How am I a dragon? I asked. It’s not like I’ve spent a lifetime training how to access different paths in dark matter, or whatever you were suggesting it would take to do this.
“You can do it because one of our ancestors was a dragon, so the pathway is there anyway, no practice needed.”
“If it were that simple,” objected Sol, “EVERYONE would have access to multiple animals, from birth.”
“And to some degree they do,” Trev said. “But two things keep them from accessing them. One is years of conditioning to make you believe that you can only access one form, and the other is lack of genetic diversity in were communities. How many non-panthers are in your family, Soledad?”
Sol stared at him for a moment, then nodded.
“Ok. Fine, maybe that’s true, but we’re not the only were community. You and Vic aren’t the only weres in the world with parents of mixed heritage.”
“That’s true,” Trev conceded. “But that brings me back to the first point. Conditioning. Have you ever tried to reach for a form other than your panther?”
Sol shook her head, then Trev turned to Seamus.
“Have you ever tried to reach for something other than your wolf?”
“Nope. I’ve always been pretty stoked about the prospect of turning into a wolf. Never occurred to me to try anything else.”
“Right. Why bother?” Trev agreed.
“So are you saying that MOME actually taught you all of this?” Sol asked, slightly incredulous.
“Well, they didn’t teach us the theory behind it, they only experimented on us by trying to get us to access different things. They wanted to see who could learn what, and how much dark matter access you had to have to be able to pull off certain things. All for ‘research,’ of course. I put together a lot of how it all worked on my own, but Rhelia is the one who brought it all together for me.”
We all turned to Rhelia and she shrugged.
“Assss I ssssaid, dragonssss have known thissss for millennia. It wassss eassssy to share with ssssomeone who wassss willing to lissssten.”
I suddenly found myself in human form again, apparently so I could voice the question, “What exactly were you doing in that dungeon again, anyway?”
I was a bit sad not to be standing there as a dragon anymore, but if all it took was remembering the physicality of dragondom, then I was sure it would always be easy. I was never going to forget what that was like.
“We should return to my apartment,” she said. “It issss not ssssafe to disssscussss ssssuch thingssss here. Anyone could overhear ussss.”
Unfortunately, before we could even question Rhelia’s suggestion that this might not be a safe place to chat, a spell exploded over my head and the ceiling started to come down.
“TELL ME WHERE she is!!” cried the crazed voice of a vampire who I was really getting tired of seeing, as I felt the weight of a full-grown man plow into my back, hurling me to the ground.
“Gwendamnit, Edik! If your daughter wants to contact you, she will fucking find you. Now stop trying to get us killed!”
The room had already descended into chaos. I had no idea how many MOME agents were here, but I didn’t stop to count. I pulled on my snow leopard form, clawing and twisting my way out of Edik’s grasp as fast as I could, taking zero care not to injure him, and possibly throwing in an extra set of back claw scratches as I got myself out from under him.
Of course, you may be wondering why I didn’t just flip myself back to my newly acquired dragon form, but there were many reasons for that. One, I wan’t sure how to fight in my dragon form. Could I breathe fire? A cone of cold or acid? Ok, I might be leaning a little too hard on my D&D lore here, but I could have a breath weapon, or then again, I might not. And even if I did, I had no idea how to control it in tight spaces and not take out my friends. Plus, I filled up most of this room on my own as a dragon, and I did not want to crush any of the people I loved right now. Furthermore, my snow leopard was light and quick, and I was already very used to fighting with it.
I didn’t hesitate to launch myself at the nearest MOME agent. After their attack on Seamus’ moms, I no longer doubted that they had the worst possible intentions every time that they engaged with us, and I wasn’t about to let them kill any of the people I cared about.
I had my work cut out for me, though. The room was crawling with MOME agents. Luckily, there were so many of them that they were reluctant to fling spells willy-nilly, and they’d brought more shifters than they usually did. This creepy-assed basement was starting to resemble the world's most fucked-up zoo.
A bear was launching itself again and again at Trev in his phoenix form, and Sol was facing off against an honest-to-Gwen Bengal tiger. Seamus was chasing after a giant-eagle-looking-thing that I didn’t know the name of, but which was almost the same size as Trev’s phoenix. Rhelia was calmly in her human form, deflecting the various attacks of what appeared to be a silverback gorilla, and there seemed to be mage upon mage filing into the room, setting off spells wherever they could get a clear shot that wasn’t going to take out one of their comrades.
In short: shit had gotten real.
I heard screams and roars as intense heat flared behind me, and I turned to see Trev immolating not only the bear that had been attacking him, but also half a dozen mages who had been closing in.
Deciding that he seemed to have things the most in hand of anyone, I headed for Seamus and his giant-eagle-thing. Despite the fact that Seamus had the eagle on the run, he didn’t seem to be faring too well. The mages all around them kept firing at him continuously, and when I looked more closely, it seemed like he was mainly trying to use the eagle for cover. Which was fairly clever, but not a great long-term strategy when your target has wings and you don’t.
I decided to wait until the eagle was on the downswing, trying to expose Seamus to mage fire and not looking in my direction, then I launched all furry two hundred pounds of myself at the giant thing, sinking my teeth into its neck. It collapsed quickly beneath my weight, making a sickening crunch as we hit the floor. I didn’t wait to see if it would get up again, but instead put myself between Seamus and the mages that surrounded us. I was pretty sure that MOME would use the excuse of "apprehending" Trev and Rhelia as cover for killing Seamus and me, and it made me wonder why I had ever given credence to the idea that they might have been trying to find a subtler way to wipe me out.
Luckily, the mages decided that hitting their downed eagle friend was too risky for the moment, so Seamus and I had a second. I put my paw on him and shifted us both over to where Rhelia was deftly avoiding the attacks of the eight hundred pound gorilla. I figured that Rhelia was the most likely of all of us to be able to defend someone else at the same time as herself. She seemed to understand this, giving me a slight nod as I deposited Seamus by her side.
Then I leapt over to where Sol was facing off against a half-ton of feline might, the likes of which I had only seen up close at zoos. Since I didn't know of any better options, I went with a standard flanking move, leaping for the tiger’s hindquarters and sinking my teeth and claws into his haunches even as he slashed his giant paw at Sol’s head once more.
My teeth and claws ripping into his flesh seemed to pull him up short. Indeed, he took a moment to turn and snarl in my direction, either to express his displeasure or simply to exclaim in pain. Either way, it was a mistake he couldn’t afford to make, and Sol instantly pounced at the opportunity.
That is, she leapt forward and sank her own teeth into the tiger’s throat.
Not that the move did an untoward amount of damage. The tiger was far from going down, even with Sol latched to its throat, but now it was thoroughly distracted by the close proximity of panther teeth to its jugular, and it was my turn to do some damage. So, I scrambled farther up the giant cat’s back and spread my claws out into its shoulder blades, hoping to do a debilitating amount of damage.
I had a feeling that the gashes I was leaving in the otherwise pristin
e orange and black fur would turn my stomach, once I was back in human form, but my snow leopard had no qualms about fighting off a predator that was threatening my mate and family. For the moment, I was thankful for the desensitization, because I really didn’t have time to agonize about whether this guy (and yes, I’d approached in a crouch from behind, so I had full confirmation that this tiger was a dude) had a partner, children, or any number of other innocent people attached to him who would be devastated by his injuries. The human part of my brain kept wanting to go there, but I was not in a human body, and my snow leopard didn’t give a fuck.
The tiger seemed to give an equal number of fucks as he attempted over and over again to throw me from his back, all while trying to rip Sol’s throat out. Luckily, she was tenacious and her jaw strength seemed unshakeable. She had added her front claws into the mix and was deeply anchored on the tiger’s neck. I continued to rip and tear, hoping against hope that tigers were built similarly enough to bulls for my efforts to cause his head to drop. I’d only seen one bullfight in my life, and only on television, but that had been more than enough. The memory of the men on horseback spearing the poor thing’s neck and shoulders, before the matador even took the field, had haunted me ever since.
If it came in useful now, though, it would be worth it. Worth it to protect Sol, to protect Seamus, to protect Trev…
I was starting to slide off the tiger’s shoulders due to all the blood that was seeping from the dozens of cuts I’d spread across its shoulders and neck, and I lost my footing completely when the Bengal swerved wildly from the pattern he’d been following up to now. I rolled gracelessly to the floor, only landing upright thanks to the magic, possessed by all felines, that enables them to essentially defy physics anytime they need their paws under them.
Even with my paws under me, I slipped halfway across the floor, my paws grappling for purchase through the thick coating of blood that covered them. By the time I regained traction, Sol had disengaged from the tiger, who now lay thrashing feebly on the floor, and had charged the silverback that was attacking Rhelia. The choice made more sense when I noted that the gorilla had been joined by a… was that a moose? Crap. That thing was huge.
I was turning to join her when I heard a cry from behind me that sounded too much like Trev’s phoenix for my liking.
When I got a good look at him, I saw that they had him in a huge net made of… something that looked like silver, but probably wasn’t, because it wasn’t melting and Trev burned very hot. Silver had a low enough melting point that it would have turned liquid the moment it got within a foot of him, if he was flaring, as he clearly was right now.
Before I’d even fully registered the cry, I had turned in his direction, and now I was racing towards him. I hadn't even covered half the distance between us, and he was surrounded by mages. Over a dozen of them formed a tight circle around him, half of them facing towards him, and half of them facing outwards. I was now dodging and weaving, hoping to avoid getting hit by another spell that would melt half of my skin off.
The barrage of spells that they sent my way was constant, and I soon found myself giving ground, backtracking slightly now and then, in hopes of dodging more of their attacks, but ultimately giving up more ground than I was gaining.
I let out a roar of frustration, then followed it instantly with a roar of agony as one spell hit my shoulder. I crumpled, but managed to keep my eye on Trev, who was slowly being maneuvered towards the same damp archway through which we’d entered. Without second-guessing the move, I pulled through time and space, shifting myself directly on top of him, hoping that I could shift both of us away from the circle of mages. Instead, I shrieked in agony as whatever that net was made out of seared itself into my skin. Trev cried into my mind, No, Vic! Get away! This net is blocking everything I throw at it. They’ll just capture you too. Please!
The anguish in his voice, and the certainty that he was right, joined with the debilitating agony produced by that net to convince me to listen to him. I rolled myself to the floor, narrowly missing the grasp of a handful of nearby mages, then managed to shift myself away from the circle of mages, but still maintain line of sight to Trev.
So I was watching when Rhelia shifted into a dragon form that was far too large for this space and began destroying every MOME agent within sight. Her serpentine neck swayed, bobbed, and struck with such agility that the MOME agents closest to her never had a chance. I think she swallowed the silverback whole, and I was well beyond furious enough not to feel a moment’s sympathy for the creature. They were taking my brother from me. Again. Fuck that!
I suddenly found myself on my feet. I was amazed, because the pain in my shoulder was intense, and I was fairly sure I was missing half of the muscle that was supposed to hold me up on that limb, but I shifted my weight to my other three feet and did my best to limp forward towards Trev.
Unfortunately, it quickly became clear why Rhelia hadn’t shifted to her dragon form at the start of this fight. She was trapped by the room, and couldn’t advance beyond the archway through which they were dragging Trev. Also, the space was far too small for her to use her fire on anyone, or she risked destroying the rest of us along with them. She was reduced to claws and teeth. Still quite formidable, as the men and women now lying in various segments across the floor had learned all too clearly, but not enough to catch the assholes who were dragging my brother down the narrow hallway. Though she did manage to grab a few of the ones that didn’t move fast enough.
They threw spell after spell at her, but nothing stuck. Everything seemed to simply bounce off of her, or hit her and then instantly dissipate. Either she was ignoring the effects of the spells, or they did nothing to her dragon-scale hide. Watching her tempted me to shift to my own newfound dragon form and fight alongside her, but I knew that the two of us in here would crush every last soul that wasn’t a dragon, and besides, then I would be just as stuck as she now was.
So, I rushed ahead in my snow leopard form, as fast as my injured right shoulder would allow, and launched myself towards the circle of mages that kept reforming around Trev. As if there were an unending stream of them, as if a new one popped into existence to take the place of each one that went down.
By the time I reached them, I could hear Rhelia bellowing in frustration behind me. Or, more accurately, I could feel it, as the sound shook my entire being, as well as the floors and ceilings all around us. I hoped that my charge forward hadn’t gotten in the way of her attacks, but as far as I could tell, she was out of effective range already.
Before I could worry about it much, I was sinking my claws and teeth into the nearest mage and dragging her to the floor. She screamed, but she didn’t fight me once she went down, so I leapt past her and towards my next target.
It was then that I felt a rush of fur, as Sol and Seamus both leapt at the mages to the left and right of me. The two of them tore into the mages with as much ferocity as Rhelia and I had, and I felt a renewed sense of hope as we plowed forward together into the circle of mages.
But that hope was short-lived, as they continued to pull along a thrashing, screaming, phoenix-Trev, still wrapped in netting, and their numbers kept replenishing, no matter how many of them we took down. Sol and Seamus both seemed to have taken small hits and we were all nearing exhaustion.
Each swipe of my claws felt heavier and heavier, as if someone were gradually increasing the resistance on a weight machine that I didn’t remember strapping to my wrists. Having to rear onto my hind legs repeatedly, just to swipe with only my left paw, made everything harder.
Seamus and Sol were faring marginally better, but Seamus, in particular, looked like he was nearing collapse anyway, and I wondered briefly if he was bleeding somewhere that I couldn’t see.
Then an ebon streak of terror threw itself at the circle of mages.
Rhelia’s battle cry was soul-shaking, and I half expected the cry itself to shatter the men and women surrounding her mate.
But
it didn’t. And neither did the series of attacks that she launched at them in her human form, though she did take down mage after mage, until she was practically in the circle of them, whirling in all directions, resembling nothing so much as a character from a modern kung-fu flick.
She even started flinging spells at them, something I’d never seen her do before, but which seemed to make no difference, considering how easily the line of mages replaced the fallen. They must have brought a hundred mages or more with them, keeping them all in the hallway while they sent in their initial force to distract us.
When none of that worked, Rhelia let out a final bellow and then threw herself on top of Trev. I assumed she thought that her weight would bear him down and then… I don’t know, she would find some way to fight her way out with our help? Maybe that was her plan, but it didn’t matter. The mages had wrapped Trev in as much spellwork as netting, and Rhelia’s presence did nothing to dislodge him from their grasp. In fact, before I could do anything about it, they quickly threw an identical net around Rhelia, who screamed one more time before the whole mass of them turned the corner, disappearing from sight.
I put on a burst of speed, despite the protestations of my injured shoulder and aching muscles, almost collapsing when it came time to turn the corner, but they were gone.
“It’s too late, Gatita,” Sol shouted from behind me. “They’ll have had a transport spell waiting, out of sight. They’ll be back at MOME HQ by now.”
I shifted back to human form, and nearly fell over as the pain in my shoulder flared. Right. I was going to have to remember that my snow leopard form had a much higher pain tolerance than my other half.
I slumped against the wall.
“Then get over here so I can shift us to MOME HQ.”
“Not happening, Gatita. They would be waiting for us, and we’d be captured or killed in no time.”
Victoria Marmot- The Complete Series Page 33