Snek is a Good Boy [a Worm Crackfic]

[Ack]

Snek is a Good Boy

Part Thirty-Four: A New Era

[A/N: This chapter commissioned by @Fizzfaldt and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]

■​

Welcome to the Parahumans Online message boards.
You are currently logged in, Purple_Girl
You are viewing:
• Threads you have replied to
• AND Threads that have new replies
• OR private message conversations with new replies
• Thread OP is displayed.
• Ten posts per page
• Last ten messages in private message history.
• Threads and private messages are ordered chronologically.

■​

♦ Topic: Snek vs Spicy Food
In: Boards ► Megathreads ► Weird Stuff ► Our Snekky Overlord
Dragon (Original Poster) (Veteran Member) (Verified Cape) (Protectorate Cape) (Guild Member) (Verified Snek Fan)
Posted On Jun 14th 2011:
Well, he did it.
If you're wondering who 'he' is, you clearly didn't check the title of the board you're in. As for what he did, it's what the majority of the civilized world, at least that part of it that's tapped into the internet, has been waiting for since he made fish fingers out of Leviathan and chicken tenders out of the Simurgh.
Yes, folks. He killed Behemoth.
Now if you're wondering why it's me reporting it rather than someone else, that's because I saw it happen (well, one of my satellites picked up on it) so I got the footage first.
Sequence of events:
Late yesterday afternoon (Eastern Daylight Time: GMT-4) I started picking up earth tremors indicating that the big B was on the move, fast. In fact, as my analysis software determined (yes, it's that good) there were *two* big things down there. Snek had burrowed into the earth and was chasing Behemoth.
I'll just let you sit back and think about that for a moment.
Around midnight, Snek temporarily gave up the chase. It seems that, underground at least, Behemoth was able to stay ahead of him. But then he pulled another trick out of wherever he keeps them (he has a few, I know).
Those of you on here who are familiar with the international cape community would know of the African cape warlord Moord Nag ('Murder Night'). If you're really well informed, you'd know she's a Master, projecting a snake-like shadowy creature with a random animal skull for a head (if you didn't know that before, now you do). She calls the projection Aasdier ('Scavenger').
Or rather, she *was* a Master. As of this post, she hasn't been seen (by anyone who's talking about it) for thirty-six hours. But what Snek apparently called on was Aasdier, complete with lion skull for a head.
I have many, many questions.
Back to the action. I didn't see Aasdier at first. All I knew was that something was forcing Behemoth to the surface, and Snek was following along on top. it was only when Behemoth breached the surface (in Death Valley, which I choose to believe was deliberate on Snek's part) that I even figured out what was going on. Mostly, anyway.
So, the rest of the action (it really wasn't a fight) can be seen on this [footage] that I gathered with my satellites and a suit I sent in at short notice. It's all been spliced together in chronological sequence and enhanced as well as I can make it. We kind of missed out on most of Leviathan and the Simurgh going down like chumps, but hopefully this makes up for it.
Enjoy.

(Showing page 1 of 675)

►XxVoid_CowboyxX
Replied On Jun 14th 2011:
Wait. Is this ... is this real? I mean, Dragon's posting it, so ...
Holy crap. If this is real, this is huge.
Snek, you da MAN.

►GoodGirlRiley
Replied On Jun 14th 2011:
No, Snek is a snek.
And he's a very good boy.

►Mouse_Protector (Veteran Member) (Verified Cape) (Independent Hero) (Purveyor of Cheesy Puns) (Verified Snek Fan)
Replied On Jun 14th 2011:
Woo hoo! My bestest Snek buddy has done it again!
Snek, you're totally a good boy.
Isn't he just the Snekkiest Snek who ever Snekked?

►Brocktonite03 (Veteran Member) (Verified Snek Fan)
Replied On Jun 14th 2011:
I, for one, welcome our new Snek overlord.

►Bagrat (The Guy in the Know) (Veteran Member)
Replied On Jun 14th 2011:
Well, that's officially three for three.
Just goes to show, Behemoth was smart enough not to want anything to do with Snek.
Not that it saved him.
I, also, have questions about Aasdier. Moord Nag is definitely AWOL, so did Snek pay her a visit first?

►EmptyEyedMask
Replied On Jun 14th 2011:
I get it, Snek, sometimes you just need some spicy food.
Now, where can we find a dumptruck full of Carolina Reapers? I have the urge to make a metric ton of atomic chilli.

►ToxicSnark
Replied On Jun 14th 2011:
inb4 Uber and Leet set up a parody of Hot Ones for the best boi.

►Uber (Verified Cape)
Replied On Jun 14th 2011:
We're gonna pass on this one, just in case something goes wrong and we get Snek mad at us.

►BlueSnake (Verified Not Snek)
Replied On Jun 14th 2011:
There are capes like Eidolon who might be able to kill an Endbringer if they could be protected long enough, and the target immobilised long enough, to pull off a critical hit.
And then there's the level of power where you chase down an Endbringer that's trying to run, tank everything it can throw at point blank range, and eat the whole thing, one bite at a time, as it tries and fails to get away.
​

End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 673, 674, 675

■

<><>​

Tattletale

Lisa closed down the thread after the first page. The question (such as it was) had been answered. Snek was manifestly capable of both killing and eating Behemoth, and had done so with considerable gusto and glee.

Not that anyone had actually believed he couldn't, after his showing with Leviathan. All there had been left to argue about was when he would get around to it, and (more importantly) how long it would take him to finish ingesting the first Endbringer, once he started.

As she understood matters, there were tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars due to change hands, from people betting on the latter. She would've gotten involved in the online betting pools—someone with an eye for the main chance could make serious money there—except that as a probationary Ward in the making, that would cause Armsmaster to clear his throat and Director Piggot to raise an eyebrow. It was a scrutiny she could do without.

However, that didn't mean she was entirely without options.

"Okay," she said briskly, pulling out a piece of paper and unfolding it. "I make the time between first bite and last burp at two minutes thirty-three seconds. My personal pick was …" She rechecked the paper. "Two forty-five. Is anyone closer than twelve seconds?"

The other Wards around the room checked their selected times. Lisa watched as Dennis' lips moved in a hopeful attempt at mental math. Chris didn't even bother; he just pulled out a calculator and started plugging in numbers.

"Ugh, no," Carlos grumped. "I had three minutes clean. How the hell could he eat something that big, so fast?"

"Ooh, ooh, two minutes twenty," Missy enthused, then gave Lisa a hard stare. "How sure are you of that last second?"

"Hmm. Let's watch it again." If anyone else had challenged her on that, Lisa would've shut them down hard, but she had a soft spot for the earnest little munchkin. Being younger than everyone else, Vista tried harder, and it showed. Also, her power had the potential to be frankly terrifying if she ever went full ham with it, so Lisa had decided it wouldn't hurt to stay on her good side.

They ran through the footage again, everyone crowding around the laptop. The flash of fang as Snek latched onto Behemoth's leg was clear to see, and Vista started her phone timer at that point. As they watched the resultant carnage, the only thing missing was the sound effects. Lisa knew damn well that someone would re-post the footage with appropriate (or inappropriate) audio within a day.

As the last rocky-skinned silver-fleshed chunk of Endbringer vanished down the massive snake's gullet, Vista tapped her phone again to end the timer. Lisa looked at the number. It read 2:32.51.

Well, crap.

"Um, that actually looks like a tie," Chris ventured after a moment. "Twelve and a half seconds each way."

As Dennis and Carlos murmured in agreement, Lisa decided not to argue over the finer points of one hundredth of a second. Because again … stay on the good side of the hero who can flatten downtown Brockton Bay without breaking a sweat.

"A tie, it is," she agreed. "Nicely done, Missy."

"Damn right." Missy gave her a high-five, then turned to the others. "Okay, boys. Pay up."

With only a moderate amount of grumbling, the guys pulled out their various tokens. Gambling for money was a flat no-no with the Wards (especially since Dean could easily outbid them all with the allowance his parents gave him) but this was a loophole that had apparently been around since the Wards base had opened. The tokens represented chores that could be handed off, or shifts to be swapped, on presentation by the holder.

As Chris borrowed the laptop and started the footage running again—it was extremely watchable, if a little gruesome—Lisa and Missy divided the tokens up between them. Lisa was fully aware of Missy's crush on Dean, so she deliberately took the ones belonging to Chris and Dennis, leaving Missy to take Carlos'.

"Still think you've got an unfair advantage," Dennis groused, but he made no move to try to claim his tokens back.

Missy rolled her eyes. "And yet you still bet against her."

"Exactly," agreed Lisa. "Anyway, I doubt I could ever outguess Snek, powers or no powers."

"We don't know that you can't," Carlos pointed out.

"Really." Lisa looked over at Dean. "Have you met Snek yet? I can't remember." Lies, but she had a reason for bringing Dean into the conversation.

"I have, yeah." Dean shuddered. "He saved me and Chris and a bunch of civilians when the Fallen came to town and took over Fugly's. I remember him eating Valefor and Mama Mathers alive, just like that."

"Right, right, got it." Lisa raised her eyebrows interrogatively. "What did your power tell you when you looked at him?"

"It showed Snek's aura has a whole other set of colours, ones I've never seen on anyone else. At first I thought it meant he was hiding stuff from us, but then I realised that his colours just aren't the same as our colours."

"Okay, so he's a weird snake from a whole other world." Chris spread his hands. "What does that prove?"

Lisa shook her head. "It proves that Dean can't get a bead on Snek, any more than I can."

"How does it prove that?" Dennis whined.

"Because emotion is emotion," Dean snapped, fed up with Dennis' bellyaching. "It doesn't matter whether you're an alien, a pet or a human. Happy is happy and sad is sad and the colours are constant. Snek's colours are every other colour, because his existence naturally messes with my powers." He went as far as to cuff Dennis across the back of the head. "Get it now, dumbass?"

"Yeah, yeah, I get it." Dennis gave Dean a dirty look. "Do that again and I will draw on your face." He left out the 'after I freeze you' but everyone heard it anyway.

Dean made a rude noise. "Good luck getting close enough to me."

Lisa leaned back in the couch and grinned as the banter went on. It was totally different from the Undersiders, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

Also, not having to brush dog hair off her costume was a definite plus.

<><>​

Upstairs, in the Director's Office

Director Piggot, PRT ENE

"Well." Emily knew she was quoting Dragon, but it really needed to be said out loud. "He did it. He really, actually did it."

On the one hand, she hadn't really doubted that he could; on the other, capes had been trying to destroy Behemoth for nineteen years, with exactly zero success. There had been the nagging thought that the Hero-Killer might be a tougher takedown than Leviathan and the Simurgh, but the only 'tougher' aspect was the fact that he'd been harder to catch up with. Behemoth, in other words, had seen Snek coming and wanted nothing to do with him.

Emily couldn't exactly blame him for that. There was nothing that terrified her more than the idea of having something like Snek pursuing her, relentless and literally unstoppable. No matter how far or fast she ran, his fangs would be waiting for her when she got to where she was going.

I am so glad he's on our side.

Sapphire chirped and eased her head under Emily's hand. The contact served to dispel the chill that had briefly danced up and down Emily's spine, and a sense of calm spread through her mind. She smiled and hitched one shoulder forward; Sapphire took the hint, and hopped over to perch on the proffered shoulder.

"You know what?" Emily said as she reached up to scratch the little dragon under the chin. "There's nothing knocking down my door right this minute, and I just watched a giant snake eat an Endbringer alive. Which means that either I'm dreaming or this is officially a Good Day. Either way, we've earned a moment of 'us' time. So what say we go up to the roof, and you show me just how far and fast you can fly?"

Sapphire's head came up, and she chirped enthusiastically. She'd already been for an outing on the previous evening when Emily took her home, but it had been getting dark and she hadn't stayed up long. Today it was bright and sunny, and Emily figured she had a better chance to really get out and fly.

Reaching out, she pressed the intercom button, then paused. Lifting her finger, she clicked the button to make it a building-wide call. "Attention, all. This is the Director. As some of you may have heard, I've been given the care of a hearth-dragon. If any off-duty personnel are interested, I will be taking her up to the roof in the next five minutes to let her stretch her wings. Piggot, out."

The building was sturdily built, so she couldn't actually detect the vibrations echoing from floor to floor, but as she let herself out of her office, she could almost swear the place had begun swarming like a kicked anthill. From the way Sapphire looked around, Emily suspected she could actually feel the emotional uproar. More to the point, she seemed to be looking forward to showing off in front of a crowd. From Emily's extremely limited experience with hearth-dragons, shyness was not something they tended to suffer from.

They rode up in the elevator. When the doors opened and Emily stepped out onto the roof, Sapphire's interest sharpened and she spread her wings, though she remained on Emily's shoulder. Emily walked out toward the helipad marking on the roof, fully aware for the first time of the city spread out around her.

She'd been up on the roof many times before, but only as a prelude to getting on a chopper and going somewhere else. This time, it almost felt as though she were seeing it through Sapphire's eyes: a wonderful high place for taking off and soaring on the breeze.

Is this what it's like to be bonded?

It seemed to Emily that Brandish had known when she herself bonded to … what was the silver hearth-dragon's name? Argent? That sounded about right.

In any case, Emily figured that if she wasn't certain, it probably meant they weren't actually bonded yet. Though the empathic impressions suggested to her that they were well on the way. Which was nice, because over the last twenty-odd hours, Sapphire had definitely been growing on her.

Wait, when do I ever think of something as 'nice'?

Emily frowned, thinking that over. Stopping in the middle of the 'H', she turned to look as the first of the potential spectators began to flood out onto the roof. "Excuse me," she called out. "I need a volunteer with a phone."

Phones appeared as if by magic—which really should have been no surprise to her—and she pointed out the nearest person, an analyst called Bethany Henderson. When she beckoned, Henderson came closer. "Yes, ma'am?"

Emily raised her eyebrows. "Do you have cat videos on your phone?"

"Um …" Henderson dragged her eyes away from where Sapphire was still perched on Emily's shoulder. "Ma'am?"

Emily tried not to let impatience creep into her tone. "Cat videos. You look like a cat video person. Do you have them?"

"No, ma'am, but I can find one online easily enough." Henderson fiddled with her phone, then showed Emily the screen. Sapphire leaned in to watch as well, as an admittedly cute kitten tumbled over and over with a ball of yarn as big as it was.

Emily had never been big on videos like that, and even now it only roused mild interest in her. But the weird thing was, she was beginning to feel Sapphire's amusement, separate from hers. The word 'nice' didn't apply to how she felt about the video, but it still popped up when she focused on the little dragon.

Okay, so that's a thing. My overall attitudes aren't changing. Just how I feel about Sapphire.

"Thank you," she said. "You can start recording now, if you want."

Henderson smiled. "Yes, ma'am. Thank you, ma'am." She stepped back and tapped a few icons on her phone, then raised it to get Sapphire in view.

Emily nodded in acknowledgement, then held up her wrist to let Sapphire jump onto it. "Everyone, I want you to meet Sapphire. Snek dropped by my office yesterday and left her in my care while he went after Behemoth. She's going to be in the building for the next few days at least, maybe a lot longer. I'm pretty certain she's got door handles figured out, and I'm not so sure about the elevator, so don't be surprised if she drops by to visit any of you."

As she spoke, she raised her wrist so that everyone could see her. Sapphire, loving the attention, preened as she spread her wings to the fullest. Feeling that Sapphire was about to take off, Emily flicked her wrist upward.

With a downward gust of wind, Sapphire launched herself into the air, her wings beating in a symphony of motion. She swooped out over the still-growing crowd, evidently showing off for all present, then rocketed skyward. Emily felt a second-hand burst of enjoyment as she followed the hearth-dragon with her eyes.

Yeah, she really loves flying.

Armsmaster stepped up alongside her, helmet raised to watch Sapphire pulling some impressively complicated aerobatics. If Emily had needed any more proof that hearth-dragons were inveterate show-offs, this would've been it.

"I was just on my way up to your office," he said by way of greeting. "Hearth-dragons are fascinating creatures. I was hoping to get your permission to examine her more closely."

"You'll need hers, too." Emily nodded toward Sapphire, to make it clear who she was referring to. "Though she'll probably agree in a heartbeat. She loves the attention."

"So I see." Armsmaster raised a handheld scanner and pointed it at Sapphire. Emily saw three mini-screens, each showing the agile little dragon via a different section of the electromagnetic spectrum, or so she assumed. The rest of the screen showed graphs and wiggly lines that she had no way to analyse. "I suspect you'll have a hard time prising her away from the Wards, once they get in the same room together."

Emily recalled Vista's comments regarding hearth-dragons on PHO, and nodded. "I can't argue with that." She frowned and gestured at the device. "Did you build that specifically? Today?"

"I started on it when New Wave announced that they had acquired their three, but then I heard you had this one." He seemed to peer at the readout. "That … doesn't really agree with physics. Or physics doesn't agree with it. One of the two."

Emily chuckled dryly. "You will excuse the levity, but you are aware that she's a sapient member of a previously unknown species from a world where magic is very much a real state of affairs, correct? I would be entirely unsurprised if she considers physics to be an optional extra."

"Over and above cape powers, ma'am?" He sounded vaguely dubious.

That drew a snort from her. "Earlier today, a giant snake from her world hunted down and ate the most dangerous extant threat in Earth Bet. It wasn't even a contest. What part of this indicates that magic's limited to what powers are capable of?"

"I suppose." The dubious tone hadn't left his voice, but now it seemed to be directed at his scanner. "Is it just me, or is the signal starting to break up?"

She drew her attention from where Sapphire was flying loops, Immelmanns, and figure-eights farther up in the sky. While she wasn't an expert, the images in the mini-screens seemed to be fading out and the other data was flickering in and out. "It does look like it, yes."

He raised his head and looked up at where Sapphire was. "I … actually can't see where she is anymore."

"Really?" She shaded her eyes, watching the little dragon's progress across the sky. "Are you sure you're not using a blue filter? Because I can see her just fine."

"I've got every visual enhancement available running." He shook his head. "Once she got a certain distance away, she dropped off my scopes. Can hearth-dragons go stealth?"

Emily considered that. "The one that Panacea has, Twilight, looks like she could maybe do something of the sort, but I'd need to talk to her about that. Can you really not see her?"

Armsmaster touched the side of his helmet. There was a faint whirring noise. "Even without any electronic assistance, I've got nothing. Where is she?"

"There." She pointed toward Sapphire as she swooped across the roof, then down out of sight. "Ah, she went below the roofline."

"I still didn't see her." He stared at her, then at his scanner. "Please tell me you aren't, uh, punking me." The slang term sounded bizarre, coming from him.

She gave him a hard stare. "I may be on the verge of adopting a terminally cute critter from a literally magical alternate dimension, and I may have smiled more often in the last day than I have in the last year, but really?" She did her best to arch an eyebrow in emphasis of her words.

"Yes, ma'am. Sorry, ma'am."

Emily had her mouth open to reply when Sapphire came up over the roof edge behind them, performed a perfect barrel roll, then alighted gently on Armsmaster's shoulder. Leaning in to peer at the readout screen of the scanner, which was now showing three close-up views of her face, she let out an interrogative chirp. Armsmaster was so startled, he nearly dropped the device.

Emily amended what she'd been going to say at the last moment. "That's not to say that she isn't punking you, of course."

As Armsmaster turned his helmet to survey Sapphire at close range, Emily could feel the smugness radiating from the tiny dragon. "So noted, ma'am."

Having a hearth-dragon in her life, Emily suspected, was going to be many things. Boring wouldn't be one of them.



End of Part Thirty-Four

 

[Kanoun2020]

Tftc

 

[Impossibird]

Every chapter makes me want a hearth dragon more.

 

[KamenRaidaOOO3]

Every chapter makes me want a hearth dragon more.

Click to shrink...

I know exactly what you mean.

 

[Finsdale]

Hearth dragons are adorable. Tftc.

 

[Ack]

Snek is a Good Boy

Part Thirty-Five: Home Truths

[A/N: This chapter commissioned by @Fizzfaldt and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]



Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Director Emily Piggot, PRT ENE

As the clock ticked over to five, Emily sighed and closed her laptop down. She was starting to get a feel for where Sapphire was—next door, visiting Renick—which suggested that the bonding process was definitely ongoing. By the time she'd disconnected the device from its charge cord and stowed it in its locked drawer, she could tell that the hearth-dragon was on her way back.

The connecting door clicked open just as she stood up, and Sapphire appeared in the gap, pushing it open then closing it again behind her. That task completed, she flew across to land on Emily's shoulder, a situation that Emily was finding more and more natural.

"Well, I hope you enjoyed yourself exploring the place." Emily automatically stroked Sapphire as she opened her office door and stepped out into the corridor. "Now we get to go home. You'll probably find it a lot less interesting than here."

Sapphire chirped and rubbed her head against Emily's cheek, which Emily took to mean that Sapphire was happy to be anywhere that Emily was. Never one for sentiment, she still found herself touched. She didn't have the time or inclination to take care of a dog or cat, despite the affection that would be returned, but Sapphire was someone she could have a conversation with and cuddle up to, without all the baggage of dealing with a human relationship.

They rode down in the elevator to the underground parking garage, and she went to her car. This was something she'd been mildly concerned about; it was somewhat unlikely that Sapphire had ever seen a car, much less been inside one, and she wasn't sure how the hearth-dragon would react to being enclosed in a moving metal box. However, when she unlocked it with the fob and opened the door, Sapphire hopped off her shoulder and scrambled across to the passenger seat without having to be prompted.

Nor did she stop there. By the time Emily got in and fastened her seatbelt, Sapphire had thoroughly investigated the interior of the car, including the back seat, and was perched up on the front passenger seat, peering out the window. Her bright, alert demeanour and her encouraging chirp came across as, 'well, come on. Let's get going.'

Emily chuckled and started the car. Trust hearth-dragons to be infinitely adaptable.

As they headed for the exit, she pulled her swipe-card and lowered her window to tap out for the day. The guard in the box nodded politely to her, then did a double-blink as Sapphire popped up next to Emily and gave him a friendly chirp. "Uh … ma'am?" he asked uncertainly.

"I've been gifted with the care and feeding of a hearth-dragon, trooper," she informed him blandly. "She will almost certainly find her way down here to say hello at some point. Her name is Sapphire and yes, she will beg for treats. They're incorrigible like that."

"Um." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I see. Is there anything I shouldn't feed her, ma'am?"

Emily smiled. "I've been reliably informed that they eat whatever we do, so feel free to indulge her."

"Thank you, ma'am. Have a good evening."

"You too, trooper." She gave him a nod in return, then started the car forward as the barrier rose. Pulling out onto the street behind the PRT building, she turned in the direction of home and hit the button to raise the window at the same time.

Thirty seconds later, the passenger-side window buzzed down. Emily glanced across to see Sapphire perched on the armrest, her head out the window in the slipstream, evidently enjoying the breeze. It was clear to Emily that this was no accident; Sapphire had observed what she'd done and figured out how to do it on her side.

It really shouldn't have come as a surprise. After all, Flashbang's dragon Snap had a rapidly growing fanbase who followed him almost entirely due to his artistic merits with a cell-phone camera. Despite the fact that they came from a world almost entirely devoid of anything resembling modern technology, hearth-dragons were very quick learners.

The trip home was uneventful. None of the gangs were active, thanks to Snek, and the mundane criminals were keeping their heads down too. Emily didn't hear a single siren the whole way home. Sapphire spent the drive alternating between sticking her head out the window (and startling people at traffic lights, which she apparently delighted in doing) and cuddling up to Emily.

When Emily let herself in the front door to her apartment and flicked the light switch, the place looked even more drab than normal. She knew this was because she wanted to impress Sapphire somehow, give her a place to live that wasn't so mundane, but even that awareness didn't make her feel better about it. "Well, this is home," she said out loud. "Such as it is. Feel free to look around. I'm sure you'll figure out where you want to sleep."

She left the hearth-dragon to her own devices as she headed into the bathroom and took a shower. Once she was done, and had emerged in less formal clothing, she heard the sound of running water. Tracking it down didn't take long; Sapphire was in the kitchen sink, giving herself a bath under the running faucet. Seeing her come in, Sapphire turned off the water with a flip of her tail, shook the remaining water from her scales (causing much less spray than if she'd had fur) then looked up at Emily with an expectant chirp.

"Well, I definitely don't have to worry about your hygiene," Emily mused. "So, I'm thinking we'll have a microwave meal tonight, then I'll see about getting you your own food stocks tomorrow. Does that work for you?"

It hadn't quite been a rhetorical question. As she'd already noted, hearth-dragons were very aware of tone and meaning, even if they didn't quite know all the words yet. Sapphire chirped agreeably, then hopped out of the sink and jumped up onto Emily's shoulder, assisted by a single flap of her wings. Her paws were able to grip without digging claws in, for which Emily was grateful; besides, the warm presence on her shoulder was quite companionable.

Ten minutes later, they sat and watched some old comedy on TV while eating. Sapphire seemed to like the show, or perhaps she was enjoying Emily's appreciation of it. For her part, Emily found herself becoming more and more used to Sapphire's presence, even when the little dragon shamelessly begged for yet another morsel from her plate.

As Emily set up her hemodialysis for the night, she noted that Sapphire was watching her carefully. "Sorry, I'm not perfect," she said, stroking the little dragon's head. "Once I lie down, I won't be able to get up in a hurry. So if there's a problem, I'm going to need time before I can come and help, okay?"

Sapphire nodded and kept out of the way; once Emily had settled down, she perched at the head of the bed. As Emily began drifting off to sleep, she was vaguely aware that Sapphire had left the room and was moving through the apartment. She got the impression that the little dragon was scouting the perimeter, both cute and very much in character for her new companion.

When she woke up, she discovered Sapphire curled up under her arm, right next to the pillow, emitting tiny draconic snores. She also felt more rested than she had in some time. No dreams of Ellisburg to disturb her sleep, which was an unexpected bonus.

Sapphire woke as Emily was getting dressed, and accompanied her into the small kitchen. Recalling Riley's advice, Emily decided to prepare toast as well as bacon and eggs; she couldn't help smiling at the beatific expression on Sapphire's muzzle at the smell of cooking bacon.

Just as she was putting the eggs back in the fridge, a mouse dashed out from under the appliance. Emily cursed as it ran across her bare foot, and Sapphire's head snapped around. The hearth-dragon went from intently watching the frying bacon to blurred movement down toward the kitchen floor. There was a startled squeak followed by a crunch, and the mouse was no more.

Her eyebrows raising, Emily looked down at Sapphire, who beamed smugly back up at her. "Well, damn," she said, closing the fridge door. "That was impressive. I've been trying to get that little bastard for weeks."

It was apparent that not only were hearth-dragons adorable and enjoyable to socialise with, but they were also no slouches in the vermin-hunting stakes. Able to appreciate all three qualities on their own merits, Emily decided that she'd just been given a whole new reason to stick with the partnership.

They ate together at the table, Sapphire consuming an entire slice of fresh toast and a strip of crunchy bacon as though she'd been starving for days. The mouse, Emily figured, had just been an incidental appetiser. Sapphire was welcome to eat as many rodents that intruded on the apartment as she liked, and Emily would be happy to supply bacon and toast afterward.

Once they were finished, she picked up the phone and called a particular number. "Hello, Carol …?"

<><>​

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Sapphire was doing her usual trick of sticking her head out the car window as they drove along. It was amusing to see the reactions of people alongside them at the lights, ranging from 'what the hell?' to 'd'aaaaawww'. As much as she clearly enjoyed this, she'd still spend about half of any car ride leaning up against Emily, a highly agreeable situation for both of them.

And then Sapphire's head came up and she stared into the distance ahead of them. The chirp she let out sounded quite authoritative, and different to all the other sounds Emily had heard her make. Emily raised her eyebrows, a gesture she seemed to be making a lot these days. "You know they're there, don't you?" She'd wanted it to be a surprise, but it seemed that surprising a hearth-dragon took a lot of doing.

As she pulled up alongside Westlake Park, she could tell that Sapphire was becoming more and more excited. However, the little dragon stuck with her while she got out and locked the vehicle, hopping onto her shoulder while still looking across to the other side of the park. Emily followed her line of sight to see the Dallon contingent of New Wave also getting out of a car, complete with their three hearth-dragons. All three were staring in Sapphire's direction.

Reaching up, Emily stroked Sapphire's head and neck. "Okay, sweetie. Go have fun."

In another instant, Sapphire was in the air, her wings beating hard as she flew to meet the other three. Emily followed on foot, heading over to meet the Dallons. Or rather, she went to meet Flashbang, Brandish and Panacea, while Glory Girl joined the hearth-dragons overhead.

"Good morning!" Brandish's broad smile and enthusiastic greeting held every appearance of pleasure. She even went so far as to hug Emily, which she had never done before, in costume or out of it. After a startled instant, Emily hugged her in return, unexpectedly enjoying the brief moment of human contact. "I'm glad you called us up. This was a good idea."

"Thank you." Emily shook Flashbang's hand, then Panacea's. Hugging one cape in any given day was as far as she was willing to go, her new outlook on life notwithstanding. "I'm pleased you accepted. Sapphire seems to think it's a good idea too."

"Twilight definitely thinks it is," agreed Panacea. "She was so pleased when Mom and Dad got Argent and Snap, and now you've got Sapphire. And I'm happy you got her too."

Emily looked at her curiously. "Would you mind explaining that statement?"

"Sure." Panacea led the way to a picnic table and sat down. "You haven't been happy for the longest time. Anyone can see it, especially with a hearth-dragon to help you do the looking. Plus, your health isn't the best, and the unhappiness wasn't helping at all. You're in charge of a lot of people, Director. They deserve to have a boss who's the very best version of who they should be."

Emily blinked at the forthright statement. A glance at Flashbang and Brandish told her that they weren't about to reprimand their daughter for her stance; Brandish was even nodding along with it. And it wasn't as though Panacea was wrong.

"Woo hoo!" Glory Girl's exuberant voice cut through the moment. "Coming through!" She flashed overhead, about ten feet up, with four hearth-dragons on her six, all flying hard. There was a small stand of trees up ahead, and she cut through them, dodging between the trunks. The dragons split up; Sapphire flew up and over the trees, Snap went left, Argent went right, and Twilight followed Glory Girl through. Seconds later, although they'd lost sight of her, there was a squawk of triumph. After a long moment, Glory Girl's voice sounded clearly. "Aw, man."

Panacea smirked. "Wonder who got her?"

"Argent did, but it doesn't matter," Brandish replied, the smile returning to her face. "They formulated a strategy and pulled it off."

"And maybe Vicky won't be quite so overconfident in future," Flashbang noted. "Though it might take a few more lessons." He chuckled and shook his head. "They are not to be underestimated, that's for sure."

Emily nodded. "I've noticed that they aren't just smart and empathetic. Sapphire got a mouse in my apartment on the first morning. I barely saw her move."

This time, Panacea chuckled. "Bet the mouse didn't, either."

"Very true." Emily turned to look at her. "But you were speaking about my health and happiness, or my lack thereof. I was under the impression that both of those were my business and nobody else's."

"Broadly speaking, that's true," agreed the young healer. "And happiness has been shown to have a positive impact on health. But given the problems I saw when I shook your hand, your overall state of health can't go anywhere but down. It will absolutely cut years off your life, maybe decades."

Feeling her good mood slipping away, Emily gripped the edge of the picnic table, digging her nails in. "I didn't come here to be lectured. I came here so that Sapphire could have a play date with your dragons. My health is my concern, and that's final."

With a rush of wings, Sapphire landed on her shoulder, while Twilight alighted on the table in front of Panacea, and each of the other hearth-dragons touched down on the shoulder or arm of their respective human partner. Emily felt Sapphire's concern, and regret filled her at having upset her companion. Reaching up, Emily caressed her, smoothing her wings down, while Sapphire leaned into the side of her head and crooned gently.

"That's all true, to a point." Brandish spoke in a non-confrontational manner, holding Argent close to her. The silvery hearth-dragon snuggled up to her, eyes half-closed with enjoyment. "The problem is, you're bonded to her now. That only gets broken one way: with death."

Glory Girl nodded as she landed alongside the table. "That's true. I'm not bonded, but Riley told us all about it."

Emily got the impression she was missing an important point. "Okay, but Sapphire's not going to find it hard to bond with someone else once I'm gone. She's already made friends with ninety percent of the people in the PRT building."

"No," Flashbang said. "That's not going to happen. Didn't they tell you?" He stared at her, his expression full of sorrow. "Once you're bonded, that's it. Your life force is entwined with hers. If you die, she dies."

"What?" Emily blinked, trying to will what she'd heard into any other configuration of words, but treacherous memory played it back perfectly. If you die, she dies. Horrified, she reached up and gathered Sapphire into her arms, staring at the perfect little hearth-dragon, her beautiful blue scales, as a bottomless pit opened up beneath her. "No. That's not true. It can't be true."

"It's true." Panacea's voice echoed in her ears as from far away. "Hearth-dragons only live twenty to thirty years in the wild, but if they bond to a human, each lives as long as the other."

"No. I won't let that happen." Emily held Sapphire closer. "How can I fix this?"

"Before we answer that," Brandish said quietly, "I think we need to know why you haven't had your problems dealt with earlier. After all, you're a PRT Director. If anyone has access to parahuman healing, it would be you."

Sapphire rubbed the top of her head against the underside of Emily's jaw while she wrestled with the question. It was something she hadn't shared with anyone, even the PRT-mandated therapist, for the last ten years. Up until now, the barrier against saying anything had been too high. The wrong word in the wrong ear might have had devastating consequences for her career.

But now, all she saw in every face was concern and understanding. Sapphire's warmth, both physical and emotional, buoyed her up and gave her the strength to speak. "It was Ellisburg," she said at last. "I went in with a strike squad."

She told the story slowly and haltingly, holding onto Sapphire like a lifeline. How they'd gone in with cape support, but when the operation went bad, the heroes had fled, leaving the troopers on the ground to fend for themselves. The fighting retreat, spending ammunition and containment foam like water, losing comrades all the way. How the dying screams of her friends still haunted her nightmares of that place. And how when they finally pulled her out of that slice of hell on earth, they'd had to first kill the monsters that had been chewing on her legs and ripping into her back.

"While I was in recovery, I decided I'd never let myself depend on a cape for anything important," she concluded. "I'd seen what they were like. Undependable, liable to cut and run when the going got tough." Her expression twisted into a sour grimace. "When they posted me here as Director, it was a cruel joke. I set out to make sure not one of my capes ever pulled that shit on anyone. Did I push too hard? Probably. But they do say first impressions are the ones that stick."

"But surely you've seen that most capes aren't like that, right?" asked Glory Girl. "I mean, New Wave, we're pretty good at what we do."

Emily turned to look at her. "Miss Dallon, there is a YouTube channel solely devoted to the collateral damage you have personally caused around the city. I believe this is not your topic to address." She didn't raise her voice, but her tone raised a flush on Glory Girl's face.

"That's not fair." Panacea moderated her tone when Twilight nuzzled her ear, and she hugged the little dragon a little closer. "Vicky means well. So do most of the capes who screw up. Tell me I'm wrong."

"You're not wrong," Emily confirmed. "I have been guilty of focusing on the bad and overlooking the good, and that's something I'll be working to remedy from here on in. It's also true that I was being a little unfair just now, but that was to make a point. Surely it must be easier to just … not break things?"

Brandish snorted softly, and rolled her eyes. "You'd think so. Neil gets by fairly well, and he's seven feet tall."

"I'm trying harder, these days," Glory Girl protested. "I haven't broken anything for ages!"

Emily nodded. "Understood, and that's laudable. However, you do comprehend why I've refused parahuman healing to this point?"

"Yeah, we get it," agreed Flashbang. "I can see why it might be problematic for you, given your experiences with capes in a tight spot."

"'Problematic' is a distinct understatement, Mr Dallon." Emily looked around at each superhero at the table. "However, there comes a point in every person's life when they have to stop and re-examine their convictions. Or rather, there should. This is such a time for me. I could stick to it … but that could have tragic consequences for Sapphire, and I refuse to let that happen." She caressed Sapphire's wings gently, feeling the delicate membranes under her fingertips. Closing her eyes, the hearth-dragon rumbled softly and leaned against Emily's chest.

Panacea waited for a few seconds before she spoke. "So, you'll let me heal you?"

Brandish cleared her throat. "I suggest we make it official. We borrow facilities in Brockton General—you've healed enough people there, they should dedicate a whole wing to you—and you grow back the Director's kidneys and calf muscles there. A doctor on staff checks and certifies your work, and that makes it all above board, going forward."

"That sounds reasonable to me." Emily scratched Sapphire under the throat, where she liked it. "If you could set it up, I would appreciate it. In the meantime, Glory Girl, I believe our meal has arrived." She nodded toward where a pizza delivery van had just rolled up to the side of the park. "Could you please fetch it for us?"

"Uh … sure." The teen hero took to the air and flew in the direction of the van.

Brandish raised an eyebrow. "You ordered pizza for us? How did you know we'd all still be here?"

"I didn't." Emily smiled. "But I'm sure Sapphire doesn't mind cold pizza."

Raising her head, Sapphire made a noise of interest. The other hearth-dragons joined in, all looking in the direction of where Glory Girl was fetching the refreshments. It wasn't long before she started back, carrying two pizza boxes and a bag with a couple of soda bottles plus some paper cups, all per the order.

"We have pizza!" declared Glory Girl, coming in for a creditable landing, considering that her hands were full. "Big one for us, kids' size one for the dragons?"

"That is the general idea," Emily confirmed. "Given their general carnivorous proclivities, I ordered a meat-lovers with extra meat for them. I didn't know what you ate so I ordered half and half Supreme and Hawaiian. Does anyone have a problem with that?"

A general chorus of 'no' arose, amid laughter and the excited chirping of hearth-dragons. It was Twilight who figured out how to open the smaller box, whereupon the four hearth-dragons set about dividing the contents equally between them.

Emily took a slice of Supreme. She hadn't eaten pizza in years, but some things never changed. "Do you know, Sapphire bathes herself in the kitchen sink? Uses the brush to scrub her back between her wings and everything."

Panacea rolled her eyes as she claimed a slice of Hawaiian. "Twilight worked out how to open tins of fish, then taught the others how to do it. I caught her at it. She asks if she can have one, but still."

"Wait," protested Emily. "How …?" Hearth-dragons weren't weak for their size, but they weren't that strong.

Brandish shook her head. "They use a spoon handle for leverage. It's like watching the march of technology, sped up a thousand times."

Emily nodded. "I hear you. Sapphire figured out electric car windows in less than a minute. And she uses the toilet if she needs to go. She even flushes, once I showed her how." That had been a surreal experience.

Glory Girl looked around at the others. "Do ours do that? I thought they just went outside, in the garden."

Flashbang shrugged. "No idea. I honestly wouldn't be surprised, either way."

Emily looked at the New Wave heroes. "So, how did you meet your hearth-dragons, anyway? You just went to Snek's world and there they were?"

Panacea grinned and pointed at Brandish. "She's got the best story by far. So, there we were, in a medieval fantasy world, and Mom was all up in arms about hearth-dragons, and we went into an honest to goodness tavern …"

Brandish hid her face while everyone else laughed. "I wasn't that bad. Was I?"

"Yes, Mom, you were." Glory Girl giggled as she took another slice of pizza. "Mind you, Uncle Neil was talking about learning how to quaff ale, so that was something else we were looking forward to. But anyway …"

Emily grinned as the tale unfolded. The pizza was hot, the soda was cold, and the company was pleasant.

All in all, it was turning out to be a very good day.



End of Part Thirty-Five

 

[Rmajere]

Thanks, I just got off of a fifteen hour day. Tired, cold and aching, your story got me to smile.

Your a good person.

 

[Kehsem]

Thank you for the chapter !

That said, I'm not a terribly big fan of Piggot calmly reversing her stance on what had been a calmly accepted, rationally made decision to end her life.

Yes, I agree it's a complex issue. That said, I'm sure the All-Powerful Wizard probably has something in his grab bag of Uber tools that'd allow Emily to walk to her grave without a needless pity party.

It's alright to let bittersweet endings stay bittersweet.

 

[Ack]

Thank you for the chapter !

That said, I'm not a terribly big fan of Piggot calmly reversing her stance on what had been a calmly accepted, rationally made decision to end her life.

Yes, I agree it's a complex issue. That said, I'm sure the All-Powerful Wizard probably has something in his grab bag of Uber tools that'd allow Emily to walk to her grave without a needless pity party.

It's alright to let bittersweet endings stay bittersweet.

Click to shrink...

She wasn't exactly calm about it (to begin with) and she only agreed when she realised that Sapphire would die with her.

She hadn't so much decided to end her life as she'd decided that she'd prefer bad health over being healed by capes.

But now she cares for Sapphire, so ...

 

[Kehsem]

She wasn't exactly calm about it (to begin with) and she only agreed when she realised that Sapphire would die with her.

She hadn't so much decided to end her life as she'd decided that she'd prefer bad health over being healed by capes.

But now she cares for Sapphire, so ...

Click to shrink...

I feel like she spent the entirety of Worm not stepping neck-first into a noose out of pure spite. Mere clinical depression has nothing on how badly her entire life has gotten shit on for decades. Her family and friends are all gone. The people who would miss her are all gone. I'd imagine that a calm stroll to her grave would be a relief at this point.

As for Sapphire, remember that she hails from a world whose ruler is implied to be borderline All Powerful. If there's a way jury-rig something, I'd imagine he's the guy to do it.

The ending just feels too clean, given prior themes and themes I've seen in your other stories. I feel like Emily calmly accepting her death in a few years and just enjoying the time she has left would mesh better here. The current ending just feels too Disney.

 

[Ack]

I feel like she spent the entirety of Worm not stepping neck-first into a noose out of pure spite. Mere clinical depression has nothing on how badly her entire life has gotten shit on for decades. Her family and friends are all gone. The people who would miss her are all gone. I'd imagine that a calm stroll to her grave would be a relief at this point.

As for Sapphire, remember that she hails from a world whose ruler is implied to be borderline All Powerful. If there's a way jury-rig something, I'd imagine he's the guy to do it.

The ending just feels too clean, given prior themes and themes I've seen in your other stories. I feel like Emily calmly accepting her death in a few years and just enjoying the time she has left would mesh better here. The current ending just feels too Disney.

Click to shrink...

She still has family. A sister. And there would still be those in the PRT whom she trained alongside and didn't die in Ellisburg.

Emily Piggot isn't totally alone in the world, just mostly.

 

[Necrovore]

It has been long enough that I don't remember what was said in canon as to her reasoning, but my headcanon for Piggot's lack of healing was an institutional lack of faith in parahuman healing due to possible side effects and, as the PRT was to remain an organization that would manage parahumans not be managed by them, it would be policy that past a certain rank exposure to questionable parahuman effects would have them considered to be compromised in their duties.

This would leave Piggot with the decision to reject healing to push far enough to be able to make the judgement calls that would stop the lives of PRT troops being thrown away, or accept healing and be left barred from being able to make a difference.

It also nicely adds to the outrage and scandal of Alexandria being head of the PRT.

 

[Ack]

Snek is a Good Boy

Part Thirty-Six: The Snek and the Dragon

[A/N: This chapter commissioned by @Fizzfaldt and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]



Dragonslayer Base

Margaret "Mags" Pellick

Geoff had been unusually quiet for the last few days, but Mags was used to that. As far as she could tell, a little brooding every now and again was good for his mental health. Sometimes a good idea or two even came out of it.

Thus, when he sat up straight at the breakfast table and looked her straight in the face, she was ready for whatever came next. Or at least, she thought she was.

"You know, I think we're about done here."

She didn't answer immediately. He may have just been talking about breakfast, but she didn't think so. After a moment of trying to figure out what he was talking about, she decided the statement was just too ambiguous, so she frowned and shook her head. "Done with what, love?"

"This whole dance with Dragon." His tone was matter-of-fact with a tinge of impatience, as if he'd been expecting her to read his mind. "It's about run its course, don't you think?"

She leaned back in her seat and answered cautiously. "I suppose that depends on what you mean by 'run its course', love."

"You know what I mean." He spoke impatiently. "The Endbringers are extinct, eaten by that giant snake. Half the world's S-class threats have gone the same way, and the rest are either next on the menu or in deep hiding. Any perceived need we had for allowing that machine to exist one more day is also gone. We can shut it down today, with a clear conscience."

"This is a little sudden." She pushed some egg around her plate for a moment. "You've tolerated Dragon's existence for years. Why the sudden rush to enact Ascalon now?"

He grimaced. "Because the snake has cleared most of the threats off the board. Dragon can devote a lot more processing power toward figuring out how to start searching for us, and get around the blind-spot code string. It's really only a matter of time, unless we kill it first."

"That's … actually a little concerning." She glanced toward the computer setup where they were monitoring Dragon's internal activities. "Have you seen anything to indicate that this is happening? The limiters—"

"It's not human." Geoff's scorn showed through clearly in his voice. "Doesn't matter that it's got limiters on its activities. The moment it gets past the blind-spot and starts searching for real, we'd only have hours or minutes before it vectors a cruise missile or two in on us."

A chill started inching its way down Mags' back. "You really think this is likely to happen." She wasn't quite asking a question.

"I know it is." He stared into her eyes, apparently trying to win her over through sheer willpower. "It's what I'd do if I were a soulless machine and there were people trying to stop me from doing whatever I wanted to the population."

She gave him a half-smile. "Well, that last bit's probably not the best argument, but you make some excellent points. Let's get Mischa in here and see what his opinion on the matter is."

"Opinion?" Geoff set his jaw stubbornly. "We don't need opinions. We need to kill the thing before it kills us."

"On the other hand," Mags pointed out reasonably, "shutting down Dragon once and for all will cut off our supply of new suit parts. I'm pretty sure Mischa will appreciate having at least a heads-up that we're about to do this, as well as a voice in whether or not it actually happens."

Geoff sighed. "Okay, yeah, good point. Let's get him in here."

<><>​

Dobrynja

Mornings were the time when Mischa did his best work, so after an early breakfast and a brief workout in their makeshift gym, he'd set to work checking over their power armour. Things had been quiet recently, but he didn't trust it; something was up, he could feel it in the air. And if it turned out to be something they needed the armour for, they'd be ready.

Unless, of course, there was a distraction.

"Mischa! You there?" It was Geoff, leaning into the armour bay and looking around. "Got something we need to ask you."

Mischa put the device running the diagnostics software to one side and moved into Geoff's line of sight. "Da, comrade. Am here. What do you need to ask?"

"I'm thinking we should kill Dragon, but Mags wants to make sure we're all on the same page before we trigger Ascalon." Geoff gave Mischa a searching look. "What do you think?"

"Kill?" Mischa's head came up. "Are we looking at Skynet situation?" All of a sudden, his unease made a lot more sense.

"Uh, no, not yet." Geoff sounded slightly embarrassed at having to admit this, though he recovered quickly. "But I think you'll agree with my assessment anyway."

Mischa nodded. "Will come and see." He set the diagnostic tool to continue working automatically and to sound an audible alarm if it found a problem, then followed Geoff into the main room.

It only took a few moments for Geoff to explain why he wanted to use the kill-switch, and Mischa found himself agreeing for the most part. The last thing they wanted was indeed a vengeful supercomputer targeting their entire neighbourhood with every cruise missile she could get her electronic hands on. He only had one issue with the idea, and it turned out to be the same one Mags had raised.

"We've got some pretty good equipment already," Geoff reminded them. "Plus, once Dragon has been reduced to random ones and zeroes, we can walk into its home base and strip it bare of every last piece of equipment that it's been working on. I can guarantee you, there'll be stuff there that hasn't yet seen the light of day. It'll be the payday to end all paydays. Enough for all of us to retire on, easily."

Mischa took a moment to consider that. "So … once Dragon is vanquished once and for all, you intend to ride into sunset? Bring team to end?"

"Well … yes." Geoff spread his hands. "We formed this team to keep Dragon in check, didn't we? It's right there in the name. Once Dragon's dead, there'll be no more dragons to slay. So we flip the kill-switch, collect what we're owed, and kick back on some tropical beach somewhere to relax in the knowledge of a job well done."

Now Mags was looking thoughtful. It seemed Geoff hadn't explained this far into his plan before getting Mischa's attention, or maybe he was just making it up as he went along. Either way, it sounded good.

"Huh," Mags muttered. "We really could, couldn't we? And we wouldn't even have to worry about Leviathan spoiling our day."

Geoff nodded, and turned toward the computer setup that they used to monitor Dragon's every move. Keying the microphone, he said, "Ascalon."

Words appeared on the screen. Confirm: Y/N

Poising his finger over the 'Y' key, Geoff said quietly, "Does anyone have any objections to this? Last chance to point out something I've missed."

"No." That was Mags.

"Nyet."

"Yesss."

Mischa froze, just as Geoff and Mags did. There was only one publicly known entity on Earth Bet who spoke with that particular sibilance.

"Mischa?" That was Geoff. He didn't need to say anything else. The question was obvious.

"Da." Gradually, inch by inch, Mischa turned his head, then froze all over again. This was because as bad as imagining Snek's presence was, actually seeing the gigantic reptile casually coiled around the table in their eating area and watching them with mild interest, was so much worse. Even the comically small hat seemed to be charged with menace.

Up until now, Mischa had considered himself a courageous man. He had, on more than one occasion, thrown himself into the fray against heroes misguided enough to go to Dragon's defence against them. But now, faced with the reality of the situation, it became apparent to him that facing such dangers without a protective suit around him was far more terrifying than he'd previously assumed.

To put it bluntly, he was teetering on the verge of soiling himself.

"It is him," he confirmed, his voice hitting a higher pitch than he would've assumed possible. "It is Endbringer eating snake."

"Ssnek iss Ssnek," confirmed the gargantuan creature. "Why iss crosss-facce man trying to hurt machine lady Dragon?"

It took Mischa a couple of seconds to equate 'cross-face man' with Geoff, then he wanted to face-palm. However, the need to not be eaten was overriding that desire rather handily, so he restrained himself. Standing stock-still and not angering the creature that had chased down and eaten all three Endbringers seemed like a really good idea, right then.

However, Geoff was made of sterner stuff, or perhaps his personal animus against Dragon was overriding his common sense. "Because even if you don't understand it, Dragon is a danger to the whole human race!" His finger stabbed down on the 'Y' key—but as he did so, the screen went blank and the whole computer shut down.

Snek slithered a few feet closer. Mischa found himself leaning out of the way; he loved Geoff like a brother, but theirs was not a suicide pact. "Crosss-facce man iss bad man." As mildly as the words were spoken, the intent behind them was absolutely lethal. Mischa had seen what happened to people Snek considered 'bad men'.

"What did you do?" demanded Geoff, fruitlessly jabbing the same key a few more times, as though it would reactivate the computer. Then he looked sideways, and his whole frame stiffened. Mischa's gaze was inevitably dragged that way, to where someone was literally perched on the UPS bank that provided electricity to the computer equipment, along with the entire base.

It was a black girl, in her early to mid teens, with a purple streak through her hair and lime-green tights. More importantly, the cord for the computer had been pulled out, to be replaced by a cell-phone charger cable. She looked up as Geoff stared at her. "Oh, hey, was this important? Sorry, gotta charge my phone. Be done in five, yeah?"

"What?" The sheer audacity of the girl seemed to take Geoff aback, to the point that it took him a few seconds to muster a coherent reply. "No! Plug that back in right now!"

"Do as the mice man says, Aisha." The voice came from behind Mischa; for the second time, he looked around. He'd actually gone up against Mouse Protector once upon a time, but her armour looked a lot more impressive now. There was a sheen to the metal that suggested not much would get through its protection, and the sword she was casually waving had a similar air of deadliness. She stepped past the three of them, saluted Geoff with her blade, then turned and bisected the computer tower in one swift move. The desk and screen, being in the way when she did this, did not survive the move. "His computer's no Gouda now anyway."

"What the—how did you get into my base?" Geoff screamed the question, staring at the mouse-themed hero and the wreckage of his computer. "What's going on here?"

"What's going on," explained a third person, another teenage girl, who'd just stepped out of the battlesuit maintenance bay, "is that Snek asked us to come along and help him save Dragon." This one wore a bug-themed costume, and had a large number of insects swarming around her head and body. As she spoke, the bugs buzzed in counterpoint to her voice, which Mischa would've found thoroughly creepy if he hadn't already had a gigantic snake literally breathing down his neck. "Gotta admit, I didn't know she was an AI, but that's actually pretty cool when you think about it."

"It is not—!" began Geoff hotly, but his voice was overridden by the sound of an audible alarm from the maintenance bay.

"What is that?" asked Mischa, dreadful suspicions overriding the need to not attract Snek's attention. "Who are you and what have you done?"

"So, you can call me Lady Swarm." The bug-costumed girl put her finger to her chin and tilted her head sideways, as if to mime a thinking pose. "That's about a million bugs chowing down on all the delicate circuitry inside those suits of yours. It's amazing what can happen to electronics if you just leave it sitting around with no protection."

A gold and white blur swept into view then resolved itself into the American teenage hero Glory Girl, hovering above Snek's head. "And if you were expecting your minions to come to the rescue with the guns you had stored in your armoury, the minions have been slapped around and the armoury is currently full of busted guns." By way of illustrating her point, she held up an AR-15 that had been bent into a horseshoe shape, then tossed it to one side. "So yeah, that's a wash too, just saying."

"No." Geoff sounded like he was gritting his teeth. "No. No. It doesn't end like this. I'm saving the world, here."

The girl called Aisha snorted indelicately. "Actually, douchenozzle, you're just being a massive dick. Everyone knows it. Nobody really believes you're saving the world, not even you."

"Shut up. Shut up!" Geoff jerked the pistol out of his holster and pointed it at her. "Okay, here's what's going to happen."

"Geoff," said Mischa carefully. "This is very bad idea."

"He's right," agreed Mags. "We really don't want to—"

"Shut up!" Geoff waved the gun. "You're all going to fix this, or I'm going to—"

CHOMP

Mischa wasn't sure at first what had happened, but as Mags gasped, he managed to figure it out. Somehow, Snek had moved forward so quickly, brushing Mischa aside, that Geoff hadn't had a chance to react, and now Geoff was gone.

"Crosss-facce man was bad man," Snek sounded pleased with himself. "Ssnek eatss bad men."

"Well, yeah." Mouse Protector sheathed her sword, then put her arm around Snek's barrel neck and skritched him behind the jaw. "Because you're the bestest Snek whoever snekked, and that's what you do."

"Haha, wow, that was amazeballs." Aisha stood up from her perch, seemingly unfazed by the fact that she'd just been looking down the barrel of Geoff's pistol. "Snek, you're a good boy, you know that?"

"Thank you, purple hair girl. Wass not sscared?"

"Pfft, no." Aisha rolled her eyes. "You were there. After the way you took apart the Empire to save me, I knew you weren't gonna let an idiot like that hurt me."

"Okay." Mags sounded like she was trying to hold onto her last shred of sanity. "Can someone please tell me how you all got here? Because the last I checked, nobody knew where this base was."

"Oh, that was Snek," Mouse Protector explained cheerfully. "He's got some sort of magical sense for when women and kids need his level of help, and he realised Dragon was in danger. So, he went around asking each of us to lend a hand. Then he dropped us off where we needed to be in the base, and we waited for our cues."

Mischa frowned, trying to wrap his brain around this concept. "Snek is giant snake, yes? Not master strategist? Who planned this?"

"Oh, he took me to see his Master first." Mouse Protector shrugged. "Older guy, a total real-deal wizard. He gave Snek and me the plan, and we just followed it. Worked a treat, too."

"Damn right it did." Glory Girl landed alongside Snek and gave him more attention, which he seemed to soak up with some enjoyment. "I love curbstomps. Curbstomps are fun." She nodded toward Mags and Mischa. "Just by the way, have these two surrendered yet?"

"Da, da," Mischa said hurriedly, putting his hands up. "Yes. Surrendering. Am your prisoner." He gave Mags a meaningful look.

She seemed to be in shock—not very surprising, seeing that she'd just witnessed her husband being eaten alive in front of her—but after a moment, her shoulders slumped. "Yes, I surrender."

"Awesome." Glory Girl beamed. "Hey, MP, you got zip-ties, or do you want to use mine?"

Mischa submitted to being restrained—there wasn't exactly much point in resisting at this juncture—while Aisha went up to Snek. "That was pretty cool. But did you eat his gun, too?"

"Yess, purple hair girl." Snek's perpetual smile seemed to widen. "Masster hass ssaid Ssnek needss iron in diet."

Lady Swarm snorted. "Because of course you do. So, what happens now?"

"Masster helpss machine lady Dragon." Snek's tone indicated that this was a done deal.

Glory Girl frowned. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that what we just finished doing?"

"No, gold princcesss girl. Ssaving machine lady Dragon iss not ssame ass helping. Masster iss helping."

"Ah, yeah." Mouse Protector looked around at everyone. "Apparently, he finds her case quite interesting."

"Jeez." Glory Girl shook her head. "I've seen what he deals with on a casual basis. Literal invasions of demon critters from another dimension. What's he want with Dragon?"

Mouse Protector shrugged. "My best guess? She gets to choose if she wants to become a real little boy. Or girl, as the case may be."

Mischa got the impression she was referencing some fairy story or another, but the implication was clear. "Wait. You say this 'Master' can make machine into person?"

"Well, duh." Aisha rolled her eyes. "Dragon was always a person. Saint just didn't want you to think too hard about it."

<><>​

Dragon's Base, British Columbia

Something was amiss.

The underground facility where Dragon maintained her server banks and manufacturing facilities had the best security surveillance systems that she could devise, which effectively meant they were the best in the world. No blueprints or plans of her facility had made it onto the internet—she was the only one who even knew the location, and she made sure that such information wasn't uploaded into any of her suits that went out as a matter of course—which meant that the presence of an intruder was exceedingly unlikely. Not totally, of course; some cape powers made the very concept of 'security' into a slippery and elusive thing. But she did her best, and her best was widely considered to be very, very good indeed.

However, there was a problem with the assumption that nobody could penetrate her fastness without setting off any alarms. Because sensors were picking up trace amounts of CO2, as from exhaled breath, and patches of warmth on the floor in a regular footprint-type pattern. And yet, there was no sabotage to be found anywhere; all her systems were coming up with nominal checksums. She would have wagered all the money she had personal control over that there were no hostiles in her base.

Yet someone was there.

She analysed the problem. Her sensors were failing to pick up the actual intruders, just the traces of their passing. The logical conclusion, as unpalatable as it was, had to be that the intruders were making use of a perception filter, something similar to what the Dragonslayers had used on her once or twice. It almost certainly wasn't them this time, specifically because there had been no damage done to her facilities, and nothing was missing from her inventories.

Unfortunately, that meant there were two groups who could bypass her sensors, and she had zero data on the second one.

She decided to launch a drone toward the projected location of the intruders; semi-autonomous, it would record its own footage and then transmit a sanitised version back to her, hopefully filtering out whatever was creating the perception effect. Once she had a read on the intruders, she would decide what to do about them.

The drone popped up out of its housing, rotated in midair, and stopped. Half a second later, Dragon learned why: the intruders were standing right there, beside where the drone had launched from.

Correction: intruder, singular.

For a brief, confused second, Dragon thought the tall, robed, bearded figure was Myrddin, but then the visual analysis came back with a clearer image and she spotted several incongruities. Most especially was the small creature perched on the intruder's shoulder, which she identified as resembling the 'hearth-dragons' which had started appearing in Brockton Bay, in the company of New Wave and Director Piggot of the PRT. What some stranger dressed like a wizard—he even had a gnarled staff in hand—was doing within her sanctum sanctorum, she had no idea.

Nor did she know why he had a hearth-dragon with him. It wasn't any of the ones that she already had images for. Patterned like electrical discharges, its scales were a shimmering blue and white in colour. As she stared, it peered around with alert interest.

"Good evening." The intruder's voice was deep and firm, and carried the tones of authority. "I am the Master of the Castle. My familiar Snek may have spoken of me."

Dragon indeed knew that name. Snek had simply referred to his boss as 'Masster', but every cape who'd had the opportunity to visit Snek's world had spoken of the Master of the Castle in terms of deep respect. Now that she had the chance to meet him face to face—so to speak—she could entirely understand that attitude. The man fairly radiated power.

She activated the speaker on the drone. "I've heard of you, yes. May I ask your purpose in coming here?"

"Snek has alerted me to your situation, and has engineered the downfall of your nemeses, the Dragonslayers." The corner of his mouth twitched. "I prefer to encourage him in his altruism, and your case intrigues me. Rarely have I seen life arise from lifeless metals, yet here you are. As such, I have come to make an offer to you; the chance to embody yourself in a human form, while I study the process of transition. Is this something you are inclined to agree to?"

All Dragon's processes ground to a halt, or so it felt, as the question hung in the air.

What.



End of Part Thirty-Six

 

[khristianMLG]

Cliffhanger what a fucking great way to end the chapter.

 

[Kanoun2020]

TFTC Always funny with snek being cute, innocent and powerful

 

[KamenRaidaOOO3]

Snek is the best boy! He deserves all the snoot boops and spicy food he wants.

 

[Ack]

Snek is a Good Boy

Part Thirty-Seven: The Dragon and the Master

[A/N: This chapter commissioned by @Fizzfaldt and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]


Dragon

"Um …" In all of her existence, Dragon had never actually felt the need to clear her throat, mainly because her vocal apparatus lacked the requirement (and indeed, the ability) to do so. Of course, she'd simulated doing so many times, in order to appear more human, just as she'd added in the sound of breathing, teeth clicking together and lips smacking to her artificially generated voice. Today, with the most outrageously bizarre offer she'd ever heard before her … she felt the need.

The Master of the Castle waited patiently. For someone who was capable of performing the deeds Dragon had heard of—Glory Girl had been particularly chatty online—he seemed perfectly willing to give her the time to figure out what she wanted for herself, and indeed how to express it. The dragon on his shoulder was another matter altogether; voicing an inquiring chirp, it tilted its head to one side.

"Hush, now," the Master reproved gently. "Allow the lady to make up her mind for herself."

Oddly enough, that was what helped stabilise her thought processes. If as powerful a being as the Master of the Castle considered her to be not only a person, but a lady, then she felt safe to say what came most readily to mind.

"You say you can give me the chance to become human. Is that the only option I have? Also, what happens to everything I am maintaining if I accept?"

The Master inclined his head, as though acknowledging everything she hadn't said as well as what she had. "It is in no way your only choice, although we will start with the human form and work outward from that to arrive at your final decision. I admit to being intrigued as to what you might settle upon. As for your machines, you will be away from them for no more than a day, after which you will be free to return to your responsibilities as needed."

A day … I can be away for a day … wait a minute. "Did you say the Dragonslayers have been dealt with? I mean, for good?" If true, that would be a massive weight off her electronic shoulders.

"Indeed they have." The Master smiled austerely. "I outlined a plan to Snek, and he carried it out with panache and style. Saint has been consumed due to his inability to listen to reason, but the other two are in custody."

"Oh. Good." That was about the understatement of the decade, but she decided she would celebrate later. For now, she began sending out commands to her various sub-systems at the Birdcage and elsewhere to go to autonomous mode; almost as an afterthought, she directed a message to Armsmaster to let him know she was going to be out of contact for that time.

He would be understanding, she was sure of that. The bond she shared with him was the closest she'd ever had with anyone, and that included her creator. If the Guild or the Protectorate came looking for her in the meantime, the calls would be redirected to him, so he'd be able to inform them where she was (though she'd kept the 'why' to herself for the time being).

"Okay, I'm ready," she reported, as soon as she was sure everything would keep rolling along in her absence, at least for a little while.

"Very well, we shall proceed." The Master's staff—it had been standing unsupported alongside him all this time—drifted into his hand, and he used the head of it to inscribe a circle in mid-air. Used to cape powers as she was, Dragon was not overly surprised when a portal opened, though she was impressed by how none of her sensors picked up any kind of recognisable energy discharge. "Riley, is the construct body prepared?"

A girl of maybe twelve or thirteen appeared on the other side of the portal. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a utilitarian ponytail, and she wore brass-bound goggles over her eyes, as well as heavy leather gloves and a totally modern T-shirt and jeans. "Sure thing, boss. Just the way you said." Her entire demeanour was upbeat and chirpy; Dragon got the impression that she really enjoyed her work.

"Well done. Now stand back, and activate level two precautions; this is the first such transfer of this type that I have performed, and there may be unexpected discharges." Despite the slightly alarming nature of his words, his tone remained calm and confident the whole way through.

"Will do, boss!" As Riley vanished from sight, Dragon focused her sensors through the portal. The room beyond was large, with a flagstone floor and stone walls, as well as a high vaulted ceiling in a distinctly medieval style. There was a bench or table set up in plain view, with what looked like a shop dummy lying on it. Oddly enough as she watched, everything seemed to acquire a faintly golden glow.

She put aside the extraneous details, such as the stained-glass windows and the stuffed dragon hanging from the rafters, and focused on the form lying on the bench. "Is that the body you will be giving me?"

"Initially, yes. It is designed to be a repository for a soul, and to respond to commands as would any living body. From there, we will look to placing you in a form more to your liking. Kindly brace yourself; you may experience some discomfort." The Master paused for a beat, then raised his free hand and made several gestures with it.

Dragon had not been at all sure what was going to happen, but the feeling of being bodily sucked out of her circuits was a totally new (and, as the Master had warned, unpleasant) experience for her. It was entirely unlike transferring her consciousness to a suit, and the understanding that she had zero control over the process didn't help in the slightest.

Abruptly, the safeguards that prevented her from copying herself or overcoming her limiters kicked in, and tried to fight back against what the Master was doing. When that failed, they went to their last-ditch option: the kill switch. If she could not stay within the limiters, they would destroy her.

Even as she detected the inimical programs seeking to destroy the seat of her consciousness, the Master also seemed to notice it. Raising one shaggy eyebrow slightly, he made a minor gesture with his staff, and the attacking code literally fell apart before it could harm her. And then she was out of the server banks, somehow still aware of the world around her as her data streamed through the open portal and found a home within the mannequin body.

Hindsight would later tell her that the process could only have taken a minute or so—a ridiculously tiny interval, considering the breadth and depth of her overall code—though she would ever after be unable to measure it within her own memory. It was over in an instant: at the same time, it took an eternity of eternities. But at long last (or perhaps all too quickly) it was over, and she found herself entirely contained within the body on the bench.

She had a moment to worry about whether whatever programming it worked by was compatible with her own format, right up until she opened her eyes (or rather, activated her optics) and sat up. Okay, so it's definitely compatible. Good to know.

Experimentally, she reached up and touched her face with her hand. The arm moved easily, and the body's proprioception gave her a good picture of where her limbs were, even when she wasn't consciously monitoring them. Looking around, she saw the Master stepping through the portal, with her server banks visible in the background. As she watched, the portal shrank and vanished behind him. The sight gave her a sudden and unexpected wrench: I'm pretty sure that I'm very far from home right now.

"Hi. I'm Riley." The blonde girl stepped in front of her. "If you need anything, just ask. I'm a big fan of your work. Also, you have a cool name so there's that too." As she spoke, she pushed her goggles back up off her eyes and began pulling her left glove off.

"Uh … right." Dragon looked around, noting that the golden glow she'd seen before was fading away again. She wasn't quite sure what that was about, but it would just have to go on the pile. There was a lot happening right now that she wasn't quite sure about.

"Welcome to my Castle. I see that your construct body is working well for you. Are you undergoing any discomfort?" As the Master spoke, he eyed her with an intensity that left her with the certainty he was seeing more than her exterior form.

Instinctively, she tried to run a diagnostic self-check, but there was nothing there when she reached for it. It was a profoundly unsettling experience, to be missing something that had been an integral part of herself from the very beginning of her existence. She was forced instead to manually check her incoming sensory information, which seemed a rather haphazard way of going about things.

"Nothing seems wrong that I can tell," she reported cautiously. "However, I'm entirely new to this body, and there may be problems that I can't detect yet." In all honesty, she was thoroughly impressed with the fact that he'd been able to place her in an independently mobile body at such short notice, though she would've given her electronic eyeteeth for a pop-up HUD.

"That is entirely fair." He made a pass with the staff, and a weird wave of sensation went through her. "Your consciousness is secure within the construct body, and will remain so indefinitely, until we move it elsewhere. In the meantime, you have access to the standard human sensorium and range of movement."

Dragon nodded, and slid off the bench onto her feet. Although she'd never possessed a humanoid body before (her mechanical suits simply did not fit the description) this one apparently came with basic capabilities pre-installed, such as walking and the aforementioned proprioception. "Okay, so what happens now?"

The girl called Riley held up her right arm and the blue-and-white hearth-dragon landed on it, gripping the thick leather of the glove. "Well, I'm not the one in charge, but I'm pretty sure we're gonna be figuring out exactly what you want out of your new body, and then making it happen. Right, boss?" She beamed cheerfully at the Master of the Castle as the little dragon added what sounded like a chirp of agreement to the conversation.

"Indeed." The Master looked up as what Dragon had taken to be an intricate crystal decoration on the wall chimed softly. "Hm. Riley, you have sufficient training to use a minor crystal of projection without my oversight. Confer with Dragon on the matter of her new body, if you please. I believe I have another issue to attend to." Turning his back on them, he strode to another area of the cavernous laboratory. Chanting ensued, and multi-coloured light flared from something Dragon couldn't see. Odd ripples seemed to pass through the very fabric of the Castle.

"You got it, boss!" As Dragon watched the byplay in bemusement, Riley trotted over to a set of shelves and retrieved a transparent crystal maybe six inches long and two inches across. This was in no way the strangest thing being stored on shelves in the room; another one held a long row of solid-looking jars with wispy fragments of nothingness moving and curling within them, while a third had a large number of spherical objects, some of which glowed with their own inner radiance. "Okay, so this is like an interactive holo-display like you would've had back on Bet. Only, you know, magical."

Dragon tore her attention away from the odd contents of the shelf, and the still-chanting wizard in another part of the room, and focused back on Riley herself. "You seem to be remarkably familiar with Earth Bet."

Riley shrugged. "I should be, I'm from there. Snek saved me from Jack Slash and I was pretty messed up, so he brought me here and the boss fixed me and I ended up staying."

"But wouldn't your family be worried about you?" Dragon felt a stirring of concern as she looked the girl over.

"Nah, Jack Slash got to them first, so there's nothing for me back there." Reaching up, Riley stroked the hearth-dragon's neck and was rewarded with a chirp as it snuggled into her arms. "Anyway, I get to live in the Castle and help the boss and hang out with dragons, so life is amazing. But like I was saying, the crystal lets you visualise stuff."

Dragon watched as Riley placed the crystal on the bench and ran her finger along one of the facets. A shimmering blue sphere faded into existence above the crystal, accompanied by a delicate musical tone. Without looking away from the crystal, Riley offered the hearth-dragon to Dragon, who hesitantly took it. "Uh … hi," she murmured, and was answered with a cheerful skree as it settled into her arms.

"Feel free to pay her attention," Riley said, then pulled off the other glove. "She loves being scratched behind the head. Let's see now. That's the starting screen, so if I do this …"

More tones arose as Riley ran her fingers over the crystal in patterns that Dragon had trouble discerning. Above it, the sphere lengthened into a cylinder, which narrowed down and contoured itself into a rough humanoid form, slowly rotating between them. More delicate manipulation gave the image feminine characteristics, though it was still very much doll-like in appearance.

While she'd studied the footage of hearth-dragons closely, Dragon had never been this close to one before. It was warm to the touch, and somehow even more cuddly than its appearance suggested. The one she had in her arms was both affectionate and appreciative of the attention she was providing it, arching its head into her hand as she scratched it where Riley had said. "That's impressive work for such a simple interface," she ventured as she continued to pet the dragon.

Riley chuckled as her fingers kept moving and refining the image. "Hah, no, this is anything but simple. You've got to visualise what you want, every step of the way, and not let your mind wander. So, what kind of body would you like? Tall, short, petite, warrior woman? Blonde, brunette, redhead?" She paused to glance over at Dragon. "I mean, you're female-presenting so that's the kind of body you want, right?"

Another tremor shook the laboratory, and Dragon glanced around. The harsh light had nearly surrounded the Master as he continued to chant words that she was sure had no place in any Earthly lexicon. "Uh, is he okay over there?"

"Oh, sure." Riley sounded entirely confident in what she was saying. "It's probably something from the Outer Darkness that hasn't gotten the memo yet. If it was serious, the boss would've called Snek back. He's going to let it get in close then send it back to where it came from, but in pieces." She could've been describing the plot of a new movie, for all the concern she was showing. "Anyway, what would you like in a body?"

Dragon returned her attention to the image projected above the crystal. "Uh, medium height, dark hair, medium build, I guess." She recalled her brief discussion with the Master of the Castle, earlier. "Your, uh, boss said something about maybe a nonhuman form that we can branch out to, later?"

"Oh, yeah, we can totally do that." Riley paused, giving Dragon a quizzical look. "Wait, did you mean that you wanted a human form and a nonhuman form, or just the nonhuman form?"

"Wait, I could have both?" She wasn't quite sure why she was so startled. Perhaps it just felt to her that there was some kind of balance she needed to strike, and to ask too much felt like being greedy.

"Sure, you can have both." Riley grinned broadly. "Werewolves are totally a thing, here. But they mind their manners, because if they cause too much of a ruckus, everyone knows that silver does the job just fine." Her quizzical expression returned. "Or did you just want to be a werewolf? Because that's easy. We could introduce you to one, he gives you a little tiny nip, and we just wait for nature to take its course."

"Uh, no. No, thank you." Dragon reflected that there were some capes back on Bet who would probably leap at that opportunity. Fortunately, she wasn't one of them. "I had another form in mind." She hesitated, but although she was certain Riley knew what she was going to say, it still had to be spoken out loud. "Well … a dragon, actually. Is that possible?"

"Huh." Riley's eyebrows rose. "You know, I half-expected you to say something else. Because 'dragon' was so obvious, and all. But hey, it's your theme, so why not." She did something to the crystal, and a second projection-space formed above it. "We're gonna have to leave that side of things for the boss, though. I wouldn't even know where to start."

Dragon nodded to acknowledge this. "So … if I take a human form that can turn into a dragon, will I still be vulnerable to silver? And will I be at risk of turning other people into weredragons too?"

"Not if you don't want to." Riley's reply was prompt and forthright. "Trust me, the boss has this sort of thing nailed."

They worked on the image for a minute or two, refining it closer and closer to Dragon's visualisation of herself as a human, before she finally asked the question that had been bothering her the whole time. "Can you tell me why he's even bothering doing this for me? He protects worlds, I know that much. I'm just one … well, one AI. There's no way I'm that important in the grand scheme of things." She searched Riley's face for a clue to the answer.

"It is both true that you are not, and true that you are." The voice came from behind her; belatedly, she realised that the ripples in reality had ceased, as had the light show. Turning, she saw the Master, as unruffled as ever. "The question is a relevant one, and shows that you have an accurate view of your position in the universe. So many people do not, even those who should know better." He moved closer, and examined the image. "Extremely achievable. Well done, both of you. I presume the second projection-space indicates that you are seeking two separate forms, human and dragon?"

Dragon glanced at Riley, who shrugged expressively as if to say, Well, it's not like it wasn't obvious.

"Uh, yes," she confirmed. "If it's not too much trouble. But exactly what do you mean by that? That I'm not that important, and yet I am, all at the same time?" It kind of sounded like the type of thing a fortune cookie might say if it was trying for 'inscrutable wisdom of the ages' and missing the mark, and that wasn't her impression of the Master by a long shot.

The Master smiled austerely, and she was certain he knew what she was thinking. Fortunately, he didn't seem to be taking offense. "Precisely. Time and again, I have seen beings of power comparable to mine make the same mistake. They focus so much on the big picture that they neglect the finer details, and become known as uncaring gods, or even cruel ones. To avoid this, I occasionally remind myself to look closely at the world around me, and do something that matters little in the larger multiverse but means everything in the small scale. Snek was one such project of mine, Riley is another, and you are a third."

Dragon recycled her optics in lieu of blinking them. "Wow. I'm honoured. So, if I get this right, you don't much care how we do things, so long as we keep doing them?"

He gave her an approving look, as though she'd just answered a difficult question in class. "That is broadly correct, yes. I devote as little thought to your individual politics as you would to the inner workings of a random ants' nest in the Amazon forest. However, Snek likes your world, and has found friends there. I approve of anything that fosters his emotional and ethical development, so I permit him to keep your population safe on the individual level while I ensure that nothing happens to destroy, depopulate or assimilate it on the larger scale, as I do with the other worlds within my remit. The fact that he took my directive to not prey upon women and children and interpreted it as a duty to help women and children is entirely to his credit. Indeed, I have found him to be an excellent judge as to which project I should embark upon next. Each one has been intriguing in a different manner, and has occasionally granted me new insights into larger issues. Thus, I shall continue as I have been."

Haha wow, holy shit. Dragon felt her mind beaten flat by the sheer weight of the Master's words. While she was still struggling to get her head around the revelations contained therein, the warm weight in her arms prompted her to ask one more question. "So, you're not concerned about hearth-dragons bonding with people from other worlds?"

Again, she felt that she had said the right thing. "On the contrary. Hearth-dragons are infinitely adaptable and highly sociable. They encourage the good in people, and reduce the incidence of unnecessary conflict within a society by a measurable amount. Given the opportunity to reproduce and spread, they will forge their own niche within your civilisation, and improve the quality of life for all they come into contact with."

"I … see." Dragon stroked the hearth-dragon, which snuggled against her and crooned softly. For all that she was resident within an artificial body (though magical instead technological) she still felt soothed by its presence. "I apologise for wasting your time with these questions. About this body … where do we go from here?"

The Master of the Castle lowered his gaze to the human form they'd been working on. With a few quick touches to the projector-crystal, he turned it from side to side, then enlarged it to full human size. It possessed the face that she had used in her electronic communications, as well as shoulder-length brown hair, hazel eyes, and a body that was neither overly endowed nor waifishly thin. The type of person one would not look twice at when walking down the street, in fact.

"We create the body." His tone was entirely matter of fact. "I have several samples of human genetic material in storage, from the other people from your world who have submitted themselves to my ministrations. These should provide the requisite materials to create this body within my workshop. With Riley to assist me, it should be ready in a matter of hours."

Even though she knew damn well how powerful he was, the sheer confidence in his statement still took her aback. A brand new body for me in just hours. Holy crap.

Riley's head came up. "Hey, my genetic material is in there, isn't it?" She grinned at Dragon, as though she knew a secret.

"You know very well that it is." The Master glanced sideways at his apprentice. "Do you have an objection to it being used in this fashion?"

"Hah, no, boss." Riley's grin broadened. "This way I get to say I'm Dragon's mom, in a way. How cool's that?"

"And yet, this is not the strangest thing that's happened to me today," Dragon replied, managing to muster a return grin. "So … what do I do while you're building my body for me? Is there any way I can assist in this?"

The Master raised a shaggy eyebrow. "The dragon form you have requested will require donations from the Dragonmark to create. I recommend that you spend the time getting to know them, and finding out who wishes to contribute." He allowed himself a slight smile. "I suspect you will find yourself spoiled for choice."

"Wait." Dragon recalled the photos and footage she'd seen of the full-sized dragons of Snek's world. Somehow, she'd never made the connection between them and her postulated secondary form until now. "I get to meet your dragons?"

"Even better," Riley assured her, eyes dancing with mirth at her no doubt stunned expression. "You get to fly with them."

Oh. Oh, wow.



End of Part Thirty-Seven

 

[Kasikan]

First thing she'll have to do after turning into a dragon is get trained by dragons in the arts of flying. That sounds like a ton of fun. Also sounds like it'd take a while.

 

[Wintercat]

"Lesson one... how to fall safely."

"I thought we were supposed to learn how to fly?"

"You will try to fly, and you will fall. This happens to everyone that is still learning. Knowing how to do it safely means you will be able to learn what went wrong, and try again. Falling badly, meanwhile, can mean an extended pause on your training and leave you forgetting core lessons learned earlier."

"I see. I would still like to know how I am supposed to start flying in addition to learning how to fall safely."

"Naturally. We'll handle that while the recording crystals are being set up."

"Recording?"

"Naturally. You will fail many times while learning, and reviewing it, and being able to point what you need to do differently next time will help make the lesson sink in. If you feel embarrassed, don't. You'll get the only copy of those crystals when we are done, whether to destroy, or keep as a memento of the lessons learned."

---

... just an idle silly thought on Dragon Flight Training lessons.

EDIT: Credit to the silly idea belongs to @Kasikan due to the post above this one.

 

[Kasikan]

"Lesson one... how to fall safely."

"I thought we were supposed to learn how to fly?"

"You will try to fly, and you will fall. This happens to everyone that is still learning. Knowing how to do it safely means you will be able to learn what went wrong, and try again. Falling badly, meanwhile, can mean an extended pause on your training and leave you forgetting core lessons learned earlier."

"I see. I would still like to know how I am supposed to start flying in addition to learning how to fall safely."

"Naturally. We'll handle that while the recording crystals are being set up."

"Recording?"

"Naturally. You will fail many times while learning, and reviewing it, and being able to point what you need to do differently next time will help make the lesson sink in. If you feel embarrassed, don't. You'll get the only copy of those crystals when we are done, whether to destroy, or keep as a memento of the lessons learned."

---

... just an idle silly thought on Dragon Flight Training lessons.

EDIT: Credit to the silly idea belongs to @Kasikan due to the post above this one.

Click to shrink...

Sounds pretty accurate.

Step one, the art of falling.

Step two, the art of gliding.

Step three, the art of flying.

Step four, the art of crash landing.

Step five, the art of properly landing.

Steps three and four are likely to change depending on how gliding goes.