"Everything went OK?"
Taylor looked at her father, then dropped her head back over her chair, nodding a little. "Yes. The raid was simple enough, the Merchants are done." She glanced at Linda who was listening and appearing nervous. "No one was hurt, aside from some minor injuries and a few self-inflicted friendly fire issues, which they fixed. Raptaur said it went off perfectly."
"And… the body?"
"I did what I needed to, they found it after the raid, and identified it as Squealer practically immediately," she sighed. "It was unpleasant shooting it, I can honestly say that, but..." She shrugged. "It wasn't alive except technically, no one was home. I still didn't enjoy it."
"I wouldn't expect you to," her father replied, giving her a sympathetic but proud look. "None of you are the sort of people to enjoy causing either death or destruction for it's own sake." He looked at Amy and Lisa, who were sitting quietly next to Taylor, currently Saurial. "Good work, all of you. With any luck, that will put Skidmark off, hopefully permanently, act as a warning to anyone else who might fancy trying their luck, and leave Linda in the clear."
"They'll do a very comprehensive autopsy, I think," Amy put in. "They always do when it's a Parahuman involved, especially one as high profile as Squealer. But they won't find anything amiss, I'm certain of that. I replicated the traces of drugs in her body, to match the usage Linda reported and the chemicals left in her hair and bones, faked up suitable stomach contents, blood sugar levels, that sort of thing, to show she'd eaten about twenty-four hours ago, everything else I could think of. Any discrepancies I missed, and I'm fairly sure there probably aren't any, would be easily explainable as the result of long term narcotic abuse."
Linda shivered a little, then sighed. "It's freaky to think about." She took a deep breath, raising her eyes to theirs. "But I'm also glad that part of my life is over. Thank you all."
"You're welcome," Lisa smiled. She looked over at the computers. "I'm going to need to release a press statement, and talk to Director Piggot to get our stories straight. This is definitely going to be big news tomorrow."
The phone rang, causing Linda to twitch and everyone else to look at it. Taylor picked it up, answered it, then handed it to her father. "It's for you."
He took it from her and had a conversation with one of the gate guards, which three of the other four heard both sides of. When he handed it back she put it down in the charger. "It's big news now," he said for the benefit of the only other non-reptilian person present. "Brockton TV is at the gate. They're asking for an interview with someone from the Family."
"I'll do it," Taylor said, standing up. She looked at the Tinker, who still seemed a little upset. Understandably so in her view. "I'd suggest you get an early night. It's nearly ten anyway, so it's not that early. We can talk tomorrow about what you want to do next, and sort out your workshop. There's still the issue of your Changer form as well."
"OK," Linda said in a subdued manner. "I'll walk back with you." She turned to Lisa and Amy. "Thank you both again for everything you've done."
"It was an interesting exercise, and fun making your new body," Amy smiled.
"And we were happy to help," Lisa added.
The brunette woman nodded, smiled, and followed as Taylor and her father left the office, heading back towards the admin building and some reporters.
'I'm glad that's over,' Taylor commented to the Varga as she swam out of the bay, descending to a few hundred feet and turning north. 'We'll have to see what happens next, it's out of our hands now, but I think it will probably work to one degree or another.'
"I agree," he replied. "The PRT and the Protectorate seemed pleased with the outcome, I have no doubt that Amy's work will stand up to their scrutiny, and in the medium to long term we've removed a significant amount of narcotics from the streets. That is likely to save many lives on its own."
'Until someone else starts it up again,' she sighed.
"True, but we can only do our best to reduce that. No world is a utopia and I doubt we can ever make this one such. But we can help, and I am glad to aid you in that." His deep voice washed over her. "More importantly, right at this moment, are you all right?"
'What do you mean?' she asked.
"I know what you felt when you shot 'Abby', my dear friend. Even though there was nothing inside that brain, no consciousness or anything one could ever term a person… it still looked like a human. You did not enjoy doing what you did."
She was silent for a while, swimming steadily along with slow sweeps of her tail, pondering his words. 'No,' she finally replied. 'I did not enjoy it at all. I very much hope I never will. Dad was right, taking a life is something you don't do lightly, but that sort of gave me a taste. I know there was no one at home and never would be, Linda is safe, and we had no choice, but… it was unpleasant even so. It makes me wonder what it would be like to do it to something… someone… that was really a thinking being.'
Vast immaterial arms wrapped her in a feeling of protection. "I understand. I am sorry that you had to do it, but proud that you didn't flinch. It's more proof that the greater power chose well. I shudder to think what someone with your abilities would be capable of without that ethical sense. Don't worry, with your friends, family, and of course, me, I believe we can keep you from doing anything you would regret. But… The life you have chosen, and had forced on you, means that you'll almost certainly have to do that again sooner or later, to someone who is a real person. You must be prepared for that, although I agree that you should also try to avoid it as much as possible."
Taylor sighed very gently. 'I know, and I'll do what I have to. Like I've said in the past, and you have as well, a threat is only good if you are prepared to carry it out, otherwise it's just blowing smoke. I'll protect my family and friends and anyone else who needs it, and if that requires me to kill someone threatening them, I will. But I won't like it.'
"Good. If you did, I would worry. Remember that. And remember the memories of Princess Luna I showed you. She was much like you in some ways, she never flinched from doing what was necessary. Even though she never liked it, and talked with me for hours each time, trying to see if she could have done things differently. The answer was hardly ever 'Yes,' of course. It's what made her such a fair ruler when she finally inherited the Kingdom. Her people were very fond of her indeed, and she them."
'I'd like to have met her.'
"I would also have liked that." He chuckled softly. "Although I fear such an event would rapidly have become more chaotic than any one world could support. She was… interesting."
She smiled to herself, deep underwater, and very glad she had him as a friend and adviser.
'Thanks,' she finally said. 'That helps.'
"You're welcome, of course. I believe we are close to our destination."
'Looks like it.' She recognized the sea bed, they were only a few miles from the rocky outcrop that passed for a beach where she'd met up with her father and the Mayor weeks earlier. Beginning to rise towards the surface, she slowed.
"Taylor?" he said, surprising her a little since he rarely called her by her name.
'Yes?'
"Talk to your father about it, too. He needs to know how you feel."
It took a while for her to reply. 'I will.'
"Good. Now, let's see how well our little experiment works, shall we?"
Taylor grinned, pushing her slight regrets to one side for now. 'We shall indeed.' Surfacing, she looked around, listening carefully. Only the surf on the rocks and sounds of sea life getting on with the business of living was audible anywhere nearby, a couple of boat engines far out to sea throbbing faintly being the only trace of humans. On the horizon the automatic lighthouse she remembered from the first visit here regularly brightened and dimmed, but it was miles away.
"Looks good," she said out loud, swimming towards the shore and shrinking into her aquatic combat form as she went. Reaching the rocky outcrop, she climbed out and shook herself off. "So. Let's see what happens." Waving a hand dramatically, she added, "Dragon Mode: Engage!"
"By your command," he chuckled as they changed into the modified black dragon form.
"Cool," she laughed, looking down at herself, then craning her neck around to inspect her latest body. "This is amazing." Opening her wings, she stretched them out to their full, nearly forty foot span, flexing them and moving the bat-like claw at the primary joint. "Feels great. OK. Any idea how to actually do this?"
"Flap, I would think," he rumbled, his voice full of humor. "Beyond that, you know as much as I do about flying. I'd suggest jumping at the same time as you do the first down stroke, that should help, then we'll have to tweak everything on the fly. So to speak."
"You mean wing it?"
"Exactly. At the moment everything is rather up in the air."
"I'm glad I have you along to keep me grounded."
They both laughed, then she raised her wings as high as they'd go, the tips meeting above her back, squatted down on all fours, pushed off hard, and brought the wings down...
Swimming back to the rocks, she climbed out, shaking the water off.
"Well, we know exactly what not to do," she giggled.
"More up and less forward, I think."
"OK. Hmm, let's try this..."
Swimming back to the rocks, she climbed out, shaking the water off.
Again.
"That was… not quite right either."
"Not as such. I was impressed by the somersault, though."
"Thanks."
She thought hard, remembering watching how birds flew, something she'd been studying for a while. He made a few suggestions, and they fiddled with the form a little.
"This should do it. Right, wings up, crouch, flap and jump and away... we... go!"
Swimming back to the rocks…
"This may take a while."
"I'll figure it out sooner or later."
"I'm sure you will. In the meantime, I'll just sit here and snicker, if that's all right with you."
"It's what you normally do, so go ahead."
Good-naturedly arguing with her live-in demonic friend, she happily settled down to experiment.
Emily read the preliminary report, then looked around the conference table. "That seems to have worked out remarkably smoothly, all things considered. I'm impressed that a hundred and nine criminals were arrested with no injuries. Very unusual."
"It went off without any real issues, Director," Colin agreed. "The Family were most efficient, clearly taking great care not to harm any of the Merchants, and worked together with great skill. I'm also impressed, and very pleased."
"You have video of the operation, I believe?" Legend asked with an intrigued tone to his voice. All the senior protectorate capes, and Dragon, were present, along with Carlos representing the Wards.
"Yes. Bear with me for a moment." Colin operated the console, the screens lowering and the center one lighting up. "This is very instructive. It tells us quite a lot more about the abilities of these Family members, their techniques, and overall skill level." Tapping a switch, he sat back to watch the video with the rest of them.
Everyone who hadn't been there watched with some rather odd expressions. Emily had asked him to cut together all the segments including Raptaur and her cousins, and the rest without them, as two separate sequences. Carlos flinched when the initial shooting started, then stared as the rocket warhead detonated on Raptaur's armor, the video showing she'd tracked it with her eyes and not flinched at all.
"Shit, that's kind of impressive," he muttered. "You read the threat report and it says high level Brute, but to just stand there and let a rocket blow up on you..."
"It was definitely deliberate," Hannah said, pausing the video for a moment. "You can see the way she just watched it come. I have no doubt, based on what happened next, that she could have got out of the way if she'd wanted to. That was making a point."
Resuming the playback, she added, "So was this."
Everyone, including Emily, gaped as the large reptile grabbed the next rocket out of the air and stuck it in her mouth, biting it in half and chewing for a moment, before swallowing. The remainder went down on the next mouthful.
"Oh my god," Carlos said in a very faint voice.
"Excellent use of psychological warfare," Legend commented.
"I agree," Colin nodded. "She laid down her ultimatum, let them shoot at her to show that there was nothing they could do, and to demoralize them in the process, topped that by showing that she was so fast and tough that they stood no chance, then waited the full time of her demand before engaging. For opponents who didn't exhibit the lack of intelligence the Merchants were displaying, that alone might well have persuaded them to give up."
"When they went in, they just ran straight through the walls," Battery noted as they watched the playback. "Avoiding the doors, which is interesting. I'd have thought it was easier to break them down."
"It would be, but that would also be what the defenders were expecting," Hannah commented. "They were probably aiming at the doors and got taken by surprise when the Family came in through the walls. It's a good tactical move, if you can manage it."
"SWAT teams use the same technique for the same reason," Legend said. "But they don't normally just run through the wall at thirty miles an hour."
"Where the hell did the Merchants get those rocket launchers from?" Craig demanded. "That was one hell of a blast."
"It was a TBG-7V thermobaric warhead fired from a Russian-made RPG-7D launcher, dating to the early eighties," Hannah replied. "We recovered nine launchers, twenty-two unexpended thermobaric rounds, fifteen PG-7VS anti-armor rounds, and two night sights for the launchers. We're investigating where they ultimately came from but initial indications suggest they were smuggled into the country through Alaska and Canada, by a militant communist group back in the late eighties to be used in Mexico. Others with the same batch numbers were recovered by the ATF about five years ago. But how the Merchants laid hands on them we don't know yet."
"Hopefully there aren't any more on the street," Legend sighed.
"That would be ideal," she agreed with a scowl. "The thermobaric warhead has a significant kill range and would easily destroy a vehicle. The anti-armor ones would punch right through most of our transports without any real trouble. Even Colin's power suit might be in trouble."
They all looked at the blue and silver armored man, who shrugged. "It would deflect one or two shots at least, but I wouldn't want to test it if I had any choice. The concussive effect would be very unpleasant."
"You should probably do something about that," Ethan grinned.
"Knowing that such weapons are in the hands of criminals locally, I will," he replied. "They had far more heavy weaponry than I'm comfortable with." They all went back to watching the recording for a while.
"What is that language they're speaking?" Rory eventually asked. "I've never heard anything like it."
"No one has," Dragon told him. "It's not related to any human language. Based on the frequency range and other audio data, it is a much more information-dense language than English, and quite possibly optimized for use underwater. My working theory is that it is their native language, which would fit all the evidence we currently have."
"Damn creepy," Robin said. Several people nodded.
"Also totally fascinating," the Canadian Tinker remarked. "I will have to arrange to talk to them about it. Learning more about that language could be very enlightening."
"Presuming they'll actually tell you, of course." Emily looked at Dragon. "It's a good method to let them communicate without us understanding anything. They may not want to lose that advantage."
"That's certainly a possibility," the other woman nodded.
"You're good with computers, can't you write a program to decode it?" Carlos asked, still watching the assault intently.
"A language, especially one that we know nothing about and have no reference for, isn't like a code, Aegis," she replied. "It's not as simple as decrypting something, which in itself can be virtually impossible in the first place. They may well, in fact almost certainly do, have concepts that won't translate at all, and even the ones that do, probably would take some considerable effort to work out. Statistical analysis might ultimately let us work out a few of the simpler words, but a preliminary estimate is that the vocabulary is several thousand words minimum, with at least a dozen modifiers of various types. It would take years to achieve more than an educated guess, without their help."
"Considering how long it took to work out some of the ancient human languages, many of which we still don't understand, I'd have to agree," Colin nodded. "The only practical way to learn that language would be to have one of the Family teach us. Which could still be a very involved process, it's a complex language we don't have the vocal apparatus to duplicate, although understanding it might be possible. I don't see a human being able to speak it without technological aids."
They watched the remainder of the raid, then the other video showing what everyone else had been doing. There had been a number of cameras recording the thing from different viewpoints, in addition to the one the Tinker had on his helmet.
When it was over, Colin tapped the button and stopped the playback. "Thank you," Emily said. "That was very interesting indeed. What can we add to the threat assessment based on that?" She looked around the table.
"They're horrifically fast," Carlos mused. "Way quicker than I expected. And very, very strong."
"Very tough, good use of tactical and strategic thinking, psyops, and non-standard attacks," Ethan put in. "And they like the horror movie tactics as well. Did you see Metis come out that window, go right over the roof, and dive in another one upside down? I'd bet that was to get behind the Merchants. They can climb like crazy."
"These are all methods we've seen Saurial use in the past, combined with Raptaur's known propensity for head-on attack," Legend stated. "They seem to happily mix and match techniques to fit the circumstances. Very smart, and very difficult to come up with any solid defense against. Well trained also."
"None of them were using the weapons that either Saurial or Raptaur have been seen to use before." Emily looked at her companions. "Why, I wonder?"
Colin shrugged. "They didn't need them. The goal was to capture all the Merchants without harming them. Clearly they had nothing to fear from the weapons the Merchants themselves had, so they just went after them with the drugged darts that Ianthe first used. Raptaur was dual-wielding some form of dart-gun, while the other two used their built-in launchers, but they were all firing the same ammunition. It worked very well and minimized risk."
"OK, that makes sense. Metis did say that they intended to be careful, I'm very relieved to see that they were being truthful. They could have easily killed those idiots instead, even if only by accident. A giant lizard against a normal human doesn't really need more than bare hands after all."
"I have no doubt at all that they could have killed every single Merchant in the building in minutes," Hannah sighed. "The video doesn't really do it justice. There's a sneaking suspicion in the back of my mind that they were holding back a hell of a lot, probably mainly so that people wouldn't get too upset. The speed they attacked… if they'd kept that up and were intending real harm, those people would have been wiped out before they knew what hit them."
"I concur," Colin said. "I came to the same conclusion. They were not fighting at anywhere near peak level. Hannah's reasoning is probably correct, they want to appear less dangerous than they are."
"If that's 'less dangerous' I don't think I want to see 'really angry'," Robin said with a shudder.
"No, I don't expect any of us does," the Tinker replied. He glanced at Emily. "Especially in light of the final comment Raptaur made just before they left."
"Which was?" She was very curious, but apprehensive.
"The direct quote is: 'Perhaps one day there will be a reason to call in the real combat members of our family, but this was a good training exercise.'" He looked at her, then around at the others. Carlos had paled, while Legend was looking very thoughtful indeed. "I have no reason to believe she was joking."
"Let's see if we can avoid that happening," Battery said. "When I consider what Kaiju could do if she got pissed, then think that she's not an actual fighter, but is more of an engineer, I feel faint."
She looked it.
There was a long silence as they all considered the concept, Emily sure she wasn't alone in thinking the other woman had a very good point.
Eventually, she asked, "How did Raptaur take down the building afterward?"
"I'm unsure at the moment," Colin replied, turning to look at her. "There was no trace of explosives, she wasn't in there long enough to cut out all the supports and collapse it that way, and some sort of acid or other corrosive would have taken longer. The whole operation only took fourteen point six three seconds from the start to when the rubble was settling, and caused no damage outside the footprint of the building itself."
"Theories?"
"At the moment, none. Or rather, none that I have enough evidence to say are more than guesses. Bearing in mind her matter creation ability, some form of explosive is possible, the traces having timed out after it detonated, but the sound doesn't bear that out. Most other ideas are less plausible. I will have to ask her, which she indicated was a possibility." He slightly smiled for a moment. "She claimed she hadn't worked out a name for whatever she used yet. That's fair enough, I have had the same problem on occasion."
She looked hard at him. He definitely had a soft spot for the reptiles, Raptaur in particular, which she found somewhat odd, but useful.
Perhaps they'd eventually teach him a sense of humor…
"All right. Please finalize your reports, all of you who went on the operation, and submit them by tomorrow evening." She closed the paperwork in front of her, then pulled another file over and opened it. "Next item is Squealer. Who is, or rather, what's left of her is, down in the morgue. Do we have any more on that yet?"
"The BBPD CSI department is processing the rounds recovered from the body," Hannah said, checking her notes. "Colin's initial test suggested very strongly that they were from a known Merchant-associated firearm but we're waiting on the final ballistics test. The assumption is that we, and the Family, missed one or more of the Merchants, who decided to eliminate Squealer on the way out of town. Possibly they didn't want to take her with them, or to deny us any information she could give us. There are a number of theories, some or all of which might be right. The initial tests tell us that she died plus or minus approximately twenty minutes of the time the raid started, but it's not possible to isolate it more accurately than that."
"And we're certain it is Squealer?" Dragon asked.
"Yes. Colin's scans showed she was a Parahuman. A DNA check matched hers with the samples on the tools from what was definitely a Tinker's workshop in the building. Fingerprints also matched. Hair and blood analysis is positive for more narcotics than I care to think about, some traditional ones and some Tinker ones, and show that she was a long term habitual user of them. There's indications that she very nearly had a fatal overdose recently, which might be behind her initial disappearance, and why they didn't take her with them." Hannah flipped pages. "The pathologist is still doing the autopsy, but he said that she was headed to an early grave anyway. He thought, based on the drug use, she probably wouldn't have made it more than a couple of years past this point."
"Nasty."
"Yes." The woman closed her notebook. "Stomach contents show she last ate nearly twenty-four hours ago, and not much then. She'd have been weak and disorientated, in no shape to fight off an attack. She might not even have been conscious, although the body position suggested that she'd raised her arms before she was shot."
"All right." Emily made a note of her own in the file. "That's certainly the end of that particular issue. Do we know who she is? Or was?"
"Sherrel Anderson, twenty-five, born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, to Russ and Marjorie Anderson. Disappeared about six years ago. She'd been hanging around with an unsavory crowd according to the reports, and the local police didn't look all that hard. They assumed that either she was in a shallow grave somewhere, probably as a result of something to do with drugs, or had simply decided to go elsewhere. Her parents were well known to them and reading between the lines, she had no reason to stay and several good ones to go."
"And she ended up here."
"That seems to be the case. We don't know if she Triggered here, on the way here, or back in Oklahoma."
"OK. Thank you, Hannah." Emily closed that file too. "Keep me updated on the autopsy and ballistics tests, please."
"Of course, Director. We're also going through all the evidence seized in the raid, I'll have a report on that for you in a couple of days."
"Good. Now, moving on." She opened a third file, read the first page, sighed, and looked at Colin. "Kid Win. Can anyone explain why maintenance is complaining that the vending machine outside his lab has been cut open with what looks like some form of directed energy weapon, all the Red Bull in it removed, an IOU note left behind, and also tell me why his lab is making faint sizzling sounds and smelling like a bakery?"
Colin put his hand over his face, sighing heavily.
"I'll deal with it, Director," he muttered. "My apologies. I believe he may have become over-invested in his work."
Ethan started laughing, making the Tinker glare at him. Dragon tipped her head in a manner that suggested she was also laughing.
Shaking her head, Emily closed the file and handed it to him. "Please try to keep him under control. Maintenance is not happy, and neither are the console operators who practically live on that stuff, since they have to go down three floors to get a refill at the moment."
She moved on to the next file. Dragon patted Colin on the shoulder as he sighed again.
Ethan fell off his chair, weak with laughter.
Vicky watched the PHO video with wide eyes, staring at the screen in mild disbelief. The effect of Raptaur and her cousins running down Merchants in the dark, from any number of different angles and positions, was like a cross between a horror movie and a video game. She could hear them speaking some bizarre hissing language, sounding quite cheerful as they basically eliminated a fairly powerful gang and made it look easy.
Fun, even.
"Fucking incredible," she whispered. Screams and shouts came somewhat tinnily out of her tablet's speakers as the Merchants went nuts, firing wildly all around their base, which had no effect at all on the raid, except to add a soundtrack that was like something from a small war.
Some wag on PHO had added score counters within minutes of the video being posted by Metis, red, green, and blue numbers counting up as each of the lizards took out more of the gang members. When the raid finally ended, the score was Raptaur thirty-two, Metis twenty-four, and Ianthe twenty-eight.
The thread also added that the combined PRT and BBPD forces outside the building had grabbed another twenty-five Merchants, making a grand total of one hundred and nine, all the gang that was left after the rest had defected over the weekend.
When the video finished, she shook her head in impressed, and slightly nervous, respect.
Her friends were pretty damn good at that sort of thing, she thought.
'I wonder what would happen if all of them dropped their disguises and went after all the gangs at once,' she thought. Then she shook her head, very hard, her blonde hair flying about her face.
'No. That's stupid. There's no way the DWU can be entirely full of hidden lizards. I'm just letting my imagination run wild, I'm going to end up as crazy as Void Cowboy at this rate.' She laughed a little at herself.
'Stop thinking about it, find something else to watch.'
Closing PHO, she browsed the web for a while, ordered a few things online, and listened to some music.
Eventually, very late and unable to sleep, she brought up a web browser and, slightly reluctantly, typed 'lizard people' and 'hidden' into the search bar.
Just for fun.
Half an hour later she was sitting in the dark staring at the screen, wondering who the hell 'David Icke' was, chewing her lip frantically...
"Wheee!" Taylor shouted, doing a loop. She'd finally worked out how wings, at least dragon wings, worked.
It had taken quite a while, and a fair number of impromptu swimming sessions, but when she'd finally managed to head straight up, she'd been grinning like an idiot the entire way.
"This is amazing," she added more quietly. "So much fun. It feels totally different from the water rocket. Nothing like as fast, but… weirdly relaxing." Leveling off, something like one or two thousand feet up, she glided for a while, small motions of her tail and wingtips keeping her on course. "I could get used to this. We have got to figure out how to let the others do it."
"I'm sure Amy will work out a viable method fairly soon," the Varga said. "She's very good. And we have a pattern now."
"I can hardly believe it," Taylor giggled. "I'm a fucking dragon. This is so cool."
"But can you breathe fire?" he asked slyly.
"Of course, that part is easy. Hmm..." She thought quickly, flipping through a whole series of methods she'd come up with, looking for the effect she wanted, then selected one. "This should do it." Opening her mouth she blew hard, a stream of brilliant white flame roaring out in front of her for over a hundred feet, illuminating the waves far below. Cutting the flame, she blinked a bit.
"Wow. That worked even better than I expected."
"And was probably visible half-way to Canada," he chuckled. "Magnesium nanoparticles and liquid oxygen seems to be a rather volatile combination. Not to mention very hot."
"It certainly lights off easily enough," she grinned. "The fluorine I added helped though." She thought, then formed a small capsule full of the mix in separate chambers in her mouth, before spitting it out at high velocity. The container timed out moments later, leaving the pressurized chemicals to mix and ignite in mid-air.
A few hundred feet down, a brilliant white fireball blossomed with a loud thud, the concussion washing over her along with noticeable heat. "That works too. But it's not a plasma bolt like in the movie. I'm going to have to think about that."
"It seems to meet most of the requirements of a dragon, though," he noted with humor. "I think we can tick all the boxes."
"Pretty much." She lit up her bioluminescence, looking over her shoulder at the results and smiling. "And that looks amazing. I wonder how it is from the ground?"
"Most likely quite memorable," he laughed. "It's probably a good thing we're miles from the shore, or we'd definitely be on PHO very quickly."
"I'm not quite ready for that, I need more practice," she replied. "So, let's see what this form can do." Pumping her wings she started climbing, the coast dropping away behind and below her as she headed out over the Atlantic. "Better cloak, just in case," she added, doing exactly that, and turning off the illumination as well. "We'll be showing up on radar back home when we get higher."
"We're well off the commercial routes, so that shouldn't be a hazard," he agreed.
She finally stopped climbing when the air became too thin to support her wings any more, at what was certainly well over four miles up. Increasing the wing area would allow for higher altitudes, but she felt it would spoil the aesthetic, and wasn't required in the first place.
This form was mostly just for fun, after all.
Practicing various maneuvers kept both of them amused for nearly three hours, by the end of which both she and the Varga felt they were quite competent fliers. He'd had at least as much fun as she had, rolling, looping, and spiraling in the air. "I have to admit, Brain, this is enormously entertaining," he said as he climbed up again for another go, Taylor sitting back in her mind and letting him enjoy himself. "A larger version would be amusing too. But not this close to shore."
'No, I don't think that would be a good idea,' she laughed. 'One day. For now, this is fine. We need to think of a name. I'll look up some dragon mythology and that sort of thing tomorrow.'
Looking over their shoulder, he said, "It would be an interesting experiment to see about a rider, as well. Perhaps Amy would like to re-enact the Raptaur rides, only somewhat higher."
'That's a good idea,' Taylor giggled. 'We can ask her. I think we should probably head home now, though. I have school in the morning and it must be about three AM by now.'
"Yes, education is important," he agreed readily, swinging around in a large circle and heading back towards the faint distant lights of civilization far below on the horizon. "Do you wish to drive, or shall I?"
'Help yourself,' she replied. 'I'll just enjoy the view. When you're closer to the city, drop the cloak for a moment, it'll be funny to see if anyone notices.'
Her friend chuckled, aiming slightly downwards and gliding steadily west at around a hundred and fifty miles an hour. Satisfied that everything had gone remarkably well and no longer feeling the slight sadness over facing a human-seeming construct and shooting it in the face, she let him get on with it.
Both of them were having a lot of fun.