S1-4:Meeting

By User: Drak'rrth As Sue received her degree, everyone applauded, including me.

It had been quite some time after the incident with the crazy scientist, and though we had all gone back to our normal lives, Sue and I had become good friends, our ties made stronger by our ordeal. By now, I had my own house, which I shared the payment with Sue. It was far away enough that our relatives hardly ever came; maybe only once a year, at most.

What we didn’t have were stable jobs. While Sue and I were studying (I studied engineering), we only held part-time jobs. But now that we had both graduated, we could now look for something more permanent.

As it happened, I had come across a newspaper advertisement. It offered a position in a bio laboratory, and Sue was keen to go. Naturally, she dragged me along.

Thus, we were both sitting in the waiting room of the building on a hot summer day. I was busy reading the newspapers when an article caught my eye:

“MASS MENTAL HOSPITAL BREAKOUT”

I was about to show Sue when she abruptly slumped on my shoulder. I was wondering what happened a second later as I followed suit.

I woke up on a cold, hard, metal floor.

Beside me, Sue was also groaning as she got up. However, I was more interested in checking a sign on the wall nearby.

The gist of the sign’s message was: Choose a costume, get transformed, find a way home.

“Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?” I remarked to Sue.

“Sure does,” she agreed as she analysed the sign as well.

I dug in my bag and pulled out three items.

First of all was a handgun. When I became old enough to possess one, I immediately bought one. I took it everywhere, as protection against another kidnapping – not that it would help if we were ambushed from behind.

The other two were in case the handgun failed.

“You brought the serum?!” Sue exclaimed as I filled the syringes with it.

“I never wanted to use them again, but I thought that they might be useful as a “just-in-case”, which we seem to need right now.”

I handed one to her. “Since we’re going to transform anyway, I’ll do so on my own terms.” With that, I plunged the needle into a vein and injected all the contents into my bloodstream.

I felt a familiar, excruciating pain, though I managed to remain conscious throughout the procedure this time. As I looked, I could see black scales appear on my skin.

When it was finished, I had turned into a black dragon. “Okay, this is a bit more unorthodox than usual.”

“You’re telling me,” Sue replied from the floor, where she had collapsed. As I pulled her up, I could see that she was a grey dragon.

Curiously, I felt something in my stomach, like a gastric that didn’t hurt. Experimentally, I tensed my stomach and blew, hoping for fire.

Instead, I got a deluge of acid onto the wall. As I looked on, it started eating away at the metal. In no time, the wall had a big hole in it.

Sue stared at it, incredulous. “Don’t vomit in the toilet ever again…”

I gave her the gun, which she accepted hesitantly. Then, I went over to the wall at the far side of the room and breathed upon it, whereby it dissolved, revealing a door at one end of the next room and a mysterious portal at the other.

I stepped through and tried the door – it would not budge, even to my stomach acid. The same followed for the other walls, which just left the portal.

As I stepped through the portal, Sue said, “Are you sure about going through? We don’t know what is on the other side.”

“Better that we know now than never,” I replied, and stepped through.

I was standing at the foot of a mountain, with a concealed cave entrance a distance away. Behind me, I heard Sue stumble through as well.

As I looked, a lizard came out of the entrance. He paused to look at us, and asked, “What has Vralylth sent you here for?”

“What has who?” I bewilderedly replied. Obviously, he had mistaken us for someone else.

“Do not play the fool! Just state your business here, or go back up!” he growled, clearly annoyed.

Now it was my turn to be annoyed. “Look, I seriously have no idea of what you are talking about! I just arrived here through a portal, am totally new here, and don’t know what the heck to do!”

Now another lizard came from behind the first one. “If you speak the truth,” he started, “then I know your situation. Follow me.” With that, he took a winding path up the mountain.

I shrugged, and followed him. Sue trailed behind us.

After a long and tiring climb, we finally reached a cave opening. A bronze dragon on guard admitted the lizard, but looked suspiciously at us and started sniffing, trying to find our scent.

“It’s okay, they’re with me,” the lizard assured him, and he stood to attention, although he kept an eye on us.

We moved steadily through the cave until we reached what appeared to be a throne room. Inside, a gold dragon was apparently giving a report to a large purple dragon on the throne.

“…no sign of anymore victims, Dragonlord.”

“Very well. I hoped to find more of them, but it seems that this vicinity is clear, at least. Now, Drak’rrth, perhaps you would like to stay and listen to our visitors.”

“Hi, Drak’rrth,” the lizard greeted.

“Yes, well, hi Seaphilsa,” Drak’rrth responded. “Now what is the purpose of bringing these two here?”

“It seems they were having an argument with the guard, and the black one mentioned coming from our dimension, having come through the portal the madman had.”

It turned out these people had also come from our world! I felt glad to have at least someone who understood our situation.

Drak’rrth turned to me. “Did you respond to a job offering?”

“Yes,” I replied.

“Did you wake up in a metallic complex?”

“Yes.”

“Were you forced to choose a costume?”

“Ah, that’s a no. My companion Sue and I simply barged through a wall with the help of my breath.”

He seemed dubious. “Your breath?”

I picked up a rock and breathed on it. It immediately melted.

“Ah, I understand. But how did you transform BEFORE getting a costume?”

I decided to trust them. “A transformation serum, kindly “given” to us by a good doctor with a superiority complex.”

The three of them looked at each other. “I believe that we now have a new lead…”

The four of us (Seaphilsa, our two visitors, and I) sat down in an empty room. “Now, you can tell us your whole story,” I said. To be truthful, I was curious as to how they managed to get the serum, as well as know about our other target.

The black dragon (he had decided to call himself “Ormos'ith”) recited his tale. Apparently, they were kidnapped, but had escaped, raided the lab and delivered the guy to a mental hospital (How fitting, I thought) but the guy managed to escape.

All in all, I thought that it sounded quite interesting overall. I decided on a snap decision.

“Ormos'ith, we will grant you refuge for now while we decide on a course of action. Once you have proved your nettle, you may join us as a full clan-mate.”

“Thank you,” he replied. “I will cooperate fully and will work hard. But, tell me of your own tale.”

Thus, I told him of what I had gone through. When I finished, he gave a wry smile.

“I doubt our stories are that different. Transformed against our will (“By your suggestion,” Sue added), fighting hard to gain something – we should talk about it sometime.”

“For now, let’s just engage in smaller talk, starting with this – what are Sue and I supposed to do here?”

“For that,” I replied with a wry smile, “you have to ask Vralylth.”

“Quite right,” agreed the young dragon who came to the doorway. “And you’ll have a chance to do that soon – he’s asked all four of you to meet him immediately.”

“Let’s go then.”

As we went down the corridors, I took Seaphilsa aside for a moment. “Just being curious, but have the lizardmen accepted you yet?”

He grinned. “Yup, my combat skills were more than adequate against their best warriors. They made me a elite soldier, which was how I met Ormos'ith in the first place. The council was concerned by the noise, and sent me up.”

We reached the throne room in a short time. Vralylth was waiting there, along with one of his magi.

“I presume this has to do with us?” Ormos'ith guessed.

Vralylth confirmed, “Yes, it has everything to do with you two. But nothing to worry – we’re just discussing your contribution to the clan.”

“What a coincidence, that’s exactly what we were discussing just now.”

Vralylth ignored the remark. “I’m not too sure of your abilities as of this moment, Mr…”

“Just Ormos’ith.”

“Right, Ormos’ith. Anyway, we might need to have a mock combat session so that we can gauge the limit of your abilities.”

Sue voiced her concern. “I’m afraid I’m not too good at combat…”

“Oh, not to worry. I detected a slight natural ability in magic from you, Sue, and my mage is here to double-check. If it is confirmed, you will apprentice under them for a while, until you yourself become a full-fledged mage.”

She gasped, apparently lost for words. “Oh…er…”

“We’ll continue this tomorrow. Sue, follow my mage to their workplace. Seaphilsa, I appreciate your help in this matter, but your kin should be worrying about you right now. I’ll get one of the guards to ferry you down, since you can’t fly.”

Seaphilsa chortled. “Oh, I can fly. I just can’t land well…”

“Drak’rrth, show Ormos’ith to his quarters. Sue will be shown hers later.”

I nudged Ormos’ith. “Come on, you’ll get the guest’s suite…”

When we reached my temporary room, it turned out to be right next to Drak’rrth’s own room. Sue’s was next to mine.

Drak’rrth went into his room and brought out an archaic book that looked badly taken care of. He pressed it into my hands. “Here, pass Sue this later.”

I was curious. “What is it?”

“Remember I told you about the castle? It turned out that I passed through a human mage’s room, and I decided to pilfer his book. It’s full of spells – Sue can try out her skills with those.”

“But why me?”

“In case you haven’t noticed, she’s quite in love with you. The bond you forged during that crisis has grown steadily stronger as you both got to know each other more. That’s why she agreed to move in with you, despite the fact that you both would be living by the skin of your teeth, financially. Also, she went along with your ham-headed “transform-now” plan, despite her objections. Now that she’s practically stuck with you here, she needs all the support she can get. Now, give her this book, say it’s a present – from me if need be − and that everything will be all right as long as you are here.”

“You seem to know a lot about this.”

“Self-taught psychiatrist, from too many romantic novels. Absolutely free – not that you can pay me anything, anyway. This world doesn’t use currency.”

We both forced a laugh, but we thought about home.

The next morning found ourselves all waiting in a large room. A large group of spectators formed a ring around the centre, and it was obvious who was going to fight in it. The only question was who his opponent was going to be.

Vralylth had moved his throne here for the duration, so that he could watch the mock-fight. Sue tapped her foot impatiently.

“Damn it, where has he gone to?” she muttered. Indeed, Ormos’ith was almost late, and the combat was going to start soon.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure he’s fine,” I reassured her.

As if right on cue, he came running in at that moment. “Sorry, couldn’t sleep last night and woke up late. How do you sleep like that anyway?”

“You do know you’re supposed to sleep on your front, do you?” I answered sarcastically.

“I meant the rock slab… Anyway, who am I facing?”

Vralylth nodded at me. “Drak’rrth.”

“What!” we both exclaimed at once.

“Yes, you’re both going to fight each other. Since you both came from the same world, I deemed it appropriate to let you both engage each other in combat. If, at least, in order to observe the different effects of each transformation method.”

I thought it sounded like an odd reason, and suspected he just wanted to have some fun with us.

I gestured at the ring. “Whenever you’re ready.”

He moved over to the opposite end. “Same to you.”

“Okay then. 1, 2, 3!”

We both leapt in over the spectators and began fighting.

It turned out we were evenly-matched. We were equally strong, and spent a lot of time wrestling, since we were reluctant to use our claws. However, I did narrowly roast his arm, and he paid back the favour with a spray of acid into my face. And on it went.

When, at last, Vralylth deemed it over, we were both panting and nursing our respective aches. I decided that acid was a lot like fire – they both burned the skin (scales).

Vralylth came over to us. “I have to say, I’m quite surprised you both did not draw blood. You both really put up a fight. Nevertheless, I think you are combat-ready, Ormos’ith.”

“And this means what?”

“We accept you into the clan.”

I thumped him on the back. “Congrats, buddy.”

He sat down. “I…don’t know what to say.”

In the afternoon, we were all, once again, summoned to Vralylth’s presence. This time, however, it took place at the foot of the mountain – incidentally, where Ormos’ith and Sue had teleported out from.

Also, we had a human attending.

The moment I saw the human, I immediately resisted the impulse to roast him to a crisp and instead turned to Vralylth, silently awaiting an explanation. Next to me, Ormos’ith was doing nearly the same thing.

Before he could explain, however, Sue had come up and exclaimed, “George!”

We all looked at her curiously, including George. “Do I know you?” he asked.

“It’s your sister, silly!” she trilled.

George raised an eyebrow. “Even if you changed your body, I can still recognize your annoying personality.”

“Oh, come on!” Turning to us, she introduced, “This is my brother George. He’s studying politics in university now.”

“Indeed. And who, or what, the hell are you all?”

Vralylth rumbled, “You are lucky you have your sister’s protection as a clan-mate, or you would have been dead this very instant for your lack of respect. Now, would you explain how on earth you got here?”

George shrugged. “Was at some sort of new clinic – I was the only one – when I fell asleep. When I woke up, I ignored the sign on the wall and went through the hole conveniently left in the wall. Then I found myself here.

Vralylth continued, “The lizardmen’s guard found him here – he’s been complaining about the disruption of his duties, by the way – and called me down. In turn, I called you down since you are the only ones who can make sense of this situation.”

“However, now that we have a human on our hands, we also receive a logistical problem – a lack of any human-edible or designed with humans in mind. Not to mention a lot of warriors who would sooner tear him apart than let him enter.”

“Is there not a human city nearby? Maybe they can accommodate him,” Sue suggested.

“Yeah, right. Just saunter in, hand him over and say, “Give him a room for the night.” They’ll really cooperate on this,” I countered. I still remembered the last time I went there, and it wasn’t very fun.

“Indeed, especially if he goes by himself. Due to the… tense relationship between us and the humans, we would be most unwelcome there,” Vralylth agreed, missing my sarcasm.

Contrary to my expectations, the city-folk did NOT kick him out immediately. Instead, they actually welcomed him with open arms. It seemed that their dislike of other species did not extend to foreigners.

Within the next few months, he rose up within the political circles of the city, while secretly reporting to Vralylth. Unfortunately, we were not privy to this information, not even Drak’rrth, and I had to grudgingly admit the kid’s skill at sweet-talking BOTH political leaders. That did not make me like him any better, though.

In the meantime, Sue and I gradually adapted to draconic life – even if I still complained about the bed. Besides the usual aspects, we also underwent training – Sue in magic, myself in combat (how to incapacitate the enemy in one hit, etc.). By the end of it, Sue was skilled in both magic and genetics, and had begun to wish for a proper lab. I wondered what she could do with one now.

On my part, I was now a formidable fighter, and often paired with Drak’rrth for his scouting missions, which were mostly boring. One occasionally bit of fun was scaring away the woodcutters in the forest or hiding their axe.

Then, one fine day, we were both recalled for some odd reason. Leaving the axe on top of the tree, we came back promptly. Dragging my tail on the floor, we both sulked over to the throne room.

Inside, we found George giving yet another report to Vralylth. Unlike the other times, we were allowed to listen in.

“…and it seems to be a lab of some sort. Not to mention some guy supposedly appearing and disappearing through some area, though the council’s soldiers have found nothing,” George was saying.

“Interesting. This smells of something fishy,” Vralylth replied thoughtfully. He turned to us. “Basically, what George said is that there has been construction of a new building in the last month. He has looked at the plans discreetly, and they look like a plan of a hazardous substances lab. As you both also heard, there has also been a person, who sounds like our scientist, running around in the city. To put two and two together, that’s his new base he’s building, and maybe the lizard king is with him.”

We both perked up. “So what are we going to do?”

“Well, basically, we can’t enter the city overtly – yet – so you two, plus Sue and Seaphilsa, are going to take it apart from the inside – the lab, not the city. That will be up to George, to stabilize diplomatic relations.”

“Yeah, you get the easy part while I have to persuade a whole city to like you.” George smirked.

“You wanna switch?”

“Nah, go have fun.”

“Anyway, I understand Sue has also been requesting several pieces of equipment that we cannot provide, since no one has the designs in the first place. If you can pillage something from the lab, that would be a bonus,” Vralylth added. “Your priority, however, is to take out the lab, and the scientist if possible.”

“And as quietly as possible. Remember, if they know you were the ones responsible, it’s revenge time!” George reminded.

“Well, this is impressive.”

We were all at the back of the city walls, waiting for sundown before we “remodelled” the wall to make it “airier” with a “window”. Ormos’ith was tapping his foot impatiently on the ground.

“I don’t see anything impressive about this. It’s just a wall,” he retorted.

“I meant the structure of it. Perfectly smooth. No handholds for any invaders to grab. They must have sandpapered the whole thing over.”

“Hold it, guards on the other side,” Seaphilsa alerted us, while he had his head pressed against the wall.

Sue muttered an incantation while gesturing at the wall. Suddenly, we heard the guards collapse with a metallic clang.

I looked at her. “Did you…”

“I’m not that brutal. That was just a knockout spell, and it’s not very long-ranged either. So don’t count on it.”

At nightfall, Sue cast another spell and some of the cement between the bricks crumbled into dust. It was a simple matter to push away a few of the bricks in order to create a small, traversable hole in the wall.

We ended up directly behind the lab, which was a big, metallic building around one-and-a-half stories high. There, we split up. I told Sue and Ormos’ith to check the back door while Seaphilsa and I looked in the front. We planned to meet up halfway.

Seaphilsa took out what looked like a sub-machine gun. “Where did you get that?” I asked.

“Lizard intelligence, an abundance of raw material, basic weapons engineering and Ormos’ith’s pistol.”

We continued down a dark hallway that actually sloped down. We kept our eyes open for any of the robots Ormos’ith warned us about.

The first wave arrived a few metres in, and were turned into molten metal instantly. Soon, however, the numbers started piling up, and we couldn’t hope to defeat them all.

“Try the vent!” I growled in between breaths.

I yanked down the cover, and I boosted Seaphilsa up. Unfortunately, it proved too small for me, so I told Seaphilsa to try and sabotage the power while I held them off.

After a short while, the robots suddenly powered down. Seaphilsa came striding up the corridor. “EMP,” he explained.

“I supposed you designed that yourself out of spare parts?”

“No, it was inside a box saying, “Break glass in case of robot malfunction”. I guess the robots themselves aren’t perfect.”

Thanks to the EMP we made good time towards the other end of the house. At the end of the hallway was a room. I bashed it down and we entered the room, where we saw something we had never expected.

I breathed on the door and it practically dissolved.

Moving cautiously in, I scouted for any potential threats while Sue got her spells ready. She had saved her strength specially for this.

I just hoped she got a chance to use it. I always liked a challenge.

Just as I turned a corner, a swarm of drones came flying in from the subtle openings in the wall. Sue shocked some of them and I corroded the circuits of the rest. In seconds, the swarm had collapsed on the ground.

Before we could congratulate ourselves, a shot barely missed my shoulder and dug a hole in the ceiling. We turned to find a horde of the same robots we had faced before.

We simply ran forward, Sue taking point while I sprayed a fine mist behind that would dissolve any bullets – or so I hoped. It seemed to work, too.

Before long, we had left the robots behind and came to a dead end. I found a trapdoor and bust it open. Then, we quickly jumped down. I had the feeling the place was like a maze, complete with unexpected openings everywhere.

We collapsed on top of Drak’rrth and Seaphilsa, who, coincidentally, had just entered through a now-broken door. Shaking my head to clear away the stars in front of my eyes, I saw something I totally didn’t expect.

Nothing.

I mean, I had expected the room to be full of a personal army or lethal traps or even the scientist himself. But the room was completely bare, save for a tiny array of switches in the far side.

Seaphilsa ran over and began experimenting while we took stock of any injuries. Happily, these were absent.

Just then, a portal opened in front of us – exactly like the one we had gone through at the start.

I poked my head through to look, and was rewarded with a view of New York from the top of a skyscraper, with an access door leading downstairs.

I pulled my head back and the portal disappeared, to be replaced by a stairway leading downstairs. “Stop!” I shouted. I wanted to go down with Sue, and investigate whatever was there.

“But you don’t know what’s down there!” Drak’rrth worriedly replied.

“That’s the point.” With that, I headed downstairs immediately.

It led to a large room that resembled the one we had taken out, only larger and with no jail cell. Instead, nestled in one corner was a strange control panel, with many times the number of levers Seaphilsa was playing with on top.

“You all might want to see this…” I called up.

The three of them trooped down and headed for a different part. Seaphilsa, naturally, went for the panel and started fiddling with it. Sue checked the genetic samples, and Drak’rrth went to me.

“Looks like the lab you described to me last time,” he commented.

“Indeed. Except for the panel and the missing jail.”

“And the stairs.”

“Oh, right.”

“Not only that’s different,” Sue called out. “Comparing my scales with this sample, they match up almost exactly. This sample is actually dragon DNA!”

“That explains how the serum was so accurate that you look like us,” Drak’rrth commented. “It IS taken from us!”

“And the portals now make a bit of sense,” Seaphilsa added. “It seems this machine controls the portal upstairs. We can actually go back to the cave right now!”

“Or to the costume rooms, and wreck it!” I excitedly concluded. The pieces were finally falling into place!

“I bet that they escaped through the portal just now. Ormos’ith, where did that portal go?” Drak’rrth asked me.

“It just led to the top of a New York skyscraper. I can’t identify it.”

“Never mind, they probably just used it to escape. Sue, can you grab the equipment you need? We’ll help carry it.”

“Basically the whole lab. And using the portal, there’s no real need to carry anything anyway,” she answered.

“Right, that’s the last of it.”

Ormos’ith dropped the table on the floor with a crash. I winced at the noise. “Be a bit more careful with it, won’t you?”

“It’s not as though it’s especially fragile, is it?” he shrugged and replied. We had just carted the whole lot through the portal, including the control panel itself. But the panel looked ready to die out anytime: it had even started smoking.

Seaphilsa looked up from the screen. “Once you two have finished, I’ll move the portal somewhere else. But I can only do it once – this thing’s ready to give out anytime soon, and there’s no warranty on it.”

“Just set it between the cave entrance and Ormos’ith and Sue’s house. It’ll be a convenient rallying point.”

Sue came through the portal. “That’s everything!”

“Are the explosives set?” I asked.

“Yep. The spare parts from the robots came in handy for making the bomb,” Seaphilsa answered. “The trigger’s right here.”

“Right, shift the portal, and let Sue bomb the place. She can declare a relocation of her lab to a new place.”

Seaphilsa worked the controls, and the portal disappeared. “This the coordinates?”

“That should be around right,” Ormos’ith confirmed.

Sue squeezed the trigger and we heard a distant “whoomph!” from the city. At the same time, the panel finally gave out with a mechanical wheeze. The portal reopened.

“That’s that,” I commented.

I entered Sue’s lab just as she was peering into a microscope. “Anything?”

“Nope, but I’ve recreated the counter-serum that I first developed last time. Only now, since it’s our second dose, it’s weaker. It’ll only work for a day or so.”

“And the third dose will be half a day, and the fourth one hour…”

“No, that’s where you’re wrong. I’ve neutralized the immune system’s effects against it, so it’s fixed at one day per month. That should be enough to convince our folks we’re still normal. Any more and the time WILL decrease.”

“Not quite the same, however, is it Sue?” I sat down beside her.

“No, our minds will remain slightly draconic. So try not to serve too many vegetables if you cook dinner.”

I sighed. “Do you miss being human?”

“I try not to think about it, it distracts me. But yes, I do.” She scribbled something on a piece of paper and sat up.

“However, we can’t dwell on it. Our lives have changed, for better or worse, and we should adapt to it. The past can’t be revived.”

“I agree. So, how about we start something else?” I said.

“If you’re talking about marriage, I don’t think we’re ready – yet. Give it some time.”

“But if you need me…”

“Then you’ll be there.” With that, she smiled.