask you to come with us, Doctor.”

        “We’ve got the two X-rays secured!” one of the men shouted.

        Lt. Kisogawa looked at Sophie.

        “W-Who?” Sophie asked.

        Lt. Kisogawa chuckled. “Two hours ago, this would be a secret we’d kill to protect. But the Council just rescinded the omega level protocols...so...” She shrugged. “You’re looking at the second squad of the Dragon Combat Unit. Or...” She grinned. “D-Com.”

        The two dragons were hoisted up onto one VTOL. The other took Dr. Sophie.

        Both banked towards the east.

Chapter Nine: Roll that Craft Check

Lisa turned away from the scanning display and glared at Gunner, Quetzalcoatl and, honestly, the rest of the crew and the whole universe. “Well, fuck,” she said, her voice tight and barely controlled. Quetzalcoatl’s feathered ruff flicked back and he hissed quietly, clearly a bit upset about her tone. Before he could say anything, Gunner cracked his knuckles.

        “Track that aircraft,” he barked, and the bridge crew hurried to their stations. Pyros was the first one to get on the scrying console and started to tap away with greenish fingers.

        “What are we going to do?” Carlos asked. “They napped Relix and Brash and Merton! Putas .”

        “We could panic,” Trevor said, his voice ever so slightly snide. Carlos glared at him – but before he could respond, Lisa held up her hand.

        “You!” she pointed at Gunner. “Once we track the airplane, I want this ship up and after them. You!” She pointed at Speccy. “Take the overgrown feather duster to Atlantis.”

        Speccy crossed all four of her arms over her chest and belly, her eyes narrowing as she hissed in displeasure. Quetzalcoatl looked even more mortified. Both of them opened their mouths, but before they could get in a word edgewise, Lisa snapped her fingers. She had a skill with finger snapping. It sounded a bit like a gunshot. She followed up with a voice that was as even as it was filled with a smoldering anger. A lifetime of arguing with people from pushy HOA members to racists on twitter had given Lisa a backbone – the same backbone she had shown in the Fortress of Regrets.

        “Right now, a huge-ass dragon warfleet is coming to Earth. We need every fucking tool that we have. Quetzalcoatl is the only surviving dragon from that time period, and Spectral, you’re the best and most intelligent engineer we have.”

        Speccy inclined her head. Quetzalcoatl flared his ruff, but didn’t do much more than that.

        “Find every gun, every spell, every bit of armor, everything,” Lisa said.

        “I’ve got them tracked!” Pyros exclaimed. “No, bugger, they’re gone.”

        “What do you mean gone ?” Gunner snarled, his mandibles clacking. “Earth doesn’t have magic, we’re tracking them with level 5 spells!”

        “I’m saying what I’m saying, and what I’m saying is they dropped off the charts, even with sympathetic magic,” Pyros said, slumping.

        Lisa rubbed her chin.

        “We could go to the White House,” Merton’s Dad said – his voice remarkably calm. “I know people in the Defense Department. And if anyone knows who those people were, they’d be them.” He smiled. “Hell, maybe it was D-Com.”

        “D-Com?” Merton’s Mom asked, her laugh having a hysterical edge to it – she looked as if she was reaching the upper limit of the amount of weird shit she was able to put up with. Doubly so when it came to threats on her son’s life. “That urban legend?” She shook her head. “No way they ever got it off the ground.”

        Lisa scowled. “What. Is. D-Com?”

        Merton’s Dad sighed. “So, listen,” he said, his arms crossing over his chest. “I’m not in the loop on everything. I’m just a physicist. But there were rumors since the 1990s about some kind of extra-governmental anti-dragon task force. A Dragon Combat Force. Or…” He rolled his hand, as if gesturing to something on the horizon. “D-Com.”

        “That’s the stupidest fucking name I’ve ever heard,” Trevor said.

***

        The armored soldier knelt down above Merton and yanked the gag away from his mouth smiled slightly. “Hey,” he said. Merton tongued at his gums, tasting the horrible aftershocks of having rubber jammed into his mouth. He looked around at the restraints that kept him and Brash restrained, despite Brash’s incredible strength.

        “Sup,” Merton asked, his voice rough.

        “Oh, just another glorious day in D-Com,” the soldier said, shrugging.

        The two – well, the three of them – were in the belly of the VTOL that had kidnapped Merton and Relix. The faint sound of air screaming past the belly of the craft was audible enough to made Merton’s teeth itch. Small bumps and jostles of turbulence set him swaying and made a quiet groan escape from Brash’s brain.

         You okay, little buddy? Merton thought.

         The restraints are junking up my ability to compensate for inner ear woobliebooblies… Brash mumbled.

        Merton winced, his mind already imagining just how unpleasant that had to feel.

        The soldier stood up and paced away, his rifle clacking slightly as he slung it over his shoulder. His armor was unfamiliar to Merton – but it still looked to be roughly on par with human technology. So, this was just some fancy, high tech secret combat force. If Merton had to guess, D-Com stood for Dragon Combat or Dragon Control or something. He wasn’t sure if they were saying Com or Con , with an N. The two sounds blurred together, at least, they did when someone was speaking over a howling set of VTOL engines and the ‘screaming of the damned’ sound of air rushing by the armored hull.

        “Hey,” Merton said. “Where’s Relix?”

        The soldier looked back at him. He shook his head slightly. “You think you can get her free, dragon-boy?”

        “Uh, one, I’m not a dragon,” Merton said. “My name is Merton Miles. I was born in California.”

        “Yeah. And I work for the post office,” the D-Com soldier said, rolling his eyes.

        Merton frowned. Then he felt a faint quiver in Brash’s body. It pressed against his skin and made me gulp down his own sense of nausea. He shook his head – then grinned. He could feel what was about to happen, and knew exactly how he’d use it. He just needed to prep the situation. He lifted his head, pitching his voice louder: “Hey, fuckface. If I was a dragon, how would I know that DC movies kick Marvel movie’s ass hands down?”

        The soldier swung around, his eyes wide with shock. He took a step forward. “What did you-”

         I’m gonna be sick, Brash gurgled.

        And he threw up.

        Which meant Merton went flying out of Brash’s mouth, buck naked and slick with juice that he’d really rather not identify. He focused as he flew, lifting his arm as if he was a D&D fighter in the middle of a bull rush. His psi-shield crackled to life as his mage awakened talent roused, now that he was no longer restrained by the strange webbing that Brash had been wrapped in. The shield met the guard’s face and the two hit the ground with a groan. Merton skidded along a deck so cold that he felt as if his dong might freeze and snap off. But he had no time to think. He grabbed onto the rifle as the soldier clutched at a broken nose. He yanked the strap off from around the man’s neck.

        He fired a single shot at the restraints that still wrapped around the undifferentiated mass that was Brash’s groaning body. A spark flew from the net and the blue glow they emitted faded. Brash sprang free a moment later, landing on Merton’s shoulder with a cheerful cry of: “Yay!”

        Merton swung his rifle around and fired off a spray of bullets at the stairs leading into the cargo hold – causing the soldiers who had started to come down to investigate the noise to jerk backwards with cries of alarm. Merton stood, his knees shaking, his feet skidding thanks to the Brash-slime that slicked against his soles.

        “Everyone up there!” he shouted. “I’m willing to fucking talk! But if you say no, I have a tiny dragon with tac-nukes and I’m not afraid to use him!”

        “Yeah!” Brash said, then whispered. “We’re not actually going to use tactical nuclear weapons right? We’re over an ocean!”

        And, quite suddenly, the floor became the wall. Then, just as quickly, gravity vanished entirely, sending Merton and the goon floating up into the air. The VTOL was arcing downwards – in a howling, screaming arc through the air. Brash giggled cheerfully, flipping around as Merton tried to keep a hold on the rifle as he bounced up towards the ceiling. Through the narrow windows on the wall, he could see the ocean rushing up to meet them.

         Well, he thought. Balls .

***

        It took five minutes after the Talon-9  shot off into the distance before Quetzalcoatl finally opened his mouth to say: “Well, that wasn’t how I expected that to go. At all.”

        Spectral Time – or, as people kept referring to her as, Speccy – did not sigh. She had a long lifetime of learning to not sigh. Her people were known as technicians and sorcerers both, and she was considered quite skilled among her people. As a skilled tech-priest from a planetary population of tech-priests, she had been a valuable commodity. And at times like this, Speccy remembered all her previous masters and her previous exposure to other dragons and took heart from knowing that no matter how bad it was…

        She could still be working for House Bryaugh.

        And so, she turned to see that Quetzalcoatl was sitting with his large, feathered head resting on his chin, glaring at a pile of frost dusted debris. The lost city of Atlantis – or at least the part of Atlantis that they had discovered – stretched out before Speccy, visible under the magical spectra that her eyes had been enchanted to perceive. In natural light, only a tiny circle of the city was struck by the natural sunlight shining through the hole the Talon-9 had punched through stone and ice. As a scientist, the indications of techno-sorcery that she had seen thus far was...breathtakingly mundane.

        She knelt down and picked up a piece of a street mage-light that had fallen down thousands of years before and frozen solid. She used her upper right hand and opened it up, pursing her lips ever so slightly as she shifted her vision through the arcanic spectrum – working her way through divinatory lenses. Once she was done, she shook her head and made a quiet tchss  sound under her breath.

        “I spent thousands of years watching the slaves, seeing them...a...a race that could really claim the title of what the ancient magi stood for. They did so much without magic, without gods, without knowledge of anything but what you can see. They built machines that let them see deeper and darker than any dragon ever has, even with magic. But all that amazing progress was built on sand . They’d never be able to reach their true heights with dragons sprawled across the stars like some fat beast.” Quetzalcoatl muttered. “And I finally find a dragon that could see that dragonkind is rotten to the core, and...”

        “Are you quite done?” Speccy asked, turning to face Quetzalcoatl, her lower hands on her hips, her upper arms crossed over her breasts. She frowned down at Quetzalcoatl, who looked up at her, his head drawing back, his ruff settling down against his scales.

        “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said, his voice venomous. “I-”

        “Shut up,” Speccy said, frowning. “Life is filled with failed incidents. You could have spent thousands of years acting rather than watching. Instead, you waited for the right moment and it failed. If you had a thousand other failures under your belt preparing you for this, maybe you would have a contingency plan. As it is, transform yourself into a carrying device or leave, because you’re currently being as much use as a wet fart in a space suit.”

        Quetzalcoatl spluttered, his head rearing back even further. “A...a...a carrying device!?”

        Speccy picked up the mage light and held it up. “What is this?”

        “A mage light,” Quetzalcoatl said, his voice smug. “It uses the light spell, augmented by electrostatic generator to prevent mana-burn.”

        The mage-light bounced off his nose.

        “Inefficient!” Speccy said, an anger she hadn’t realized she could feel actually beginning to grow and build inside of her. “Do you think modern mage lights are kindled by first year apprentices recasting the same cantrip again and again?” She scoffed. “We have mage lights linked to a central power system, usually powered via arcano-gravitic fusion or by straight line connections to the plane of positive energy.”

        Quetzalcoatl blinked.

        “You do?” he asked.

        Speccy frowned. She thrust her upper left hand at a building that looked as if it had once contained a maunfactory center, from the draconic runes she recognized underneath a few millennia of decay and frost. “Knock that wall over.”

        Quetzalcoatl frowned, then reached out with his foreclaw. He smashed into the brick and metal wall, sending up a cloud of dust and spray of debris. Before it had even cleared up, Speccy stepped over the wreckage, picking her way along carefully. Not for the first time, she thanked the gods of fashion that her garb was tight and form fitting. Not for any prurient reason – she had yet to meet a male that she’d lay with for any reason beyond abject pity or a direct order from Princess Relix.

         What about Merton? A teeny, tiny part of her brain whispered.

        She waved her hand, and instead, focused on the interior of the former factory. And, like dumping a bunch of petrochemicals onto a burning fire, she felt her anger intensify. “Look at this  nonsense! You have old orchialicum pools right in the open, without any bleed-off vanes or magic captors above the pools! And...artificial sunlight focusing lamps?” She gestured at an ancient, shattered hunk of glass and plastic. “ Tchss!  This isn’t fit to work on a backwoods pirate den!”

        “It’s top of the line!” Quetzalcoatl exclaimed.

        “It was top of the line ten thousand years ago!” Speccy said, turning to face him. “Now. Become a wheelbarrow.” She looked over at the ruins, her eyes narrowing. “I have a way to salvage something from this terrible idea.”

        Her tone added the subtext so plainly that it might as well have been uttered aloud: As per usual.

***

         The Talon-9 kicked on its retro-engines after blazing past several layers of top of the line human air defenses. Several SAM sites, each one scrambled to activity by frantic screaming from radar detection grids and satellite surveillance systems, fired their missiles into the air the Talon-9 had been in mere seconds before. The missiles veered desperately, trying to slam into the draconic demiship. Instead of hitting, they were intercepted by polar-rays fired en mass from the PRC grid along the Talon-9 ’s spine. The sudden, killing cold of the PRCs did not actually take the missiles down instantly. However, metal couldn’t be snap frozen without some damage creeping through. And as beams focused, dropping temperature lower and lower, missile after missile hit the point where their machinery and their electronics failed and they spun wildly out of the air, exploded in the air, or simply dropped .

        Then the Talon-9 dropped down and landed on the broad lawn of the White House’s front porch, the howling gale of wind kicked up by the landing thrusters knocking over a vast, bright orange inflatable chicken that had been set up on the outskirts of the lawn. As the chicken tumbled away, it bowled over a few dozen news cameras and sent a team from CNN scrambling for cover. The secret service were scrambling as well – weapons were being readied, phone calls were being made, and the President was being forced away from his cell phone by two retainers.

        The front of the Talon-9 opened and Lisa came walking out, flanked by Gunner in his best power armor and Julia dressed in a wizard hat, a thong, a bra and nothing else. Since, after all, armor restrained arcane magic. That was the only reason she had picked this outfit.

Honest.

        Several secret service agents were already in cover.

        “Sleep!” Julia shouted, then thrust her finger at the lot of them. A ball of glowing energy flicked from her fingertip, struck the air above the knot of men in hastily donned flack jackets. To the last, each of them slumped to the ground. Julia breathed a sigh of relief as Gunner started forward. “Okay, good. Secret servicemen are 1 HD creatures. I was worried.”

        Lisa looked like she was having the time of her life.

        Gunner reached the closed and barricaded front door shoulder first. The door splintered inwards and the trio headed inside. From the bridge of the Talon-9 , Merton’s Mom bit the back of her knuckles. “Do...do you think this was the right tactic to be taking? I mean, this may, ah, sour opinions, right?”

        Dad shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m having fun.”

        The interior of the White House was a lot smaller than Lisa expected. She looked around as bullets pinged and sparked off Gunner’s body. Julia, crouching behind the huge armored bug-man, shouted out the magical word again. Once again, people went sprawling as they were knocked out cold. Gunner’s head was scanning around. Then he nodded. “There!” he pointed to a wall, then rushed forward. His shoulder struck wood, which splintered, then rebounded off thick steel. With the bunker revealed, he lifted his right arm. A small prong emerged from his wrist with a whirr -click!  A searing beam of laser light struck the steel as Julia kept her eyes open for any more Secret Servicemen.

        Gunner kicked the circle he had cut into and the metal fell inwards with a clang , revealing a bunker that had been designed to keep the President safe in the advent of thermonuclear war. Several aides, officials, and the Vice President, were all crowded inside, with the President himself nowhere to be seen. A secret serviceman stepped up, firing his 9mm pistol into Gunner’s chest. The bullets pinged and sparked and Julia yelped, lifting up her palms to create a magical force field that hummed to life, catching the ricochets before they could harm anyone.

        The gun clicked repeatedly for a few seconds before the flack jacketed, sunglass equipped, brave as balls man realized he was empty. He blinked – and then Gunner yanked the pistol from his grip. He chuckled. “Nice grouping,” he said, in English, as Lisa ducked past him. She reached under the table and dragged a whimpering President out.

        “Hey,” she said, cheerfully. “We’re here to talk about an alliance.”

***

        The impact of VTOL to ocean sent Merton slamming back into the deck. His jaw hit metal and his teeth clacked together and his head started to ring  as he sprawled there. For a few eternities, he didn’t think about anything. Instead, he simply sprawled there and wondered what else would go wrong today. When his head cleared and the pain subsided, he saw that Brash was once more restrained by a tube of metal, and that Merton’s hands had been zip tied behind his back. He was dragged to his feet and the soldier yanking him up growled in his ear.

        “That was a dumbshit move you pulled, kid.”

        “Fuck you,” Merton whispered.

        The next few minutes were a confused stumbling up stairs, down a narrow corridor of chairs, then out into something dark and narrow and metal. The flickering lights overhead made Merton think ‘underwater base.’ But the room he was finally escorted to made him think ‘evil underwater base’, because it contained nothing but a pair of chairs, a few bright lights, restraints, his wife, and an unsmiling Asian woman in body armor. Merton was jammed into the chair and his restraints were upgraded from zip-ties to fuckoff huge zip-ties. Brash was set down on his lap. Brash, with only his head and tail free, craned his head around, snapping at the men who had roughed them into the room.

        “Relix?” Merton hissed. “You okay?”

        “I mean…” Relix groaned. “I’ve been electrocuted, de-powered, restrained, questioned, and bumped around. So, yes, I’m just peachy , husband.”

        Merton glared at the Asian woman. “You fucking assholes! We came here to help!”

        “You’re dragons,” the woman said. “Or at least, two thirds of you are. And we here at the Dragon Combat Unit are dedicated to one thing: Keeping dragons from conquering the Earth. The Dragon Empire has better tech and more planets. But we have the advantage of being off the beaten path and very...very... very good at learning what we need to learn.” She walked forward, her hands resting on her thighs as she leaned forward and looked at Merton. “But you are a mystery.”

        Merton snorted. “Merton Miles. Interplanetary man of mystery, that’s me.”

        “How did the dragons brainwash you?” She asked, frowning.

        Merton, still feeling a bit loopy from the knock to the head, said the first thing that popped into his head: “Have you seen Relix’s titties?”

        “Merton!” Relix hissed. “Don’t forget my rump.”

        “Right, ass that won’t quit,” Merton said, grinning at the Asian woman. She looked less than amused. Her arms crossed over her armored chest piece.

        “Uh-huh. So, a bit of T&A was all it took for you to forget your loyalty to your species?” She asked.

        Merton closed his eyes. “Okay. Here’s what I would have said if you people had started off by talking , rather than fucking shooting . We came here to warn  you. The Five...the Dragon Empire has just gone into a civil war. Do you know the difference between a chromatic and a metallic dragon?”

        “Chromatic dragons are honest when they fuck you over?” The woman asked, arching an eyebrow.

        Relix bristled behind Merton – he could feel her tension from the contact points between their bodies on the chair. Merton sighed and wished he could squeeze her hands. To comfort her. Instead, he just said: “A Chromatic House has genetically engineered superweapons on their hands and have already attacked Draconis Prime. Princess Relix here is the only surviving Castrovel left. That means that they will want her dead. She’s a threat to their power.” He shook his head. “And humans are a threat all by themselves.”

        The woman frowned.

        “We have two weeks,” Merton said. “To figure out some way of stopping this fleet. Now, please, let’s work together . That’s the only way we’re going to fucking survive.”

        The woman held up her finger, then wordlessly turned and stalked out of the room. Once she was gone, all that was left was the faint hum of the lights. Merton leaned back in his seat. Brash bumped his head against Merton’s thigh. “You did good!” Brash said, cheerfully.

        “I just hope that everyone else is doing all right,” Merton said, shaking his head. “But, hey. We left Lisa behind. Lisa is pretty calm and rational.” He nodded again.

        Relix was silent for a few moments. Then, quietly. “Merton. What do we do if there is nothing that we can do? There is a single loyalist legion near Earth. But that’s one Legion against three Warspheres and who knows how many of the B-suits.” She craned her head back. “We need an alternative plan.”

        Merton bit his lip. “Shit!” He leaned his head back. “I should have asked Dart before we left...”

        “Asked her what?” Relix asked.

        “Asked her to find an alternate Earth, somewhere, in the multiverse. Somewhere that we could evacuate people too.” Merton shook his head. “There are, uh, seven billion people on this planet. But if we use the portal emitters that Speccy has, we could set up...how many portals?”

        “If we used every part of the Talon-9 ?” Relix asked. “I don’t know. Between...ten to thirty.”

        Merton bit his lip. “Ten to thirty, operating round the clock for, uh, almost two weeks. That’s...” Not everyone. “That’s a lot of people.” He tried to sound cheery. “It’ll be something to ask Dart once we get back to the Talon , eh?”

        Relix nodded. “Yeah.” She smiled. “Good thing Lisa will keep her safe.” Her eyes were filled with worry.

        “Definitely,” Merton said, cheerfully. The idea of Lisa doing something impulsive and dangerous was pretty ridiclous, after all.

***

        Speccy and Quetzalcoatl were trundling through downtown Atlantis. Well, Speccy was walking. Quetzalcoatl was thumping along on six legs, grown out from a dump-truck style growth of bone that thrust along his broad, flattened back. It was highly undignified for a dragon, but he gritted his teeth and bore it as Speccy continued to fill him up.

        Dart waited until they were a good distance away before she tiptoed out from the small, shadowed alcove she had ducked into as the Talon-9 roared away. She slung the pack full of stolen supplies over her back and grinned to herself as she started to walk towards the still semi-active dimensional portal.

        It was a bit of a hike.

        And she had a long way to go before she was outta here.         

***

        Lisa sat, flanked by Julia, Gunner, Merton’s Mom and Merton’s Dad. Carlos and Trevor were back on the Talon-9 , ready to turn the teleporter on and yank them out of the room if the need came. Sitting across from them was the Secretary of Defense, the President, the Vice President, a bunch of aides, and the most important person in the room, the President’s cell phone. His thumbs tapped away as he looked at Lisa over the edge of the old blackberry.

        “So,” Lisa said. “That’s the situation. A battlefleet-”

        “We can take them,” the President declared.

        “You...” Lisa blinked, then rubbed her temple. “They’re an alien battlefleet with three planetkillers. We have a Soyuz with a machine gun duct taped to the front. And that’s not even ours, it’s Russian!”

        “Listen,” the President said, wheezing slightly. “We have, uh, the best. The best navy. The best air force. The best, uh, armed forces. We’re the best, we have the best. And that’s all there is too it. You won’t hear about that in the media.” He shook his head, his hair coming slightly off center. Lisa continued to rub her temple. Julia glanced at her, raising a single eyebrow. The Vice President remained placid faced – though his eyes betrayed the utter loathing he felt at Julia’s very presence. It was either the wizard’s hat or the lack of other clothing. The President, by the way, was still going. “We have the biggest ships, the best ships, they’re really good, these ships-”

        The door opened and a stern faced man in a suit, flanked by two men in FBI field uniforms, walked in. The President craned his head back. “What the flying fuck is this?” he asked – then yelped as one of the FBI men dragged his arms behind his back. Handcuffs clicked and the former President was dragged to his feet.

        “This is bulls-” his voice was cut off by the door.

        “Well,” the new President said, adjusting his tie. “I think that, hey, what are you doing!?” He yelped as the second FBI man dragged his arm behind his back and forced him to his feet. “I didn’t know anything about any treason, what!?”

        The second President in as many minutes went out the door shouting for his lawyer.

        The stern faced man adjusted his tie and nodded to Lisa.

        “...so, uh, the Speaker of the House?” Lisa asked.

        “He was arrested in at the Capitol building,” the man said. “President Mattis.” He nodded to the Secretary of Defense, who coughed and adjusted his tie. He stood, shifted to the chair the President had sat in, then looked back at Lisa.

        “Normally, there’d be more of a ceremony,” President Mattis said. “But I believe time is short.”

        Lisa breathed in, then out. “All right. First things first, we need to get Princess Relix out of internment. She was captured by some forces...uh, Gunner?” Gunner slid a holo of the scan of the VTOL craft that they had detected capturing Relix and Merton. President Mattis rubbed his face, then nodded.

        “Of course. We’ll need to send a signal to this loyalist legion you mentioned,” he said, slowly. “But will it be enough?”

        Lisa shrugged. “It better.”

***

        Merton was bouncing his thighs to keep Brash entertained – and doing quite a good job at it, considering how excited the tiny dragon was at bouncing up and down – when the lights came to full and several D-Com soldiers walked in, including the Asian woman who had been questioning them before. Before Merton could ask more than a garbled ‘what the-’ a knife had cut off his zip-ties, and the keycode to open Brash’s restraints was being typed in. Relix stood with an aggrieved harrumph  as she rubbed at her wrists.

        “The name is Lieutenant Kisogawa,” she said. “Sorry for the roughness – but...uh...” She sighed. “We just got the order from the Security Council. D-Com’s going public and we’ve all got a fuck of a lot of work to do.”

        “Finally,” Relix said, sticking her nose into the air. “I accept your apology.”

        “Thanks,” Kisogawa said, her voice flat. She folded the knife back into its hilt and pocketed it. “We need to get you two on a flight to Geneva. That’s where the organization is going to be held. We’re calling in the armed service of NATO, former Warsaw Pact...everyone.” She smiled, slightly. “Thanks, Princess . Y ou may have just gotten us world peace.” She shrugged. “For a day, at least.”

        Relix, Brash and Merton followed her to the VTOL. Now that Merton wasn’t half dazed with an impact to the chin, he could actually get a fairly good look at the surroundings of the D-Com base. It looked a bit like an old oil platform that someone had sunk under the waves, with lots of narrow corridors and heavy machines that whirred and groaned quietly. Noticing his looks – and his expression at seeing the faint drips of water falling from several points in the ceiling, Kisogawa explained: “It’s an experimental Soviet submersible aircraft carrier. The idea was to emerge off the coast and launch more than just short ranged multistage warheads. Tactical nukes on jets, city busters on planes, that kind of thing. It never took off, doubly so once ICBMs were invented. The half-built prototype sat around for decades...but it fits D-Com’s needs.”

        Merton blinked, then said. “Let me see. Uh, it’s mobile, carries aircraft for rapid deployment...” He paused. “And you can put an ocean between you and orbital laser bombardment?”

        “Bingo,” Kisogawa said, grinning. “You picked a good boyfriend.”

        “Husband,” Relix snarled. “And I know.” She smiled at Merton in a way that still made Merton’s heart hammer.

        “Husband?” Kisogawa shook her head as they walked up to the VTOL. “Okay.”

        “Hey!” Merton said.

        “Listen, I’ve spent my whole life training on how to kill dragons. The idea of someone marrying one is just...” Kisogawa shrugged. “Gross. Now, get one. We’ve got a straight flight to Geneva.”

        The VTOL rose from the ocean with a spray of cascading water and steam, then shot off towards the horizon. Merton leaned back in his seat, feeling a heavy bone deep ache of tiredness. He closed his hand around Relix’s hand, smiling at her. She smiled back. And while she smiled, he felt like they might actually have a chance.

***

        “We don’t have a chance.”

        Merton felt like Speccy had literally pulled a fish out from between her amazing tits and smacked him in the face with it.

        “But...but...Atlantis!” He stammered, gesturing to the dead city.

        “Useless,” Speccy said, crossing her arms under her breasts. This had the effect of drawing Merton’s eye, despite the dire situation and day and a half without a single wink of sleep. Geneva had been, just as he had expected, a clusterfuck. They had arrived to find that the United States was undergoing the largest mass trial for treason in its history, the NATO alliance on such shaky grounds that there had been some debates as to whether or not Canada would even show up . The Russians had initially refused to even believe anything until Relix had transformed to her draconic form and froze their diplomat solid on the floor of the United Nations. And even once everyone had started to (grudgingly) work together, Merton had left the administrative complex without knowing who was going to lead the united human defenses or what those defenses were going to be.

        He had come to Antarctica expecting relief.

        Instead…

        “What do you mean useless ?” Merton asked.

        “The magitech here is ten thousand years old. There’s been ten thousand years of innovation. Even at the glacial rate of change in the Five Talon Empire, that’s enough time for us to come up with a few new ideas.”

        Merton sagged. “So...we’re doomed.”

        Speccy shrugged. “We have enough salvaged magitechnological material here to, with the magician-engineers of the 42 nd  Legion, to construct three new warships.”

        “Oh,” Merton said, looking over at Quetzalcoatl, who was heaped with glittering material – gemstones and bits of wire and chunks of metal that he had assumed was just generic treasure. “That’s not enough, though! Also, where the fuck is Dart?!”

        “She ran,” Quetzalcoatl said. “She fled through the dimensional portal before we could stop her. Before we even knew she wasn’t on the Talon-9 , for that matter.” His deep, rumbling voice was filled with disgust.

        Merton put his hands over his face. He started to pace back and forth, thinking. “What can we make other than ships?” He asked.

        Speccy shrugged. “We can build a lot of power armor. And I do mean a lot of power armor. We can build a pretty serious orbital defense gun, but it won’t be mobile. There’s also a portal network in these supplies. We could make a few hundred portals, given half a week and breakneck labor.” She shook her head. “By my calculations, though, without a safe planet to run too, you’ll be dooming not one but two civilizations by dumping three billion refugees on their heads-”

        Merton winced. Even with the best they could do, Speccy knew they couldn’t save everyone. She continued, her voice brutally honest. “Better to spread humanity to many different worlds. Though, if you were going to do that, I’d suggest building cheap ships.”

        “Cheap ships...” Merton said, slowly.

        Speccy nodded. “Just a thin layer of aluminum with a subspace drive, enough to get them away and to the fringes of the former Empire.”

        Merton’s eyes widened, slowly.

        “What?” Speccy asked.

        Merton held up one finger. Then he laughed. Then he cackled . “Dart just gave us a fighting chance.”

        Speccy’s brow furrowed. “How?”

        Merton told her his idea. It didn’t take long. Like most very good ideas, it was incredibly simple. In concept, at least. Execution would take a lot more work. But that was always the way of these things, wasn’t it?

Speccy’s mouth opened, then closed. Then opened again. “But...” She stopped. “Well, that...” She blinked a third time. Then she shook her head. “That’s genius .” She grinned, slowly. Merton laughed, then kissed her cheek.

        “And if you hadn’t strip-mined Atlantis, it’d have been impossible. Come on! Let’s get to the Talon-9  and back to Geneva!” Merton said, cheerfully – unaware that Speccy was standing there, gaping after him. Her upper right hand went to her cheek. And for the first time in several centuries, Spectral Timeweaver Compounding the Infinite actually blushed .

***

        The 42 nd  Legion arrived from its posting near the Kuiper Belt of the SOL system. It was, as befitted its name and out of the way posting as secretive defender of dragon-kind’s true homeworld, not exactly filled to bursting with top of the line ships. There were twelve battleships, twenty one cruisers, and a spread of torpedo boats. Each ship carried compliments of fighter-craft, and all of them had been quietly waiting for the day they might actually be needed. Their arrival in the skies of Earth was an utterly gorgeous display. First, the retro-burns of the battleships winked on, adding a dozen new glittering stars. Then, over a series of hours, more and more gleams appeared, each one drawing a ruler straight line of pure, dazzling light through the heavens.

        They took up a high guard orbit above the planet. The Admiral – a grizzled Copper Dragon named Rushok – even came down and was photographed with the supreme leader of humanity’s combined defenses: An unassuming American named Admiral Bernard Xu. His calm, reserved, and dignified mien smoothed over ruffled feathers from America’s rivals, and the organization of humanity’s defenses went apace.

        Merton felt rather out of the loop.

        Oh, he had been helping. He and Brash worked together to move very heavy things very quickly. He had studied magic with the help of Julia – who had been cramming some basic thaumaturgy into his brain using the wonderfully direct route of whacking him in the temple with a ruler when he fucked up and sucking his cock when he did a thing right. But all the big decisions had moved out of his reach. As trophy husband to Relix Castrovel and former D&D GM, Merton had to sit back and...remember…

        All those titles he had puffed off to Baron Thresh?

        They were fake.

        Made up.

        Merton sighed and stepped away from the window of the rather nice hotel that he and Relix had been given. Relix was still out, assisting with the organization of the defenses. Brash was curled up on his pillow, snoring loudly and happily. Merton tried to think of something to do . Something more than what he had done. And...nothing was coming to mind. He felt jitters rushing through his body. They had less than a week before a warfleet – with three planetkilling starships, each a quarter of the size of Earth’s fucking moon – arrived.

        It didn’t feel real.

        But Merton wasn’t sure what felt less real: The hotel room he was in or the time he had spent aboard the Talon-9 . If it hadn’t been for the Brash on his pillow, he could have blinked and thought that his whole adventure had been a dream.

        A double knock came to his door.

        Merton blinked and walked over. He opened it a crack and blinked again – this time in pure surprise. He stepped back, swinging the door open. “Speccy?” he asked.

        Speccy stood in the corridor in her uniform. Which, Merton had to remember, amounted to a bunch of BDSM style leather straps that wrapped around her purple breasts, coiled around her muscular arms, slipped between her elegant thighs, and generally left most of her faintly tiger-striped body entirely revealed. She was holding a plastic binder in her hands and said: “I wanted to speak to you about the specifications of some, ah, Earth technology.”

        Merton grinned. “Uh, sure.” He stepped back some more, gesturing. Speccy walked in. Her hips rolled – the natural gait that she used drew his eyes to her rump. And to the faint jiggles that slipped along her butt. It was reminding Merton of the fact he hadn’t gotten more than a few blowjobs in the past week, and he hadn’t touched his wife at all. His mouth suddenly felt quite dry as he adjusted the collar of his shirt with one finger.

        Yes, it had only been few blowjobs.

        He wasn’t a very good wizard, you see.

        “I’m not exactly the best at, uh, advanced military hardware,” Merton said.

        Speccy rubbed her upper right elbow with her lower left hand. She looked around the room, her eyes narrowing. Her slightly elongated ears twitched slightly. She looked faintly nervous. Merton’s brow furrowed and he walked over. “Uh, did you actually come about military hardware, Speccy?” he asked. She tossed her head, then turned to face him.

        “I...is my deception that obvious?” she asked.

        “Well, it’s not super obvious,” Merton said. HE sighed. “Are you nervous about the battle?”

        Speccy blinked at him.

        “It’s okay. I’m fucking terrified,” Merton said, shaking his head as he walked over to look out the window. The night sky over Geneva was bright enough to wash away the stars – but he could see the massive streaks of thrust plumes from the 42 nd  Legion has it maintained its orbit. It only needed to burn occasionally, but when it did burn, it produced something not too dissimilar from the Aurora Borealis. Albeit the Aurora Borealis as done by a ruler fetishist. He sighed. “We’re all working our asses off, and...we have more of a shot than I thought, but-”

        A faint rustle and thump made him turn.

        Speccy had stripped off her clothes with the casual efficiency of a technician. The lack of sensual grace hadn’t detracted from her beauty. Far from it. Her breasts were as perky and as firm as Relix’s and at least a cup size larger. Her nipples were the same brilliant teal as her hair, and her antennas had gone to full erection – as hard and as quivery as Merton’s own dick, which strained his jeans. Her lower hands caressed along her thighs, and he saw that her sex was just as succulent and just as utterly hairless as he had first imagined. Her upper arms crossed over her breasts a moment later and she flushed.

        “I have been working very hard on spellwork and require some...relaxation,” she said. “Constant memorization of spells and casting them on this twelve hour work shift is, um, tiring. A-And, uh, I never did do what Relix ordered me to do, after you were augmented.”

        Merton gulped. “W-What was that, Speccy?”

        “She asked me to...train you...” Her voice was husky.

        “W-Why did that never happen?” Merton asked, his voice almost squeaking.

        “We both got distracted. Didn’t we?” Speccy smiled, shyly. But he could see that she was quite...scared. It was an odd expression to see on the normally taciturn woman. Her antennas twitched slightly and she looked aside. “It’s a bit foolish, I mean, Relix has no complaints about your-”

        Merton took her lower left hand in his. He felt her three fingers – calloused by hard work and faintly stained by grease and material components alike. He brought her purple palm to his mouth and kissed her palm gently. His heart hammered as he whispered. “Speccy...” he grinned at her. “We’d have all died several times over without you. How the flying fuck could I refuse you? Doubly so when so much depends on your...” He kissed her wrist. “Relaxation?”

        Speccy bit her lower lip so hard that it had gone pale, bloodless white. Then she moaned as Merton kissed his way down her lower arm, up to where her four arms joined together. The complex interplay of muscle and skin was fascinating  to explore with his tongue and his mouth. Her skin was silky smooth, once he got away from her callouses, and his tongue traced the very faint tiger stripes that differentiated dark purple from lighter purple. Then his mouth bumped against the cupping hand of her upper right arm – covering her breast. Her lower right hand grabbed onto his up and her upper left stroked through his hair as she let her other upper arm lift, exposing her breasts to his mouth. He started to kiss and suckle on her nipple.

        Then Speccy squeaked as a pale hand cupped her other breast. Peeking over her shoulder – barely, since she was actually about the same height as both of them – was Brash in his human form. His cat-green eye glittered as he grinned at Merton.

        “I didn’t know it was bang the chief engineer day!” he said.

        “That’s not a holiday!” Speccy said, her voice severe, even as she bit her lip to keep from moaning.

        “Sure it is!” Brash said. His finger found and tweaked her nipple, while his other hand dipped down between her thighs. But Merton’s hand moved faster and he cupped and stroked Speccy’s dripping, eager sex before Brash could get his fingers in. Brash pouted, then put both his hands on her breasts, squeezing and fondling them with just enough roughness to finally wring a moan from her – soft and dampened by her reserve as it was. Her eyes closed and her antennas twitched with orgasmic pleasure as Merton felt her sex. She was molten hot, as hot as one of the furnaces that she worked on, and Merton found that she had a pair of clits above her sex. His thumb rubbed from one to the other as he crooked his middle and pointer finger inside of her.

        Brash, meanwhile, was kissing his way down her spine, nuzzling her incredible shoulder muscles. A woman with four arms had muscles that made the most intense muscle-girl seem like a weakling. Merton, meanwhile, was noticing that the same was true on her front. He had never noticed just how fucking ripped Speccy was until he knelt down to start kissing along her belly. His tongue traced her girl-abs as he reflected that four arms, and all of them working on engineering tasks every day, produced a physique you could melt butter with. He finally reached where his hand was plundering her – and his tongue lapped up the small puddle of arousal that Speccy had dripped onto his palm.

        Through this all, the only noises that he and Brash’s combined efforts had wrung from Speccy were very quiet gasps, faint moans, muffled whimpers. She seemed to be genetically unable to simply let herself go.

        Merton was trying to decide if that was really hot or really fucking hot by the time his tongue slid into her eager, wet sex, and Brash’s tongue pushed into her pert, rosy ass. That was enough to break the damn dam. Speccy’s head rolled back, her upper arms grabbed onto the wall for balance, and her lower hands grabbed onto both their heads and pushed them against her as she wailed in pleasure, cursing in a language that Merton had never heard before and which wasn’t translated. Her juices flowed along his tongue – sweeter than any human pussy he had gone down on.

        Which, to be fair, was...technically zero, since...Julia had also modified her pussy to taste better.

        So, for all Merton knew, Speccy tasted exactly like human pussy.

        But he could barely think about that, so focused was he on the thick streams of girlcum that he was drinking down. Brash’s mouth moved and bumped against his chin as the other man tried to get his own shot at the ambrosial liquid. Brash dove in when Merton, polite as could be, drew back to give him a chance. Speccy kept whimpering and gasping as Brash’s tongue lapped at her, like a puppy with a water bowl.

        “ Gods ,” she hissed.

        “We’re not done yet.” Merton grinned. His hands went to his clothes and he skimmed himself out of them as fast as winking. His cock sprang free and Brash stood – his own cock matching Merton’s for size. Merton took a hold of Speccy’s lower hands, tugging her to the bed. He fell on his back and let her fall atop him. Once more, four arms proved their advantage as she caught herself without smashing into him. He felt nicely surrounded by her arms, her legs. Her dripping sex hung right above his cock. She looked into his face, her eyes softer than he had ever seen them.

        Then she looked aside, blushing. “I-I can’t believe you made me...” she paused. “S-So loud.”

        Merton snickered. “B-Bakka!” he teased.

        Speccy glared at him. Then she gasped as Brash slipped up ontop of her. He grew in size as he did it, going from sleek lithe bishi to muscular hunk. This let him loom over both of them and grind his thick, eager dragon-dick against Speccy’s ass-cheeks. She whimpered and reached down with her lower right arm, taking hold of Merton’s cock. Her thumb rasped over each of his ridges – even as she glided the thick tip of his cock against her swollen, desperately eager pussy.

        Merton squirmed, drawing his hips away from her, squishing into the bed.

        “Say please...” he whispered.

        “Idiot...” Speccy growled.

        “I am your Captain. Technically.” Merton’s eyes sparkled.

        Speccy’s face twisted in pleasure and irritation both. She looked aside, then mumbled something so soft that you’d need a directional laser microphone and an elf to hear it. Merton grinned, reaching up to cup her swaying breasts, squeezing them gently. Brash reared back, his cock slapping down against her ass, rough enough to make Speccy hiss. Brash put on his best, most intimidating growl, and said: “Louder.”

        “...fuck me...” Speccy whispered. And to prove she liked it, her sex dripped another patter of girl-juice onto Merton’s waiting dick. Brash pushed her down with one hand, his free hand grabbing his dick and aligning himself. Merton closed his eyes and groaned through clenched teeth as he felt her tightness enveloping him like an oiled, velvet glove. She was just as hot, just as tight as he might have imagined. Then he felt her grow another few fractions tighter as Brash slid into her ass with an eager, quiet groan. His balls gently slapped against Merton’s and Merton shuddered in pure bliss.

        “Ah-hhaaa!” Speccy gasped, then buried her face into a pillow, trying to keep it down. Brash sawed back. Merton slammed up. Speccy’s face buried deeper into the pillow and she shuddered, her lower hands gripping the sheets. Her uppers grabbed onto Merton’s palms, pinning them above his head. It was shockingly intimate – and Merton moaned as Brash slammed in and he drew out. The two of them started to work the pattern, falling into the pattern as if they had done this dozens of times. Speccy’s attempts to stay control wore away, inch by inch, chip by chip, thrust by thrust.

        Finally, she hissed out a desperate: “Oh fuck yes! Yes! Yes!”

        Her head rolled back. Brash grabbed onto her hair tugging her head back further, then leaned forward. Merton watched through slitted eyes as he tried to keep himself from climaxing. Despite augmentations and spells and training and practice...there was only so much a mortal man could do. He watched as Speccy kissed Brash back with a wanton moan, their lips sliding back just enough to show the frantic wrestling their tongues were doing. Her antennas had gone as slack as her eyes as Brash plundered her mouth.

        Her fluttering cunt tightening another notch in orgasm was just enough to push Merton over the edge.

        His balls clenched as if they had been grabbed in a fist and he moaned in wanton pleasure, thrusting up and deep into her. Brash slammed down as well, the two of them pinning the engineer between their sweat soaked, glistening bodies. Speccy broke the kiss, spittle gleaming in the air like diamonds, and screamed in pure bliss. Her body shuddered and her muscular belly mashed flat against Merton’s. Her arms tightened convulsively and she hugged him so tight that he felt his bones creak. But he didn’t care. He was kissing her now – her mouth locking to his. The orgasm seemed to ride on forever, and he felt the decadent pleasure that was another man’s cum soaking his balls as Brash’s seed overflowed from her stuffed ass and dripped down her flanks.

        Once the pleasure had passed, Merton felt like someone had cut his break lines. His whole body had turned to an undifferentiated mass of muscle and he was sprawled there, gasping. Panting.

        Speccy sprawled atop him.

        Brash sprawled atop her.

        And Merton started to realize just what happened to a grape in a wine press.

        “Gitoff...” he squeaked out.

        Speccy, rather than listening to her sound understanding of engineering, G-forces, and her understanding of human bodies, instead buried her face against Merton’s neck and sighed contentedly.

         Merton Miles, dies the way he lived… Merton thought, his eyes narrowing to slits. Buried under girl abs.

***

        The Xosh Warsphere dropped from subspace after two weeks and change of transit time – crawling from one galactic arm to another – and Gimtesh Thresh still had not had the decency to die. The half-elven, half-dragon woman was still impaled on the large spike that the engineers had cut from the prow of the metallic flagship that had tried to ram the Warsphere during the battle of Draconis Prime. The spike now sat in the back corner of the bridge, ignored by all but the most sadistic or squeamish of the kobolds. And Emperor Xosh. He still stopped by every few days to nudge at the whimpering woman with his toe and say: “Hmm...I guess I owe Feng Bryaugh a slave or two. He bet you’d last to Earth.”

        Gimtesh whimpered. But the simple truth was…

        She hadn’t actually hurt for a day and a half.

        She was half-dragon. That meant her shapeshifting skills were weaker than that of a purebred dragon. But they were not nearly as weak as many pure dragons assumed – something she had taken advantage of in her lifetime as a member of a vicious, cut throat chromatic household. So, she had subtly and carefully rerouted the parts of her biology she needed to live around the six inch wide metal spike rammed through her guts. Turning off the nerves had taken delicate hours of meditative focus.

        But the end result was that she was still alive and only in mild discomfort!

        All in all things were looking up for Gimtesh Thresh. So long as no one checked too closely and she found a chance to get the fuck away from Emperor Xosh and this whole sorry business.

        The front of the bridge was dominated by a curving view pane, and that pane was dominated by a long-range scan of the planet Earth. The world looked like many worlds that dracons had terraformed and made their own: White and fluffy clouds, broad expanses of green and brown and ocher and blue. But all of that was a secondary concern to Emperor Xosh and his admirals. The ships of the 42 nd  Legion had been highlighted and outlined, with their potential attack vectors charted out by attentive war-scribes and astronomers.

        Xosh stood with General Bryaugh and Admiral Thresh – Admiral Thresh was Gimtesh’s third cousin twice removed and the fucking cunt hadn’t even glanced her way.

        “What are their chances?” Xosh asked.

        Admiral Thresh shrugged, her scaled hands spreading wide. “Poor. We outnumber them, we have war-spheres, we have the B-Suits.” She grinned, her teeth flashing. “I think we could even try for occupation.”

        Xosh tossed his head. “No. I want the end of the Castrovel line to be marked and underlined . We destroy the planet.”

        “There’s one problem with that,” General Bryaugh snarled. Omadon Bryaugh had become a general of a household of brutes in the simplest, most direct way. By being smart. Cunning. Clever. He wasn’t the largest black dragon in the Dominion, but Xosh had an unnerving feeling that he could think circles around him. Which was part of why Xosh planned to have Omadon die heroically in this battle. After he had served his use.

        “What’s that?” Admiral Thresh snarled, her tail lashing.

        “Simple,” Omadon said, rolling one shoulder as if he was stretching out for a workout. His scales gleamed as he grinned. “This solar system’s ley-lines are locked down tight . It’ll take multiple multi-megaton warheads in the right places, at the right time, to bust them open. Now, that won’t matter for the humans...” He sneered. “They’re mage blind whelps, according to your intelligence.” He nodded to Emperor Xosh. “But it means our warspheres can’t fire their main weapons unless-”

        ***

        “-they’re in the right orbit,” Admiral Rushok said, his voice grim. “That means that they have an enforced bottleneck and a timeline.” He gestured down to the holographic display table some technicians had yanked from his flagship, the Winking Rogue, and set up at the United Nations Space Defense headquarters. It showed the orbital elements of the 42 nd  Legion and where the warspheres would have to reach.

        Admiral Xu pursed his lips. His thick Texan drawl was utterly at odds with his stoic, Asiatic features. But he asked the pertinent question: “How long will take for one of these warspheres to do the hokey pokey and get into position?”

        “Three hours,” Relix said, her hands clasped behind her back. She was dressed in human political styles – something needed, if you wanted to make a good impression to a bunch of mage-blind monkeys. A phrase she had only used once, in private, which had led to an incredibly pleasant hour long spanking session from her husband. “They need to maintain distance, or else their hellcannons will cause interference with one another.”

        Admiral Xu glanced at Admiral Rushok and Merton. Merton was reflexively petting Brash, his fingers moving gently along the small dragon’s spine. Brash nipped at his finger with every pet.

        “Well then...” Admiral Xu said. “The plans have been transmitted.” He looked over at the last member of the meeting – Speccy was looking down at the holographic table with a frown. “You’re absolutely sure this will work? I don’t want another Battle of Jutland out there.”

        “It’ll work,” she said, her voice firm. “We’re talking about six thousand year old technology. All the bugs have been ironed out. Trust me.” She smiled, ever so slightly.

        As Admiral Xu took his leave and Admiral Rushok vanished in a crackle of teleportation energy. Brash crawled atop Merton’s head, getting ready to sweep him up into his B-suit form. But before he did, Relix stepped over to him. Her hand went to his cheek.

        “Battle of Jutland?” she whispered.

        “A...uh, old naval battle. On the ocean,” Merton said. “It was the first big naval battle after nearly a century of technological development. It was a total disaster for both sides – shit broke, things didn’t work as expected. Fuck, the British admiral was using signal flags to communicate in an era with radio, where every gun had a range of miles .”

        Relix hissed. “Well, I hope you all do better than that .”

        Brash swallowed Merton whole. A moment later, Merton shook himself as he connected to Brash’s systems. During the weeks of prep, someone had fed Brash a half ton of metal and a few chunks of weapons grade plutonium, refilling his weapon stocks. Merton felt a cold, icy ball in the pit of his stomach.

        “Beam us up,” he said – and the teleporter flashed . He, Relix and Speccy arrived on the bridge.

        “Open hailing frequencies,” Relix said.

***

        Gimtesh Thresh let out a theatrics whimper of pain as the forward screen flickered on. There was Relix Castrovel. She looked terrifyingly official, dressed in a charcoal black suit that was as severe as it was unadorned. The sheer lack of adornments and gold and jewelry should have made her look impoverished and poor. But she wore it with such grim determination that poverty transmuted into total and absolute determination. Beside her stood her husband. Merton Miles. He was dressed in a B-suit, which made him look like an utterly lethal black dragon.

        “You have one hour to surrender unconditionally,” Relix Castrovel said. “And face a trial for crimes against sentients by the United Nations.”

        Emperor Xosh made as if he looked behind himself, then forward again, like he was checking something. He spread his arms wide, laughing boisterously. “Oh, Mrs. Merton...” He said, his voice as jeering as a crow’s. “I believe you have mistaken the position that you are in. You believe you are the new ruler of the Five Talon Empire and that I am a rebel household. But you are speaking to Emperor Xosh of the first dynasty of the Chromatic Dominion with three fully armed and operational Warspheres and a battle fleet . Even discounting the spheres, we outnumber you four to one . ”

        He stepped forward, tail lashing.

        “Surrender now...and I’ll merely crucify you and not glass that pathetic marble you’ve decided to hide on.”

        Relix chuckled.

        Her eyes flashed.

        “I hoped you’d say that.”

        She snapped her fingers.

        A sudden blare of alarms and klaxons came from the sensor consoles and scrying pool.

        A kobold sensor officer jerked so hard that his shako hat fell off and clattered to the deck. He tapped at controls then screamed out in his piping voice: “Detecting launches from the surface of the planet! T-Thousands of them!” He looked back over his shoulder.

        “Humans are mage-blind monkeys!” Admiral Thresh snarled. “What could they be launching?”

        Xosh stomped forward.

        And then he laughed. And laughed loud .

        “ Mage-ships !?” he laughed. “You...you are launching mage-ships ?” He thrust his clawed finger at the screen, grinning broadly. “Launch a million wooden hulled, paper sailed, cannon strapped galleons into space, and I’d slaughter them with a single needleship. You think I will tremble at whatever patheti...c...navy…”

        Relix was grinning.

        And in the background of her bridge – which had been modified to have large window displays – Emperor Xosh could see the ships rising out of the clouds. They shed waters in vast, sheeting curtains, and blazed in the sunlight shooting through the pale blue atmosphere of their world. Each one, suspended in a bubble of magically generated atmosphere, pushed forward not with sails...but with vast, mile devouring propellers, each one large enough to grind a needleship up and not even notice. Twenty of them were easily the same size as his largest battleship – broad, flat topped ships, covered with tiny fighter craft. Dozens more were peppered with cannon that matched any railgun on his fleet. Still others were deadly looking tubes that set off every radiological alarm on the deck.

        The fleets of humanity - so long constrained by Earth’s blue oceans and blue skies - rose into space, dripping with water and dragging along tufts of clouds. They sailed away from the world of their birth, born aloft by magic as old as the Five Talon Empire and dragonkind itself. What had once carried galleons and sailing ships between the stars...now carried modern, 21st century navy ships into space .

        As the fleet approached, Xosh slowly leaned back in his throne, hearing the wailing radiological alarms in his ears.

        “How many nukes do they have?” Admiral Thresh whispered.

        “F-Fifteen...thousand,” the kobold sensor officer breathed.

        Princess Relix smirked.

        Emperor Xosh, sitting on his throne, snarled. His fingers flexed, then clenched. He slammed his fists into the armrests of his throne, springing to his feet. He thrust a single dramatic finger at the screen.

“Damn the nukes. Full speed ahead.”

Chapter Ten: Roll that Fort Save!

A klaxon blared throughout the entire launch bay. Svenk Blackscale tried to not cringe at every high, piercing note as he scrambled into his fighter craft, a draconic voice growling from the PA system.

“All wings, launch!”

Svenk Blackscale was not a heroic member of House Bryaugh’s space force. That would have been a remarkable trick for a kobold – even one that had the one tenth dragon blood that was required by the stern admirals and generals that led House Bryaugh’s military forces. But as Svenk wasn’t even a willing member of the space force, heroism felt like it was asking just far too much of his skinny body. His hands shook as he tugged on the flimsy flight helmet and strapped it into place, while goblin technicians swarmed over his fighter craft.

Svenk didn’t know what other noble houses of the Five Tal- er, the Chromatic Dominion used. He knew that he had been trained on the ASP-1011. It was named for its primary armament: A pair of alternating maximized wands that were loaded with the Melf’s acid dart and searing rays spells. They were fairly powerful spells, requiring a class three wizard to enchant them. Thus, most of the ASP-1011s cost was sunk into those two wands and their power source, leaving only a fraction for, say…

“Here,” a female goblin who had had half her face replaced by cosmetic bioplasm after a close call with an exploding reaction thrust a breather into Svenk’s claws. He took it and stuck it to his muzzle, trying to breathe slowly and carefully.

Life support. Shields. Armor. By a dragon’s tits, the only thing that the ASP-1011 had on top of its armament was its speed. And that was because it had nothing else. A frame of aluminum and cloned dragon bone around cockpit, reactor, engine and guns. The goblin workers sang a cheery work song as they screwed and then welded his cockpit shut.

“Please save me, Tiamat...” Svenk whispered. “Please, please save me.”

“This is General Omadon Bryaugh,” a snarling voice growled through his helmet mics. “Wings 12 and 10 are to flank our bombers as they go after the spelljammers that form the centerpiece of the human armada. Their vessels are primitive, relying on only the most simple magic to keep them aloft. Designed for the sea, they will surely fall easy prey. Fighters, you are to focus on the enemy strike craft, if any are launched.”

Svenk nodded.

He could do that. Primitive. He could handle primitive. He had flown four combat missions against pirates, and several of them had used mage-ships. Mage-ships were when you combined a sailing ship with an enchanted magehelm. He pictured belling sails falling to pieces under streams of acid and beams of fire. He liked that image. It was an image to make even a kobold less of a cowards. But still not a hero. This was why, as the fighters prepped for launch, he closed his eyes.

He could never bear to watch the launch.

He felt the gravitic catapult take hold, then heard the faint thump thump thump of a goblin slapping his fuselage. That meant he had-

Acceleration smashed Svenk into his seat and dragged his mouth open as he screeched at the top of his lungs, even as his ASP-1011 shot out of the launch tube that made up a good chunk of the mid-section of the battleship he had served on ever since an impressor came to his hole and forced all the fighting aged males out with morph gas and shock-prods. Then his eyes snapped open and he swung his head around.

And…

It was moments like this when Svenk did not regret his inability to hide when the impressors came. For all the fear and the horror and the killing and the eventuality of dying, he had to admit that space – especially space during war – was utterly beautiful. The space between stars was a black richer and deeper than the most powerful black dragon, and the stars shone with a harsh purity that had no twinkling, no winking, no softening. The curve of the planet and the moon that they were fighting over shone in the distance, and between him and the planet, there was the human armada. And what an armada.

There had to be thousands of ships there. None had thrust plumes or contrails, but each retained a stately beauty about them. There were flat topped ships that cut forward through space, pushed forward by immense columns of propellers that ground and spun behind them. Svenk didn’t know how propellers worked in space, but he figured that the magehelms had something to do with it. There were narrow ships that were studded with turrets, cylindrical ones that bore only a single sparse looking conning tower, but still cruised forward with a predator’s hunting grace. Peppered among them were the more familiar designs of his supposedly hated rivals: Metallic dragons tended towards elegance and beauty...but that didn’t mean the destroyers and battleships and torpedo boats he saw intermixed with the human formation weren’t exceptionally deadly.

“This is Talon Leader,” the sneering voice of Talon Leader Gigzor, the preening, brown nosing, power grabbing, butt kissing schemer, filled his ears. “The scaleless fools have not even launched their fighters! Follow me, Blackscales! Let us show the humans how kobolds die!”

How kobolds kill , you idiot, Svenk thought. Then, gulping, he realized that Gigzor might have meant exactly what he said. After all, Gigzor knew who was listening in on their coms.

Maybe it was stuff like that that got him promoted?

Either way, Svenk sighed and throttled his engine up.

***

“We should send in the B-suits!” Emperor Xosh snarled.

Admiral Thresh did not bridle. It was clear she wished to do more than bridle to Gimtesh. But no, Admiral Thresh instead forced herself to take a deep, calming breath, then said: “My lord Emperor, that would be unwise. We do not know the capacity of the enemies. There are a great deal of them and if we lose here today, that will give the Metallics time to organize and come here to the human’s defense. If we give them a foothold, then this civil war may last decades, rather than months.”

Xosh’s tail lashed. “All the more reason we should commit now!”

Gimtesh could see the eagerness in Xosh’s eyes. The thirst to see this end, and end quickly. She gulped and focused on adding – cell by cell – slightly more length to her left foot. She made sure to do it slowly. Carefully. And only when people weren’t looking at her.

She’d only have one shot.

“If we send in the kobblers...” General Bryaugh said, not looking up from the scrying pit – where glowing icons indicating the first waves of kobold fighters approaching the combined enemy armada. “They can see what the weak points are.”

Thresh gestured to Bryaugh, as if to say: See?

Xosh’s tail lashed. He looked as if he was considering, deeply. But Gimtesh could hear the quiet grinding of his teeth. He slid his arms behind his back and nodded.

“Very well. Carry on.” He spoke the words through gritted teeth. And as he took his seat at the command throne, Gimtesh grew her foot out just a little bit more. Just a little bit more.

***

Merton Miles stood in the airlock, looking at Princess Relix. Relix smiled, shyly, at him. “Come home safe, okay?” she whispered.

“Promise,” Merton said. The weirdest thing about wearing a B-suit (I.E, a transformed dragon that was genetically engineered to be used as a suit of power armor) was that you didn’t actually feel like you were in a suit. Rather, you felt the wind on your scaled balls and had a hard time remembering that normally, you were a squishy human. He grinned slightly as Brash hummed cheerfully in his head. “Now, I gotta get out there.”

“You could stay here. Protect me.” Relix muttered, looking aside.

Merton reached out. He cupped her cheek and murmured. “I have a duty to you and to Julia. Both require me out there. Besides...” He cocked his head. “I have Brash watching my back. Right, little buddy?”

Yup! Brash said, cheerfully – his voice echoing inside of Merton’s head.

Relix muttered something under her breath. It sounded an awful lot like: ‘Stupid noble human jerk bag going off and being heroic.’ She shook her head, then put her clawed palm on his chest and shoved him back into the airlock. The inner doors slammed shut and Merton let himself get blown out of the airlock and into the space above the USS Theodore Roosevel t. Or, as Merton immediately started thinking of it as, the Teddy. The aircraft carrier was one of the fifty or so that humanity had launched into space using magehelms. And one might have thought that an aircraft carrier would be uniquely useless in space.

One would be wrong.

Magehelms functioned by mystically enchanting an entire naval ship to operate in space. The key word being entire . A magical shell of atmosphere surrounded the Teddy, allowing crew to operate on the flight deck without space suits or breathers or even sun hats.

The first of the F-15 and F-16s and F-35s and F-22As and whatever other Fs that they had crammed onto the Teddy launched into space with a scream of jet engines. Yes, an audible scream. As the jet roared past Merton, he could see the glowing field of mystical atmosphere surrounding the fighter, even as it started to loop around, waiting for more fighters to launch. And launch. And launch. And launch. A Russian aircraft carrier – about fifty or so kilometers off – was launching their MIGs. A French and Japanese carrier were launching behind them. South Korea and India both had one carrier each, and even they were launching. Spain had an aircraft carrier up here.

And, yes.

She was launching.

Fighter planes roared upwards and formed into formations – sorted and organized by languages spoken and objectives assigned. Merton felt a swelling of pride.

Just a few weeks ago, some of those pilots had been ready to shoot one another down. Now, they were flying in formation towards the hazing swarm of incoming dragon fighters. Well, kobold fighters, if what Relix had said was accurate. He grinned and thought to Brash: Ready to show them what we can do, buddy?

Vroom vroom! Senketsu Shippu! Brash called out. His back shifted and grew, fanning his wings out to their full length and growing a double set of jet engines. His wings beat and the engines kicked on and Merton thrust his hands before him. Mostly to keep them from being ripped back behind his back. He whooped as he shot forward and then matched, then exceeded the speed of the jet fighters. He flew up beside one of the leading fighters – an Indian MIG. Yeah, the Indians flew MIGs. Who knew?

The indian pilot – inhuman behind flight mask and helmet – sent him a Namaste. At least, Merton thought it was.

Merton waggled his wings and Brash laughed.

But Merton’s joy at the sheer speed of the moment bled away as he saw the onrushing enemy force. He gulped – and tried to focus. This was the plan. And soon, things were going to get real dicey. He gritted his teeth, then put on an extra burst and focused. He and Brash both grew larger and larger, until they were in full dragon form, jet-pack roaring brightly enough to match a torpedo ship in terms of engine plume and thrust contrail.

If that didn’t scream ‘pay attention to me!’, Merton wasn’t sure what would.

***

“Activate PWSs!” Talon Leader Gigzor snarled.

Svenk breathed a faint sigh of relief. The Planar Whipple Shields on a ASP-1011 were weak and they took power from the weapons. It took a direct order to authorize turning them on - since turning them on fractionally improved pilot life expectancy, while fractionally reducing damage caused to the enemy. Svenk plunged his claw-tip into the controls and felt some of his shaking subsided as his ship hummed and the shimmering field came on, then vanished from visibility. It was a thin shield, but it was better than nothing . Especially considering the veritable swarm that the humans had flung up.

“Pick targets and cut them down!” Gigzor laughed. Then, he gasped. “Wait!”

In the center-front of the enemy air wings, a sudden draconic shape had appeared.

“It’s Miles! All wings! Target that fucking Dungeon Master!” General Bryaugh’s voice exploded over the coms.

“Svenk, you’re on me!” One of Svenk’s wing-mates, Lizzt yipped. She put on her after-burners and angled towards the dragon. Svenk gulped and took up position next to her. “Kiiiiyaaaaa ya ya ya!” The sound of a dozen kobold war cries filled the radio bands. Then the flight computer on Svenk’s cockpit blared warning signatures. Targeting lasers were lining up on him! His eyes widened and he flung himself into a corkscrewing flight path as missiles erupted from every single human fighter. Each missile flew straight as an arrow – straighter, actually – and sought out a different fighter. Lizzt wing-mate exploded with a screech of shock, her Asp crumpling and ripping apart in a flare of orange and white light.

Svenk groaned as G-forces dragged blood away from his head. His vision dimmed. The missile that had targeted him missed by a tail length and he swung the nose of his Asp around. Twin searing rays leaped out and shot through the missile, transfixing it. It flashed away, vanishing as its warhead went off.

Then the human fighters smashed into the wings of kobold fighters. The worst part was the sound . The howling, screeching sound of their jet turbines as they roared forward crawled along Svenk’s spine, and filled him with a single impulse: Run!  Svenk relied on instinct and instinct alone as he kicked engines to full, throttled down, fired laterally, spun, twisted, flipped. The laser targeting alarm went off every second – a screaming jangle that rattled against his ear-drums. He swung his head around, screeching: “Does every fucking fighter they have have laser targeters!?”

“I’ve got two humans on my tail!” a fighter from the Redscales screamed as he twisted and twirled, trying to swing her nose around. But the human fighter took advantage of their mystical aerodynamics with shocking alacrity: They would flip up areobrakes that would normally be utterly useless in the depths of space, slowing and dropping themselves out of line of fire, then hit afterburners to scoot underneath Asps.

But the worst part was the…

The guns.

Svenk’s eyes widened and he gaped as he saw one of the heavy bombers – which was trundling straight towards one of the steel clad, magehelm equipped battleships – was struck by a pair of human fighters. Normally, a Planar Whipple Shield worked by snapping open tiny portals to the Elemental Plane of Water, so that the needle-like darts that most railguns or the beam-rays that most magical weapons fired would zip through. But the humans took that rulebook, laughed, and tossed it into the furnace.

Their nose guns were horrible, chattering things that seemed to paint the space before them in a haze of bullets, cutting out the pattern of a fighter – guided by those infernal laser seekers. So, rather than one portal to open to shunt away one stream of railgun slugs, the PWS had to open dozens if not hundreds. The bomber’s shields flashed and rippled as portals opened across it like smallpox blisters...and then the shields shattered . Bleeding planar energy like a star whale struck by a harpoon, the bomber crumpled, then exploded as the bullets tore into their armor.

But...the bombers are adamant plated! How!? Svenk’s eyes bugged.

Then, again, he had to rely on nothing but instinct as two human fighters screamed towards him – nose mounted cannons winking like the baleful eyes of a dark god.

Svenk threw himself into a spin, felt the right moment, and pulled back on the trigger. A series of acid arrows plunged into the belly of the human fighter as it shot by overhead. The human fighter folded in half, then exploded as the fuel went up. Svenk breathed out a quick sigh of relief.

Then, it was right back to desperately trying not to die .

***

As the fighter scrum devolved and devolved, the human capital ships had not been left idle. They moved in a great, graceful V, sweeping towards the front lines of the picket ships defending the Bryaugh warsphere, which was the first to start its approach towards Earth. Picket ships was a misnomer.

They were mostly battleships.

Aboard one such ship was Captain Thrug. Thrug had not attained his post by being particularly bright. Bryaugh tactics did not reward the bright or the creative. They rewarded those that could follow orders and those that could die. And Thrug, being a lowland orc from the world of Ventalis, could die with aplomb. His crew – also mostly orcs – could do the same. And the kobolds who were mixed in among them managed to keep their opinions to themselves.

“Sir,” his scrying officer – a female orc – spoke up. “We’re detecting mage-flares from the human ships.”

“They are mage-ships ,” Captain Thrug snarled.

“No, these are active arcanic casts, not just enchantments.” Buttons were pushed by thick, green fingers. The forward screen winked and showed the deck of one of the human battleships. It flew a flag with a blood red circle in the center. Thrug grunted, slightly. He approved of that flag, though something about the massive battleship struck him as different from the human ships surrounding it. It had larger guns, yes, but it also seemed...strangely primitive.

But then his narrow eyes narrowed further as he saw the war-wizards on the deck. They were easily visible, being the only non-humans. They stood beside those main guns, and they cast.

The main guns bellowed .

Smoke rocketed from each massive barrel and flames and fury surrounded them. Captain Thrug chuckled. “They’re firing non-magical weapons...those shells, are they even plus one?”

“They’ve-” the sensor officer paused, then gasped, her eyes widening. “They’ve been-”

The PWS of a draconic battleship was considerably more powerful than a fighter-craft. They were able to draw on the energies of the plane of positive energy on a scale that made a fighter-craft seem inconsequential. But they still were designed to resist beams and railguns. And so, the portal opened by the ship’s computer was roughly a foot wide, and they were pressed right up against the skin of the ship, to save on the energy costs. Projecting a shield-portal got more expensive the further from the projectors it got, after all, and the reactor was needed to power the fusion torch of the engine, the beam weapons, and the railguns.

It was a sensible allocations of resources.

The incoming shells were eighteen inches of armor piercing, high explosive apocalypse, enchanted by professional war-wizards. They screamed in, struck the too-narrow shield portals whose edges set off contact tips. High explosives exploded with ship-shaking concussions, while glowing chunks of white hot, enchanted shrapnel struck adamantine and ignored the extra hardness provided by the mystical alloy. Decks were torn apart and internal components were ripped to shreds. Crew barely had time to scream.

The battleship reeled under the impact. Captain Thruk – knocked off his throne and blinking at his severed arm – had enough time to say: “I really like that flag!” before the second volley from the other human battleships struck. The draconic battleship crumpled and the reactors overloaded. A flash of brilliant white light flared and, across the human fleet, cheers rang out. The first enemy ship had gone down.

Aboard the Xosh Warsphere, Emperor Xosh growled. Smoke poured from his nostrils, drifting about the ceiling as Admiral Thresh tried to not attract any attention as she stood stock still in the room.

“Launch the B-suits.”

***

Julia whistled cheerfully as she twirled a wand around her fingers.

Across from her sat some cute Asian chick. Well, cute-ish. It was hard to think someone was cute when they were glaring at you with some mixture between suspicion and loathing. She was the leader of the twelve men jammed into the tiny, flying VTOL, which was right now creeping along as carefully as it could manage. The asian chick – Lt. Kisogawa – was dressed in sleek armor that looked several tech levels above what normal humans managed. She had an actual freaking laser rifle in her lap, as did the rest of the twelve man team did.

And best of all?

They were all shrouded in Julia’s spells.

Julia knew she should have been deeply nervous. But it had been hard to feel anything but giddy excitement, when every day brought her new understanding of magic. She closed her eyes and recounted everything she had memorized. Relix had granted her an unofficial rank of class six . Six, out of twenty. But the important thing was that she had gotten her mitts on Summon Sexual Partner. For after this little kerfuffle.

“They’re going to town on each other up there.”

The disembodied voice came from the pilot of the VTOL.

That made Julia nervous. But she carefully took her nervousness about Merton and put it into a tiny box. Merton had Brash watching his back. He’d be fine. She nodded slightly.

“All right, everyone,” Kisogawa said, her voice soft. “Hats on. And remember, no one fires a shot till Akko over here is out of level 1 slots.”

“Did...” Julia blinked. “Was that a Little Witch Academia reference?” She grinned – mentally putting Kisogawa up a few notches in her mind. Kisogawa grunted as she slid on the face concealing helmet. Julia was kinda glad she didn’t have to deal with that bullshit. Armor, any kind of armor, would fuck with her magic. And she’d rather take her chances ducking and using magic armor and shield spells and blur and mirror image and-

The VTOL rocked slightly. A faint crackling , hissing noise filled the deck. The members of D-Com stood. Each of them were the best of the best of the best, and they had trained their whole lives for this moment. Julia stood, bouncing from foot to foot, then readied herself. The door swung inwards – and a billowing cloud of acrid smoke flowed outwards. Through the cloud, Julia could see a pair of very confused kobolds. She thrust her finger at them and hissed. “ Sleep !”

A bolt of energy flew from her finger, struck the kobolds, and sent them sprawling on the ground.

Kisogawa stepped into the narrow corridor, swinging her rifle around, checking each corner. She was followed by more D-Com soldiers. Julia was hustled out in the middle of the group. She rubbed her palms together, then placed her palms onto the deck. She murmured the words of the spell and felt one of the buzzing knots of magical energy that she had locked into her brain with eight hours of meditation uncoil. Her palms flashed and she felt a shiver rush through her brain.

A useful spell, Locate Weakness.

She pointed. “That way.”

And together, she and D-Com started through the corridors of the Bryaugh Warsphere.

***

Merrrrtonnnnnn! Brash’s squeal of alarm jerked Merton away from his current task, which was firing spinfusor disks at a heavy bomber that was rushing towards the USS Antietam. The shimmering blue-white disks of cutting, exploding plasma smashed into the sides of the bomber, whose PWS had been taken down by the Antietam’s anti-missile cannons, which were still pouring high caliber machine gun bullets into the front of the bomber. Since they hadn’t had time to enchant every single bullet, shell and missile used by the entire navy of the entire human race, those bullets weren’t enchanted, and so simply bounced harmlessly off the adamantine armor.

The spinfusor disks did a lot better. The secondary explosion sent the bomber wheeling to the side, trailing smoke and fire.

“What?” Merton asked.

They launched the B-suits!

“Shit,” Merton whispered.

They had been waiting for this moment.

But there was a difference between waiting and actually being ready .

A hundred B-suits shot out of the Xosh warsphere, each one in its own unique configuration, suited to the cruel mind of the black dragon wearing it. They rushed towards the human ships and the dragon ships that were, even now, harrying the Thresh Warsphere. They had swung straight past the Bryaugh sphere to begin firing on the massive red sphere that made up the centerpiece of the second wave of Chromatic attack. Shells slammed through massive planar shields, while missiles tried to jink around and hit the actual armor. Most were scooped up, but even the immense power of the Warsphere’s shield emitters had limits, and some parts of the skin started to glow with the heat of explosion and shine with the fresh-metal gouges of shrapnel ripping across thick armor plating.

Brash kicked himself to full gear, shooting straight at the first of the enemy B-Suits.

Even that was too slow.

Hellwhips slashed out. Beamcasters snarled and split space. Tactical nuclear launches smashed down. Flares of brilliant white heat consumed one ship, then another. The Russian aircraft carrier – the Kuznetsov –  heeled under the impacts. Great, jagged tears were ripped across the flight deck. Bodies tumbled into space. Flames poured through those holes, and Merton’s eyes widened as he saw the whole ship start to crack in half under the strain of the damage. Lance-beams intersected and fuel tanks went off with crumps that shook him, even from this distance.

The Kuznetsov continued to tumble forward. But only as debris and wreckage.

A United States submarine was ripped from nose to propellers by a single B-suit, using nothing more than their claws. Three fighters were shot from the sky by dart-quick silver blades, fired by shrike catapults. The whole offense staggered as if it had struck a brick wall. And that was only the effect of ten or so of the B-Suits. Dozens more were forming up to attack in a unified pattern.

And there was nothing that Merton could do about it.

Brash hissed. Snarled. Bellowed .

It was a bellow that echoed through Merton’s whole body and it made him stagger slightly in space, his knees jerking up reflexively. His wings flapped and he slowed to an almost complete stop. The bellow was wordless at first, but then Brash added – with a snarl full of real pain: STOP HURTING MY FRIENDS!

And to Merton’s shock, every single B-Suit skidded to a stop, their bodies reacting convulsively.

The reaction of the human and Metallic ships was immediate. Missiles rushed off firing platforms and smashed into B-suits by the dozens. Explosions rocked and chunks of organic matter flew through space. Other B-suits were transfixed by intersecting lines of machine gun and cannon fire. Still others were sliced by X-ray lasers fired by the surviving Metallic ships.

“What did you do?” Merton whispered, his eyes wide.

***

“Noooooo!” Admiral Thresh screamed.

General Bryaugh spun around to glare – but not at Thresh, not at Xosh. No. He glared at Gimtesh. Gimtesh whimpered, grabbing onto the base of the spike that transfixed her. She made a great show of being in pain, but Bryaugh didn’t seem to care. He stomped forward, then grabbed her by her throat and heaved her up. Shifting or no shifting, the sudden pressure of the spike against her belly sent new jolts of agony through her body.

“What was that you said?” Bryaugh growled. “That there was no way the control dragon could be an issue. Not when he was so young!? That was how you covered for your brother’s failing, you half-elven bitch !”

Admiral Thresh, meanwhile, had shook off her shock. She grabbed onto the com crystal and screamed into it: “Shut down your coms, B-Suits! Go dark, go silent, and kill  that fucking traitor ! Now! Now!”

The surviving B-suits – all twenty of them – winked off the communication board. But they started to move again. Gimtesh whimpered, her eyes closed tight.

And grew her foot just a bit more.

***

Julia ran out of level one spell slots at just about the worst time. The small group had penetrated deep into the belly of the Warsphere, working their way closer and closer towards the vast guts that powered the immense Hellcannon that made a Warsphere such a destructive force. But here, the very scale of the sphere played against the intentions of its creators. There was no way to staff every corridor, every intersection, even every important room. And so, they had moved and used sleep on every knot of crew and guards that they came to.

Until Julia shook her head. “I’m out. We’re on to second and third level spells. And cantrips.” She shrugged, then wiggled her fingers – using prestidigitation to scrawl: Julia wuz here on the wall.

“All right,” Kisogawa muttered. She looked over at the two soldiers who were using a nifty little fiber optic camera to peek underneath a heavy door.

“It looks like an engineering section,” one of the soldiers muttered. “With a bunch of-”

His head exploded. The sound of the gunshot seemed to come afterwards and Julia swung her head around. She thrust her finger out and snarled out a quick work. The orc guard who had come up around the corner behind them – unexpectedly quiet – let out a garbled scream as he put his palms over the globe of acid that struck his face. But his other friends dove for cover moments before the D-Com troopers started to open fire.

The door opened. An orc, drawn by the gunfire stood there, holding a massive sword in one hand. Kisogawa reacted with astounding speed. She stepped past him, slamming her elbow into his throat with a twist that put the full weight of her body into the blow. The orc clutched at his throat, then let out a low grunt as Kisogawa rammed a combat knife into his heart. As he fell, she shouted: “Light em up!”

Laser fire strobed from her rifle, cutting another orc down as he turned to see what the call had been from. Julia slapped her palms together. “Give me the bombs!”

Kisogawa jerked her chin to the sapper. The sapper under-handed the backpack full of C4 to Julia. Julia caught it and spoke a single word...and vanished. And, painfully aware that a bullet fired by random chance was just as likely to kill her as one fired deliberately, Julia ducked low and sprinted past the door. Orcs were swarming into the engineering bay, bellowing as they realized that their Warsphere had been boarded.

Julia let the spell she had cast earlier guide herself. She slapped some C4 here, some C4 there, not knowing why this point was better than that. But she knew that it still wasn’t enough. She rushed to a door that led to the next adjoining room. Each chamber contained multiple reactors, but each room also had thick doors and thick walls. She had a hunch that each chamber held just enough reactors to contain the blast if they went off.

But what if three chambers went off at once?

The spell in her gut chimed faintly, like it agreed.

The next room was nearly empty. Orcs had rushed from it to fight the pinned down D-com unit. From the sounds of gunfire and sizzling laser blasts, Julia thought that they were having a fun time. She wasn’t sure how much more time her invisibility spell would last. But she still slapped down the next third of C4. She got to the door leading to the next reactor room just as it opened. There stood a massive knot of kobolds and orcs. They had gathered their weapons and were prepping to storm through this engine room to reach the combat in the first.

Julia grinned. It was a cold blooded, wicked grin.

Some people sneered at cantrips like Ghost Sounds.

Some people were idiots .

She whispered – and a booming voice came from the far end of the engine room, from behind the gaggle of orcs and kobolds: “Hose them down, boys!” She used Clancy Brown’s voice, because he was fucking terrifying. It worked. The orcs and kobolds sprinted for cover relative to the voice, looking around for the attack. Julia snapped her fingers and growled out the words for fireball. And this had made her giggle and clap with joy  when she had learned them.

“Yol Toor Shul!”

A sphere of bright white light appeared above her palm. It flew out missile fast and smashed into the ground in the center of the orcish formation. The explosion roared outwards and orcs went sprawling . Their bodies were blown to bright green chunks and Julia winced – feeling her gorge rise as she saw what most Dungeon Masters left out. The horrible stink of burning blood, the dripping of blood splattered against the ceiling. The screams of those who had ‘succeeded’ their reflex saves. She shook herself out of her shock, clenching her jaw as she felt the floor under her feet shudder, then still. The movement of the Warsphere had been so faint that she hadn’t noticed it…

Until it was gone.

They didn’t have time. She rushed forward, slapping the C4 into place, then cast her final spell.

Her feet lifted off the ground and she felt the lightness that came from a Fly spell. She shot forward, emerging into the reactor chamber where the main battle was still going on. She flew up to hide among the rafters, and began to sling down acid spheres – splashing and splattering against orcs in cover, who screamed in alarm.

“Let’s go, Kisogawa!” Julia shouted.

She remained above the orcs, flinging down cantrip after cantrip as the D-Com forces retreated. Once they were free, she flew forward as fast as the spell carried her. She shot past confused orcs. Shot past the D-com forces. That was intentional. She arrived at the place they had come from and found orcs rushing down the corridor. These orcs were burly and heavily armored and carried shotcannons that looked like they had been yanked right out of Warhammer 40,000. She squealed and flung herself into cover as the orcs opened fire on her. Pellets whine and screamed and Julia knew she had to do something  before D-Com showed up and got slaughtered.

In a lull in the firing, she lifted her hands up. “I surrender!” she called out.

The orcs didn’t shred her as she emerged. She saw them looking at her with narrowed eyes. She put on her cutest, most innocent face. She held her hands behind her back. She had one spell left. One little spell. She licked her lips.

The orcish leader stepped forward, growling. “Where your friends?” he sneered, his eyes dipping from Julia’s eyes to her breasts – which were barely contained by the thin band of leather she wore. Cause shirts were for other people, really now.

“Well, that’s a long story, cause, uh, stinking cloud !” Julia shouted throwing her palm forward. A shotcannon roared and she felt pellets tear along her shoulder and side. Fire hot pain screamed across her body and she cried out – but the sound was lost in the choking, gasping, coughing, spluttering sound as the orcs retched and spluttered and staggered within the sphere of billowing greenish smoke. Before Julia could so much as blink, Kisogawa was by her side, puffing and panting from her run. She grabbed onto Julia and dragged her into the ship.

Julia felt her ears roaring.

She was bleeding an...an awful lot. She looked down at the hamburger that was her shoulder. Her vision went to a narrow point and she breathed shallower and shallower. Distantly, she heard Kisogawa scream.

“Go! Go! Go!”

***

Merton grabbed onto the clawed hand of one B-suited dragon and jerked his head to to he side. Because he had locked the arm into one position, the shrike catapult’s blades whined past his ear-frill, shooting into space. But then Merton had to kick the B-suited dragon away and snap up his psi-shield. Plasma caster bolts hammered home, jackknifing him backwards. Merton was not so much thinking as he was merely reacting, letting the programming that filled Brash to guide him. He twisted away from a tail strike that could have shattered bones, swung a hellwhip at a B-suit that shrank to a mouse size to evade the attack, then flew backwards, gasping for air.

There’s too many of them! Brash wailed. And they’re not listening to me!

Merton fired off two tac-nukes from the ankle mounted mine layers. They rocketed down and one of the B-suits, too eager and not attentive enough, flew right into them. The brilliant flash concealed whatever happened to that poor sucker, and when the light faded, the remaining twelve or so B-suits hung back.

They had training.

They had number.

But whatever Brash was made of, he was made a few steps better than the other B-suits. Made sense, if he was supposed to be worn by the future prince regent of the Chromatic Dominion. Merton took some small pleasure in that. He was about to think of a new angle of attack…

When a new star was born.

The light was brilliant and everlasting. It seared through his body with the same kind of killing overabundance of life as that rewritten moment when the Talon-9  had been destroyed. The massive sphere of the Bryaugh Warsphere had peeled apart under that killing light, chunks of adamantine the size of small cities rocketing outwards. Some plowed through dragon battleships, but most of them tumbled off into space.

And then, with a dart of speed too fast to be believed, the Talon-9 shot by overhead.

Merton’s mouth opened in shock. What was Relix doing !?

***

“Shields at ten percent, we can’t take any more P-Rads!” Speccy shouted from the engineering console. Relix clutched onto the arm-rests of her command throne, leaning forward, snarling.

“Transfer all power to the planar shields!” she snapped. “We only have to last-”

The forward thrusters flared as the computer registered them arriving at the right position, the right place, with seconds to spare. Relix was almost pitched off her command throne. And then, with a quiet bink  the wish-spells woven into the Warsphere triggered and reverted it from destruction to full operation. Instantly, corridors and components were back in place. Instantly, slain crew were back at their positions, blinking and looking around with wide eyes. Instantly, the Hellcannon was once more aimed at a defenseless Earth.

Everything was as it had been, completely undoing everything the human D-com had done in the belly of the warsphere.

Save for the Talon-9 , w hich floated within the massive, zero-gravity gantry bay that held the massive Hellcannon and the power feeds that fed into the weapon. There was a narrow trench that aimed towards the Earth. Relix grinned and sagged slightly back in her seat. Gunner chuckled.

“Good thinking, Princess,” he said, quietly. Then. “Fire at will.”

The Talon-9 ’s forward railguns blazed with blue-white light. The wing-mounted plasma torpedoes opened up and darts of raw energy flew from them and into the side of the immense, ornately carved chunk of brass and orichalicum that made up the Hellcannon’s external casings. Metal and magical material peeled apart as needle thin darts of tungsten accelerated to near light speed tore through it. Spheres of blue white plasma ripped into the power supplies and secondary explosions started to rippled through it.

“Engines!” Relix snarled.

The Talon-9  bucked and shot forward, zooming out of the narrow firing trench and into open space as...for the second time...the Warsphere crumpled and exploded. It was far less dramatic this time, as the internal explosions didn’t set off the reactors. But the wave of hellish energy tearing through the sphere was more than enough to send chunks of armor plate spinning away and to cause the entire, moon-sized ship to drifting.

***

General Omadon Bryaugh didn’t look away from the screen.

Quietly, he said: “I can see why you wanted her dead, Emperor Xosh.”

The Thresh Warsphere chose that moment to crumple. There had been no fancy tricks. No subtle tactics. Merely a pounding match between two heavyweight boxers. On one side, the Warsphere. On the other side, the entire armada of humanity. Cruisers fired missiles that shot into glowing armor plate, while cannon shells from battleships taken from museums and scrap-yards exploded against planar shields that struggled to stop the wave of torpedoes. Nuclear flashes burst around the sphere, fired from the wings of heavy bombers and launched from the spines of immense, deadly submarines. The sheer weight of fire caused adamantine to bubble, then boil, then slough away in great sheets, revealing the soft components within.

Into those components came the cannons, the machine guns, the nukes.

But even as the Thresh Warsphere took a pounding...it dished it out.

There were more weapons than the Hellcannon. Polar ray turrets the size of small buildings struck torpedo ships and froze their entire crews solid. Railguns perforated submarines, tearing apart their internal components and setting off their unfired munitions. Corpses of ships and men alike cluttered space as the fighter-brawl that had been going since the battle started continued . Now, more fighters were being take out by debris and floating corpses than enemy weaponry.

The Thresh Warsphere exploded in a rippling wave of fire.

But, likewise, the flagship of the entire united human navy was burning as well.

The USS John F. Kennedy smoldered from dozens of holes and hundreds of impact sites. Dimples pock-marked the bottom, and smoke poured from a great chunk taken from the side by a glancing nuclear missile strike. Its conning tower was missing half the roof, revealing a jagged mangled mess where the internal components had been. But despite all that, its propellers still turned. Its anti-missile machine guns still roared.

And it’s commander could still give an order. Even if they were just a junior lieutenant, lucky enough to not take a scratch where the rest of the bridge officers had been torn to minced meat by a railgun slug.

“Full speed ahead,” she snarled, glaring at the crackling, sparking screen that showed where the exploding Warsphere was located.

The USS John F. Kennedy roared forward through space. Fighter planes from the Chromatic Dominion flew forward, firing blasts of acid into it, trying to slow it down. An enemy battleship gallantly burned, putting its bulk between itself and the Kennedy . But the captain had clearly still imagined that a mage-shp couldn’t possibly match a true star-ship. A Nimitz aircraft carrier was nearly a kilometer long and carried the momentum of its entire voyage.

It struck the draconic battleship.

Shoved it into the maelstrom of the exploding Warsphere.

And the universe saw what happened when a wish – to return the Warsphere to life in the exact place it had been destroyed – ran up against the stubborn, gritted will of the human race.

Wishes blink.

And the Warsphere reformed with a massive chunk of its internal components meshed with a kilometer of aircraft carrier and half a kilometer of friendly battleship. Atoms struggled to stay in the same location as other atoms for a single moment measurable only on the Planck scale. Nucleoli split with the impact of foreign atoms and, despite being mostly inert, the mass of both ships detonated. If they had been pure uranium, there would likely have been nothing left of the solar system. As it was, the second Warsphere’s true death was easily the most energetic thing to happen in the solar system since the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs.

Thankfully, it was a comfortable distance outside of the Earth’s magnetosphere.

But it was still one hell of a lightshow.

***

Sometimes, Merton wished Brash was less helpful.

Two Warspheres were down. But Brash’s capacity as a radar scanner showed that the human and metallic fleets were decimated. Worse, actually. If they had only lost one ship for every ten, Merton would have been happy. More wreckage seemed to be floating out there than functioning ships. Many of the fighters were down. A few kobold fighters were still dog-fighting, and the enemy B-suits had drawn back, recalled to their last remaining Warsphere. They guarded it and intercepted incoming fire with hellwhips.

The Xosh Warsphere was driving towards the firing position at top speed, careless of any debris that smashed into its hull. It wasn’t even using portal shields to block anything!

Merton reached up, tapping his ear. Brash knew this was how Merton said he wanted his communicator online and cheerfully made a ‘bleep’ noise to indicate he was broadcasting. “D-Com, you got any ideas?”

“We’re out of ammo, our of C-4...” Lt. Kisogawa said, sounding tired. “And our wizard is down.”

Merton’s heart froze. “What!?”

“Cool your jets – your mistress just went into shock. It was barely a flesh wound...” Kisogawa muttered. Merton closed his eyes and forced his heart to slow down. Then he nodded.

“Every fighter,” he said – trusting Brash to translate his language to the myriad of human tongues. “Everyone who still has cannon and missiles, form up on my tail. We’re going to Death Star this bitch.”

He shot forward without hesitation. Brash spread his wings and Merton narrowed his eyes as he flew towards the Xosh Warsphere. He had no idea how they’d stop the Warsphere a second time. But he figured...one step at a time. He flew forward and then risked a glance backwards. He saw fighters peeling off and zooming up to flank him. There were Russian and Indian MIGs, American F-14s, British fighters, Spanish ones. Each force had been winnowed down, but the number of flags he saw behind him made his heart swell.

“Let’s do this!” Merton shouted.

The remaining B-Suits moved up, their hellwhips crackling. Brash roared in fury and then grew four extra arms. Merton strained his talent and put a psi-sword into each one. He slashed a hellwhip out of the air, grabbed onto a second and screamed as it wrapped around his wrist and began to burn. Brash’s hands grabbed others from the air as he grew yet more arms. Pain roared through his body, but Merton fought it down as Brash yanked. Hard. The hellwhips buzzed, drew taut, and the B-suits flew towards him. Two were cut down by cannon fire from Russian planes. One was blown in half by a missile fired by who knows what.

At the last second, Merton withdrew arms and legs and wings and aimed those psi-swords out, becoming nothing more than a very spiky cannonball. He mashed into tumbling, stunned B-suits and grunted as the blades sawed through limbs, necks, chests. Then he and the surviving jets were through and Brash whooped. “Don’t loooooose your waaaaay!” he sang as they arrowed into the Hellcannon’s firing trench.

Several jets clipped the walls. Even a tiny bump sent them tumbling into the vast expanse of armored hull plating. The fierce explosions made Merton wince. Then he and Brash were through, flying out into the massive, zero-gravity gantry bay that contained the planet killing weapon. It was starting to glow with gathering energies.

“Light. Them. Up!” Merton shouted as Brash extended his everything . His shrike catapults, his spinfusors, his fucking water cannon. Everything fired into the side of the massive barrel of bronze and glowing golden metal. Explosions rippled across it as the jet fighters areobraked to slow themselves down and started to pour weaponry into it as well. Merton felt his heart pang as several fighters fired for literally less than a second before their cannons went dry.

Two missiles joined his fire.

But it was enough.

Secondary explosions started to ripple along the hellcannon and Brash screamed in raw effort. Dozens of arms shot out from his back and sides. They stretched narrow and Merton felt the warmth of Brash’s surrounding skin grow thin and stretchy. He threw everything into those arms. Each one punched through cockpit and metal. Grabbed onto a single squishy human. Then yanked them forward. Planes tumbled and flew out of control and Brash’s feet kicked on a thrust plume as he shot out, holding every single human being next to him in a tight hug.

They arrowed out of the Warsphere. Merton could feel Brash tiring.

“Reliiiiiix!” He screamed.

Just as he felt Brash’s concentration start to snap, the Talon-9 swept down. The cargo hold was opened and Brash slowed down just enough that they smashed into the deck like a football tackle rather than cannonball. Brash popped off Merton with a loud slurp . The human pilots groaned as they sprawled onto the deck, even as the cargo hold slammed shut – closing on the sight of the Warsphere exploding.

Merton knew there was no time to wait. He pushed himself to weak, rubbery legs, then clung to Brash, holding the small, cat-sized dragon to his chest. Brash mumbled. “No mas...no mas...”

“It’s okay, Brash. You did good...” Merton whispered as he stumbled towards the bridge.

He arrived in time to see the Warsphere returning with a faint bing . Relix sprang up and grabbed onto the both of them, hugging Brash and Merton both to her chest. But before Merton could ask anything, Speccy stepped over with a pair of hypo-sprays. She pressed them to Brash’s body and to Merton’s neck. Merton felt a rush of energy fill him and Brash gasped as he went from gray-scaled and completely limp to dark black and quivering with excitement. He hopped onto Merton’s shoulder.

“I’m healed!” he exclaimed. Then he cried out. “No!”

The returned Warsphere was firing its secondary guns. The scraps of the human and metallic fleet were crumpling. Fleeing. Desperately turning to try and get away from the polar ray cannons and railguns.

“We are completely out of everything but the railguns,” Gunner growled.

“Come on, Brash.” Merton said, voice grim. Brash flowed around him and before Relix could do more than squeak, Merton strode to the airlock. He flung himself out without bothering to wait for the outer door to open – the inner door slammed shut and then he and Brash flew out.

“What do we got, Brash?” Merton asked.

Well, I’m strong as an ox and tough as diamond! Brash paused. But we’re out of ammo for literally every single gun we have.

Merton thought. Desperately.

He was a Dungeon Master and a Gamer Master. It had not seemed like much, when this crazy adventure started...but it meant he had seen every single insane trick that a party could pull. And he had used a lot of them. Quick talking, quick thinking, improvisation. All of it had saved the day time and time again. But no matter how hard he pushed, no matter how hard he thought, nothing came to mind for this moment . He could see nothing that could stop the glowing mass of hellish energy that started to fill the Warsphere’s main guns. He closed his eyes. He knew what he had to do. Brash gasped quietly – then cried out.

“Wait! I’m getting a planar message!”

Merton blinked as a voice filled his ears. A familiar voice.

“Open a portal on my coordinates! Now! Now! Now! Nowwwwww!”

The voice.

Was Dart .

The elven wizard that they had rescued from a dimensional maze. Who had claimed to be reformed – then snuck away at the first chance. Merton blinked, then shouted: “Do it!”

The Talon-9 created a portal using their PWS. Dart burst from the human sized hole – landing on the prow of the ship. Her magnetic boots locked home – she was dressed in a sleek space suit, with a slender firearm strapped to her back. She screamed, as loudly as she could: “Biiiiiiiigerrrrrr!”

Merton grabbed onto the edge of the portal. He knew so little about magic, but he knew that sometimes, brute force could do remarkable things. Brash beat his wings and Merton strained his arm and his talent and the portal that the Talon-9 had opened grew bigger and bigger and bigger, the Talon-9 ’s whole frame shuddering as it added power as well. It became the size of a house. Then the size of a city. And to Merton’s shock, Dart kicked off the prow of the ship. She floated out and shouted through the portal, her hands cupped.

“Oi! I’m still alive, you wanna-be-Gigerish motherfuckers!”

Brash reacted before Merton could think – growing out an arm to grab onto Dart and yank her back.

With the speed of a bullet train and the weight of a furious god, something shot out of the portal. But it wasn’t merely one thing. It was one thing that went on and on and on , a blurring spread of motion and lines and textures. Merton’s eyes bugged and he flew backwards, Brash gaping just as much as he was as Dart cackled like a mad woman. His arms were closed around her belly, keeping her close, and she let herself float and kick her legs and clap her hands.

Bong !

The unmusical sound came from the impact.

The impact...of a hand .

A hand that was nearly...incomprehensible in terms of its sheer size . It was a hand that should not be, a hand made of hissing biomechanical components, of smooth lines of ridged flesh, of hardened carapace. It was a hand that belonged in a nightmarish dreamscape, a hand that should have been on the fist of an Old One. It was a hand that made the Warsphere look like a child’s toy. And it had impacted, closed into a fist, at the speed of a screaming bullet, into the center of the Warsphere’s mass. Armor plate had crumpled, and secondary explosions were ripping through it as the surviving members of the chromatic fleet reeled in shock.

“What. The. Fuck?” Merton whispered.

Dart laughed, then sighed. “I figured you’d need help...” She licked her lips. “I found zero takers on the City of O, no dice in the Sunder, I got laughed out of Purgatory, and finally...I figured...if I couldn’t get friends , I could use my one real talent.”

“Which is?” Brash whispered.

“Pissing people off,” Dart said, craning her head back.

The fist withdraw.

The portal snapped shut.

The Warsphere exploded with a flare of pale white light, consuming Emperor Xosh and his dreams of galactic domination.

“Who did you fucking honk off?” Brash whispered.

“Oh, uh, the Night City.” Dart shrugged. “Baphomet is really tetchy when you-

Bink .

Like an unfair joke. Like a player with a broken character. Like a GM who wanted the party to die. Like all of that, the Warsphere returned. Utterly unharmed. Undamaged. Brash, Dart, Merton – and every single last survivor of the human fleet and metallic fleets – gaped at the sphere as it hung there in space, a shining, blue-black tombstone, announcing the end of everything. As it floated there, Merton heard the crackle of a radio...and a voice as cruel and as cold as the space between stars.

“I ensured that my ship had two layers of ablative wish shielding,” Emperor Xosh of the Chromatic Dominion snarled. “You may fire when ready.”

***

The wish spell had returned the warsphere to life with the amount of charge it had gathered when it had been destroyed. It was at 99%. Admiral Thresh stepped over at the order of her Emperor. She grabbed onto the firing lever that would unleash complete and utter hell upon the Earth. It would not merely destroy it. It would shunt the Earth into the Abyss itself. The rippling cascade of energies would cause each human being’s nightmare to come to hideous life, and the weak willed among them would be turned into demons. A bloody orgy of violence, rape, and worse would follow as nine billion souls were tortured for eternity.

It was the single greatest deterrent to war in the former Five Talon Empire – a weapon so horrifying that the very thought of it being unleashed upon you would stop a war before it started.

Gimtesh did not give a flying fuck about humanity.

But…

She was a red dragon.

And if heroism wasn’t enough...a desire to fuck that smug prick Xosh over was more than enough.

Her foot was just long enough for her to surge her leg up and slam her ankle down on the emergency power vent switch on the engineering console. The kobold sitting there – so utterly distracted by the pageantry of the oncoming death of a world that he hadn’t even noticed the movement until it was too late – squalled. “What!?”

Admiral Thresh flung the switch and a low, droning woom woom woom woom sound filled the bridge as the percentile number dripped from 99% to 83% to 72%. Xosh stood in complete shock – then spun around. He roared in pure fury as Gimtesh smirked and lifted up a single middle finger. The blast of raw lightning that slammed into her body and ripped her into component atoms was utterly painless.

Which had been part of the point.

***

The surviving human ships steamed towards the Warsphere – taking advantage of the baffling fluctuation in power. But the surviving chromatic ships met them. Beams of killing cold struck, even as shells soared out and smashed into adamantine hulls.

“They won’t make it in time,” Brash whispered.

“What?” Merton asked.

Brash was silent for a moment.

Then.

“Thanks. Dad. For everything.” There was a sudden, wrenching dislocation. A feeling like being squeezed and shoved. Then suddenly Merton was blind. Not literally, but the thousands of tiny augmentations that had been in Brash’s eyes were gone. He could no longer see the outlines of ships, the tracery of fire was missing. He saw only the faint winks of light that indicated movement, explosions. He looked around himself and saw he floated in a bubble of thin membrane – slightly transparent and glistening. A thin strand unwove into space.

“W-What!?” Merton whispered. Then he saw the rocket engine kick on. The thin strand continued to unweave...and following it, he could see the darting form of Brash.

Flying towards the battle.

A tiny strand connected Brash to Merton – a strand that let Brash maintain the life support bubble. But Brash himself was shooting forward. Then, slowly, Merton started to hear a snare drum. A bass line. A piano. The sound of clapping. Fingers snapping. His eyes widened.

He recognized that song.

***

Brash loved humans. He loved their cute faces, their cute noses, their stubbornness. He loved their butts. But he also loved, more than a whole lot of things, their music. He had eaten Merton’s iPod a while ago, and listened to every song ten million times. And this one was his favorite. He listened to it as his rockets flared and burned, because when he listened to the song, he could be brave. His eyes narrowed.

And Freddie Mercury began to sing. The lyrics soothed the tiny itty bitty fear at the back of Brash’s brain - especially when David Bowie joined.

Under Pressure .

Fighters zoomed towards him – beams and acid darts flying out. Brash wove to the side. He flicked his tail and knocked one – with a black scaled kobold inside – spinning out of the way. Then he saw a battleship blocking his way. He flew forward as polar beams scythed out, trying to strike him out. He shrank to cat-sized, corkscrewing around.

Brash arrowed forward at max speed. He tucked his head to the side and smashed into a weakened part of the hull and exploded through. There was a shudder and then another bang as he emerged out of the other side. Blood dripped along his scales as he beat his wings harder and harder. He stopped trying to dodge as he looked upwards, at the Warsphere. The hellcannon was growing brighter and brighter. Point defense rays reached out as he flew up and up and up.

The chorus began - the two voices reaching higher and higher, echoing as they sang off love and loss. As the last why reached to angelic, echoing levels, Brash felt cold stab into him from a dozen sides. He shuddered and beat his wings harder and harder.

He felt so cold. But he beat harder as he flew up into the red eye of the cannon. Energies throbbed there as the song reached higher and higher, like a dragon spreading its wings. Brash spread his wings wide - his ears filled with two words.

Give love .

On the bridge, Xosh screeched. He stamped his foot – fury driving him past all reason.

“Fire! Fire! Fire! Fucking fire !”

This is our last dance

Brash smiled. And grew big.

And best of all.

He shone.

Like gold.

***

Merton’s scream came at the same time as the beam struck the glowing, shining figure. It struck, then rebounded. Reflected. Shot back up into the Hellcannon, like it had struck a mirror. The hellcannon and the Warsphere shuddered with the impact. Armor plate rippled. But it did not explode. Instead, spines and spikes and snarling, crackling fissures in reality appeared. The Warsphere slewed to the side as it was sucked inwards, crumpling like a piece of tissue paper. But before the hellcannon could suck itself to the Abyss, the internal components failed. Instead of a complete transfer, the Warsphere merely floated there.

Harmless to Earth.

But it wasn’t dead, though everyone aboard likely now wished they were.

Merton hung his head, tears streaming from his face.

Floating.

With the only sound being the soft click click click of a single finger snapping.

Chapter Eleven: Ding!

Merton sobbed. Great. Whacking. Heart sucking, lung destroying sobs. He curled inwards on himself, his arms wrapped around his shins. He sobbed – and then choked out a loud, blubbery: “What the absolute livery fuck?”

The space surrounding the transparent cocoon of life sustaining dragon-shifted cells that sheathed his naked, goo-slick body was filled with wreckage and with corpses. Humans, goblins, kobolds, even a few dragons and orcs. All of them tumbled together as they spilled out of wrecked and still burning starships and sea-going ships that had been shoved to the stars with nothing more than a prayer and a mage-helm. But the thing that he heard, the thing that made him jerk his head up and look around was…

Was…

“Arf arf!”

The sound was unmistakable. Anyone who had been alive for the past few decades had heard it at least once . It was used in joke videos and on Rick and Morty and a few movies trailers and who knows how many TV shows. It was the first sounds that came on the track for X Gonna Give it To Ya by DMX, famed star of acclaimed horror film Lockjaw: Rise of the Kulev Serpant  who also had a side career of rapping sometimes.

Then the sound cut off. In its place came the normally welcome sound of Julia’s voice. “M-Merton?” she sounded as if she was literally talking through a softball sized chunk of pain jammed down her throat. “Merton? Come in?”

Merton slapped his palms against the skin of his cocoon. “Julia?”

“Oh god, I got him!” Julia’s voice sounded like it had snapped. “Relix, he’s alive! Merton, we detected what...what Brash did...” She gasped. It was a shuddering sound, like her whole body was shaking. “Merton, are you okay?”

“I...” Merton paused. “I need a ship. I need it right now.”

“What?” Relix asked. There was a faint squeak and a clatter and Merton was treated to the slightly amusing mental image of his wife shoving his girlfriend out of the way to get at the magical microphone they were using to talk to him. “You need to get back here right now! Wait just five minutes, our engines are all screwy.”

“Why?” Merton asked.

“W-When Brash died, he reflected the planar energy from the hellcannon back into the Warsphere. Now, it’s been partially sucked into the Abyss, and everyone’s portal tech is offline.” She sighed.

“Admiral Xu is dead, and the surviving human commanders are working to recover people from the most hurt ships, but there are still a few Dominion ships out there shooting at anything that moves. And a few who are surrendering until our ships get nearby then opening fire with what guns that still work...” Julia said. “It’s a freaking mess .”

Merton rubbed his face against his palms. He tried to comprehend the amount of lives lost...and found he couldn’t. All he could think of was that one thing he had heard. Arf arf. Arf arf? Why the flying fuck had he heard, if only for a few seconds, the sounds of DMX’s rapping? As he worried at at that thought, Relix swore. “Scrying has an Asp fighter coming towards your position. Screw it, Speccy, get the emergency teleporter online!”

Merton’s brow furrowed. He looked out through space and could see the slender, triangular dart of the Asp fighter. It was moving forward slowly. Carefully. Like the pilot had no idea what it was what he was looking at and wanted to be sure. But past the Asp, he could see the Warsphere. Huge, even at this distance, he could see that it was actually slowly collapsing . Huge chunks of it were crushing downwards, as if the middle were being hollowed out by a vacuum cleaner. He could imagine the portals to the Abyss within that thing, ripping and tearing adamantine plate and corridor material apart. They had...maybe...two hours before the entire ‘sphere was gone.

Good thing too. He hated to imagine what all the standard debris was going to do to Earth if any of it drifted too close.

Drifted…

Drifted…

He had drifted after seeing Brash go on his suicide run.

And what had he heard?

“Okay, hold perfectly still...” Relix was saying.

“Don’t!” Merton shouted.

“What?” Relix and Julia yelped at the same time.

“Denouement!” Merton exclaimed as the Asp fighter got closer. Closer. Closer. The narrow nose of its fuselage looked as if it was about to poke the skin of the bubble. Merton didn’t care. He had a sudden fire of hope burning in his chest. It hurt nearly as bad as the pain, but it gave him nothing but energy. He grabbed onto the skin of the bubble and dragged himself to the very edge, so he could look out at the kobold pilot. The black scaled kobold was looking at him through a thick faceplate on his muzzle-equipped helmet.

“Gesundheit?” Relix asked.

“We’re not in a story, Merton!” Julia said. “The ending isn’t over till your butt is on Earth!”

Merton glared at the kobold. He made this as clear as he could. He pointed at the Kobold. Then he pointed at the Warsphere. Then he looked at the kobold and slowly drew his finger across his throat. The kobold sat in the seat of his fighter. He sat there. Sat there more. Merton didn’t break eye-contact. He tried to exude menace. As if he was some great and powerful wizard. A controller of dragons. An emperor among emperors. The kobold slowly looked back over his shoulder, then back at Merton.

Merton pointed towards the warsphere more forcefully.

And sitting in the cockpit of his Asp fighter, the black scaled kobold considered his options...and then seemed to say: Eh, fuck it .

The nose of his ship darted underneath the cocoon and then he accelerated forward. Merton sat back in the cocoon as Relix shouted. “What the absolute hell are you doing, husband!?”

“I’m saving our son, Relix!” Merton said, laughing. “I was listening to his fucking playlist! Brash loves DMX!”

“What?!” Julia squeaked.

“Anything you heard might have been the last flutters of biomotonic energies!” Relix said, her voice choked. “Merton, Merton! Don’t! You’re not even a level 1 wizard, that’s a Warsphere full of-” Her voice faded into static as the Warsphere came closer and closer and closer. It swelled before Merton and he clenched his shoulders. The retro thrusters on the Asp fired and the kobold made an abortive grabbing gesture with both hands as he was reminded of the simple physics of Sir Issac Newton.

The bubble of life supporting cells flew off the front of his fighter, like a hood ornament that had been unscrewed, or a basketball from the snout of Air Bud.

As the bubble continued forward, going roughly 50 KPS, Svenk Blackscale sat in his seat, blinked a few times, then said: “Not Svenk’s fault!”

***

Merton had a few seconds before impact to bring up his arm. When the weakened adamantine armor hull buckled under the impact of his psi-shield, a shock radiated through his whole body and he skidded along deck for what felt like half a football field before coming to a stop. He groaned, then coughed, hacked, coughed again, and forced himself to his feet. He was standing in a long, narrow corridor full of wreckage and bodies. The bodies weren’t dead...rather, they were all alive and twisted and wriggling. Like maggots. Their pulsating white skin made Merton want to heave. Knowing they had been goblins or orcs or something until a few minutes before made him feel even sicker.

Looking back over his shoulder, he saw that he had hit the armor plating of the Warsphere, smashed through, hit the corridor, then skidded to a stop. No air rushed out through the hole in the ceiling. But he kind of wished it would . The air that hung in the corridor smelled of the Abyss.

Merton had never imagined what hell would smell like.

Okay, that was a lie. He was a Dungeons and Dragons DM. At least a quarter of his life had been spent picturing what hell was like. But finding out he had been so catastrophically wrong was not exactly the happiest moment in his life.

The air stunk of evil. Not like sulfur or rotting bodies or gunpowder or any of the other scents that had been linked to evil in Merton’s brain by the complex interplay of emotions and evolution and memory. No. It was a smell that went past the logical and hit the emotional parts of his brain with a hammer, designed out of pure instinct, and that hammer rang out: Run! Run! Run! Run you idiot! every time he breathed in. But Merton found something out about himself right then and there.

Evil didn’t smell so bad when you were coming in after Brash.

He looked back at the place he had entered by. There, he could see smears of the cocoon that had carried him here, and a tiny glinting filament of wire dangled from the bit of cocoon that had caught on the jagged edges of the hole. He hurried over, grabbed the wire, then hefted it up. It lay down to the ground, where it was lost in the muck and twisted metal that covered the floor plating. The worst thing was that the corrupted floor didn’t even feel hard anymore. His bare feet squelched and sqolorped (it was a word, look it up) in the viscous wrongness that the Warsphere had been consumed by.

But Merton didn’t care. He hefted up the wire, and saw more of it coming off the ground, drawing taut.

A string, leading him into the darkness.

“Let me see, I hold up the yarn and a giant kitty comes out to show me the way out of the labyrinth, huh?” Merton whispered to himself. He followed the wire – his free hand clenching as he formed his psi-sword. He might not have time to learn many spells. But he had time to practice that . He grinned as he twirled his sword. A few days of sword training with Gunny was surely enough to stand up to devils from the depth of the Abyss. Right?

The corridor remained dark, illuminated only by the pale green glow that shone from his sword. He walked past burnt out consoles and doors that had become serrated with teeth along their inner edges. Merton decided to not go into any of those. Instead, he followed the strand, his ears straining to hear anything beyond the faint groan and grinding of the sphere as it shuddered under the stresses of the Abyss.

Rounding a corner brought him face to face with the first crew-member who had either been incredibly lucky or incredibly unlucky. Unlike the many who had been turned into Abyssal maggots, this one had been turned into a Krggn. Imagine a vulture with slitted eyes, arms, claws the length of a raptor from Jurassic Park and just enough intelligence to enjoy tearing you apart, and you got a good picture of a Krggn. This one was casually chewing down on an orc’s corpse, tearing and ripping bits of internal organ from them.

Merton stood stock still.

And it was at this moment that his brain decided to remind him that he was, in fact, buck naked.

Merton leaped forward, forcing himself to move with a roar of pure rage. The kind of rage that came when you took fear, then turned that fear into righteous anger. And here, he learned why in Hackmaster , every segment of combat during a surprise round counted as a full round for melee attacks. The Krggn had barely enough time to swing its beaky heady around and squawk the Abyssal version of OH JESUS FUCK before Merton brought his psi-sword down into the forearm it lifted up to defend itself.

If psi-swords proved to be less effective than +1 weapons, Merton would have had to enjoy the five or so seconds of stupefied shock as his sword bounced off that arm before the Krggn disemboweled him.

Instead, he had a few stupefied seconds of shock as he gaped at the huge, gory mess that was now the end of the Krggn’s right arm. Its claw and most of its forearm was on the ground, smoking, while thick purple blood fountained out of the arm, indicating the creature’s poor blood pressure. The blood coated Merton’s face and chest like he was Bruce Campbell on the set of any Sam Raimi movie, and the only reason he didn’t drop his psi-sword was because he was pretty sure he couldn’t actually let go of the thing. Rather than doing that, he just flailed, swinging wildly as the Krggn squalled and squalled and more and more blood went flying. When the squalling stopped and Merton realized he was swinging down into deck plating, he stopped, shook his head, wiped some blood away from his eyes and gagged as he saw that there was nothing left of the hideous thing save for a single wing, a bit of beak, and a huge undifferentiated mess of blenderized organ.

“Ugh!” Merton coughed.

A loud hissing and screeching noise came from further down the corridor. “Uh, uh...” Merton looked left, then right, then back. One of the toothed doors he had walked by seemed to be watching him. Merton gulped, then said. “Don’t eat me, and you can get at least  two Krggns! Promise!”

The door paused...then opened. Merton frowned, then walked forward. He placed his psi-sword so the blade would plunge between two of the biggest teeth on the door, then leaped forward. The door tensed, but did not actually slam shut. Instead, he now stood in a room that reeked of evil and whose walls had become studded with egg sacks and whose floor was amazingly sticky. Merton stood in the room as the two new Krggns came around the corner.

“Hey, birdbrains!” Merton shouted. “What killed zee dinosaurs? Dee ice age!”

The Krggn screeched in uncomprehending fury.

The quips weren’t really for them. They were more for him – to shut up the voice screaming at the back of his head: Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck you are going to DIE .

The Krggn charged forward. These ones actually held weapons. One of them had a laser pistol, though he held it more like a club than a firearm. The other one was carrying a short stabbing spear with a monomolecular edge and crackling, electro-static base. They charged up, into the door frame. Merton closed his eyes at the hideous CRASH- sqworlt noise that came next. When he opened his eyes, the door was opening with a satiated belching noise. Blue and purple blood dripped from the frame, and a single Krggn limb had made it into the room: The arm holding the laser pistol.

“I hate this place,” Merton whispered. He banished his psi-sword, then quickly tied the filament he was still clutching in his right hand around his wrist. Once it was tied fast, he summoned his sword, picked up the pistol, then rolled his shoulders. “Okay. Time to Rogue Trader this bitch.”

The next kilometer or so of corridor passed in an unending blur of continual tension. Every corridor, every turn, every doorway brought some kind of new hell for him to wince at. There were burbling corridors whose entire floors had been consumed by boiling blood, which required him to hand over hand along bone-like encrustations along the ceiling, thanking God and his wife for the biological augmentations he had been given. Yes, it had mostly been the dick, but she had also given him the body of an Olympic gymnast, presumably because Relix loved rubbing up against six pack abs. Then there had been the large chamber that had surely once been a mess hall that was now nothing but a single spinal column made up of every single soul who had been in the room, fused into a single snake that coiled around and around and around the table that still dominated the room – slipping between struts. Despite the fact that it was nothing but bone, it breathed and burbled in its sleep. Then there were the corridors with supernatural blackness that was so deep that even his psi-sword didn’t make any light. In those, he had to simply follow the strand and try not to breathe – painfully aware that he was walking past sleeping forms that seemed to be as large as houses, and whose exhalations filled the air with the sweet smell of grape and rotting flesh.

Finally, though, he came to a doorway that wasn’t completely corrupted. The symbols of the Chromatic Dominion were still carved on it, and there was no sign of teeth.

This immediately made Merton suspicious.

Then he heard the unmistakable sizzle pop pop pop of a fully automatic pulse laser rifle and the squealing screech of some demon or another. He looked around for a control, spotted it, saw it was locked, shrugged, and fired his pistol into it. The beam was invisible, but the impact it had on the panel was obvious and quite dramatic. Glass melted, then exploded, smoke flew out, and the door groaned open with a squeal of metal. Inside, he saw that corruption had only touched the very edge of the room, like a tacky Halloween decoration.

In the center of the room sat a statue of five headed dragon. Each dragon head glittered and glowed – each one a different breathtaking color. There was a ruby red head alongside an obsidian black one, a marble white one, an emerald green one and a sapphire blue one. Each one looked down, as if everyone in the chamber had come to be judged by them in particular. There were several orderly pews, but those had been mounted against the two doors that entered from the sides. This, plus the cross shape of the room, and the robed orcess in the room all made Merton think one thing.

Temple .

Two kobold guards in full power armor, with heavy weapons mounted on arm-braced gimbals, were firing into a hoard of spined demons that struggled to get past the barricades that had been thrown up. The Orcess, a curvaceous green beauty with an ankle length black braid that wound from her shoulders to the ground and was the only bit of hair on an otherwise bald head, held up a staff and bellowed out in galactic common: “You shall not pass!”

A black chain made of solidified fire appeared between the power armored kobolds and the devils. It started to whirl about like a fucking cat-o-nine tails, smacking demons, tripping others, drawing itself between gonads to slap demonic balls. The demons squalled and gave the kobolds just enough time to lift their forearms and fire what looked like two dozen micro-frag grenades into the masses from their armor mounted RPGs.

Merton, though, was in the right position to see the chain wrapped, blue skinned demon step in through the door behind the group. The demoness had a single chain twirling around her right arm that looked for all the world like a weapon Kratos would use. It rasped along the ground with a faint scree scree scree that was entirely lost in the roars of explosions. The chain continued along her athletic arm, around her breasts, her hips, even her face. Every bit of exposed flesh had more chain-links worked into the skin, making her look like a cenobite crossed with a hell’s angel. Merton sprinted forward, shouting.

“Look out!”

His pistol sizzled and he burned two blackened holes in the demoness, causing her to jerk backwards before she could bring her blade down into the orcess’ back. Merton lunged with his psi-sword, but the demoness swept her blade up in a curving arc. The blade slashed along his thigh – drawing a shallow line of burning pain as he twisted aside, desperate to turn the blow into a glancing one. He hissed as blood started to flow along his skin. The demoness twirled her blade and then threw it at him like Jackie Chan. Merton dove to the side, skidding behind a pew. That gave him only a few seconds of respite, because a blunt chain smashed into the pew’s center, wrapping around it, crushing it in half, and yanking it aside.

As splinters filled the air, Merton fired four more shots, point blank, into the demon’s chest. She had shifted her posture so that the blasts struck her chain, which turned cherry red but did not quite melt. She hissed with laughter, then swung her blade in curving arcs. It slashed along the ground, sending up sparks, each blade sweep getting closer and closer to Merton’s bare feet. He pushed himself frantically away, butt squeaking along the metal deck plating as the demoness walked up closer and closer, her eyes sparkling with sick amusement.

“Any last words, mortal?” the demoness purred as she swung her chain up – wrapping it around her shoulders and bringing the hilt of her blade slapping into her palm as she lifted a blue foot up and planted it on Merton’s chest, pinning him to the wall with shocking force.

“Yes.”

The demoness turned at the voice behind her.

The orcess swung her staff like a cross between a doped up Babe Ruth genetically fused with John Cena. The impact literally caused the demoness’ head to explode in a spray of black blood, which was followed up by a roar of black flames, which consumed her entire body save for the elongated chain, which dropped to the ground at Merton’s feet.

“Don’t play with your food, you chaotic fuckface,” the orcess snarled.

In the sudden silence that fell after that, Merton slowly picked himself up, wincing at the pain that rushed through his thigh. The ground shuddered and the lights in the ceiling flickered. He looked up, then down at the orcess. She was beautiful – and none of those qualifying ‘for an orc’ bullshit thrown in there. She was beautiful because she was an orcess. Her cute little tusks, her broad nose, her powerful jaw, all of it was sculpted from flesh as emerald perfect as the massive head of the statue looming above her. Her breasts were easily the largest that Merton had ever seen on someone other than Relix, and her body was sculpted with the kind of muscle that would make an Olympiad jealous. Her robes were simple and pure black, with two side slits that went down to her hips, meaning that he could see the delicious hint of side-boob, easily most underrated and overlooked boob.

No, check that.

Under-boob. But side-boob was a close second.

Her legs were long and athletic to match the rest of her. The kind of legs that crush mortal heads between them and leave their now headless owners begging for another chance to eat her out.

Her eyes were haughty ...but she inclined her head. “Thank you,” she said. “I am Priestess Fourth Class of the Xosh Warsphere Hatespite . My name is Ozge.”

Merton smiled. “Merton. Merton Miles.” He coughed. “So, uh, truce?”

“Truce,” Ozge said, nodding.

The two of them turned back. The demons who had been attacking were dead. Unfortunately, so were the kobolds. They had fallen to the last wave, and had taken the last demons out before their own bodies had given up the ghost. Considering that one was missing two legs and another half their head, Merton wasn’t sure if he was impressed or horrified. Looking at Ozge, he saw her shaking her head slightly.

“They died well,” she said.

“As well as can be expected...” Merton shook his head. “Listen, Ozge, this whole Warsphere is being sucked into the Abyss.”

“ Is it now?” she asked, then gestured about herself at the stinking corruption and mounds of demonic corpses. “I didn’t notice!”

Merton closed his eyes. “Trueche.” He sighed. “We have to find my friend and get the fuck outta here before then.”

“What friend of yours is on this ship?” Ozge asked, her brow furrowing. “According to the orders I received from the high priestess of Tiamat, you were on the kill on sight list.”

“Why am I not currently being beaten to death, then?” Merton asked.

Ozge rolled her eyes. “Orders are orders, but a contract is a contract.” She drew up her chin. “I am lawful evil, Merton Miles. I will absolutely turn you over to Emperor Xosh, given the chance. But until that moment, you saved my life. I owe you.” She smirked, slightly, then reached out. Her fingers touched the inside of Merton’s thigh and a glowing light flared up. His wound closed and Merton felt the pain immediately fade. He blinked and Ozge chuckled. “You have now been paid back exactly six out of fifty two points.”

“...you know how many hit points I have?” Merton asked as she drew her hand back – her fingers pausing fractionally as they hovered near the curve of his cock as it lay against his balls.

But Ozge was already walking away. Rolling her hips.

***

The two of them made quicktime, with Ozge to cast a spell that hastened their step and another spell that lighted their way and made most of the weaker demons recoil. And she was quite specific about that. Demons . Not devils.

“Devils have far more decorum,” she said, sniffing.

“If you’re lawful evil,” Merton said, ducking under a bone extrusion that had taken up a big chunk of the ceiling. “Why don’t you use your doomsday weapon to shunt enemies into Lawful Hell?”

“What, just clutter up our devil allies’ living rooms and castles and lands?” Ozge asked, glaring at him. “Without even filling out the proper paperwork?”

Merton blinked and considered himself told. He was about to ask her another question when the two of them rounded the corner and Merton found himself facing Relix. His wife stood in a room, surrounded by demon corpses, holding her own psi-sword, and looking incredibly irritated. Behind her stood Julia, who was holding her plastic wand and looking quite cute and fuckable. Relix saw Merton and beamed.

“Me-”

Merton shot her in the head.

Relix fell backwards, shedding scales and bits of tail until she slapped onto the ground – a devastatingly beautiful woman with ruby red skin and curling horns. Her breasts were the platonic ideal of breasts – firm and perky and yet still jiggling with mature ripeness. She slowly reached up to rub the half-inch deep smoking crater the laser blast had burned into her forehead, then sat up. “What. The. FUCK!?” She screeched as Julia looked at her, then at Merton, then smiled.

Merton shot her in the head too.

A second succubi landed beside the first, clutching at her forehead. “Owowowowowo!”

“How did you know!?” Ozge whispered, sounding shocked.

“I didn’t,” Merton admitted. “I just know that a laser gun to the head only mildly annoys a dragon. I figure my wife would forgive me. And Julia got shot - she’s not getting out of the medibay until she’s healed, and they had no time to manage that.”

He had just enough time to reflect on how grateful he was that he didn’t need to apologize for that when the succubi on the right leaped at him, claws gleaming in the ruddy red light of the hellfires that ringed the room. Ozge intercepted the beautiful, furious demoness with her patented ‘swing my staff like I’m competing for the best baseball trophy, whatever that was called’ method. The impact made Merton wince. The impact of the succubi on the far wall made him wince even more. They were evil creatures of chaotic lust, built around destroying relationships and people through manipulating the finest vice humanity had...but…

Still. Watching a pretty woman get put, head first, through two feet of adamant hull plating was not how he expected to spend his afternoon.

The other succubi screamed in fury and thrust out her palm. Merton reacted as the pulse of red light flew at him, bringing up his psi-sword. He swung it and hit the pulse. The psi-sword rang with the impact and the pulse hit the ceiling, bounced, hit the corner of the room, bounced, then slammed into Ozge as she readied her staff. The energy she had been building up went off into the floor and rebounded upwards to strike the succubi under the chin, sending her skidding out of the room with a clattering series of pangs, pinks, clunks and clanks.

“Ozge!” Merton knelt beside the cleric.

She panted. “Merton...” she whispered, her shoulders shaking. “In five seconds this lust spell is going to...ah...send me...wild and...” Her eyes unfocused and she crooned. “ Fuck me...”

Merton blinked.

Then Ozge grabbed his shoulders and dragged him tight. Her mouth pressed to his and her tusks bumped against his lips. Merton, being a red blooded male, fought for about five seconds. Then he lapsed into the kiss, moaning as he pressed himself against Ozge, the adrenaline of the moment burning through him. His palms cupped her ass, finding it as athletic and sculpted and perfect as he had imagined. His fingers squeezed her through her robes and she ground herself against him. Then Merton dragged his mouth back, gasping heavily.

“W-Wait...” he said. “I have to save-”

Here, he had been about to announce why he had to not plow the orc. She was not in her right mind. He had to save his son, Brash.

Merton had forgotten one thing, though.

Ozge was not just a little stronger than him.

She was a lot stronger than him.

His back smashed into the ground as Ozge put her palms on his chest, shoving him down as she panted heavily, her breasts heaving against her robes, her nipples hard enough to slice through half the doors they had needed to hack into to get to this point. Her eyes flared and she growled. “Mouth. Open.”

Merton opened his mouth to object. And Ozge dragged herself forward then planted her dark green pussy lips right onto his mouth. She was positively flowing with arousal, and she tasted as tangy and tart as a ripe fruit. Her pussy mashed against his mouth and Merton started to lick, desperately trying to pleasure her as her clit bumped against his nose, then her muff filled his nostrils. She was definitely not hairless. He closed his eyes, his cock achingly hard as he reached up to cup her green ass.

“Yessssssss!” Ozge groaned as she rocked herself on his face.

Merton’s hands slipped from her ass to her belly, feeling her rock hard abs, then found her breasts. He fondled both emerald orbs, his fingers finding her nipples. Tweaking them brought forth an animalistic growl of pure pleasure from the priestess as she continued to grind herself against Merton’s face. Merton was having a hard time breathing. All things considered, there were worse ways to go. Right?

Ozge clearly disagreed. She drew her sex off his mouth after a few more seconds. She panted heavily, then dragged herself forward again. Her palms slapped to the mutated deck of the warsphere and she arched her spine like a cat’s. Her belly mashed to the floor, even as her ass thrust up into the air and her thighs spread wide. She dripped from her eager slit – and her voice was a quiet growl . She didn’t even use words. She just communicated – with posture and with eyes that if Merton didn’t satisfy her right fucking now, she would do something...drastic.

Merton’s cock was achingly hard. He didn’t need much more encouragement to scramble forward. He lined his cock up with her sex, his hands going to her shoulders. Her muscles strained underneath his fingers as she snarled out a wordless plea. He slammed into her. Slammed . He used every bit of biomorphically augmented strength he had and every inch of his long, thick dick. He practically felt himself bump up against her womb , that was how hard he thrust. Hilting himself in her green pussy felt like getting onto the back of a bull. Or, more accurately, getting on the back of a bull felt like barebacking an orcess, because Ozge immediately redefined the concept of an active lover. Her back arched and she bucked herself up against him. Merton had to slide an arm around her athletic belly, then grabbed onto her ankle length ponytail with his other hand. The fact that this single clump of hair was both the longest bit of hair he had ever touched ever and the only bit of hair on her otherwise bald head made its use all the more obvious.

Merton hauled back. Her muscular neck and shoulders tensed and he, despite having leverage and position, had a hard time yanking her head back far enough to look into her eyes from above. Her jaw was hanging open.

But her eyes were far from submissive.

“That...” she growled. “All. You. Fucking. Got?”

Merton almost collapsed like a cut marionette right then and there. Fighting his way to the center of the Warsphere was one thing, but satisfying this woman? Forget about it. Then he shook his head. No. No. He was Merton Miles. He had lain studious magitech engineers, willful space princesses who also happened to be dragons, and a girl who had, until fairly recently, been a man. He could handle fucking an orcess. He grabbed onto her hips – and growled.

“Not even close .” He started to slam into her, grunting as his hips and her hips met with the fierce slap noises. His balls pounded against her belly and Ozge rolled her head back, her mostly bald pate shining with perspiration in the hellfire of the room. Her mouth opened and her tongue lolled out as she shuddered in pure pleasure. His balls started to ache and his hips started to bruise and still, Merton didn’t give up. He kept up the ferocious pressure and used every trick he had to try and think of anything but the pleasure of her velvety, vice tight cunt.

Ozge did not make it easier.

“Yes! Yes! Yes! Oh yes! Yes! Yes!” She cried out, her voice musical as she worked her hips in perfect time with his thrusting. Her fingers dug into the floor and her breasts cut perfect circles in the air. Her muscular limbs tensed as she shuddered in orgasmic pleasure – and Merton gave up on his pride. He wanted to get her off multiple times...but he simply couldn’t hold up against the sensation of her pussy. He closed his eyes and shuddered hard as he came. And he came hard . His seed spilled into her, then rushed past his cock, starting to spill along her thighs. His cum pattered onto the ground and he sagged above her.

Ozge panted. “Acceptable,” she said, sounding only slightly dazed.

“Dude!” Merton jerked his head up.

        ***

How long did a silence have to stretch between two people who had just fucked under the influence of a succubi granted lust curse before it became awkward? Merton figured that once they hit the three minute mark of silently walking through corridors, following the glinting strand of filament, they had definitely hit the ‘uber awk’ mark. He coughed, about to bring it up to Ozge – who was dressed once more in her robes...when she held up her hand.

“Shh...” She whispered. “Hear that?”

Merton’s brow furrowed. He craned his head and perked up his ears and tried to hear anything over the low groaning and creaking of the Warsphere. But then he heard it. And his heart leaped. He started forward, sprinting past bone encrusted wall. His feet squelched as Ozge reached out for him – but Merton didn’t care. He came to the corner, skidded around...and stopped dead. He was looking out into a room, easily the size of a good sized Starbucks. The floor was empty, save for bits of black obsidian that thrust out of flesh-like muscle. The walls were illuminated by glowing spotlights – bright white ones. They shone...on corpses.

There was Lisa. Her hands had been pinned to the walls by spikes and her guts had been cut out to drag on the floor.

There was Carlos – headless and crumpled up beside Trevor, who had been cut fully in half. Merton’s Mom and his Dad were an almost unrecognizable mass of red tissue, save for their faces. And the centerpiece of it all was Merton himself. He was seated against a wall, his own body recreated perfectly, with a yawning slice along his throat. Next to him was the headless body of Relix, her skull sat in his own lap.

In the center of this horrifying tableaux was a small, tightly coiled body of black scale and wings, which had been clamped tight around himself. The tiny dragon was curled up beside a few tiny copper coins, a single aluminum fork, and a red plastic drinking cup. And whispering from corpses was a cascade of voices – all of their voices.

“You let us die...”

“You’re a very bad dragon...”

“I hate you...”

“Why did you fail us, Brash?”

“No one likes you...”

“You-”

Merton screamed . It was a sound he had never made before in his life, and a sound he thought he’d never make again. He charged forward and, without thinking, he swung his psi-sword out at the corpse of Lisa. The blade made contact and the corpse poofed away into smoke. He swung again and his own body and Relix’s body vanished as well. He shouted again and again, bellow after bellow as he dissipated body after body, until the room was empty of the corpses and the whispers were gone – lost in the echoes of his shouting.

“Merton!” Ozge shouted.

Merton swung around and saw a form emerging from the darkness. It was a hideous demon – elongated limbs that looked as if they had been stretched out on a rack, with bluish skin that shone like rubber. It had the pot-belly of a starved baby, and the bald head of a grey alien, with a smattering of red eyes. It snarled and gurgled in Abyssal, charging at him with a spear of black metal in one hand. Merton stepped up and slashed at it with every bit of furious strength he had.

The demon’s head went flying.

As it thumped to the ground with a blub blub blub of slowly flowing blood, Merton stepped back, his psi-sword vanishing in a sizzle of sparks. He knelt down and pulled Brash into his arms. The small dragon was still shivering, as if he was freezing, and he didn’t respond as Brash petted his spine gently. His fingers caressed every ridge of Brash’s back, and he whispered soft words. “Shh, shh, it’s okay, it wasn’t real, it’s okay...” Brash shuddered convulsively, then suddenly grew to his full size. It took Merton a few seconds to realize he was now being coiled around by a snake-like body nearly the length of a school bus. His arms stuck above his head and his ribs creaked as Brash squeezed him, then started to nose at his hair.

“M-Merton?” Brash whispered.

“Too tight!” Merton squeaked.

“Who is that?” Ozge asked.

Brash shrank down to his smallest, most kittenish size and Merton clung to him, enfolding him in his arms and his palms. He petted him gently, then looked up at Ozge. He smiled, slowly. “T-This is Brash. He is the-”

“He is...a traitor .”

A cold...sneering...imperious voice spoke from the darkness. Merton turned around. The same fury he had felt before had cooled into the killing radiance of a neutron star. The figure stepping from the darkness was clearly a dragon. Armor plating from a B-suit wreathed his body, but his head had been revealed by the sloughing back of the armor’s skin and bone. Blue scales glittered, but nothing shone quite like the gleaming iron circlet that sat around the horns of the dragon who would be Emperor.

Emperor Xosh stood there, a shrike catapult extended from his left arm. Merton continued to pet Brash slowly.

“A disappointment,” Xosh continued. “A pathetic, sniveling piece of dung . I spit on his every ancestor. Not that he’ll have any. You came here, Lord Castrovel, to die. And the fact I can rob that little cunt of a princess of happiness for the rest of her life almost makes this moment worth it.” His nose flared and static sparkled around his teeth as his tongue flicked the air. Merton, though, was busy checking the body over. He saw dozens of still bleeding cuts on the B-suit, as well as several smoking exhaust ports that the enslaved, genetically engineered dragon had grown to vent waste heat.

“How much ammo do you have left, Xoshy?” Merton said, slowly reaching back. He held Brash out to Ozge, who took him with the expression of utter confusion that came when a baby was handed off to someone who had never touched one in their lives.

Xosh’s eyes flared. “Enough.”

Merton shook his head slowly. “And by the way. My name actually isn’t Lord Castrovel. I didn’t take her name. She didn’t take mine . I’m Merton Miles of California. Bester of House Thresh, master of hacks, rules lawyer and alignment arbiter. I am the delver in the Fortress of Regrets, planeswalker and planes strider. I count among my allies the Night City and the United Nations of Earth. I’ve seen Presidents deposed and godlike dragons rendered speechless. I have walked the streets of Atlantis and destroyed warspheres. I am dragon tamer and dragon slayer and, yes, dragon layer.” He lifted up his arm and his psi-sword flared to life as he grinned, fiercely.

“And I think you are absolutely fucking out of ammo.”

Xosh clenched his fist.

Then snapped his arm. Merton started to move – but the spinfusor disk sliced along his belly and burst out the side of his body with a spray of blood and a pain he couldn’t even begin to describe. He clutched at his side and made a sucking, gasping noise, then a choking noise as blood started to flow from between his lips.

“You were off by one ,” Xosh snarled.

Merton fell to one knee.

“Merton!” Brash screamed.

Then a black flame shot out and struck his side. It flared and the wound closed up, vanished, healed as if it had never been. Merton and Xosh both looked at Ozge, who lowered her palm. “Now we’re even,” she said. Her voice was even. But her eyes had a very faint glint  in them. Merton wondered, exactly, how far his saving her life had taken him, and how much slack he’d gotten from the fucking.

Brash blinked from where he sat in her arms.

“Kick his BUTT, Dad!” He shouted.

Merton turned. Xosh brought his shrike catapult around. The bladed edge of the barrel was still more than enough to disembowel Merton. Save that Merton met it with his shield – which flared to green life with a thought. Merton howled out a wordless warcry then shoved forward, driving Xosh backwards. The Emperor of the Chromatic Dominion gave ground, his feet skidding along the slick floor.

“I am a dragon you fucking monkey!” Xosh growled.

“Funny,” Merton said, smirking. “I thought you were a banker.”

He lifted his shield up as lightning surged from Xosh’s mouth. It slammed into the shield and reflected into the ceiling with a spray of sparks. Merton slashed and Xosh parried with his shrike catapult. Silvery chrome and glowing green met and sparks flew again.

“Not that being a banker is bad!” Merton laughed, then jerked backwards as Xosh grew a third arm. His claws slashed out and once more met his shield, sparks flying. Merton stepped back again, then flew his shield. Xosh caught it with his upper hands, then had to grow two lower hands to grab onto Merton’s wrist, to stop Merton’s lunge from becoming an impalement. “In fact, if you stayed a fucking banker, I think we’d all be much fucking happier !”

Xosh twisted himself into a complex loop, his body shifting into an ophidian shape that let him writhe past Merton. Only Merton’s quick twist and bringing up his psi-shield saved his spine. But claws still slashed along his calf and pain shot through him. He fell to one knee. Then Xosh was on him, grabbing the shield and hauling his arm upwards. Merton parried a claw strike at his chest, then slashed at Xosh. But Xosh simply took the blow, letting it split scale and muscle, not even seeming to notice. For it wasn’t his scales on the line.

Instead, he knocked Merton’s wrist aside, then slammed him down.

“Did you think you could defeat me!? A level one wizard with some fancy tricks ?” Xosh boomed, lightning crackling around his mouth.

Merton wheezed.

“Kinda hoped...” he admitted.

Xosh lifted up his clawed talon, then grinned. “You know what I’m going to do, Merton Miles? I’m going to rip out your throat. Then I’m going to disembowel that little fucking pet of yours. Then I will have Priestess Ozge raise your ghost and I’ll wring every secret you have out of your soul before binding you into my fucking ring...then...I’ll make your ghost watch as I take your form and then fuck your wife. I’ll make you watch as I fuck her...and then strangle her in the bed. Do you understand?” His other hand was wrapped around Merton’s throat, squeezing. He rocked Merton back, then forward. “Then I’ll start on your family  and your friends  and your concubine  and your whole fucking  planet. I’ll make what the hellcannon would have done seem like nothing! Nothing, you hear me!”

Sparks dropped from his mouth.

Merton wheezed out a faint whisper.

Xosh chuckled, then loosened his grip slightly.

“What?” he growled.

“You...” Merton whispered. “You got red on you.”

Xosh looked down.

A tiny red dot shone on his chest.

“Dee dee dee dee...” The dot swept up to his shoulder. Xosh slapped at it. “Doo doo doo doo.” The dot swung to his right shoulder. “Nah nah nah nah!” The dot finally settled on Xosh’s forehead – painted there by the glowing red nose of Brash as he perched on Ozge’s shoulder.

Xosh blinked.

“What’s he doing?” Ozge asked, looking at Brash’s nose.

Merton jerked his head aside.

And half a kilometer away, the Talon-9’s forward railgun coughed once. A tungsten dart the length of a longsword struck weakened adamantine plates, cutting a hole as perfectly straight as if it had been drawn by the ruler. Or painted by a laser. The tungsten dart didn’t so much as deviate by a nanometer, meaning that it struck Emperor Xosh the First (and last) of the Chromatic Dominion right square on the back of his skull.

His head did not so much explode as become so many fine particulates. The hole continued to cleave into the ship, leaving a gaping, cherry red circle on the deck plating about half an inch from Merton’s head.

The roar of the round’s impact filled the room and blew Xosh’s headless body off Merton’s body, leaving him coughing, gasping.

Brash thrust his arms up into the air. “I get solo XP!”

“You do not!” Merton coughed, rubbing at his throat.

The ground shuddered. A low, distant roar came echoing up from the narrow hole shot into the ship. Merton stood, shakily as Ozge’s head jerked up. That roar had contained words – words spoken in Abyssal. Merton looked at Ozge. She translated: “Uh, that shell just killed Pazuzu’s favorite pet hellhound.”

Brash hopped onto Merton’s shoulder. “Don’t suppose you can do any cool badass flying?” Merton asked.

“I...no...” Brash admitted. “That evil jerkbag lying evil dumb demon of nightmares drained me. I’m...still really tired...” He blushed. “I can try-”

“No, it’s fine!” Merton said, nodding. He took Ozge’s hand and then started to run down the corridor. The floor shook and the ceiling groaned and the whole warsphere seemed to buck and rock under their feet. It was more than the slow collapse into portals. It was something big. And it was something pissed . Merton hissed to Brash. “Brash! Cough up a nuke, please!”

“A what!?” Ozge yelped as Brash coughed, cutely, and a glowing pin roughly the size of a hand grenade. Merton spun around, looked up, and saw a crack rent in the ceiling by the shuddering of the ship. He underhanded the nuclear bomb upwards, then dragged Ozge into the biggest, thickest bit of cover he could. The white flash that bathed them was stark and fierce and burning – but with layers of adamantine between them and the relatively small tac nuke, Merton hoped that the acute radiation sickness wouldn’t kick in until they were back on the Talon-9 .

When he looked up, the ceiling had formed into a perfect ramp of molten metal, sloughing down into the corridor. Above him was a yawning mass of empty ship – then more corridors, their floors blown away and raining down in bits of molten metal. He winced. He hadn’t quite figured out how to get past that point.

A sudden torrential roar of sonic hammer-blows struck his ears. Before his eyes, the corridors and chambers that he had revealed started to vanish, as if huge bites were being taken out of them by the world’s most ferocious woodpecker. The holes came in at a shallow angle, and he could see the rippling in the air as railgun slugs tore and tore and tore. Then adamantine sheets tore upwards in a squeal and groan of apocalyptic noise .

“Ow!” Brash groaned, clutching his claws to his head.

“There!” Merton shouted, though he wasn’t sure if anyone could hear him.

There was the Talon-9 .

It flew down into the gaping hole it had blown into the Warsphere, but it was still too far. There was molten metal dribbling down, enough to make a ramp. But it was still too hot. And then, like an obscure bit of rules screaming from the back of his mind just in time to right a campaign that had gone derailed, Merton screamed at Brash: “WATER CANNON!”

Brash gasped. Then his back unfolded and a water cannon the size of his whole body snapped out. Ozge pointed at that and screamed: “What the everloving fuck!?”

“It’s for vampires!” Merton shouted.

“How does THAT make sense!?” Ozge screamed back as the roaring, groaning sounds of the warsphere collapsing became even louder. Water sprayed from the cannon, striking the metal. Steam filled the air and Merton didn’t waste time. He sprinted forward, his feet skidding and burning at the same time as he charged up the ramp with Ozge and Brash. The water continued to sluice along and he nearly lost his footing at least five times. Then they were bursting out of the cloud – and there was the Talon-9 , and hanging from her cargo hold were ropes, and hanging from the rope was Gunner. He reached out, grabbed onto Ozge’s arm and bodily flung her upwards.

His arms grabbed onto Merton.

And then a blue scaled hand reached from the fog and closed around his ankle.

Merton screamed as his leg was drawn taut and he felt two hundred pounds of weight drag against him as Brash yelped and clung to the back of his head. Looking back down, he saw Xosh. The dragon was dangling from his leg, his headless body smoking and smoldering with contact with the still hot metal. Behind him, the decks were collapsing downwards – revealing swirling portals straight into the depths of the Abyss.

Xosh’s neck stump rippled and a new head forced its way out. His eyes glowed with fury and he snarled. “I moved my brain you idiot monkey!”

Merton clenched his jaw and lifted up his free leg. “I...” he kicked Xosh in the face. “Have had...” He kicked again. “ENOUGH...” He kicked again. “OF YOU!” The last kick hit a slippery tongue. Merton had enough time to realize his mistake when Xosh chomped down and Merton’s foot ceased to be a foot and started to become shattered bone, torn muscle, and pain. Lots of pain. Xosh shook his head and Merton screamed – feeling the pain of his leg, his foot, his shoulder joint. Gunner couldn’t let him go to draw his pistol or rifle.

Xosh continued to speak – growing an extra mouth on the back of his head. “I may lose everything! But I will have you !”

A squeal of unspooling rope filled Merton’s ears. He saw, through a haze of pain, Julia. She held a laser pistol in one hand and her other was on the rope. She was attached by a harness, her witches hat cocked aside. She aimed.

Fired.

And hit Merton’s leg.

The laser cut through skin smoothly and left behind a smoldering ruin.

Merton howled – then gasped as the pressure on his leg vanished. “You missed!” He howled.

Xosh fell, his mouth filled with Merton’s foot. His eyes were wild with furry. His arms reached upwards and he started to try and grow his wings...

Fell.

But the B-suit that he wore remained too damaged to respond...

Fell.

And so he dropped, like a stone, trailing red blood like a stream of ruby crystals...

Fell.

And then plunged into the maw of Pazuzu as he flew up towards the portal. The massive demon lord’s mouth closed with a resounding srunch .

The Talon-9  lifted upwards.

Peeled away.

Dragged the ropes up. The cargo hold slammed shut and Merton sprawled backwards against Gunner and Julia. Julia, her voice thick, her eyes brimming, gasped: “Y-You take way more damage from lasers, sorry!”

Merton...simply laughed. Hysterically. He sprawled back and wheezed out: “Should have named him Toothless!”

Underneath the Talon-9 , the warsphere collapsed down to a single point of shimmering red light, the portal that had been sustained by the recursive feedback of the hellcannon rippling. Pazuzu massive arm reached out, groping around wildly for the ship that had killed his favorite hellhound. Then the portal started to close and he withdrew his arm in a hurry – yanking it back before the portal slammed shut with a reverberating boom that could be heard on Earth.

And across the Earth, crowds that had gathered to pray, to hold one another for the last time, to run for shelter...begin to cheer.

The day was saved.

Epilogue

“He gets a FUCKING TALK SHOW?!”

“Honey,” Relix said, putting her hands on her hips as Merton slammed the news paper shut. “You need to keep calm. Humans take forever to regrow limbs. Doubly so when they take that much hard radiation.”

“Sorry, but, I’m with Merton on this one,” Julia said.

Merton tossed the newspaper into the trash can – the headline EX-PRESIDENT NEW SHOW TO AIR ON FOX - visible from the can and laid back in his hospital bed. The window of his room looked out on the vast blue-white swath of the Pacific Ocean, shimmering as druidic magic on a scale the galaxy hadn’t seen for centuries was worked by xenodruids from the depths of House Rengario’s jungle planets struggled to save the Great Barrier Reef. The hospital ship – the USNS Comfort  - was, even weeks after the battle, still filled with priests of various faiths and the mineral wealth of several African nations. Most of the bodies out there were being raised, if possible.

Not everyone could be. Not every soul called out to be returned to their mortal coil. Not every priest could find them out there. But the death toll of the battle was still ticking downward – though its rate of reduction would level off then cease as the last bodies became too desiccated in space. It was harder to find all of them than you might expect.

The door clunked as someone knocked politely. Relix scowled, but stepped aside as the door opened and the President of the United States came into the room. He looked drawn and worn down, but that was usually what Presidents looked like so Merton wasn’t about to complain.

“Well, uh,” he said, nodding to Merton. “I cannot overstate what you’ve done, Mr. Miles.”

Relix bristled. “I helped!”

“You kidnapped a sovereign citizen of the United States,” President Miller said, frowning. “Multiple times!”

“Pff!” Relix scoffed.

“Honey...” Merton said, chuckling as he sat up, wincing as the regrowth enchanted cast around his stump shifted. The pain that tingled from where his foot was regrowing made him wince every few hours, and sometimes woke him up from his sleep in a cold sweat. Worth it, though. Having a foot again beat the fuck out of the alternatives.

Relix shrugged. “Anyway, you can take your Medal of Honor-”

“That’s reserved for members of the military,” President Miller said, his voice dry.

“-and shove it. Merton has been given the Prismatic Talon and honorary dragonhood.” She petted his head gently. Brash crawled out from underneath the pillow at that moment, yawning. He blinked as he saw the President, then waved excitedly.

“Hi!”

President Miller looked as if he was getting a great big throbbing headache. This, also, was pretty normal for Presidents. “Overlooking the kidnapping-”

“Oh!” Brash gasped. “You can’t spell kidnap without nap !”

President Miller’s brow furrowed. “I don’t see how that applies...” he said, frowning.

“It doesn’t not apply!” Brash said, fanning out his wings excitedly.

“No it does not!” The President snapped, his temple clearly throbbing.

“Double negatives make twice positive, and then the two pairs pair off and kiss!” Brash said, curling his tail around his legs as he sat back like a cat.

“Brash, you can stop helping now,” Merton whispered while Julia giggled from the corner of the room.

“Because I won!” Brash exclaimed.

“We need someone to be the United Nations’ diplomat to the Metallic Empire. Earth is in a tenuous position – the Chromatic Dominion, according to our metallic friends, has been severely weakened, but several of the Chromatic houses have chosen to fortify their territory. They can send more fleets after us.” The President frowned. “We need allies.”

Merton slowly leaned back. “And you want me and Relix to ensure we have them?”

The President sighed. “Yes.”

“You call it an Empire,” Relix said. “But...that’s overstating it slightly. Yes, several close allies of House Castrovel are helping. But there are other metallic houses that have formed their own kingdoms. Then there are secessionists – drow, dwarvish, orcish. It’s a mess .”

“All the more need for a skilled...party...” President Miller. “Like you and anyone else you want to hire on.”

Merton smiled, slowly. He leaned back in his seat. “So, when does it stop being the United Nations and become the Earth Alliance? Or Systems Alliance? Or United States of Earth?”

President Miller chuckled. It was a dry chuckle. But his eyes gleamed with the avid excitement of someone who knew that the future held as much promise as it held danger. “We shall see, Mr. Miles.” He inclined his head. “We expect you to recover fast.”

Once the President left, Relix grinned down at Merton. “It’ll be quite an adventure. Disparate houses to reunite, secessionists to talk to our side. And let’s not even get into the insanity you’re pushing for...” She said, reaching out to caress Merton’s chin.

“What insanity?” Julia asked. “I wasn’t informed of insan...” She paused. “You knew he’d ask?”

Merton smiled, clasping his hands on his belly. “I suspected...” he said, smiling slightly. “And I discussed possibilities with Relix.”

Relix scowled. “I still tell you, no one will go for it.”

“Go for what?” Julia asked, excitedly. She started to bounce in the seat.

Merton smiled. “A little thing called representational democracy.”

“Ohhhhh myyyy gawwwwwwwd yaaaaaaaaaaas!” Julia thrust her fists into the air. “Lets Hamilton this fucking galaxy up, WHAT WHAT !” She leaped to her feet. “I’m young, scrappy and hungry, and I’m not throwing away my...shot!” She danced.

Merton laughed – then winced, then cried out as Relix and Julia chose that moment to pounce onto the bed. And the ship continued to orbit as below them the Earth spun and accepted new refugees and new settlers and new merchants and new ideas. And as people went to work on building the new defense ships or civilian spelljammers for booming space exploration and space exploitation industries, and as pundits jawed and twitters tweeted and trolls flamed and people were people in the great, complex, beautiful mosaic that was humanity...each of them looked up.

At the stars.

Glittering like the scales of a dragon – waiting to be conquered.

THE END