Sam lived in a warehouse adjoining one of the industrial areas of Old Downtown. She was glad to have it. The only place large enough for her to live, train and work on her motorcycle in the area. Which was also where she worked for both her job to pay the bills and her bloody vocation.
She didn't have many neighbors and the rat packs of feral children and assorted downtown squatters knew or suspected who she was, the city's most famous vigilante.
Sam, being recognizable, wore warrior leather and steel, her hair in braids. She had a cream that rendered a person's skin like a dragon's. She was left with streaks of deep green reptilian looking skin. The last step was removing the contacts that made her eyes look human to reveal the pumpkin orange dragon's eyes she'd carried since the Ceremony of Blood that bonded her to her ancestor.
She had discovered after the return of magic that many generations back, the last time magic moved freely over the earth, she had an ancestor named Angwyn Zath. An Anglo-Saxon chieftain and half-dragon warrior.
This came to her after she had the vigilante idea and tried a spell she'd bought that promised to give her strength and bravery to protect and patrol the streets. The spell not only called the spirit of her ancestor into her body, it also gave her first hand experience with what happened when a human used magic in this odd new world.
Mystiks were what happened.
Discounting the few babies born to two mystik parents in the time since the return of magic, all mystiks were originally human. All took the form of mythical creatures. So far all of them looked different and there was no clear reason how the new form came about. Such as the child of a satyr and a dragon woman could be a pixie or anything else.
Which left hundreds of people who wore forms classified as elf though they ran the gamut from short playful Santa's helpers, to tiny beings from folktales of shoemakers, to tall and willowy bow wielding Tolkien elves. The same could be said for trolls, who were everything from seven foot muscle bound frankenstein types to four foot living stone creatures so ugly they were cute. There were even a few unfortunates who woke up human minds in animal bodies. There were weredogs and dogmen, but there were also simply dogs with no human characteristics except their intellect. And the same could be said across animalkind.
Sam got lucky, simply with bright orange reflective eyes in an otherwise human body.
Sam's alter ego, The Dragon Lady, was famous throughout downtown. The ultraviolent righter of wrongs. She'd been known to interrupt a mugging by disemboweling the assailant and asking the stunned ex-victim to join her in dancing in the entrails.
It took her an hour to get dressed, braided, painted and armed. She removed the rubber tubing that covered the ornate dragon carving on the hilt of her tonta, matching the carvings on her hong-wei and her katana.
When she was prepared, she summoned the presence of Angwyn Zath.
As she felt his strength infuse her. She swung her katana longsword like a bamboo whistlestick. She drew her hong-wei short sword with its wide rounded blade like a flower petal of finest steel. She effortlessly incorporated it into her maneuvers.
She worked ten times through the Nine Mortal Cuts exercise, sheathing the katana halfway through never breaking rhythm with the hong-wei.
Then she got her motorcycle ready, she affixed the metal dragonscale armor. And the three foot spike was mounted over the headlight.
She opened the big rolling door and drove out, starting down Mission Avenue, with an eye to the sides and alleys.
She saw what looked like a mugging and turned onto that street. The man definitely had grabbed the woman's purse, punched her in the face, then kicked her in the stomach. Sam sped past behind the man, drawing her hong-wei, and beheaded him. She skidded to a halt and was off immediately to attend the woman. "Are you all right?"
"What the hell did you do that for?" The women screamed
"What the hell do you mean." Sam said, "He took your purse, then he punched you. I saw him kick you in the stomach."
The woman had been crying since the man punched her. She now began to wail. "That's because I wouldn't give him Dust money. He was my brother. Petey, Petey, what's happened to you?" She turned on Sam, "What the fuck? You just go around killing people?"
"I was trying to help." The Dragon Lady defended herself.
"Killing my brother is helping? Eeeaaaa!" She keened as she charged Sam, fists waving wildly.
Sam kicked her in the face lightly, just enough to knock her out.
As she departed she couldn't help but think about what would become of an unconscious woman left out for anyone to take and circled around back to toss her into a nearby dumpster. A smellier wakeup, but one much less likely to be disturbed
Sam rode on, foiling two more robberies and a rape. In all cases she responded with her signature ultraviolence. But she was in turmoil inside. That brother kill, it just didn't feel righteous. She'd run into shock at her speed and extremism; death or severe mutilation in every case. But she'd never had an outright objection. She saw now that it could easily happen again.
With the rebirth of magic came the fall of law. When the laws of physics are reduced to suggestions, what hope do the laws of man have? Soon, abusive relationships were up to about twenty percent just with lovers, taking family in the account say forty percent or more of people were violently punished or controlled by someone they knew, usually loved.
Very few of those people would immediately welcome the death of their abuser. How could she be expected to know who was who? Destruction of antisocial assholes was her life's work. Anarchic societies necessitated avengers. To openly, obviously, deal with those not inclined to respect the rights of others.
She was in a conundrum. But work always took her mind off her problems.
She got excited an hour later. When she saw five men beating a sixth with sticks. This time there was no confusion. Someone needed help. And with all those guys she should be too busy to think.
She was preoccupied and so didn't notice they were pulling the blows. Also the blood was coming out of the sticks to streak his head. Not vice versa.
She sped by cutting one across the back.
She had just enough time to notice that the guy she cut wasn't bleeding before another one stuck his stick through her wheel, so it whipped around, stopping against the forks with a jerk, throwing her.
Then it all went black. They had her inside before any passersby could see, let alone defend her.
If any defenders had appeared they would have found that when the door was bolted it was too heavy for them to break, and it was not secured by any lock, magical or mundane. It was held fast by the will of another mystik somewhere in the building.
Just as if he was on the other side of the door holding it closed. They could have budged a bit, but not enough to even open it a crack. If they tried to reach the mystik's mind and cut it off at the source, they wouldn't have found it.
A sympathetic mystik landed on the building's roof. In her current form she resembled a red velvet colored housecat the size of a mastiff with large reptilian wings. Her wings were predominantly colored in a pink tinged yellow champagne color and gold, with a symmetrical pattern of dark brownish red that matched her fur and looked sponged on.
She had made her nest in the upper eaves of the building for the previous two weeks, since she picked up a random thought about kidnapping the Dragon Lady and keeping her as a helpless slavegirl.
With thoughts of the fun she'd have preventing it, she had stayed. She wanted to have time to blend in so she wouldn't seem like the two of them were connected. If she failed, she would hate to have the other woman punished for her inadequacy.
Of course, when the heinous plan was finally acted upon, it happened while she was out hunting. So now she would have to manage the much more difficult feat of rescuing her from the inside.
The dragon cat went over what little bit she knew from her two weeks there with a remote viewing ability that like her mind reading was very useful but neither dependable nor under her conscious control.
These abilities came with her new form when she turned mystik. She had been working spells to make herself strong enough to leave the abusive brother she lived with as well as spells to make him leave.
Unfortunately the mentally ill were notoriously hard to work any magic on that was intended to change their mind or implant an idea. So she had done the spell daily for long enough to turn mystik when he finally left.
She knew these kidnappers were small time hoods with strong stomachs that killed the building's previous owner and moved in. Now they fancied themselves downtown nobility and had taken the Dragon Lady to add another dimension to their sadistic slavegirl tormenting games.
Sam's cell was cinderblock walls and a concrete floor. She guessed it was probably twelve feet on each side. When Sam woke up she was naked and on a fifteen-foot chain, so she could move about easily. But being chained in the opposite corner from the door she couldn't quite reach it to look out.
She'd been there about forty minutes when one of her jailers came to check on her. He stood in the doorway just out of reach. He was about thirty with long blonde hair. He didn't resemble anyone she remembered making an enemy of. So this might not be a vendetta.
"Welcome to your new home. We've been waiting for you. That beating scene has been staged for an hour or more every night for nearly a week." The newcomer said.
"Why?" She asked, because he seemed to want her to, and she was curious.
"We've found seven slavegirls on the street." He explained, "They did their work well, I liked them. But my men get a little overzealous, and they don't make slavegirls like they used to. We thought the Dragon Lady would have some spirit and still be strong enough to take her punishment without breaking."
"Forget that chizz. When I get free I'm gonna hang you with this chain." Sam said
"You know, I've heard that before. Numbers three, five, and seven. All died. Wearing that very same chain you now wear. You are number eight. That is the only name you are allowed. You exist for our service and at our whim. If you disobey us, this will happen." He shot her with a dart gun.
Sam found herself on the floor, conscious but with no control of her muscles. Her captor entered the room and began to beat her. He used a heavy flogging whip, the tip of which had been separated into three strands, each topped with a steel bead. She felt tears in her skin open all over as he beat her. Finally with a scooping gesture with his knife he cut out the external part of her clitoris. "Your pleasure would only lessen ours."
Sam's last thought before his booted foot connected with her head and brought the darkness. "As if you could give me pleasure, you sheepraping dogfucker."
An hour later Sam awoke, her crotch a center for her agony, where she figured they had cauterized her clit stump with hot steel. Her whole body radiated pain from there. Her whip cuts burned like sulfur, apparently they employed a salve that healed with maximum pain. She looked at herself, all the whip cuts she could see as well as her severed clit were covered with hard black scabs.
Her handler came to the door with the "victim" of the beating. All fake blood washed away. "If you'll give your oath to behave, we'll take you out and show you your duties."
Sam dropped to her knees, "I swear I will serve you, Master."
He liked that. He unhooked the chain to use as a leash. It was bolted to the wall with a heavy padlock. She attacked them both immediately thinking, "An oath made under duress can never be binding."
They both shot her with stun darts. Then proceeded to work her over. They did not like fighting people that moved.
The dragon winged cat watched the Dragon Lady in her mind. She feared the worst when she saw how mangled the Lady had become. After watching how well she was still getting around those fears were put on the back burner. On the plus side the dragon cat knew that their use of God's Blood. The street name of the drug that flowed so freely in that group, had now reached such epic proportions that it brought delusions of grandeur and sense of omnipotence but now included the side effect of impotence. So they could only threaten to rape her. On the negative side they were very sensitive about that. Apparently, the fifth, sixth, and seventh slavegirls had preyed too heavily upon that, their only weapon.
Their lives ended raped with the one hard thing every downtowner always had at hand, blades.
By the second day of refusing orders and getting beaten Sam was beginning to get confused. She felt stronger and better in a lot of ways then when she had come in. Only her most recent cuts hurt at all. The others were numb, with just some stiffness where the actual scab was. Even the one where her clit used to be.
She had a bit of unexplainable swelling and a heavy sick ache in her lower abdomen. But she didn't worry, it was still better than she had any reason to expect to feel. She did the rite summoning the presence of Angwyn Zath every morning, until the day when she no longer felt the need. The power was always with her. (What she thought of as his presence was more just his strength and confidence than any actual consciousness sharing her head.)
She continued each day with her exercises when she could be certain she'd be left alone; tai ' chi, unarmed combat practice.
Once or twice a day they'd come in and offer her the run of the place, if she'd obey. She'd try to attack them, get stunned and beaten.
The stun drugs were muddling her more than the pain was.
They usually struck on the same lines. So at least her scarring would be uniform.
Eventually a piece of a scab that hadn't been reopened cracked off, healed. Underneath the skin was scaled and serpentine. Unlike when she used her disguise cream, this matched her skin tone with just a hint of green. She was shocked thoughtless for a moment. Then it came to her, could it be her connection with Angwyn strengthened with the blood bonding ceremony?
She was a grown woman, she knew how mystiks were made. Humans practicing magic. Between being Angwyn's descendant, (strengthened by the Bloodbonding), daily summoning and use of his energy, the dragon skin cream (which worked by magic). She'd been doing a lot of magic, a little at a time. She thought the eyes were the extent, but her becoming a creature whose every injury grows back dragon was not hard to believe.
"My clit!" Sam found herself thinking, all of a sudden. She didn't need some big scaly dragon looking thing. She had to check. The scab was most of the way off. It was definitely dragon, but it looked okay. It had tiny interlocking scales but lseemed almost the same as always. A little thicker perhaps... and getting even thicker as the hood drew back. Longer too, a lot longer. She began to worry as more than a clit slipped down and out past the retracting hood. Apparently her body didn't grow back dragon, it grew back Angwyn. A human/dragon cross, and male. That explained the pressure on her belly. Dragons didn't have external genitalia. They were retracted in an internal penile sheath unless excited.
She examined her new appendage. It looked like a normal humanoid member, except the foreskin ridged slightly in rings. It had soft scales like a snake, and seemed to feel and responded normally to her. Having never owned one, she couldn't be one hundred percent sure of 'normal'.
To the touch it felt like she was wearing a thin textured condom. She didn't know what to think. Life as a half-dragon hermaphrodite had somehow never even been considered as an option, until now. Being mentally bisexual was a huge jump from being physically bisexual.
But if she didn't escape, none of this would matter. First she wanted to get herself thumbed. If her thumbs grew back dragon claws she would have two permanent weapons that couldn't be taken away.
It wasn't even difficult. Suddenly turning obsequious, playing the humble slavey. When asked amiably, 'why the change?' she started weeping. "I heard you men might thumb me if I didn't obey. I can't lose my thumbs. Without my thumbs I could never hold a weapon. I'd never be good for anything but slave work."
Never to pass on an opportunity to hurt and demoralize her, and never wondering where she could have heard it, when the only people she saw were the handler and any one of them who might assist him. They just shot-stunned her right there and chopped her thumbs off.
It took her thumbs two weeks to grow back. The same skin tone with a greenish cast and topped with about an inch of almost steel strong claw. In the intervening time, she'd swallowed a cup full of lye, that she was supposed to be unclogging a toilet with. They thought it a suicide attempt in reaction to the thumbing. They threw her down in the cellar to open her room up for the next slave.
She was given water, but no other care. That was reserved for those likely to live. But, she had a plan, and dragon innards would be very useful to the fulfilling of that plan. It took a week before she could hold down more than small sips of water, but she was steadily gaining strength. She faked barely clinging to life when they came down to hose her down or refill her water bucket. She was plotting but didn't know for what, exactly. She was feeling good, her skin striped reptilian in sort of a tiger pattern. In a jagged v shape covering' her shoulders and angling down. the rest of her body striped from the whip.
"Half dragon and packing?" The winged cat on the rooftop thought to herself, "This could be interesting." She was a lifelong lesbian, but a phallus might be nice, as long as it didn't have a man on it. She'd had her eyes and ears on Sam and her captors and she'd learned a lot, such as Sam's name. And the villain who spent the most time with her was the leader, the very one who took the house by killing the owner. Several of the others were the first owner's bodyguards who decided they liked the new management better.
The leader also brought his brother, the mystik who held the door. Once a brilliant and talented mage prodigy. Sadly, with the only parental influence in his life a killer, druggie, sadist older brother, he'd discovered the joys of recreational drug use at an early age. Now the only magic he managed was holding the door closed. He was quite paranoid and manning the door was the only thing important enough to penetrate his drug haze. He was a mystik who still looked twelve at nineteen. His now pointed ears seemed to slowly grow as he got older. But that was the only sign any time had passed since he became a mystik in the First Wave.
The dragon cat was feeling good and contented. It was nearly fourteen months since she went mystik. And a year to the day since she began her experiment. She still knew who she was and still thought like a woman gifted with the perceptions of a cat and the wings of a dragon.
She'd feared becoming a winged cat with vague memories of a woman who might have been her.
She had decided to live a year in her new form to balance the preceding seventeen in her original one. Tonight she would face the world on two legs for the first time in twelve months, and she'd do it for a good cause.
She knew what had happened to the Dragon Lady or Dragon Laddie, as might be becoming the case. She also knew how to manage the break. The gang had had a slavegirl since Sam, but she didn't last long, so now they were looking for another one.
She sat in woman form on the rooftop holding a mouthful of cheap rum for ten minutes. Giving her tongue and teeth a chance to marinate. She spilled about half the remainder of the bottle down her front in one shot as she watched the boys go out hunting for a new slavey.
In cat form she descended, then retaking woman form called out, "Excuse me guys, where am I?"
They took the bait like starving rats. There were six of them and she was but a young girl. They carried her in bodily, unstunned, concious, and unbeaten. She waited until they had her out of sight of the door on the inside. Then she changed and they suddenly held a biting twisting, clawing dragon cat nearly the size of a cougar.
They instinctively let go, and she flew off down the hall. The men yelling and tailing her. The call to move caught Sam by surprise, but at an advantageous time.
The leader, her original jailor, was down in the cellar with her. He was tormenting her. Pulling her hair, verbally reviling her, and poking her with a fork. Trying to make her attack. He didn't believe she was dying anymore. It was taking too long to be believable.
She heard the call in her mind, sprang up from beneath her thin, holed blanket and grabbed her tormentor by the neck, severing both jugular veins with her thumbnails. Her improved dragon reflexes helped this to happen faster than the leader could move. The next opponent she met she tried to breath fire, but what came out was more a caustic venom. In any event the man was blinded and his head was then easily torn off with her thumbnails to slice through the gristle.
The maiden left cat form when she reached the large janitor's closet turned armory and found Sam's weapons. She brought the katana and the tonta on a sword belt across her back. She used the hong-wei herself. It was similar in weight length and balance to what she was used to although the shape was a little exotic.
They met in the hallway and turned to fight their way out. The girl took the tonta, passing the hong-wei back. Holding the tonta in her left hand she changed her right, unsure until she'd done it if she'd be able to only change one limb.
So she had a twelve inch scalpel sharp blade in one hand. The other had five claws and packed a swat like a brick. The seven were dead long before Sam and friend even reached the door. When they reached it, it was still held fast.
"The brother," The cat girl said.
"What?" Sam asked.
"The leader's little brother, he's a mystik with a safety fixation."
"Well let's find him and kill him." Sam smiled, completely serious
"No way. He's just as much a victim as you. He was a child prodigy. So magic he turned mystik as soon as there was enough magic to make it possible. Now he's drugged up and confused. He needs to be taken in and apprenticed." The girl said firmly.
"By you?" Sam asked, surprised.
"To start. But eventually by more static people. One of the mage schools or China Dragon. You don't have to help if you don't want to." But it was obvious the girl hoped she would.
"You risked your life to help me. Until we leave this building we're partners."
"Then I want to live here." The girl mumbled. Sam gave no sign of having heard.
A moment later Sam said, "Hi I'm Sam, sometimes called the Dragon Lady. How'd you find me to give me that mind call."
"I'm Cat, the dragon cat. I have to believe that the Universe doesn't have such a corny sense of humor that it's anything more than coincidence. I've been watching you. I'm just glad you responded so quickly. I'm a mystik looking to make a difference in the world. Maybe looking for a partner." Cat smiled.
"What are you looking for?" Sam asked, with a more than simply professional curiosity.
"My first choice would be a half dragon amazon with a taste for pussy...cats." Cat looked like she was trying hard to flirt but was so scattered by the situation and Sam's presence, she was about to spin out.
"Sounds familiar, maybe I can hook you up." Sam managed to comfort her and flirt back.
"I'd like that." Cat replied with a nervous smile.
They found the boy's room. Of course that door couldn't be opened either.
Sam was trying to sort out a plan to go through the walls. But Cat had her own idea. "Lucas," She called, "Lucas."
"Hnph." the answer came.
"C'mon Lucas, my name's Cat. Everyone's dead, we're here to rescue you."
A moment later his voice came through the door clearly, "What do you mean everyone's dead?"
"Do you know what your brother does here? Do you know about the slavegirls?" Cat asked.
"I don't concern myself with women who have such a low opinion of themselves, that they'd want to become slavegirls." Lucas said.
"Your brother and his men kidnapped women off the street and forced them to be slaves." Cat said softly, trying to break the news to him.
"Don't spread lies about my brother. You're not the first to try that. But I know the truth, he tells me the truth." Lucas sounded angry, like this was an issue he was just about sick of.
"My friend has the collar scar to prove it." Cat was getting a little frustrated herself.
"People get scars for a lot of reasons." Lucas sounded like that ended it as far as he cared.
Sam jumped in. "Just how much of a waste are you, Lucas?"
"What do you mean?" Lucas sounded suddenly confused.
"Are you at all connected with reality? Do you know anything about the world outside? Have you ever heard of the Dragon Lady?" She asked.
"That bitch. Going around taking credit for the people Jepson saves." Lucas sounded angry again
"Oh gods, Lucas, let me ask you to stretch your one remaining brain cell for a moment. Those were eyewitness accounts from rescued victims. How could she take credit if it's not her work?" Sam asked
"She kills the real victims who Jepson's trying to save. And the criminals would just lie to protect themselves." Lucas's voice kind of went up questioningly at the end as if how ridiculous he sounded was finally penetrating.
"Do you have any idea how ridiculous you sound? No, I suppose you don't, fuckin' waste." Sam was obviously done trying.
"I'm not a waste." He actually sounded like a pouting child.
"Fine, whatever, have a good time, be safe, best wishes. C'mon Cat." Sam took Cat's now human hand and turned to go.
"Sam, he needs help." Cat said.
"He most certainly does. Starting with a few days to sober up. But he's not interested in adventure while he waits for a premium apprentice position to open up. So let's just leave him with his misery. And his drugs to hold it at bay." Sam said.
"I don't want to leave him." Cat said.
"No one wants to leave him. But we have lives to live and he's busy slowly killing himself. C'mon you don't want to watch this do you?" Sam asked.
"No." Cat sounded suddenly exhausted.
"Okay, come in." Lucas said. They opened the door. He was laying on the bed, atop a pile of filthy rags. The room smelled of indifferent bathroom habits. Lucas was garbed in very soiled pajamas and had matted hair grown past his waist.
Sam spoke, "C'mon boy, let's get you out of here and cleaned up."
Lucas rose out of bed took one and a half steps before collapsing backward to sit on the bed in a cloud of scent. "I don't think I can make it, Miss."
Sam easily lifted him, as long as she didn't breathe while tal;king. The only thing worse than his smell was tasting it. "Don't worry we'll get you out of here." Sam said her voice sounding a little weird.
Cat knew where they had stashed Sam's motorcycle and Sam was able to get Lucas settled behind her. "Can you hold your seat?"
"I think so." He said, sounding unsure.
"Well it isn't like I have much choice. I'll just drive slow and careful."
Cat had properly taken pity on Lucas, which forged a bit of a bond and she was all in favor of giving him what Sam had offered. Accompanying them while they looked for the right magical school to enroll him in. But Sam was having none of it. She said what she said with the intent that it would tempt him enough to go with them. And she was willing to let him stay at her loft with them while Cat cleaned him up, got him new clothes and dabbed the sweat from his brow as he detoxed. But she wanted nothing to do with him on any sort of a personal level.
When he was well enough she took advantage of the fact that she had once saved the Grand Magus Jerry, director of China Dragon. Not a magic school at all but more a guild hall for wizards. Named after a large statue of a dragon made of finest asian pottery that stood in their office. Jerry felt he owed Sam enough to take the lad regardless, but after an impressive evaluation took him on as his personal apprentice. Which not only took him off their hands but all but promised him an exciting and successful life.
As Sam rode away, Cat flying above, she thought about the brother kill that had started this whole adventure. Then she thought about Lucas and his lying abusive brother Jepson. She decided she wasn't doing this to make friends or to keep people happy. She was doing this to better the world. And if some codependent people get hurt, that is truly sad. But certainly no reason to stop.