I'm back! I realize it's been two, almost three, years since I posted the original Cover Stories and Family Bonding, but I got an idea for a new story and I think it will work well as a sort of sequel. You do not need to read the original for this story, so if you haven't, don't worry! If you have, I hope you like this!
"A dragon?" Sara asks, raising a skeptical brow at John and Charlie. "You're sure?"
"Aye love," John confirms, "Why do you seem so surprised?"
It's a fair question, Sara supposes. It isn't like they haven't faced crazier. Hell, they first found out about the mythical fugitives because John found a dragon's head lying around and threw it at their feet. But fugitives have been becoming scarce lately, meaning they're either all taken care of or they have gotten much better at hiding. In any case, the magic alarm hasn't gone off in over two months, their missions have been much more run of the mill lately; at this point a dragon just seems like something that should've reared it's ugly head, no pun intended, sooner.
"Fair enough," She concedes, coming out from around her desk and pushing through the pair of them, heading for her seat. "Where to?"
"Ontario Canada. Niagara Falls to be exact. 1986."
Sara nods and punches Charlie's coordinates into the navigation system while Gideon announces for everyone else to get to the bridge.
"You're going to regret interrupting me Gideon," Zari chides as she puts her tablet down safely on her desk and starts heading for the bridge. "I'm working on coding hair into your projection."
"While I do appreciate that Ms. Tomaz, removing a fire breathing dragon from 20th century Canada does seem to be of a higher priority at the moment."
Zari considers making a retort to that, maybe a vague and empty threat to not finish the program if she can't get more than ten minutes to herself, but she ultimately decides against it. It isn't Gideon's fault missions pop up when they do, often coincidentally in the exact moments she has decided to stop procrastinating her projects.
Instead she heads for the bridge without saying a word, finding herself entering alongside Mick, who is too preoccupied with shoving the last bite of his sandwich into his mouth to say anything.
"Gideon says we're looking for a dragon?" She asks as she heads for her flight seat and pulls the restraint down over her head.
"Yup," Sara confirms, "Canada 1986, shouldn't be too bad."
"Doesn't this lot have a record of things going bad as soon as you say something like that?"
Sara shrugs, but the action is accompanied by a smirk. John isn't wrong, Zari thinks to herself, though lately their track record hasn't been all that bad. If you don't count the whole incident of him and Charlie breaking time that is.
"Call me an optimist." Sara says before swiveling her chair around to face the controls, and then they're off.
They set down The Waverider in a clearing in the woods not too far from Niagara Falls. The reports Gideon shows them are that of tourists being dragged off, roasted alive, and most likely eaten by a supposed dragon that no reporter seems to be able to get a clear picture of.
That fact doesn't exactly sit well with Sara, but if they don't stop this dragon then Ontario is doomed to become a wasteland by the end of the decade, and that's certainly going to cause some complications for the timeline, to say the least. So they're going to have to investigate to figure out what exactly it is they're dealing with.
"Ok," She says as they all get up from their chairs and converge around the main console. "The name of the game today is tourists. We're here to look around and see the sights, and if I hear about any one of you trying to go over the falls in a barrel, there's going to be hell to pay later." She doesn't mean for her eyes to land somewhere between Mick and John when she gives that warning, not entirely anyway. But at least they have the decency to either look away (Mick), or roll their eyes (John), and at least Zari handles the glance towards Charlie for her.
"Ok, let's move."
"Wow, we actually found a mission that you of all people don't have to change clothes for." Zari's voice suddenly rang in Charlie's ear as they all headed out of the forest, a touch of judgment as always, but not quite as hostile she's been before.
Charlie still rolls her eyes, but there's a smirk playing on her lips. She and Zari have gotten better with each other ever since she and John broke reality, and then subsequently fixed it. In fact, she's gotten better with most of the team since then.
"What about you?" She teases, eyeing the other woman up and down and just barely managing to stifle a laugh at the sight of her baggy, faded denim jeans with matching jacket and the pink and white cow print scrunchie holding up her high ponytail on one side of her head. "You fall off a tractor?"
She is getting better with the team, doesn't mean she has to acknowledge it 24/7.
Zari gives her a rather unimpressed glare before producing a small bag of cheesy pretzel bites from her pocket.
"Ha ha, very funny" she mocks, "I'm just glad for a mission where I can bring snacks,"
She then proceeds to pop another two little bites into her mouth, never offering to share, as usual.
They make it out of the woods fairly quickly, coming out at the back of a trailer park crowded with the RV's of vacationing families.
"Man, I always wanted to take a cross-country trip in one of these." Ray says, his eyes trailing over each RV he passes with the wondrous expression of a child in a toy store. It truly is a wonder they haven't yet lost him on a mission.
"I did something like that once," John comments idly as they navigate their way through the maze of campsites. "Not bad, but you gotta go with the right people, otherwise you'll all end up strangling each other."
"I don't know," Zari interjects, "You live on The Waverider long enough you learn how to tolerate close quarters."
"You're one to talk," Sara snorts, "You've only been here a year."
"The ship's close enough," Mick grumbles, "I couldn't live on a bus with you people."
"It's not a bus!" Ray whines, somehow insulted as always. "RV's have a lot more space than you would think…"
This trails into a back and forth between Mick and Ray, and Charlie personally sides with Mick. She may not be having as many problems with the Legends these days as she was before, but that doesn't mean the idea of living in something small as an RV with them sounds appealing.
"Would you two focus?" Sara finally interrupts the argument as they reach the front of the campground. "We need to be on the lookout for the dragon."
She's barely finished the sentence before the sound of screams suddenly sounds out from somewhere down the road.
"Well that was easy," Charlie comments, noting the eye roll from her captain, but as usual she ignores it and nothing more is said on the matter.
They take off running down the street, something that gets increasingly difficult the further down they get as there are crowds and crowds of people running away from whatever is happening over at the site of the falls. As they get closer Charlie does see a blur of something out of the corner of her eye, and so she looks up just in time to catch a glimpse of a black blur vanishing over the tops of the trees.
"Bullocks," she swears under her breath. She can't exactly tell what the blur was, and that only enforces the notion that this isn't going to end well.
The dragon is in the air above them and the falls, wings stretched out and fire spewing from its mouth in a blaze of glory. How she was able to be picked up by the magic detector early on and yet this thing the size of two high rises has managed to stay hidden until now Charlie will never know, but that doesn't much matter right now.
"Ray?" Sara all but gulps, staring up at the horrific sight in the air as well. "Please tell me you brought your shrink ray."
"It's not-" Ray glowers at her, but is cut off when the dragon spits a fireball that just narrowly misses their group, and that must be enough to convince him that this is neither the time nor the place to be correcting people. "Yes I brought it!"
He produces the item in question, along with his suit, from his pocket as Sara starts telling them the plan. Keep the dragon occupied and away from Ray until he can get a clear shot at it. Shouldn't be too hard.
Oh, and don't do anything stupid, that is a constantly ignored guideline with this team.
"Hey ugly!" Mick shouts, firing his beloved heat gun in the direction of the beast, as though it could actually do even minimal damage. The dragon doesn't even appear to notice, and instead flaps it's wings as though it is about to fly off to some more populated area.
"We need to ground it!" Ray shouts, though Charlie just barely hears him over the loud wind cause by the dragon up above. "If we can get it to land it'll be easier to get the shot!"
"On it!" Before she can blink Zari is off in a tornado, flying up towards the dragon with Ray soaring after her. The rest of them watch the two go, not so lucky as to possess the power of flight.
It's hard to see from down here what exactly Zari is doing, Charlie would guess blasting wind into the dragon's face based on the angle she's at, but she can't be sure. Whatever she's doing it's working, because the creature is descending and Ray looks like he's lining himself up into position to take the shot and then before she knows it there's a flash of light and the dragon is gone, replaced by a small black dot which Zari swoops down to catch.
The dragon is actually kind of cute when it's all shrunken down and huddled in on itself against Zari's chest. Sara only takes a brief look at it, but it's a long enough look to admit to herself that the tiny creature suddenly resembles a puppy rather than a monster. They're going to have to move out quick, unless she feels like explaining to Mick again why they can't keep a dragon on the ship. At least Nate isn't here this time to add to the begging.
They set off back for the campground they came through, and one would think that capturing a fire-breathing dragon would be the hard part of the mission, but that is proving to not be the case.
"Someone else take this!" She hears Zari's rising panic coming from behind her and turns just in time to see her friend losing her grip on the squirming little dragon, Ray attempting to either help her get ahold of it or take it himself, either way it isn't working and the little dragon wriggles free of Zari's arms, even using Ray's as a springboard into the air.
Fortunately, just when Sara thinks they are about to spend the rest of their day chasing a pint-sized dragon throughout Canada, it clumsily flies itself right into a tree and Mick is able to grab it off the ground.
"It must be disoriented from the shrinking," John observes and Sara just lets out a breath of relief, choosing to forgo acknowledging the fact that Mick is petting the little thing and the action seems to actually be calming it down. Whatever works, she's seen far too much to question something like that at this point.
"Let's just get it to the bureau," she huffs and they trudge forward, weaving back through the maze of RV's and this time needing to worry about avoiding some where the families have decided to make a hasty retreat.
They manage to get back to The Waverider in one piece and Mick and Ray go to secure their new friend for a time jump while everybody else mills about on the bridge. They'll jump as soon as the dragon is secure.
"Wow Mick, you are surprisingly good with him."
Mick rolls his eyes at Haircut's observation, though he also pulls the little guy in his arms just that much closer to his chest, so take that for what it's worth.
The dragon is pretty cute; even he can admit that. It's completely black, except for it's eyes, which are big and a piercing green color. That should make it look that much scarier, but there's something about the stubby legs that negates the effect. Plus it's purring against him like a cat, so there's that.
Yeah, he thinks it's pretty cute, so sue him.
"Ok," Haircut practically cheers when they enter the rec room, which is also where the new brig is. He'll never understand that design, he's pretty sure the kid and Hunter took out a wall by mistake when they were remodeling and never put it back up. "Let's get our little friend here locked up."
Mick doesn't even wait for him to finish before heading over to the containment pad and putting the dragon down, rubbing at it's head a bit once he's got it down.
He then turns to go, and gets one step out of the containment area.
"Alright Haircut-" He stops himself short, noting the other man is lunging forward with a look of panic on his face. Mick doesn't even have to turn fully before he sees the little dragon launch itself at Haircut, wrestling him to the ground and biting at him.
"Hey!" He shouts, diving to get a grip on the dragon and pull it off his teammate. "Little bastard!"
He's trying to yank it off of Haircut, whose trying to shove it off, but for a little guy it's strong and biting and clawing until finally there's a high pitched whining sound and…
Oh shit.
The ship gives an unexpected dip that has Sara bracing her hands against the control panels. A growl comes up through her throat; they've been doing so good recently too.
"Boss?!" Mick's panicked voice is in her ear before she can think about contacting him, and shit if Mick's panicking this must be bad.
As though to prove her point, the lights start flickering, and she's fairly certain she hears a minor explosion from somewhere down the hall.
"Dragon gout ahold of the shrink thing and got it in reverse. Ha-" He gets cuts off by a crash, and Sara curses, and there's another explosion somewhere on the ship and the emergency lights and alarms start blaring.
"Everybody strap in!" She shouts loud as she can, all but throwing herself into her seat and yanking down the restraints.
"Gideon, set a course for The Time Bureau!" Nothing. "Gideon?" Nothing. "Shit."
She starts setting the course manually, and then the sound of metal tearing away from metal catches her ears and she forces her hands to work faster. They have to make a jump, now; otherwise they're going to be freefalling through time.
"The ship's coming apart!" Zari yells behind her.
"No shit!" She yells back, not even looking over her shoulder, her hands still flying over the controls.
There's glass breaking and sparks flying everywhere in the background, John cursing and she's pretty sure someone puking, but Sara tunes it all out. They just need enough for one jump, no matter how bad. They have to make it to 2019.
With one final input of data that Gideon's system may not even be reading she plows the lever to jump forward with all her strength.
"Um, Director Sharpe?" Ava glances up at the sound of Gary's nervously gulping voice and his hesitant knock on her open door. Most people wearing that expression would mean that something is terribly wrong, but with Gary it's just as likely that the vending machine is out of Snickers.
"What is it Gary?"
He doesn't answer her at first, his mouth opening and closing but no sound coming out for a concerning length of time, even for Gary.
"Um…" He finally manages, his hands beginning to fidget awkwardly. "We um… we've received a call from S.T.A.R. Labs in Central City. It seems that The Waverider has crashed."
Her blood runs cold.
"Everyone's ok!" Gary hurries to tell her, and while she does hear him and it sends a course of relief through her veins she's still on her feet and pulling out her time courier, inputting the coordinates even as Gary continues to talk and follow just on her heels.
She opens up the portal and the two of them step through, finding themselves in the parking lot of S.T.A.R. Labs where Ava is finally able to breathe, because the entire team of Legends, including Sara, is standing out there with a few other people.
"Thank God," She breathes out in relief, making a b-line for her girlfriend and pulling her into a tight hug.
They're embrace only lasts a moment before Ava has to push Sara back, a need to assess her injuries refusing to let all of the anxiety leave her body.
"I'm fine," Sara promises her, not that Ava is going to take her word for it.
"To hell you're fine." She argues, though in all fairness Sara actually doesn't appear to be hurt at all. There are no scratches on her, no blood, maybe a bruise somewhere Ava can't see, and that's the thought that worries her. "You just crashed through time!"
"No, we didn't." Sara assures her, taking Ava's tense hand from her shoulder and bringing it to her lips for a light kiss. "We were able to make the jump here before we lost all power, a little off course from The Time Bureau but still 2019. The ship's just outside of town in a field, we didn't hit anything."
Ava nods, her eyes making one last scan over Sara so that her mind will finally accept that she is ok. She then looks around the parking lot at the rest of The Legends, who all look as unharmed as Sara, save for Rory who's a little banged up and…
"Where's Ray?"
"Inside," Sara answers, a certain guilt suddenly in her eyes. "He took the worst of it, but he'll be ok."
Ava nods, a part of her mind thinking about how she's going to have to tell Nora about this and already dreading it.
"What happened?"
By this question The Legends, Sara included, are all doing their damnedest to avoid eye contact with her. She doesn't know if she should be worried or angry, but when Rory finally lifts up a tiny dragon by the excess skin folds on it's neck she chooses worried.
"This guy," Rory says, "He's more trouble than he looks."
The feeling of disappointment that Ava used to have regarding any interaction with The Legends is almost a comfort.
"Yeah…" Sara drawls uncomfortably, "It looks like we're going to be here awhile."