Inspiration strikes from the oddest places...
"Holy shit!"
Randall ducked as a something small and loud whined overhead, then yelped and hit the deck as something else somewhat larger zoomed past in pursuit of it, blasts of white fire roaring out and radiating heat. He rolled onto his back and watched Taylor's microdragon aspect zip around the place, roasting small creatures that plummeted from the air, trailing smoke and disappearing into ash when they hit the floor.
Some of it drifted past and made him sneeze, then spit as it left a horrible taste in his mouth. Quite a lot went right up his nose too.
"What the fuck is that?" he said loudly, pointing as another one of the ugly little things flew by him, the orange head of this particular one glowing brightly under the lights. The other microdragon fired at it, only to miss as somehow the creature slipped aside at the last moment and managed to knock another one into the path of the white-hot dragonfire, where it expired with a small squeak and a decaying cry of terror.
As he looked around he noticed that the things were all over the office, getting into the equipment and hiding in odd places, only to pop up and shout bizarre insults in tiny little high-pitched voices, sounding like very small parrots. They seemed to have a number of themes, but while the language appeared at first to be English, when he listened carefully he couldn't make any sense out of it, the small organisms mostly just shouting slogans and getting into arguments with each other. It was complete chaos.
In the midst of this was Lisa, who was sitting in her human form with her head in her hands, sighing heavily while watching both dragons go after the clearly unnatural insect-like creatures, Amy, who was also watching but with an expression that was an odd mix of worry, shame, and slight amusement, and Danny who was leaning back shaking his head with his arms crossed, frowning a little.
Getting up, Randall walked over and joined them, ducking again as yet another small form whistled past with a peculiar cry that sounded like "magamagamagamaga" which dopplered away across the room. One of the tiny dragons intercepted it just before it reached the wall and vaporized the thing, then did a stall turn and headed back towards another one.
"What are they?" he asked, sitting down to watch as well.
Lisa and Danny glanced at him, then each other, before turning to stare at Amy, who flushed. "Amy got creative again and somewhat messed it up," Danny sighed.
"Hey, I was trying to come up with a good solution to a very specific problem," Amy retorted, scowling. "It almost worked, too. They were all agreeing for a while, then..." She shrugged and looked annoyed. "I'm not sure what happened. Some of them went one way, some went the other, then they started fighting over something stupid, and before you know it they were all over the fucking place causing trouble. And they won't shut up!" She grabbed a pencil off the table with a cry of anger and accurately threw it like a knife, rather impressively spearing one of the things right through the middle and snuffing out the odd chant it was repeating over and over.
"But what are they?" Randall pressed, staring as one of the things suddenly changed shape and color, going from blue to red, then back again, before turning bright green and attacking one of the others.
"They were meant to be a semi-intelligent repair system to keep things in order," Lisa explained. "According to her." She indicated Amy with a thumb, the healer now looking embarrased again. "Our dear friend Amy had the bright idea to try again to use some of Taylor's version of DNA to liven things up, and started for reasons best known to her with a blood-sucking insect as a base. God only knows why."
"They're very tough and hard to kill, and breed fast," Amy mumbled. "I thought it would save some time."
"Anyway," Lisa went on with a hard look at her friend, who shrank back for a moment, "the end result is a swarm of flying shapeshifting little bitey things that talk too much, don't seem to agree on anything for more than five seconds, have the collective IQ of Skidmark on a really bad day after too much junk, and multiply like crazy. Every time we think we've got control of them, some more pop up from somewhere and it starts all over again."
"Taylor and the Varga have been flaming them for an hour now," Danny added. "We don't dare open the door for too long in case they get out, or we'll have them all over the city. Then PHO will start going even weirder than usual and the Director will glare at everyone."
"Shit. I hope I didn't let any out," Randall said, worried.
"No, I got that one before it escaped," Taylor said, her tiny dragon form landing on her father's head and looking at Randall. She seemed in a good mood. "If it wasn't for the fact that somehow we need to get this under control, this would be fun. It's good practice if nothing else." She snaked her head around and flamed another of the things that flew too close, then took off after some more that were distracted by fighting each other.
Randall watched, both amused and impressed, as both dragons went into the most amazing aerobatics display he'd ever seen, zipping back and forth eliminating the creatures one after another. Some time later they seemed to have finally managed to get them all, and after a twenty-minute check aided by Lisa's power, declared the problem solved.
Retaking her human form next to Amy, Taylor turned to her friend and said, "Next time you want to make something cool, stay away from the poly ticks, will you? I know it was easy to start things but it's a lot of work to make it stop again."
The Dallon girl shook her head. "I've learned my lesson, no more poly ticks."
"Thank Kaiju," Lisa muttered, making Danny and Randall chuckle.
"And try to make whatever it is next time taste better if you can," Taylor requested with a grin. "Those things were bitter and nasty. Do that chicken vindaloo thing again."
"We will never speak of either of those mistakes again," Amy stated firmly, before getting up and heading for her workshop, head held high as she ignored the laughter that followed with dignity.