Author's Note: A couple of things. Firstly with it being this close to the holidays I have some non story work to get down so that's gonna delay my writing for a while. Secondly it's come to my attention that one of my long time readers rmarcano321 has for some reason or another deleted his account, or someone did it for him. Either way I consider it unfortunate. Read, Review, Favorite and Enjoy!
Chapter 54: The Dragon Games Team
In spite of the difference in species Darling was actually ahead a little bit in her race against the Kirin. Darling's knack that slowed down everyone and everything around her to a stand still had allowed her to keep pace with the Kirin who moved so fast that the rest of the world seemed to grind to a halt. The area that she won in however was in home field advantage: Darling ran in these woods, if not this very course, every single day. Every stray log, every low hanging branch, every ravine and more was a obstacle that Darling knew by heart, compare and on contrast with the literally born yesterday Kirin who found himself slowed and impeded by every little obstacle like these. However Darling's advantage was coming to an end, the lake has always been about as far as she's gotten, and she'd need to recharge before she could use her knack to cross it. That wasn't to say that she would be immobile though, to shorten the amount of time it would take to get to the other side, and extension the longevity of her next 'charge', Darling was already running round the side of the lake. Besides, Darling was also wondering how that walking electrical generator would fair with water. Speaking of which...
"I wouldn't do that if I was you!" Darling shouted as the electrified dragon horse neared the lake.
Heedless of the Danger the Kirin began to run across the water, electrified current leaving it's body and being loosed into the water of the lake, and without that massive explosive energy it wasn't able to run across the water either, nor did it know how to swim. Luckily Darling's knack had gotten it's power back. Running across the water Darling grabbed the thing by it's horn before making a beeline to the nearest piece of shore, she didn't make it, but she did get close enough that the Kirin was able to walk the rest of the way.
"Have I earned your respect yet?" The Kirin neighed in approval, it really was just like a horse. "Good, you wanna go back to the school now?"
The Kirin grabbed hold of Darling with his teeth and threw her onto his back before galloping back to the school.
"You two had fun I presume?" Morgan looked like she was in the middle of giving the Ouroboros their magic runes when she saw Darling and the Kirin walking back to them.
"Quite." Darling stated letting out a satisfied sigh.
"If you two are done yet, we've decided on the human half of the team!" Professor Hood stated waving Darling and the Kirin over. "As Darling is the only person who can control that raging speed freak over there she'll be our new Racer." Professor Hood stated, Cork board beside him where he pinned Darling's name under 'Racer.' "Daring, Dexter and Hopper will be our Chasers." A position that originally was going to go to Darling, given the strong familiar bond the three shared their teamwork would be quite excellent, but now Hopper would be substituting. "Hunter and Ashlyn will be our knights." Though not familiar Hunter and Ashlyn knew each other well enough that they could move in sync with one another, aside from which after her traumatic ride with the Kirin Ashlyn specifically requested to work with a slow Dragon, which made her most suited for defense. "Sparrow will be taking the Goalie slot, and he will be team captain!" Sparrow was the one most familiar with different dragon breeds and Dragon Games tactics, from the goalie position he would have a view of the battle field and make tactical decisions for his team. "Now, go pick out some dragons, Morgan should already have a few ready for you all."
Including the Kirin, Morgan had time to complete work on seven so far: The two headed Ouroboros, a heavy set Wyrm, a four legged blue Knucker, a bright lime green Wyvern, a long crystal like serpentine Diamond Back, and a Dark Black Wyvern all had runes engraved in different parts of their bodies. Raven watched the Dragon's game team as they sorted through the ones Morgan had already been working on. That said she had the foresight to pick out the best dragons to serve in specific roles: the Ouroboros together with Sparrow would be able to defend all three goal posts at the same time. The Two Wyverns would be fast enough that they can serve as mounts for the Chasers, though the Diamond Back was being given to Daring Specifically due to their huge compatibility: Daring amplified light and the Diamond Back weaponized it, it's shiny transparent scales like the lenses of a magnifying glass. The Knucker and the Wyrm on the other hand were being given to Ashlyn and Hunter respectively, their ability to manipulate Water and Earth respectively meant that they would make for good defensive players. It was a given that Darling and the Kirin would serve the role of Racer.
"I wonder if this will set some precedence for team composition?" Apple asked looking at the team as they partnered up with their dragons.
"Well it is a basic strategy, biggest and slowest gets put on defensive, lightest and fastest gets put on offensive." Raven commented scratching her chin. "Ah speaking of which..." The one that Apple have been giving a lap pillow just now was the one her mother called Cthulu, the former Dracorex who had been remade by one of the Watcher's tadpoles into... this thing. Morgan still hadn't come up with a proper name for the species yet, if she had her way it wouldn't be necessary either, as she was intent on not letting them take any of their people, or her dragons. "Are you sure you're okay with that thing?"
"He's not a thing!" Apple stated defensively, thought technically it was since one side of effect of the transformation was that the Dracorex no longer had a gender. "And I picked a dragon that would be best suited to my abilities just like how Daring picked one for him!" Apple replied her nose upturned.
Indeed a strong telepath was best suited to Apple who had the ability to control animals and to a more limited degree dragons: with her ability to passive bring animals under her control Cthulu could then use his telepathy to relay more detailed instructions to them.
"Riiight. Well Nevermore looks like she's gonna be busy for a while." Indeed: the dragons 'Mother' was busy teaching the younger dragons the more complicated stuff, still they were fast learners, it wouldn't be long before they start fighting each other and Nevermore and Brogan would have to calm them down. Apple and Raven however were moving into the magical forest: it wasn't just the dragons that Morgan had dumped into Ever After, Suu was dropped off here as well, and they needed to find whatever was left of her so that she could regenerate safely. It also provided the two girls another opportunity, the ability to talk in private.
"So... what do we know about these 'aliens?'" Apple asked looking unsettled. "Do we have a plan in place for finding them or keeping them from getting here?"
"Mom's trying to come up with some vaccines so that we don't end up like Cthulu." Raven replied as she awkwardly scratched the back of her head. "She's not having much luck with testing it though, she mentioned that she wants to move onto testing on live stock."
"I see." Apple wasn't happy about animals being the victims of Morgan's mad experiments, being slaughtered for meat was one thing, but being taken over and remade into something and someone else from the inside out... she at least hopes that they won't suffer long. "Do you have any idea how long it'll take to find the blue blob?" Though Apple asked that, Raven's attention had been drawn elsewhere.
She had found a egg on the ground the size of a Book Ball, and was now examining it.
"A dragon egg? How'd this get here?" Raven asked with a questioning glance.
"Did one of the dragons at the school lay it?" Apple asked looking confused.
"They haven't been alive long enough to breed yet let alone lay eggs. Do you guys have any dragons around here?" Raven asked suspicious.
"Only the Dracorex's, and their eggs aren't that big." Apple commented looking down at the egg suspiciously.
"We should get it back to mom before it..." A crack appeared in the surface of the egg. "Hatches."
Raven chucked the Book Ball sized egg into the air and over the forest before Grabbing Apple and diving for cover behind Nevermore. The Explosion was louder than most eggs, the fire in the sky blinded many creatures, if Raven hadn't thought to try and get Apple out of the way then it's quite likely that they both would be seeing stars right now.
"Dragon eggs explode?" Apple asked still in surprise.
"It discourages predators from trying to break them open." Raven explained before she looked up into the air for any trace of the newborn. "Well come on then, we should probably find it before it gets into any trouble." Apple nodded her head in agreement.
"Then let's call on some help." On that note Apple sucked in a load of air and formed a cone around her mouth with her hands. "RRRAAAWWWRRR!"
Admittedly traveling by Fiend was less comfortable than riding on Nevermore, but they need the dragon with her sharp eyes in the air looking for any sign of the newborn. That still didn't change the fact that they were being carried through the woods with one of the Fiend's spiked antler's in the wrong place in Raven's posterior. Various smaller creatures had answered Apple's call as well as they picked through the woods on ground level looking for the dragon chick, what they found instead though elicited more panic.
"Another egg?" Raven was thankful for the excuse to climb off of the antlers of the Fiend but she couldn't enjoy it. This egg was even bigger then the last one, which was in turn a sign that a even bigger dragon had laid it. The kicker? The crack that had appeared across the surface the moment Raven picked it up.
"Not again." Raven chucked the egg underneath a tree before she ducked behind the Fiend for cover, the explosion took out the tree this time, knocking over, the sound of gurgling followed as several of the small animals Apple had gathered let out a death rattle, swallowed whole. "It's a hungry little bugger I'll give it that." When Raven turned around she was surprised by what she saw, the egg didn't contain a creature, it was the creature! The broken open egg shell contained a golden colored slime that in turn contained a rapidly vanishing squirrel, before that is the egg sealed back up, ground calcium and carbon from the poor bugger's bones were used to seal up the cracks and expand the shell of the egg making it bigger before it took off again rolling away. "Oh no you don't!" Raven fired off a magic barrier trapping the egg in the process. It tried to explode again, but all that came of it was a dull boom and a suppressed flash. "Not happening!"
"Raven do you know what this thing is?" Apple asked looking down at the ball of magic and egg confused.
"It's a Humpty Dumpty." Raven stated as she held her chin in her hand.
"Like that wonderlandian nursery rhyme?" Apple asked looking confused.
"Only if Humpty Dumpty ate all the King's horses and men." Raven scoffed while crossing her arms. "They're typically born when slimes eat eggs. The Egg yoke alter's their chemical composition and the shell is incorporated to provide a extra layer of protection." Now that Raven had figured all of that out there was another query that warranted asking.
"But where did a slime get a dragon egg of all things I mean it's not like... its..." Raven would slap herself if she wasn't so happy immediately dropping the barrier. "Suu!?" Two little black eye like dots formed in the golden liquid, which then went wide when it realized who was holding it. "SUU!" They looked happy to see each other at least, even if the most that one could do for expressions was just to make different shaped sensory organelles.
"Your mom's slime?" Apple asked recalling seeing the slime back when the two realms were stuck together.
"She must have eaten the left over yokes from the dragon eggs!" Raven exclaimed as Suu returned to egg form, happy to get out of this forest. Raven called Nevermore down and together they returned to the school.
"What's Weiss planning on doing with the rest of them?" Morgan asked looking at Professor Hood suspiciously.
"Charming Prep for now." Well that was fair, it wouldn't be much of a league if it was only the one team in it, nor for that matter a army. "Are you guys doing anything on your end to keep and eye out for Aliens?" Professor Hood asked cocking a suspicious brow.
Morgan took the liberty of noting her gratitude for being inside of the privacy of the kennels.
"Deep space telemetry for now." Morgan replied with a shrug of her shoulders. "Course since we don't actually know what the Lithilid ships look like or how to identify them it'll be a pain to actually deal with."
Morgan was squeezing the Watcher for everything it was worth, she was even making arrangements so that it would auto connect with the rest of it's kind as soon as they are in range and inform Morgan of their exact position before they figured out their advance scout had turned against them.
"What about on your guys's end?" Morgan asked arms crossed and a displeased look on her face.
"The dwarfs are working on some contraption for getting off the planet, why don't you ask your narrator?"
The 'Brok' as the dwarfs called it was built in a manner that would make rickety broken down shacks envious, apparently it was named after some dwarf of legendary craftsmanship. The Irony was lost on them. The contraption was built around a magic spewing Zeugi which had been roped into a fire spewing funnel designed to use explosive force to move the contraption off the ground. It had been hooked up to a launch pad, electricity was running off of it as a rail gun getting ready to shoot it off into the air with dramatically increased force. Confident the Dwarfs hit the launch button...
Morgan didn't even need the narrator to see the explosion.
"How does a bunch of engineers and architects be this bad at building something?" Morgan asked as she face palmed herself and shook her head.
"Mom!" Raven shouted from the back of Nevermore, the mockery of a dragon egg wedged between herself and Apple behind her. "We found Suu!" Immediately the egg jumped off of Nevermore and rolled directly for Morgan, and not in a friendly way.
"This again." Rolling her eyes Morgan threw up a barrier blocking the egg and the explosion that followed it in the process. That though didn't stop the Humpty Dumpty from beating against the barrier trying to attack Morgan. "Would you cool your jets?" Alas Suu lacked jets to cool, they were eaten along with the vast majority of her body by a hoard of hungry dragon chicks, years of reserves vanished in a few days, and now she was a completely different species to show for it, as if she already wasn't a dysfunctional mutant to begin with. "Calm down, I'll drop you off in a landfill on our way back." Steam seemed to come out of what passed for ears for the slime, of course it wouldn't be happy about eating literal garbage even if she couldn't taste it it was the principle of the thing resulting in it continuing to beat slimy fists against the barrier.
"Just a heads up." Morgan opened the door leading into the stables, revealing a overpowering stench of dung coming out of it. A dragon on average eats about three times as much as a prize winning pig, and by Morgan's estimates these dragons ate about three times more then the average and they numbered in the triple digits, nor for that matter were they house broken. "I'm not cleaning this up." Morgan stated in a deadpan tone.
"You won't have to. You may recall that some of our students owe you an apology for breaking into your tower. And while narrowly surviving it's many death traps might seem like sufficient punishment to you, but it's not for me."
Thus cue Dexter, Daring, Blondie and Sparrow in knee high rubber boots and holding onto shovels, buckets, soap and brooms with instructions to not leave until the stables were spotless. Course what took them a couple of hours to figure out was that while they were running around trying to scrub the place down the dragons would fly back in and see clean floors as a invitation to make them not clean again.
Review Section:
ChimaTigon: Smaller but yes. I appreciate it, it actually gives me some ideas for more monsters.
DJ: An Ulfhedjar refers to the nordic equivalent to a werewolf, the subtle difference being that as opposed to being the result of a curse their wolfy transformation is the result of a magical wolf pelt. No they don't, genetically speaking they have nothing in common and she didn't raise them. Even if they did recognize each other as siblings that wouldn't stop them from breeding with one another, nor wouldn't it be a issue due to their extreme genetic diversity. I look forward to it.