THE STORY THUS FAR…

Jake Long: The American Dragon - #1

The dragon powers that were Jake's birthright manifested, and he used them to combat the sinister Huntsclan, foiling their plans. For now.

XJ-9 and the Glitch Techs - #2

One year earlier, Hinobi Tech agents Miko and Five stumbled upon a strange alien probe: a Red Eye. Together with the android XJ-9 (or "Jenny") they defeated a dangerous robot, and began to prepare for a potential alien threat.

Steven Universe - #3

Alerted by the Red Eye's signal, Jasper and her crew arrived on planet earth, only to be met with staunch resistance from the Crystal Gems. The hand ship was destroyed, and the Homeworld forces scattered.

Ben 10: Origins - #4

Unbeknownst to the gems, another ship had followed them through hyperspace. It belonged to Vilgax, an alien set on acquiring a powerful alien device. A device that Ben just so happened to get stuck on his wrist.

Steven Universe 2 - #5

As Steven trained in his gem powers, he learned more about his past, and the gems began to learn about the Cluster. A dangerous superweapon that could destroy the earth…

And now…

Phase One, Book Six

Chapter One - The Scale's Tip

As the second bug splatted against his scaly snout, Jake immediately wished he was back in bed. As August waned and September reared its ugly head in the distance, the mornings were growing colder and colder in New York City; and the people were growing crankier. It was early, and Jake yawned. While he was certainly up before his normal wake-up call, any thoughts of drowsiness were doused by the chill of the wind.

Jake's grandfather had roused him bright and early this Saturday to help him run his errands. For any normal grandfather, that meant visiting the local shop-keeps and chatting far too much while picking up things like prunes and denture fluid. For Lao Shi, errands were an entirely different beast. First of all, they had a variety of potions to deliver to members of the magical community, and then after that, they had to see a satyr about a creature in his cornfields. Jake, upon taking his draconic form, was laden with various leather satchels and harnesses. Lao Shi then loaded him up with a heavy burden of bottles, which clinked and clanked in his precarious care.

"Alright, be careful, kid," Lao Shi's talking Sharpei, Fu Dog, had said. "The fizzy green ones are for the mermaid on 6th ave. She needs 'em to breathe atmosphere, and they also help her keep her legs. She, uh, she's got lovely legs... So don't drop 'em, huh?"

After recalling Fu Dog's uncouth behavior, Jake shook his head back to the present. He glanced down at the fizzing green potions, secured in the satchel on his right flank. Then, he turned to sight Lao Shi. The old man was also in dragon form, a spiraling serpent of midnight purple, with wisps of white cloud circling around him. There was something ancient, powerful, and majestic about the Dragon's form. Luckily, Jake thought, they were flying so early, and so high up. In this shape, Lao Shi was over 20 feet long. It might have been hard to hide that from Manhattan in the middle of a clear day.

Stepping on the gas, Jake flew faster to catch up with the regal spiral of his instructor, and soon they were flying side by side. Jake was smaller than Lao Shi, though nothing to scoff at, with a powerful 9 feet of red-scaled draconic muscle. As he caught up to him, Jake turned to the purple wyrm.

"So, what's the deal with the satyr?" The younger dragon asked, as they soared towards 6th Avenue.

"One obstacle at a time," Lao Shi said, as they began the most gut-wrenching part of flying through New York: landing.

In Jake's experience, there were a few ways to land. It was easiest when he stayed in his dragon's form. The claws and retainment of his wings and tail meant that he could steer his momentum, and would have a solid grip and a sense of balance wherever he landed. The hardest way to land was what he had christened a "dragon drop," after a move from Mortal Kombat.

Starting from the sky, he (or in this case, Lao Shi) would check the ground with their enhanced vision, making sure nothing would be in the way. Then, the dragon in question would wrap their wings around themselves like a sleeping bat. This would cause them to plummet. While falling, the trick was to rapidly transform your body (but crucially, not the wings) back into human form. This way, they become much smaller and relatively less noticeable. The hardest part of the drop? At the last second, before becoming a bug splat on pavement, one had to flare out the wings like a parachute. This slowed their pace, and allowed them to finish their transformation, as well as their landing, with a graceful glide.

After years of doing "dragon drops", Lao Shi was obviously a proven master of it. While not fancy or by any means flashy, he was fully capable of pulling off the maneuver. Jake was... new to the technique.

"AAAAAAAAAAAaaahhhhhHH!"

"Do not forget your wings, young one!" Lao Shi called up to the freefalling boy from atop the roof he had landed on.

Luckily for Jake, he didn't, and at the last possible moment, the brick-red wings flung out to either side, bringing him skidding to a haphazard stop on the paved rooftop. He finally stopped sliding in a heap at Lao Shi's feet. The dragon master looked down at Jake, and chuckled, before helping him up as the boy's wings faded away.

"That's way harder than a laser flip," Jake muttered.

"You will find that learning to maneuver the Dragon's form is not the same as maneuvering a… skateboard."

"They're not that different," Jake started to say, but noting the look from Lao Shi, he let it drop.

The duo waited around for a few minutes before the door to the building below opened, and a middle aged woman stepped out. She was gangly, pretty, and suntanned, wrapped up in a long cardigan and looking dewy in the cheeks as she approached.

"Oh, Dragon, thank goodness you're here," she said. Then, she smiled at Jake. "I see you're finally training the apprentice!"

"A pleasure as always, Ms. Silver," Lao Shi said politely. Then, he gestured to Jake, who quickly handed over the large satchel of potions. Ms. Silver accepted them with a warm smile, but she quickly looked puzzled when she began to examine the satchel's contents.

"Oh, hey," she said, taking out a handful of the little green bottles. "You gave me more than I need."

"Keep it," Jake said with a shrug. "For when you run out."

Ms. Silver smiled, and then shook her head firmly.

"Your charity is promising, young dragon, but no… I have to move on from this life. This might be my final dose. I knew I'd have to face the sea again some day."

"We will be here to help you when you do," Lao Shi insisted, which lifted some of the worry from the mermaid's face. She pressed the extra potions further into Jake's hands, and after a permissive nod from his grandfather, he accepted them.

"Maybe you'll find some use for them. They let you breathe things you normally can't," Ms. Silver said. Jake doubted it. When would he ever need to breathe something other than air? "Anyway, I should run. I have a class to teach this morning. Thanks again, Dragon, and good luck, young one!"

With that she was gone, and Jake and Lao Shi were left on the rooftop. The old man took one glance at the rising sun, stretched, and prepared to take on the Dragon's form once more. Jake mirrored him, understanding that the city was already coming alive. Their time of free flying was over. They would have to keep above the clouds to stay out of sight. So they did, soaring over miles of land before the older dragon spotted their destination: a solitary farmhouse on the edge of a wide field of corn. Luckily, they were far enough away from the urban masses that no dragon drops were required. The two dragons simply landed in the backyard.

As they were shifting back into humans, Jake found a bit of satisfaction in realizing that he was hardly even winded. Even after a few hours of flying and switching forms, he was only just beginning to feel like he was breaking a sweat. Grinning to himself at the thought of his progress, Jake's attention was seized by the newcomer who was walking out of the back door of the farm house.

From the waist up, he was an unremarkable man. Tan skin, a rough patch of hair under his lip, and a mop of wide curls. However, as Jake's view panned down past the plaid button-up, he realized that those were not, as he had suspected, furry pants. In fact, they weren't pants at all, but shaggy hindquarters. From the waist down, the man bore the wooly legs of a mountain goat; he was a satyr. Lao Shi dipped his head in greeting, and the satyr responded in kind before raising an eyebrow at Jake.

"Morning, Mr. Dragon," the satyr said. "You're just in time."

He gestured across the cornfield, and Jake and Lao Shi followed his hand. For a moment, there was nothing but corn. Then, some of the furthest cornstalks began to waver and shake as if blown by the wind. Jake, however, knew that there was no such breeze. He had just been flying through the air for several hours, and his draconic instincts gave him a generally good understanding of wind patterns. The young dragon's confusion grew, until a low, rumbling sound made its way to his ears. Then, in an explosive upheaval of soil and cornstalks, the source of the satyr's strife presented itself.

It was tall, maybe 10 feet tall; a mass of multi-colored limbs that flailed as it flung itself up from whatever burrow it had been submerged in. Lao Shi immediately threw up an arm to shield the satyr from any harm. Then, the old man turned to Jake. who nodded, and dashed forward. The monster had landed now, and was tearing through the cornfield, uprooting crops abound as it barreled towards the trio at the farmhouse. With a quick shift of his hands and feet, Jake began to channel a fiery energy.

"Dragon Up!" Jake shouted his catch phrase with enthusiasm. The energy flared up, and then he had transformed back into the powerful form of the red dragon.

Just in time! Jake flung up his claws to stop the rampaging monster, and found that it was hard to get a proper grip on it. It had no shoulders, no torso, not even a face that Jake could decipher. As the horrific creature writhed against him with surprising strength, Lao Shi shouted advice from behind him.

"A well placed strike to the center mass should dispel the physical form!"

"Got it!" Jake said.

By that point, he had planted his feet firmly, digging his back claws into the tilled soil. This gave him the traction needed to twist the monster in an unceremonious loop, winding up momentum before throwing it far out across the corn field. Then, as soon as he had released his grip, Jake shot up into the air, rocketing forward towards the pastel assailant. It landed on its back, its limbs sprawled about like an endangered spider.

"Here goes nothin'!" Jake shouted, as he let the air out from beneath his wings and came flying down towards the monster from above. He reared back a scaled fist, and, using the force of his fall as added power, slammed a mighty punch into the core of the monster. Then, like some horrific fly trap, its limbs all closed in around Jake at once.

The satyr gasped, but Lao Shi watched on with determination. If things escalated further, he would intervene. However, he trusted the instincts and training of his grandson and disciple. His faith in his student was not misplaced, as there was a loud ka-poof! The spider-like monster vanished in a burst of thick, white smoke. A figure within the cloud reared its wings back, dispelling the bulk of the veil. Then, the wings receded into the back of a red jacket. Jake stooped low, picking up a large, beach-ball sized cluster of gems, before turning to walk over to the other two.

"Did you see that?" Jake said excitedly. However, noting his grandfather's serious expression, he tried to regain some of his professionalism and turned to the satyr. "Ah, I mean. There we, uh, have it. It shouldn't cause you any further trouble."

The satyr thanked them for their trouble, to which Lao Shi replied it was no problem. Then, with a final goodbye (and a promise to return soon and help replant his field), the two dragons took form for a final time, and shot into the sky. As they flew, Jake noticed Lao Shi take a different path than normal. However, Jake's thoughts were more so on his battle, and the weight of the gem cluster he held in his foreclaws.

"Yo, gramps," he said, looking down at the glittering mass. "These things are kinda getting out of control, right? I mean, popping up this close to civilization?"

The old dragon nodded, the wind causing his wispy, white mustache to trail behind him.

"I agree, my student," he said. "This is the final straw. I thought, perhaps, we could contain them on our own. However, I think it's finally time that we go see some old friends."

As the gentle sea breeze blew its way through his mess of curls, the young boy let out a soft sigh. He was glad to finally have a moment of quiet respite to himself; he found that he had gotten very few recently. Despite summer supposedly being a time of fun and relaxation, his had been full of trials and tribulation. He was glad for this moment in the sun, basking in its warmth, forgetting about the worries of the wider world.

Then, something blocked out his vision. At first he assumed it was a passing bird, or maybe a plane of some kind. However, as the shadow it cast grew larger, as opposed to soaring past, he began to grow skeptical. The boy winked one eye open, and blearily got his first look at what was casting the shadow.

The boy's jaw dropped.

Before he could even blink and make sure what he saw was real, there was a loud, familiar chime. He knew it as the warp pad. Dashing across the sands, towards the rotting wooden staircase that led up and into his home, the boy stopped once at the door to look back up at the sky. Surely enough, it was not a trick of the light.

There were two dragons flying towards his balcony.

Tearing open the old screen door, the boy was instantly met with a trio of familiar faces stepping off of the warp pad. One was tall, burgundy, and sported a massive afro. Another was slender and pale, with a pointed nose, and the final familiar face was a small, purple individual, with a mass of wild white hair.

"Garnet, Pearl, Amethyst!" The boy called out.

"Hey, Steven," Amethyst said.

"No luck on finding Malachite," Garnet said sadly.

"That's OK! We have visitors! Cool ones!" Steven said.

"What?" Pearl said.

"Come see!"

Steven dragged them out onto the porch, and as they walked out into the summer sun, they found themselves staring at two massive creatures. One was nearly 20 feet in length, a gargantuan purple serpent that seemed to hover in the air by sheer force of will. Beside him was smaller, but still hulking drake, who had to flap its dark red wings to stay afloat. They both landed at the base of the steps, Steven turned to look to the gems, trying to gauge their reactions. Amethyst grinned, Garnet looked deadly serious, and Pearl was curious and anxious and a whole lot of other emotions all at once.

The three of them descended the stairs to the beach, and Steven quickly followed, skipping stairs by four or five, and floating down each flight in his excitement. Then, to Steven's surprise, the trio of gems bowed deeply before the great, purple dragon. In kind, the massive being dipped its own head to them.

"Master Dragon," Pearl said, as she rose from her bow. "To what do we owe the pleasure? And who, may I ask, is your companion?"

The larger of the two dragons turned to the smaller, and then they both flared up with mystical flame. When the fire dispersed, there were two humans standing there. One, an old Chinese man, stooped and wearing regal blue robes. He had a long, wispy white beard, and eyes that were dark with wisdom. Clutched in the old man's hand was a large bundle, wrapped in cloth. The other person was a younger boy, around Steven's age, with his hair spiked up and dyed green at the tips. He wore a stylish red jacket, and stood with his hands stuck in his pockets.

"It has been a long time, Crystal Gems," the old man said. "Long enough that I have had not only children… but grandchildren. This is Jake. He is my grandson, and he will be the next Dragon."

Steven looked at Jake with stars in his eyes. As the young dragon met Steven's gaze, he gave a slightly confused look.

"It's nice to meet you, young Dragon," Pearl said.

"'Sup Jake," Amethyst said nonchalantly.

"Something tells me that you didn't come here for a pleasure visit, Master Dragon," Garnet said, continually the sobering presence. Lao Shi looked to her gravely.

"No, I'm afraid not," he said. He unwrapped the cloth that hid the bundle he held, and slowly revealed the sparkling clump of crystals. Steven's eyes went wider as the package was revealed. "I think that we have much to discuss."

DANGER WATCH

Author's Note: Hey, thanks for reading! Its finally here: the moment you've been waiting for! If you don't know, Danger Watch is a fanfiction series I've been working on for a while, where various characters from different cartoons come together in a cohesive story universe. It's sort of like the MCU!

That being said, Danger Watch can be read on its own, but will be a lot cooler (and make a lot more sense probably) if you read the first few books in the series first. Be sure to check out my bio for more info on that!

But again, thank you so much for reading! I hope you guys are excited for a wild ride: this is where things get interesting!