A Second Generation Whateley Academy Story

Dragons in Winter

by

Astrodragon
(with help from the usual suspects and particularly from Domoviye)

 

Friday January 6th, early, Heathrow Airport, London.

Morgana looked around with a certain amount of resigned frustration as she tried to find Tabitha in the morning chaos that was Heathrow Departures. Luckily Tabitha found her as she lurked around the check-in counters.

“Wasn’t sure if you were going to make it.”

Tabitha grinned. “There’s plenty of time, just because you want to spend time denuding the lounge of all the available snacks.”

The dragongirl sniffed slightly. “I do not eat all the snacks, just most of them. Hey, if they leave them lying around unattended whats an innocent dragongirl to do? They’d get lonely...”

“Innocent. Yeah, right.” Tabitha sound more than a little unbelieving of that statement as they moved up to the counter. “Hey. Do you have a new MID?” Morgana nodded as she handed the assistant her passport and MID card. “It’s a MMID now, sorta. Courtesy of AEGIS, after my fiasco of a run-in with the MCO, they thought it would help.” It did more than that, as the attendant looked at her passport and card, smiled and in a slightly strained voice informed Morgana that she’d been upgraded to a premium economy seat. That got a big grin from the girl. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance that my friend...?” she gestured at Tabitha. The lady put Tabithas documents into the system and must have seen something interesting, judging by the way her eyes widened. “Why yes, we do have a few seats free. We can put you together if you like?” Morgaana looked at Tabitha who gave her a quick thumbs up gesture.

Morgana was a lot happier as they made their way to the special security checkout. “More legroom, better food! I could get to like this.” It even left her in a good mood as she submitted her pack to the usual MCO security theatre. Although she noted a rather different attitude from them to her previous experience here when they looked at her MMID. Maybe all that kerfuffle over Xmas had been useful for something after all. Although she did have to go through what she considered a pointless exercise of registering and packing up her athame for the flight. She snickered internally as she thought about her new – and completely concealed – spear. Still, after the two girls had been cleared Morgana made straight for the lounge, dragging Tabitha along behind her. “Look they have snacks. Free snacks, and I can, ahem, borrow a few for the flight.

Tabitha smiled as her companion perused the available range of food before overfilling a plate.”Hungry already? Didn’t you have breakfast?” Morgana looked a bit guilty. “Well, yes, but I was still a bit nervous about flying and everything. So I need to top up, you know?” Tabitha just shook her head and sat down next to her with a much smaller plate of food. There were a number of other Whateley students hanging about the lounge, it looked like they’d put them all here to avoid contact with the normal passengers.

They were busy chatting about the New Year party Tabitha had missed when a girl approached, coughing to get their attention.

“Hello girls, would you by any chance be going to Whateley?”

Morgana frowned slightly. She has a vague idea of seeing this girl around somewhere at Whately, but couldn’t remember when. It was a pretty blatant opening line, and she wondered why.

Tabitha came to the rescue – she obviously recognised whoever-the-hell-this was. Oddly, there was a slightly worried tone in her voice as she replying. “You know very well we are, Lovie. Now what can we do for you?”

The girl smiled brightly and put her hand on Morgana’s shoulder. “Actually it wasn’t you, Tabitha. Won’t you introduce me to your lovely companion?”

Morgana was starting to get a bit confused. She didn’t know this girl, so why had she put a hand on her shoulder? And why was Tabs sounding a bit unhappy about all this?”

Tabitha gave the deep sigh of someone only doing this because she didn’t want to seem too rude in public. “This is Morgana, Lovie, she’s one of our current two dragongirls.” Morgana gave a quick nod to acknowledge her friends introduction.

“Morgana, its lovely to meet you. Perhaps we could have a few words?” Morgana was feeling more uneasy. Not for any reason she could put a finger on, just that something didn’t seem right.

“Uh, I guess so. What about?”

Lovie beamed at her. “Well, we have an hour or so before they call the flight, I was hoping you might be interested in a quick – assignation – while we wait?”

Morgana looked at Tabs, who seemed torn between being embarrassed and trying not to laugh out loud at the expression on Morgana’s face.

“Ah you talking about what I think you are talking about when you say assignation?”

Lovie smiled and bent close, keeping her voice low. “Why yes. You’re a very lovely girl, and I thought you might like some quick sex to pass the time.” It was all Morgana could do not to splutter her drink all over the table.

Now Morgana was certain Tabs was trying not to laugh. Either that or she was going to explode, which she didn’t think was part of her power set, She’d never been approached so blatantly before – in fact, she’d never been approached like this even non-blatantly, as she tried to find an appropriate answer. “Ah, well, that’s very kind but I’m taken. I already have a girlfriend.”

Lovie batted her eyelids in a fashion Morgana had only seen on films. Romantic films, at that. Bad ones. “But she’s not here, is she? I’m sure she wouldn’t mind, it would just be a quick bit of fun to pass the time, no commitments.”

Morgana was trying hard how to respond. “Er, well, yes, she isn’t here. But I would know. And I wouldn’t do anything like that without talking to her about it first.”

Actually she was trying to work out how to handle this. She didn’t want to have sex with a random stranger, even if she was a very pretty girl. She was committed to Thulia, and suspected the dragongirl would not be amused if she actually went off and did this. Thulia could be somewhat protective of their relationship at times – not that she was complaining about that at all, she enjoyed their closeness.

The girl was still waiting for an answer, so Morgana shook her head firmly. “Thank you, its a flattering offer but I’m not interested.”

The girl sighed soulfully and patted Morgana on the shoulder. “Such a shame. Maybe another time.”

The way her bottom moved as she sashayed off made Morgana feel even more uncomfortable, as she turned to Tabs, half-glaring at the girls attempts to hide her amusement.

“And what’s so funny, tabs?”

The girl shook her head in an attempt to show it was nothing to do with her. “It was just...Lovie has a reputation, you see. She must have thought you’d be fun, and she doesn’t get a refusal that often.” She gave Morgana a sharp look.”You really are committed to Thulia, aren’t you?”

Morgana sighed deeply, wondering just what sort of bullet she’d just dodged. “Totally committed.”

Tabitha patted her hand, still looking amused. “Well, won’t it be fun to tell Thulia about this when we get back to Whateley?” Morgana just gave her a glower that promised some form of violence if she even tried such a thing.

They’d finally settled into their seats as the plane got airborne when Lovie walked down the aisle to them. Morgana looked up at her, wondering what she wanted, as the girl bent down to whisper in her ear. “Have you ever thought about joining the mile-high club?” Morgana just gaped at her, as Tabs had another one of her barely-concealed hilarity attacks.

Getting a little of her composure back, Morgana glared at Lovie. “Not here, not now, and not with you. Please stop bothering me, I’m not interested.” The girl pouted – and Morgana had to admit to herself she did do that in a rather sexy way, shook her head and went back to her seat.

“But Morgana, wouldn’t it have helped to pass the time on a boring flight?”

Morgana just looked at Tabitha. “Do I look like the sort of girl who’d do that on a crowded airplane, especially with someone I don’t know?”

Tabitha shrugged. “Actually, considering what some of our guests get up to at the hotel, that isn’t the most outrageous suggestion I’ve heard, even this year. Anyway, aren’t you a dragon? Don’t they, hmm, do stuff in the air?”

Morgana sighed and sat back trying not to blush too obviously. “I’ve actually not asked Thulia that.”Maybe you should, whispered a small voice inside her. She pushed it back down in her mind. Not the time, not the place.

“Anyway, I need to go through the course notes and work out what I’m going to study this term, I might as well do something useful on the flight and the films they offer are pretty naff.

Friday January 6th, Whateley, Dickinson Cottage, late afternoon.

Having wished Nemean a final goodbye, Tanya decided it was time to collect her luggage and head up to her room. She felt a momentary pang when she remembered that Sterling wouldn’t be there waiting for her, but pushed it back down. She’d pop over to Doyle when she could and check up on how the girl was doing, if there was any change in her condition.

She was almost at the luggage storage when she was intercepted by Mrs Savage.

“Tanya, can I have a few words with you before you take your luggage up?”

Tanya looked a bit puzzled, but nodded politely. “Of course, ma’am, what do you need?”

She sat Tanya down, giving her a long look. “Actually, it’s to talk about your roommate. As you know, we don’t have many spare beds right now, especially since we’ve hads some new arrivals after Xmas, so I want to allocate a new roommate for you.”

Tanya sighed slightly. She’d been rather expecting this, it just worried her as it implied Sterling wouldn’t be back any time soon. “Will I be rooming with one of the new girls?”

Mrs. Savage shook her head. “No, we’ve discussed the issues and we’d like to room with a different girl. You already know her, Thulia.”

Tanya was rather surprised. “Uh, is there a particular reason, ma’am?”

The older woman gave her a long and rather calculating look. “Actually, there are a number. Did you hear about the incident in her room at the end of last term?”

Tanya nodded. “I heard she scared her old roommate away, something about setting fire to her?”

Mrs. Savage half-smiled. “Well, it was a bit more complicated than that, but basically we found out that when she’s scared or upset a dragon tends to flare some fire around themselves as a protective response, and she was hit on that arm and as a result burned her roommate slightly. It wasn’t a lot of fire, but Nefertiti doesn’t have any protective powers. That’s one reason we thought of you, if anything should happen, your fireproof enough not to worry. In any case, what set things off isn’t likely to happen with the two of you, so I doubt we’ll have a repeat of the incident.”

Tanya had heard about some of it at a dinner conversation, apparently Nefertiti had got very annoyed about Cally and went off on Thulia about it. Granted, anyone who’d seen her combat final should have more sense than to aggravate Thulia, but there were quite a few students who didn’t gave the common sense God granted a gerbil.

“Are there other reasons, ma’am.”

“Well, yes. Thulia is still adjusting to being both at Whateley and on Earth, as you’ve probably noticed, and a helpful girl like you can help her with that. Also, after what happened during her combat final – well, you’re strong enough to help look after her. Anyway, we decided to put the two of you together and see how it works out. I wanted to tell you before you took your stuff up, she’ll be along shortly.”

Tanya nodded politely. “I’m sure it will be fine, Mrs. Savage. She’s a nice girl if no-one sets her off, and I’m sure that won’t happen.”

Tanya had just finished unpacking her luggage and putting it away neatly when there was a quiet knock on the doorframe. She turned to see Thulia, who was standing there with a shy look on her face. “Hello, Tanya, they told me I’d been reassigned as your roommate.”

Tanya smiled at the taller girl. “Yeah, welcome. Put your stuff down and we can put it all away.”

Thulia smiled back. “That’s very kind of you.” She put the bags she was carrying down on one of the beds. “I hope I won’t be a problem for you.”

Tanya laughed softly, shaking her head. "I don't think you'll be a problem, Thulia. We'll just have to look out for each other, right?"

A hesitant smile touched the taller girl's lips. "Right. Looking out for each other sounds like a good thing."

She seemed to relax a bit at that. “I hope it works out. My last roommate... Naomi... we did not get along so well. I'm still trying to understand people here, it isn’t easy."

Tanya nodded sympathetically. She had heard the story; everyone had. The incident with the dragon flame had been the talk of their cottage for days. Oddly, quite a few of the girls had seemed to think Naomi had brought in on herself, which was a story she really wanted to hear more on.

The two set to work, sorting through Thulia's belongings and organizing them within the space. The area that been Sterling’s was now Thulia's, and as her clothing and personal items took the place of Sterling’s absence, Tanya found herself feeling oddly comforted. Yes, things were changing, but perhaps it wasn't all bad. Then she had a thought

“You don’t spit fire in your sleep or anything, do you?”

Thulia looked a bit surprised. “Of course not, why would I do something like that?”

Tanya was reassured, although she did wonder about the complains Bianca had made about sharing a room with a dragon who snored. She didn’t know how much of that was Bianca teasingly exaggerating, or if was a dragon thing.

Thulia blushed at that and started unpacking her things. With her slender frame, she moved with what seemed to be an almost instinctive grace that Tanya envied. Especially when this wasn’t even her natural form!

As they worked, they chatted idly about their holidays and what they had done during their time away from Whateley. It was easy conversation; Tanya found Thulia to be less reserved than Sterling, if only just so, but still pleasant enough company all the same. She was surprised at some of the things that had gone on, but Thulia promised to go into more detail at dinner, when Morgana was with them. What she had heard already seemed to make her own Xmas holiday boringly mundane.

By the time they finished organizing Thulia's side of the room, it was dinner time. The two walked to the canteen together, and given the cold weather Tanya was actually pleasantly surprised at the aura of warmth surrounding her dragon companion.

The crystal hall was bustling with noise and activity; clashing cutlery, chattering voices as friends caught up with what others had done over Xmas, sizzling pans in the kitchen. As they walked in, some of their classmates looked at them curiously, probably due to the novelty of seeing Thulia without Morgana.

Tanya waved cheerful greetings at all the people she hadn’t seen over Xmas; Thulia was a lot more restrained, her face only breaking out in a beaming smile when she saw Morgana sitting at the M3 table. The two girls settled down with plates piled high with food. Outside the hall they got a good view of the snow-covered campus, which Thulia seemed rather interested in.

Morgana saw her companion gazing out of the window and smiled. “Come on, you’ve seen snow before, I know.”

Thulia resumed her eating. “Yes, but my home is pretty consistent with its climate. We don’t have the major weather changes you have here, so seeing it all white and snow covered is such a change from when I arrived. Mind, I must admit it looks a lot nicer from up here than it did walking here through it earlier.

Saturday 7thJanuary 2017, Breakfast, M3 Table, Crystal Hall

There was rather more of a busy appearance to the teens gathered around their table this morning. Usually it was a mix of the heavy eaters wondering if they should go back for a third portion, the social butterflies reading the messages on their phones, and some random discussion on the latest scandal or event to hit the students.

This morning things seemed a lot more serious – while the important event of breakfast hadn’t been ignored, the table was littered with pads and for some of the kids, paper containing a fair amount of scratched out and edited comments. The serious business of deciding which classes to take for the Winter Term had begun, and as some of the courses were limited in numbers, an early start would allow them to present their requests to their academic advisors.

“Oh my God, they start some of the classes before breakfast!”

Tanya grinned at the shock/horror in Morganas voice. “You know we don’t all sleep in until the last minute before coming here to eat, don’t you.”

The dragongirl stuck her tongue out at her friend. “I know, but it’s not natural! It’s a violation of the natural order of the universe.”

Tanya shook her head in mock sorrow. “So I take it no early morning classes for you, then?”

Morgana shook her head firmly. “It’s not as if there aren’t enough to choose from at a more civilised time. It’s going to be hard enough to fit them all in.”

Thulia gulped down a rather large portion of pancake as she eyed her associate. “So what are you planning on taking then?”

Morgana looked at the course list on her pad, and then the paper she’d been making notes on.

“Lets see. First thing in the morning is the Crystal Enchantment class Thulia suggested I take.”

Thulia nodded. “It will be a useful basis for me teaching you how to enchant spell and storage crystals, and I’m not sure if you do it the way I was taught.”

Morgana sighed. “I know, but the Introduction to the Ranges class sounded fun – apparently you get to blow up stuff on the ranges!”

There was a certain amount of snickering at that, along with a sotto voice comment of ‘blow up even more stuff?’.

Morgana coughed pointedly and carried on. “Second is the BMA special topics. I need to learn how to use my spear in combat.”

Laura looked interested; this was something she’d obviously missed. “You have a spear now?”

Morgana grinned, as she held her hand out and a six foot metal-shod red crystal spear with a seriously nasty head appeared in her hand. She kept it there for a few moments, then dismissed it again.”Spear.”

Luara nodded, looking a trifle impressed.

Morgana scowled at her paper notes again. “Then I try and fit in a rushed lunch, before Theory and Practice of the Escape. I didn’t really have a choice in that one, but it will be useful.” She looked at Bianca and Laura. “I guess similar reasons are why you two were thinking on it. “

Bianca just nodded, but Laura gave a sigh. “I don’t think it’s that likely I’ll be kidnapped, I need it more for protection against some of the kids I babysit.”

Erica grinned. “So the idea of just using your zap-gun to keep them comatose during babysitting didn’t fly?”

Laura gave her a scowl. “I never considered that. “She gazed into the distance as she remembered certain episodes with the kids. “Often, anyway.”

Morgana shrugged. “After that fiasco with the MCO over Xmas I really do need that course. Anyway, I have a bit of a gap after that, which Thulia has insisted I spend in the Language Lab.” She gave a mock glare at the other dragongirl. “She’s such a slave-driver!”

Thulia just shrugged. “A language isn’t going to teach itself. Well, not without some seriously complicated magic that neither of us can really afford.”

Morgana still looked slightly put-upon. “Then three days a week I have Team Tactics for Search and Rescue, that course goes into the evening. And finally I want to take the Familiars course. I know I don’t have one yet, but Grimes told me it would be a big help when I finally get one, and it would help with knowing what to look for. So that pretty much takes up all my time, I’ll have to fit homework in somewhere or do a lot of it at weekends.”

Erica gave her a slightly concerned look. “That’s a lot of classes, are you sure you aren’t trying to take on too much?”

Morgana sighed. “Possibly, I’ve been told they are going to keep an eye on me in case it’s too heavy a load, but there is stuff in there that I really want to learn! The Winter Term courses here are interesting.”

Thulia gave her a quick hug. “At least my course load isn’t so crazy. I want to do Introduction to Fabrication in the afternoon, its a quick way of getting up to speed with all the basic workshop tools so I can start making some fun stuff. And I still have to take my English for Dummies class, apparently some of the ‘normal’ classes carry on this term. I’ll be keeping some of you guys company in the Martial Arts class, too. Vic looked slightly puzzled. “But I thought you’d already had training with your weapons.”

“Well, yes, but it’s been to use them mainly against animals or creatures. I need to learn to use them against people, and without too much force if necessary.”My weapon skills aren’t intended to fight intelligent humans, I need to modify them a lot.”

Bianca looked at the dragongirl. “Aren’t you going to do the Team Tactic course with the rest of us.”

Thulia took another gulp of her food before answering. “Yes, I need to learn how to do stuff with people, and apparently just blowing shit up is frowned upon.”

That brought a new round of chuckles from around the table, which Thulia ignored.

“That’s only 3 days a week, but then I also have to be Grimes’ TA for the Portals Course, that’s the other three evenings gone.”

Bianca looked interested. “how did you get on that, and as a TA? I thought it was interesting, but didn’t have anything close to the prerequisites,”

Thulia nodded, “I can do portals, so Grimes asked me to help her. Its a Junior level course because it’s quite complicated. Also, she mentioned the possibility of some off-plane work once we’ve covered local portals, and I do have experience in that area. And contacts, if it involves meeting anyone.”

Erica grinned. “I do hope you wont be teaching any of the class to visit inappropriate places! Or entities.”

Thulia looked thoughtfully at her plate. “I’m not really sure when would be considered inappropriate, but Grimes said she’d check any suggested place or entities first. For some reason there’s always someone on the course who wants to meet a succubus.”

“You could always introduce them to Tanau.”

Thulia shook her head. “I don’t think introducing them to her would end at all well.”

“But it would be fun to watch. From a respectful distance, of course.”

Thulia smiled back at Morgana. “I’ll make sure you meet her when we visit my family.”

Morgana gulped audibly, to a chorus of snickers from around the table.

Tuesday January 10th, 4pm, SIMS preparation room, Team Tactics.

Of course, having the class easy to get too would have been far too simple. So the group had trudged down into and through the tunnels, past Arena 91, and finally to a set of security door that stated in big letters HOLOGRAPHIC SIMULATION CENTER DESIGNATED TEAMS ONLY.

“So we have to watch the intro videos again? Even those of us who’ve done all this before?”

Erica shrugged. “We haven’t all seen then, and anyway they might have changed something for the S&R track. So it will be a useful refresher. “

“So what’s in store for us this evening?”

Laura looked at her pad.

“First up is the ever-popular ‘Creating your profile’, followed by the equally riveting ‘Introduction to the Holographic Sims. And when they are over, we get ‘Introduction to Search and Rescue’.”

“Happy happy joy joy.”

Laura just sniffed at the comment. “Then we get to put on and adjust the sim suits they’ve put out for us, and make sure they are comfortable. Morgana, you and Thulia are to work together, it seems handling her wings and tails will be a bit more of an issue than just a bodysuit. We don’t get to do any actual fun stuff in the sims until we’ve all created a profile and had it approved, but we can register our gear and holdouts today, that saves some time later.”

There was a mix of nods and groans from the assembled crew.

“Hey, at least we aren’t being dropped straight into a combat sim like the Alpha stream does.”

The girls were in the middle of getting their simsuit outfits all fitted, and marked as theirs for use in the sims.

As long as you had no issues with sliding into a rather tight fitting costume, which had to be adjusted from its ‘general’ fit to a precise one for each girl by fiddling with Velcro straps, it wasn’t too hard. Morgana had done hers fairly quickly – it wasn’t that different from her combat outfit, but Thulia was having issues. Not so much with the basic suit, but with handling her wings and tail.

“I didn’t expect them to allow for them, really?”

Morgana shrugged as she sorted though a few different sizes and shape options for Thulia’s tail. “They do have a lot of GSD students use the sims, so at least they have them.

Having helped wriggle the dragonesses tail into an appropriately shaped part, and zipped it shut, Thulia was eyeing the wing covers with a very dubious look. Unlike the rest of the outfits, which weren’t dissimilar from a wetsuit, they were some sheets that had to fit over her wings and then be velcroed in place.

“Remind me again why I have to put these on?”

Laura and Tanya slipped covers over one wing and fastened them. “Because they have to be there if you manifest them, you need the feedback, remember? OK, you might not need them if you don’t use your wings or tail, but if you do...”

Thulia gave another deep sigh and tried to wiggle a bit more comfort into the sections covering her wings. “I guess. It still feels weird.”

All done, they had to take the outfits off again, hanging them up in some of the closets and making sure they knew which one belonged to whom.

“So is that it for today?”

“Pretty much, they need to know holdouts before we can actually use the sim. So, we register them, which is easy unless its non-standard, and we have to fill in the powers stuff before our next session, we can email that in.”

Thulia looked a bit embarrassed. “What about all my spells, do they need them too?”

Erica patted her on the shoulder. “Not today, you mages need to get a note from Grimes for what you can do and its effects, then she emails it over and they check on it when we have our profiles checked. Its like holdouts, if you change them or learn a new spell they have to know, but the first time is the complicated one.”

Some weeks earlier, SIMS preparation conference room.

“So we have three teams who want to be in the Search & Rescue track, and one of them is M3, who are huge...”

Tyson looked at the speaker and sighed. “They are what, around a dozen people? We can’t handle a team that large with any of our normal scenarios, they are set up for 5-6 people. And we can’t set up special ones for every session”

“So split them into two parts then. As it’s supposed to be S&R, we can mix them up as needed, teach them to work with others with different power sets. Its a useful skill for S&R, its not like they are a fixed combat team. So that gives us four teams, which we can handle.”

“That’s true, but we also need more combat than usual in that track. There are those in M3 who have enemies, and the Fast and the Furrious like to fight. If we don’t give them some combat we can’t show them what a bad idea it is.”

“So we add some rioters, criminals and such into the scenario – not all the time, just enough to keep them guessing. We don’t need to drop them into an Alpha stream combat, do we?”

“I don’t think so, but we need to see how it goes and maybe adjust the scenarios later on. We might want to try one or two of those scenarios at some point, if nothing else it will stop them getting complacent. At least the problem kids in M3 know its best not to go looking for trouble, but when it comes down to it they are teenagers.”

“So what else have we got to worry about?”

“Thulia. She really doesn’t understand what to do in the scenarios, and she has a lot of magic. Its like dealing with a junior without the experience they’ve learned. Hers is mainly of the ‘earth shattering kaboom’ type, which isn’t so good for S&R. Blowing everything up rarely works well, so we have to teach her how to handle things delicately.”

There was a moment’s thought around the table at the idea of teaching a dragon delicacy.

“Put her in the group with Dragonsfyre, she can hold her hand and keep an eye on her. Besides, splitting them up would be another problem and we probably will need to stop then fixating on each other in the scenario. And we can tailor scenes so her skill in magic is less useful, like it was in her combat final. We need to teach her alternative ways to handle things that don’t involve blowing stuff up. Dragonsfyre can help us with that.”

Friday January 13th, late evening, Bianca and Morgana’s room, Poe cottage.

Morgana was rather surprised when Thulia burst into her room at 1030pm. With no warning.

“What’s the matter, love?”

Bianca looked up from reading her homework, eyebrows raised in surprise. Thulia took a moment to calm herself, an unhappy expression on her face.

“Remember that kid in Phoenix I told you about, Fanak? I just got a text from her.”

Morgana frowned. “Is she in trouble?”

Thulia shook her head. “Not exactly, it’s her brother. Apparently he’s been targeted by a villain, who’s injected him with some sort of devisor poison. He’s in hospital, but apparently he’s dying.”

Morgana looked confused. “They can’t cure him?”

“No, apparently its some drug they haven’t an antidote for, its some sort of devisor drug that prolongs the dying. They don’t seem to have an available healer currently in Phoenix, and she wants to know if I can help.”

Bianca looked worried as she made a disapproving noise. “They targeted a kid? One who wasn’t even involved? The crime scene in Phoenix is even worse than I’ve heard.”

Thulia nodded. “From what I hear, it’s pretty rough down there. The thing is, when I met her I did a healing on her, so she thinks I can do the same for her brother. He’s only twelve...”

“And is that a problem for you?”

The dragongirl spaced out for a moment. “Under the circumstances, yes it is. I’m good at healing damage, I’m not so skilled at things like poisons, especially if it’s an unknown one and in a human. Second, healing something that complicated would probably need me to cast a ritual circle since I‘d need to do an analysis first.”

Morgana finished for her. “And doing that around a patient in a hospital would be complicated, to say the least. Not to mention obvious.”

“Yes, but if I can’t help, he’d die. I have to help somehow!”

Morgana put her arm around her distraught leman, “WE have to help. I assume the kid is in the hospital and, from what you’ve said, pretty critical. So we can’t just take him out and heal him somewhere else. Despite what they do in the movies, you can’t easily waltz out of a hospital with a bedridden patient, especially if he’s plumbed in to stuff.”

Thulia looked a bit despondent. “No, and Fanak hasn’t told her parents about herself yet, apparently. So we’d have to persuade them first, somehow, before I could do anything.”

Bianca had been following the conversation, looking thoughtful. “So what you really need is a way of healing a poison without doing it yourself.”

Thulia perked up a little. “There are other student healers at Whateley, why don’t we take one down and have them do it? I think I’m the only one here who uses ritual circles for healing, the others just do it without needing much preparation. Much easier to get away with.”

Morgana snapped her fingers. “Pastel. She healed you after the combat finals, and she seems OK, even if she does have a mouth on her. We could at least ask her. If she can’t, she can’t, and maybe we can find someone else.”

Thulia looked at the time and considered. “We’ll have to get Mrs Hortons permission. And decide how to get there, there are a number of issues involved.”

“You can’t just gate us there?”

Thulia made a ‘maybe yes, maybe no’ gesture. “I could, but it would take a lot of essence. Before, I had permission to use one of the Orders gates, that was far less of an expenditure of essence for me. But if I use that again, they’ll know about it and they weren’t that happy with me after the last time I visited Phoenix. If I make a new gate for myself, I’ll be low on essence afterwards and I may need it, Phoenix isn’t safe and I still might have to do a healing. Given the kid is only twelve, I think I can get permission from them to use their gate again, but they don’t move that fast.” She grimaced. “Paperwork.”

Morgana had been tapping her pad as she listened. “We can take a plane, it’s not a long flight. If we get an early morning flight from Berlin we’ll be there mid-morning. It would be a lot easier to get to see the kid during the day anyway.”

Bianca stirred. “OK, so you have a few things to do. Talk to Mrs Horton, get hold of Pastel and see if she agrees, arrange transport from Berlin.”

Thulia nodded. “I can probably gate us all back, that’s less expensive on essence if I bring us back to Whateley via my home. By then I won’t have any particular need to conserve essence. So if anything does go wrong we can get out quickly.”

Morgana grinned. “Sounds like we have a plan. I’ll talk to Mrs. Horton, Thulia you speak to Pastel. Bianca, could you work out possible flights and stuff for us, please?”

Both girls nodded, as Morgana tried to work out how to put this all to Mrs, Horton.

“So, Morgana, this is just a trip to heal this boy, nothing else?”

Morgana nodded. “We go down by plane, in civvies. Fanak says she can get us into the hospital room, and distracting anyone there shouldn’t be hard, Pastel doesn’t need long. Then we sneak out, and once we know the cure worked, we can Portal back to Whateley, probably on Sunday. Minimum exposure, and we’ll try and keep a low profile the whole time.”

Mrs Horton looked thoughtful. “That does seem a sensible approach, and it would put you in minimum danger. I assume you and Thulia will bodyguard Pastel if the need arises?”

“Of course, ma’am, we won’t let anything happen to her.”

“And if Pastels healing doesn’t work? Thulia needs a circle to do a healing in, doesn’t she?”

Morgana looked a little worried. “I haven’t quite worked out what to do in that case, ma’am, we might have to play it by ear.”

Mrs Horton smiled. “If it turns out Pastels heal doesn’t work, call me. We have some contacts in the Phoenix hero group, we can get them to help with access for Thulia, but I’d prefer for you girls to go in and out without making it public. The less anyone knows about you three the better.”

Morgana brightened. “Thank you. I hope it won’t be needed, but if we have to – well, he’s only twelve.”

“Yes. Now go and check with the others, and see me once you have everything set up. I’ll take your word on the no damage and low profile part.”

Pastel had been surprised to hear a knock on her door so late in the evening, she’d been getting ready to go to bed. She was even more surprised to see Thulia outside, looking a bit worried.

“Can I come in? I have a favour to ask...”

Pastel nodded to the dragongirl. “Sure, come and explain. Why are you here so late?”

Thulia shrugged as she entered the room. “Don’t notice me spell. It comes in useful.”

“Have you been doing midnight flights over the campus or something?”

Thulia tried to look her most innocent. “Of course I haven’t. *not at midnight, anyway, she thought to herself* Anyway, about the favour...”

It only took the girl a few minutes to explain the situation to Pastel, who was looking thoughtful by the end.

“So let me get this straight. We fly in, visit the hospital, I cure him, we sneak out and when we know he’s OK we use one of your magic gates to get home.”

Thulia nodded. “Yes.”

Pastel made a face. “It sounds far too fucking simple.”

“Look, we aren’t planning on fighting anyone! And if anything does happen, Morgana and I will swear to protect you.”

Pastel was still looking a bit doubtful at the whole operation, so Thulia decided to try and sweeten the pot.

“We’ll be coming home through my world. Haven’t you ever wanted to see a dragon in its full dragonform?”

Pastel’s eyes widened. “Really? It wouldn’t be dangerous or anything?”

Thulia shook her head. “Not at all, we’ll stop and grab some food at the transit centre, no-one’s going to bother you there. They have serious security.”

Pastel was still thinking about the idea of seeing dragons as dragons, not to mention an off-world visit – no-one she knew had come close to doing that, she could rub everyone's nose in it.

“Ok, I’m your healer.”

Thulia grinned at her victory. “OK, pack an overnight bag and I’ll take us back to Poe.”

“So what are the flights like?”

Bianca looked up from her pad. “Not too terrible, there’s a 6am American Airlines flight, gets you there before 9am. Non-stop, which should make things simpler, less things to screw up. Shall I book three seats?”

“Yes please, Bianca, Mrs. Horton has approved, and Pastels onboard with it. And thanks for helping.”

Bianca shrugged. “Hey, not a problem. Now you need to get your stuff together, overnight bags for you all. “

Morgana grinned. “Yes mom.” Bianca just made a face at her.

“Thulia, will you need any magic stuff, in case you need to do a healing ritual?”

Thulia thought for a moment, then shook her head. “Everything I’d need should be in my storage, I don’t need anything particularly special. And my essence storage crystals will be fully charged by the morning, just in case.

Bianca nodded, then took a look at Pastel. “What about disguising your skin?”

Pastel blushed. “Well, I do have some concealer, but its not very good.”

Bianca and Morgana looked at each other as they said in unison “Laura.”

Granted it was getting on for midnight, but Laura was known for staying up late to work on her tech, and a light knock on her door allowed her to open it, albeit in her nightdress and holding a circuit board in one hand.

She blinked at them.“Yeah, where’s the fire?”

Morgana grinned. “We need your help. You have spare concealer, don’t you? The good stuff?”

Laura looked puzzled. “Well of course I do, but why are you asking me at this time of night?”

Morgana patted her on the shoulder. “Let me explain...”

Mrs. Horton finished checking the girls preparations and nodded. “You seem to have covered everything. All we need to do is to arrange a lift from Security to get you to the airport.”

Morgana smiled. “We will be careful, ma’am, I promise.”

“See that you are.” She didn’t mention Thulia’s last visit to Phoenix, that had been an exceptional circumstance that was unlikely to occur again.

It wasn’t till they were walking to the car that Morgana looked at Thulia. “Love, is gating both ways such a heavy drain on you? You could borrow some of my essence.”

Thulia smiled, but shook her head. “You remember what I told you about the last time I visited Phoenix? The real story? Well, I needed all my essence then, and while I hope this trip will be peaceful, I don’t want to take any chances with you and Pastel to look after. Just in case. I do still worry at times about the density of essence on Earth. I wish I could have got you into the Gates course, you’d understand then, but truthfully you don’t have the needed prerequisites,

Morgana smiled and touched Thulia on the shoulder. “I’m sure it will be fine, it’s just a quick mission of mercy.”

Thulia still looked worried. “I guess, but there’s so much we don’t actually know about the situation, and why the kid got targeted. I worry when I can’t plan for things properly.”

It wasn’t until they were in the car heading to the airport that Pastel turned to them. “You do know about what happens after I use my powers, right?”

Morgana shook her head. Thulia looked thoughtful. “Something about having to trade off the negative energies involved?”

“Something like that. When I heal, the nasty ass shit makes my skin black, the more I heal the more it covers. I have to pass it on to something living before it's released in me. After I heal the kid, I’ll need to get rid of it, probably in two or three hours if he's as bad as it seems.” She eyed the two girls with a twisted smile. “Now you two are tough, between the pair of you I think you could handle it, but it’s fucking painful, I’d rather not put you through that if we can avoid it.”

Morgana looked at the girls long-sleeved shirt and gloves. “Hence the clothing, I assume, to hide the effect on you?”

“Yeah. Not just so people don’t notice it, but it also helps to stop someone accidentally touching me. Having someone screaming and writhing around on the ground next to me is a bit fucking obvious.”

“So how do you usually get rid of it?”

Pastel sighed at Morgana’s question. “On something living. Doyle gives me an animal of some sort, usually a cage of rats, I can dump the load into them and not worry if it kills them. But we can’t take an animal on the plane with us. And where would we get one this late at night?”

Morgana looked thoughtful. “Does it have to be a big animal, or would something like a rat or a gerbil work?”

The multi-toned girl shrugged. “Its easier with one big animal, but yeah, I can dump the shit into a group of small ones, no fucking problem. That’s what they usually give me at Doyle anyway.”

“No issues, then. After you do the healing we can visit a pet shop, I’m sure they have them in Phoenix. And if there is an issue, well, we’re tough, I think we can handle it if we have to. Or we can find something feral if we need to.”

Pastel looked a bit dubious. “Ok, that will probably work.”

Saturday January 14th, Phonenix airport arrivals, Phoenix Arizona, 10am.

The flight had been uneventful, if boring and crowded. Apparently it was a holiday on Monday, and even such an early flight hadn’t got many free seats. Apart from Thulia complaining about how the seat didn’t fit and the barely-edible breakfast she’d been presented with. Morgana had just snorted and told her lover to get use to the wonders of human air travel, which got her a very old-fashioned look.

Pastel looked around at the arrivals lounge and frowned. “Lot of nosy ass cameras around.”

Morgana nodded and pointed. “Ladies room. You can check your makeup, and we have a few spells to arrange.”

Pastel was happy her cover-up makeup was holding up so well, the good stuff that Laura used was quite a bit better than her usual cheap-and-simple brand. While she was checking over for any spots that needed a touch-up, the two dragongirls were discussing something about magic, technical talk she didn’t understand.

“OK, Pastel, when you’re done we need to cast a spell on you. Don’t worry, it’s just a version of the ‘don’t notice me’ spell we used in the arenas to keep your face anonymous. Just in case, for when we visit the hospital. There are probably cameras there.”

Pastel thought that through and nodded. Part of her was thankful the two girls were taking the visit, and precautions, seriously. She had too many bad memories of her time alone on the street. “What do I need to do?”

Morgana smiled. “Just hold still for a minute. She made some sort of complicated gestures with her hand, as if she was drawing something in mid-air, and Pastel felt something she couldn’t quite feel settle over her face. “There, all done. Now we just do ourselves then we can go get a cab.”

Pastel noted that while Morgana did the gestures thing again for herself, Thulia just materialised her staff and made a gesture, before the crystal rod vanished again. She wished she knew how she did that. Once complete, she realised she couldn’t quite make out the girls faces, as Morgana had said it was like the combat finals. And certainly a lot less obvious than using a mask!

The girls had made their way out of the airport. Even in January, and in the morning, the air was warm. Much nicer than Whateley at this time of year, as Thulia sighed in appreciation.

“Ok, do we have everything? Thulia, has Fanak told you which hospital yet?”

“Hang on...yes, here it is. She read out the address Fanak had texted her.

Morgana nodded as she played with the Uber app. “Ok, so it says our ride will be here in about 10 minutes. Thulia, you’d better bring Fanak up to date. Tell her to meet us outside near reception in about 20 minutes. Once we’re there, we have to sort out the best way of getting in and do the healing, without anyone noticing us.”

Fanak had used the excuse of ‘visiting the ladies room’ to slip out for a few minutes, long enough to get to the front reception and pick up Thulia and her team. She almost didn’t recognise Thulia, there was something odd about her face, she couldn’t quite focus on it no matter how she tried. It wasn’t just the sunglasses the girls were wearing, she couldn’t quite grasp the facial features of any of them. She put that aside, the group were obviously using disguises or something. The professionalism it showed comforted her, proper superheroes were so much better prepared than she was, even as it made her feel a bit jealous.

“OK, Fanak, what’s the situation inside?”

Fanak looked at Morgana despondently as she tried not to cry in front of the three heroes, tugging at her headscarf to try and distract herself.

“He’s in a private room, they have him hooked up to all sorts of monitors and drips, there is a policeman sitting outside the room, and my father is in the room. They told my father he was fading, but they didn’t say how long he would last.”

Morgana smiled. “Any nurses in the room?”

Fanak shook her head. “I think there’s a nurse at a station monitoring everything remotely, and my Fathers been at his bedside all night.”

“Ok, I think we have a plan, then.” The other two girls looked at Morgana, who was projecting an air of confidence. After all, she’d seen plenty of movies about this sort of thing.

“The policeman shouldn’t be a problem. He’s probably just there as there is something suspicious about the poison. Fanak, was he sitting down?” Fanak nodded, and she continued. “So a sleep spell will stop him noticing us getting in, when he wakes up he’ll just think he nodded off, and he won’t report that. Remote monitoring helps, it gives us a window to get in and out. Fanak, we need a way to distract your father, he’s been there all night?”

Fanak nodded. “He’s been there all night, my mother is coming back later to take over from him.”

“Then we ideally need to get him out of the room for” she looked at Pastel. “Fifteen minutes?”

Pastel nodded. “I shouldn’t take that long for the healing, but just in case...”

“Fanak, can you persuade him to take a short break, get breakfast or something, while you keep an eye on your brother?”

Fanak looked determined. “I think so, I can always say I’ll call him straight away if anything changes. Then I call and tell you?”

“Yeah, in any case we’ll be close outside, so with any luck we’ll see him leave. Then we sleep the guard, slip past him quietly, and Pastel heals the poison before we sneak out again. If you can’t persuade your father to leave, we’ll have to come up with a different idea, but let’s try the simple approach first.“

Fanak couldn’t help but wonder if it was all being shown as too simple, but presumably Thulia’s team of professionals knew what they were about. She had to have faith in them for her brother’s sake.

Morgana was a bit twitchy about how effectively the plan was working, she had to remind herself that things didn’t always go wrong, as Thulia made some movements with her hand and the policeman slumped deeper in his chair and started to snore gently. She motioned the group forward as the door opened and Fanak waved at them to come in. They moved as quietly as possible, Thulia had reminded them the man was only asleep, so as few loud noises as possible.

It seemed a normal private hospital room, apart from the amount of instrumentation hooked up to the boy in the bed. He looked terrible, his skin yellowish and enough things monitoring him to look after the space shuttle, and there was a drip feeding into a canula in his arm. Pastel made a beeline for the bed, and she gave a quick rundown on what she was doing. “First I need to check what’s wrong with him, then I can try healing the poison.” Thulia kept an eye on the door, staff in hand, as Morgana slipped next to Pastel, scanning the readouts on the machines. She’d been shown enough in her own medical class to see that the data they were showing wasn’t good, far too many amber lights than she was happy with. Pastel took her glove off and ran her hand across his body, touching him lightly, her fingertips turning black as she used her power to examine the boy, then nodded. “I think I can do this. First the poison, after that his liver isn’t in good shape, I can cure the worst of that too. The minor damage I’d prefer to leave to heal more normally, that way it will look like he just threw off the poison rather than being healed.” She rested her hand on the boys arm, a shiver running through her as she concentrated on the poison, darkness slowly spreading from her hand and up her arm. Morgana kept an eye on the readouts. A few things were changing, but there were more things heading for the green, which seemed a good sign. With the ventilator he was on she couldn’t tell if the boy was breathing more easily, but at least he wasn’t looking worse.

Pastel finally sighed, fumbling slightly as she slid her glove back on. “All done. The poison is fixed, and the main damage to his liver. So we’d better get out of here before someone notices the improvement and comes take a look.”

Morgana touched Fanak on the shoulder. “He’ll be OK soon, Pastel fixed the poison.” Fanak nodded, tears running down her cheek. “Thank you... thank you so much!”

“Now, we have to go. You stay here and keep an eye on him, and text us when you know more.” The three girls slid quietly out of the door, past the sleeping policeman as the moved quickly down the corridor. It was a good job they moved fast, because a couple of minutes later a nurse bustled in, looking over the readings on the monitors. She’d been alerted by a couple of beeps on the monitoring station “Hmm.”

Fanak looked at her. “Is something the matter? Should I get my father?”

The nurse shook her head. “Not at all, in fact he seems a bit better. I just wanted to check my readings at the nurse station were correct. I’ll get the doctor to come and check, but on the face of it he seems to be over the worst. She gave Fanak a reassuring smile.”

The three girls took account of themselves after they had left the hospital. No sirens sounding, which was always a good sign, no loud warning message on the tannoy.

“Pastel, how’s your arm?”

Pastel scowled.“Not too good, I need to get rid of this shit soon, the kid was a lot worse than I thought. That was a fucking nasty poison.”

Morgana was playing with Google Maps. “It says there’s a pet shop a few blocks away. Let’s head there and we can get something for you.”

Fortunately it wasn’t that far, Pastel was starting to feel the heat of the day building up, though the dragongirls seemed quite unaffected.

“Here we are, ‘Kittens and Puppies R Us.’ Hopefully they have something like rats as well.”

The door chimed cheerfully as they went in, Thulia looking around curiously.

Pastel and Morgana walked up to the assistant. “Excuse me, but do you have any rats?”

The girl looked a bit surprised. “Rats? Not a kitten or something cute?”

Pastel smiled sweetly, which looked strange on her face. “No way rats are awesome! My parents let me get one and since I did so good looking after cute little Whiskers, and I built a run for him in the backyard, and taught him tricks, they're letting me get six more for my birthday

The girl looked a bit confused at a teenage girl being so excited about getting rats, especially so many, but the giggling girl looked really happy. And the customer was always right. She led them over to the cage containing some plump and well fed white rats. “You said six right?”

Pastel nodded, clapping her hands like an overexcited and chipper girl. “Yes please. OH they're so cute! I can't decide which ones I want! You pick for me, please! They're going to have so much fun in their new big home with Whiskers, and I have all the rat pellets they could want

Mentally shrugging, the girl put six of the rats into a wire container. There was a lot of annoyed squeaking from the new inhabitants as they were evicted from their comfortable cage, making Thulia peer in closely and take a look. There was a flurry of nervous squeaks as the rats huddled in one corner, as far as they could get from the scary dragongirl staring at them. She made a face. “I don’t think they like me.”

Morgana stopped trying not to laugh at Pastels rat-gushing to grin at Thulia’s comment. “I think they recognise a predator when they see one.”

Thulia made a face. “I don’t eat rats!”

“Sure, but do they know that?”

Still they walked out of the shop with a container of six thoroughly cowed and miserable rats.

“Will a side alley do, Pastel?”

Pastel made a disgusted face. “Sure, as long as no-one notices. Gah, I hate acting all cheerful and shit. But at least it got us the rats without any questions”

“Not a problem, one ‘don’t notice the pretty girl eating the rats’ spell coming up.

Pastal half-glowered at Morgana’s cheerful response. “I don’t eat the stinking fucking rats!”

Morgana just grinned even wider as she cast a concealment spell. “Well, do your thing here and we can dump the bodies in that dumpster.”

Pastel just gave her a look as she slipped off her glove and dumped the poison into the rats. There were a few agonised squeaks, then the bodies in the carrier twitched and lay still, and Pastels hand looked normal again. She tossed the dead rats into the back of a convenient dumpster and rubbed her hands.

“All done.”

“Good, then we can get something to eat, I’m starving.”

“You ate on the plane!”

“That was food?”

“They said it was...”

“Boss, we have something interesting.”

The gang leader listened to the rather perfunctory voice on his phone. “What is it, I hope it’s important?”

“Yeah, I think it is. Remember that boy who got ‘mysteriously’ poisoned you wanted us to keep an eye on? Well, he had some visitors, and our nurse contact says the boy is doing a lot better now and should recover.”

“Hmm. That’s interesting, did one of them look like a healer?”

“Not really, it was just three teenage girls.”

There was a short pause. “Follow them and keep an eye on them. If one of them is a healer, they would be a very valuable commodity. Take the rest of your gang just in case the other two are guarding her, and make sure you don’t kill any of them, we don’t want to damage a healer by accident.”

“Got it, boss, we’re onto it.”

He cut off the call thoughtfully. So, three girls, that would be easier than he’d expected. He’d been offered a substantial sum for delivering a healer, if they were good-looking he could collect and sell her ‘escorts’ as well. The day was looking up.

The group of girls stopped in front of an IHOP.

“Oh, we ate at one of these in Canada, it wasn’t terrible.”

Morgana looked at Pastel, who shrugged. “OK with me.”

Morgana nodded and led the girls in. After the airline ‘food’ she could use a few plates of pancakes herself.

Fortunately the server didn’t seem too worried about the amount they were ordering, although the $50 tip from Morgana might have had something to do with that. Pastel was still a bit surprised to see how much the two dragongirls ate – she’d thought they were mages, not energisers.

Finally the group was done except for a final round of coffee.

Pastel looked at the two dragongirls. “So, what’s next?”

Morgana looked at the notes on her phone and looked thoughtful. “We need to check with Fanak later about how her brother is doing. She’ll text us about that. I think we should book a hotel for the night, we probably want to check on how he’s doing in the morning before we leave.”

Thulia nodded. “Probably better to stay in Phoenix overnight, the transit centre I’d planned on using for us isn’t really geared to overnight stays, and you might find our accommodation - well, not what you’re used to. Here, we know what we’re getting into.”

“Where did you stay last time you were here, was it OK?”

Thulia shrugged. “A place called the Marriot Hotel near the Banner Medical Centre, it seemed OK, and they do breakfast. If you poke them enough they’ll deliver to your room in a decent quantity.”

“Ok, provisional plan then. Waste some time looking around or in the shops till Fanak calls, once we know whats up we can go book hotel rooms and get a decent night’s sleep, then check in with Fanak in the morning and if everyone is OK we portal back via the Plane of Fire.”

Pastel looked slightly worried. “So, the Plane of Fire. You swear that it's OK for a human?”

Thulia nodded. “It will be fine, and in any case we’re using the transit centre, which is geared to coping with visitors from other places. It won’t be too hot for you.”

The girls were sitting on a bench idly looking around when Thulia’s phone chimed.

“Ah, it’s Fanak!”

She made the other two wait while she answered the message, then smiled.

“She says her brother is doing well, the Doctors say he’s over the worst. They still want to do a lot of tests on him, so they’ve told her to get out for a while, She said she’d take a break and meet us for an update before she goes back to the Hospital.”

A while later, Fanak met them all at a convenient cafe, looking far more relieved than she had in the morning. The fact she started off by hugging Thulia hard – to the amusement of the other two, and the embarrassment of Thulia – rather gave her feelings away.

“So, they say he’ll be OK now?”

Fanak nodded. “They said they need to test him, just to see where he is, and keep him in for a few days, just in case, but if that all OK he can come home. We’ll need to look after him for a few weeks, but that's all,” she said, with tears running down her cheeks. “Thank you, thank you all so much!”

“So it sounds like we’re done for today.”

Pastel nodded. “Yeah, he shouldn’t need another healing, unless something really weird happens.”

Morgana was giving Fanak a curious look. “Do you know why they targeting him? Deliberately, or was it just a coincidence?”

Fanak looked at her hands. “I don’t know. If they found out about me, why poison my brother rather than me?”

“That’s a good point. Maybe you can find out from whoever’s handling the case?”

Fanak looked at Thulia with pleading eyes. “You can’t...”

Thulia cut her off. “No, I’m not supposed to get involved. Even arranging a healer is rather more than I’m supposed to do, but I’ll just blame that on Morgana. She’s a bad influence, you know.”

The aforementioned bad influence made a rude gesture at Thulia, before making her own response.

“Fanak, I know you want to keep your powers a secret, but maybe you should tell someone. This sort of thing might happen again. We should see about getting you sorted out by Whateley.”

Fanak looked puzzled. “But I’m too young to go to college.”

Morgana patted Fanak’s hand. “Fanak, Whateley is a high school, it takes kids from 14 on. Apart from other things it teaches you how to handle and deal with your powers, and best of all they make sure no-one threatens your family. You really should consider going there.”

She gave Thulia an odd look. “But I thought you were an agent or something? Are you a teacher there?”

For some reason that caused hilarity for the other two girls. Thulia just look embarrassed.

“No, I’m a student. We all are. Yes, I do work for an agency, but that’s something completely different.” She thought it best not to go into exactly what her roles and responsibilities were to the order.

Fanak sighed as she tried to process all that, before standing up. “I do have to get back, I told them I was just popping out for a meal.”

Thulia nodded. “Take care, then, Give us a text in the morning just to be sure everything’s ok, we should be heading home late in the morning.”

The problem with following the direct route to the hotel via Google Maps was that while Maps was good about listing things like places to eat, it was far less capable of telling you about areas of the city you probably shouldn’t have been walking through. Granted, where they merely looked a bit run down and poor, not nearly as bad as some of the places Pastel used to call home. So she just kept her usual eye out, after all the dragongirls didn’t seem too worried, Thulia spent most of her time just looking around curiously. It wasn’t until they’d found a more open and disreputable area that things went downhill fast.

“I think we’re being followed.” hissed Pastel. Of course, that just made the other two girls try and find out my whom, which made Pastel roll her eyes at the level of street-smarts the two were not exhibiting. In any case, it shortly proved redundant as four men stepped out in front of them, two of them holding guns and grinning nastily.

“Now ladies, no need to worry, we aren’t going to kill you. But our boss wants the healer, and don’t worry, we’ll look after the other two of you very nicely.”

Despite the fact her two escorts didn’t seem terribly worried at his words, just annoyed, Pastel found her anxiety level rising. Were they intending to kidnap her? That... wasn’t good. It brought back memories, and not good ones. She started furtively looking around for somewhere to run to.

Morgana gave the men a look that indicated a complete lack of worry on her part. “Tell you what. You leave now, and you won’t end up in hospital, or worse.”

That provoked a certain amount of amusement from the men.

“Oh, don’t worry, girlie, we’ll look after you. Wouldn’t want to damage valuable merchandise like you three, would we?”

It took Morgana a few seconds to realise they were talking about her and Thulia as well as Pastel. Thulia was faster to react; giving them her nastier smile (the one with the fangs), she held out her hand as her staff appeared in it. The men took a few steps back, eyes widening as a glowing crystal staff appeared in the girls hand and both the dragongirls shifted to their dragonforms.

“Fuck, boss, what do we do?”

The leader ignored the worried comment from his men, snarled and raised his gun to Thulia. “Girl, drop the staff, right now.” Thulia just ignored him, as a flicker of flame travelled down the staff, so the sound of gunshots reverberated from the surrounding buildings as the two obviously armed men shot at her. Only to see their bullets falls to the ground as they hit the wall of scarlet-edged hexagons that appeared around her.

“Oh dear, your little guns not good enough?”

The leader snarled and made a gesture, and two of his men hurled a couple of objects at the girls. Morgana made sure she was in front of Pastel, who was looking like she was about to run. There was a very loud *crack* that reverberated from the surrounding buildings and a brilliant flash of light as the two flashbangs went off right next to the group. Fortunately they weren’t the military version, but capable enough.

However both the dragongirls were wearing their earplugs, and the glasses they were wearing to disguise their distinctly non-human eyes had been treated by Shutterfly – just in case. The total reaction to the two grenades was, basically, a feral grin from Morgana and Pastel wincing and almost falling as her ears rang from the nearby blasts as she had to blink purple afterimages from her eyes. This was followed by yet more shots as the gang tried to take advantage of what they expected to be a disabling attack, not just from the four in front of them but from two more pairs who had been hiding by some of the buildings. Thulia just let the bullets bounce off her shield, while Morgana put her arm in front of her eyes and just accepted being hit, making sure she was between Pastel and any of the gunfire. She was confident that the sort of guns used by street punks wouldn’t do more that bruise her, if they even did that. At the worst, shed be fine in the morning.

“Pastel, stay behind us!” That was a rather redundant order, Pastel fully intended to stay safely behind the girls, who seemed to be making admirably durable meatshields. Thulia raised her staff higher as she said a few words in a growly language Pastel didn’t even recognise, let alone understand, as a ball of glowing crimson tentacles appeared in the air in front of her, curling though the air as it followed his useless attempts to dodge as it shot at one of the men, expanding as it surrounded him and wrapping him in a writhing, wriggling mass of tendrils, accompanied by his scream as they contracted around him to wrap him up helplessly. Morgana sighed. It was a shame she’d left her combat outfit at Whateley, but things had been rushed and it didn’t seem a priority for a medical mission. In retrospect that had been foolish of her, but her current choice of fabric wasn’t that breathable, and they were coming to Phoenix after all. Next time...

The remaining seven men had moved into a semicircle in front of them, looking between the two dragongirls and their leader, who was looking annoyed as hell, and trying not to show any fear to his minions.

“Last chance, surrender now or we get nasty!”

Thulia looked at her lover as she raised an eyebrow. “Does that mean I can use lethal spells on them?”

She was a bit surprised to hear Pastel snarl from behind her. “They wanted to kidnap me! Burn them all to the ground. Then do it again, slowly. Fucking bastards.”

The leader had obviously made a decision of some sort. “I’d hoped not to have to use this, but...” He dragged a dull metal sphere out of his jacket and tossed it at them. It flew at them, and Morgana instinctively turned, holding Pastel in her arms, her back to the grenade to protect the vulnerable girl from the expected explosion. Which would have been a good and effective tactic for the mainly bulletproof girl if it had been a normal grenade, which it wasn’t.

Instead of exploding, it let out a horrible pulsating bass rumble that went through their bodies as their bones seemed to shiver, even the earplugs not helping much. Pastel was shielded from the direct effect a bit by being in the shadow of Morganas body, but she still fell to her knees trying not to puke as the noise resonated through her bones. Morgana didn’t resist much better. She was a lot tougher than Pastel, but with nothing shielding her she was trying to stay on her feet as her inner ear seemed to twist horribly and she felt her gorge rise. Thulia was least affected; while her forcefield wasn’t really set up for sonic protection, it did help somewhat, and while she swayed a bit she didn’t fall over. As a flier, she wasn’t nearly so affected by the apparent motion sickness part of the effect. She still felt terrible, though.

The gang members seemed to have been expecting the sonic hit, as they started to move forward as soon as the horrible noise cut off. Thulia wasn’t taking any chances, as a firebolt shot from her hand and turned the boomer into a pool of molten metal and plastic. While the group were still reeling from the sonic effects, the gang had closed. Two had stepped warily close to Thulia – they didn’t know what her staff did, but she was worryingly like a mage, and that firebolt hadn’t exactly raised their confidence, while four more went for Morgana. The remaining man went for Pastel, who put her survival lessons into practice as she kept as far away from him as possible. Fortunately, despite the effects on her of the sonic, he wasn’t really in tip-top condition as she managed to stay ahead of him.

Morgana’s head was still spinning and she staggered again as two of the men grabbed her arms, and since that made it difficult to claw them she swung her horns hard against the closer one, leaving him reeling back screaming at the bloody wound gouged into his shoulder, even though the sudden movement mad it feel like her head wanted to fall off. That left her arm free, and even as the second man tried to decide whether tying her up or running was the better option, she slashed him across the stomach with her claws. Granted she wasn’t in any state to make a precision strike, but blood spurted from his stomach quite satisfactorily. Now if she could just stop her head spinning and her stomach wanting to decorate the ground with its contents, things would be a lot better. She’d thought her earplugs were supposed to protect her against sonic attacks? She’d need to have a word with Laura.

Thulia was more concerned with the man chasing Pastel that the two trying to decide how to approach her. She made a gesture with her staff, and there was a hissing crackle as lightning filled the air surrounding him and he collapsed into a smoking heap, twitching slightly. Pastel drew a sigh of relief, and wondered if there was anyone she could heal. Because that would let her cast the energy from her arm into them, and right now she was in the mood to hurt them badly. So for the moment she settled for kicking him in the face.

The remaining men had converged on Morgana, deciding that maybe holding her hostage would make the mage surrender. It seemed worth a shot, anyway, none of them relished the ideas of taking on a mage. She looked around at the four men surrounding her, and her eyes narrowed. She was wondering how they would like trying to handle her at a suitably high temperature, when Thulia took the need to respond out of her claws. With a guttural command, she pointed her staff at the ground under the group and hit them with an AOE spell. Morgana grunted as she got a lot heavier – maybe 10 gravities, she guessed – but she could handle that in her dragonform. It was uncomfortable, but it left her able to move. The result on the men was a lot more dramatic, as three of them collapsed, unable to move in the field of intense gravity. Morgana growled at the last one who’d managed to be outside of the field effect, this gravity field wasn’t helping her nausea at all, as he went for her with a blade. She stepped forward and tried to grab his knife. With the way she was feeling, she missed and just knocked it to one side, but he decided to be clever, grabbing her long braid and trying to get his knife across her throat. She smiled nastily, and cast her fire into her hair. A lot more than she’d used on Esquire, but she’d only been trying to give him a superficial burn. This time her hair burned yellow-hot, and he screamed as the skin of his hand crisped into a 3rddegree burn. He fell to the ground, and the smell of frying skin from his hand hit her as she finally lost her lunch, all over his legs. Which would only have been disgusting, except that vomiting when your internal system was more akin to a blast furnace meant a shower of burning hot and lava-like vomit sprayed all over his legs. The volume and pitch of his scream more than doubled.

Pastel looked at the bodies on the ground. “How long will they be down for?” Thulia shrugged. “A minute or two, the gravity field is a bit greedy on essence and it wears off quickly.” Pastel nodded, then went around the fallen men giving them all solid kicks to the head to make sure they stayed down. She sneered at the one who was sobbing with the third degree burns on his legs. “Oh, stop whining, you’ve still got your fucking legs. Mostly.”

Morgana raised her head at the sound of sirens approaching. “We’d better get out of this. Pastel, help me grab their wallets, they might tell us something about why they did this. As the two girls rapidly robbed the fallen men, Thulia was gesturing them to a quiet area, telling them to get behind her as she cast another “Not notice us spell.” The girls nodded, staying quiet and out of the way as the police arrived and started to cuff the men. Judging by their comments, these guys were known to them as the three girls carefully made their way out of the area and headed for the hotel.

“Well, that was exciting.”

Thulia grimaced at Morgana’s comment. “That wasn’t the word I’d have used. I wanted a quiet trip where we healed the boy and got out without any issues.”

“Well, at least the Police took care of them. Judging by what we heard, they are known perps, and with any luck they won’t say much about us.”

Pastel gave her a look. “Yah think?”

“Look, if you were a rough tough gang member would you boast about being taken out by a couple of teenage girls? I’d rather it was kept quiet, we don’t need to have another session with Security about what we did off Whateley, do we?”

At least they managed to get rooms at the Hotel, if only so they could clean up a bit. Pastel was slightly surprised when the dragongirls booked a double room for themselves and a single for her, but she’d seen the way the two of them looked at each other. She didn’t care about Whately rules that much, and anyway she wasn’t their mother.

They settled down in the double room to wait. “So Fanak said she’d message us in the morning?”

“Yeah, she said once things had settled down and she knew what shape her brother was in.”

“Ok, so pass me that room delivery menu.”

While they were waiting on the food, Pastel and Morgana sorted through the wallets. “Nothing much here. Maybe they were just some street thugs?”

Morgana shook her head. “Remember, they knew that Pastel or at least one of us, was a healer. So ambushing us wasn’t an accident. But with nothing to go on, there’s no point in telling anyone, we just need to be careful till we leave.” She tossed the cash in the wallets to Pastel, who nodded her thanks. “You probably need this more than we do. A souvenir.”

Pastel having left and gone to her room, the two dragongirls settled down for the night.

Morgana looked at her companion and wiggled her eyebrows. “We have a double bed. Just for us.”

Thulia gave a slow smile. “Oh, how terrible, I suppose we’ll just have to make do. I wonder how soundproof the walls are?”

“You were planning on being noisy?”

Thulia grabbed her lover and pulled her down onto the bed. “I dunno, what are you going to do to a poor innocent dragongirl like me?”

Morgana knelt over Thulia’s prone body, grinned, and kissed her softly. “Since when have you been innocent?”

Thulia giggle before returning the kiss. “Hey, I could be! You never know...”

“Darling, I’m not sure if you could do innocent even with an instruction manual and an illustrative video. Not that I mind in the slightest.”

“Oh good.”

“Now, as to what to do to you...”

Pastel had been quietly amused when the dragongirls had made obviously contrived their ‘need to get to sleep now’ act. The way they felt about each other was so obvious, as was their intention of using the hotels king sized double bed. Personally she’d never seen much point in the Whateley restrictions about sex, the place was full of teenagers, what did they expect to happen? She just hoped the walls were reasonably solid and that the two weren’t too noisy, after last night she needed her sleep.

Thulia had been right about being able to get a properly sized breakfast delivered, if you were insistent enough. So it wasn’t until mid-morning that they finally finished, to find Fanak had texted them.

“How is he?”

“About as we thought, the poisons gone, his liver is looking a lot better and the other side effects will fix themselves in a few weeks. Apparently the doctors are talking about a miracle recovery. You do good work, Pastel.”

Pastel nodded, polishing her nails on her shirt and smirked. “Yeah, I do.”

She didn’t say much more, and Morgana found her lack of pleasure at a successful heal a bit odd, but that wasn’t her business.

“What next?”

Thulia considered. “We get a cab out into the desert a bit, I need to construct a portal and I’d prefer no prying eyes. Then we head to the Plane of Fire Concourse, where hopefully there will be a few dragons for Pastel, have some snacks and then head back to Whateley.”

Morgana looked on with interest as Thulia constructed a portal. They’d driven out to the desert, then gone a little way to get some privacy, and Thulia had taken the opportunity to manifest her wings and tail.

The dragongirl stood in front of them, speaking in that odd growly voice again as she gestured, drawing a set of lines and diagrams in the air, lines charged with so much essence that even Pastel could catch glimpses of them, as she poured her essence into creating a portal to her home world. A set of constructs (Pastel could almost see them herself) hung like a heat distortion in mid air as Thulia conjured symbols into each of them.

Thulia finished her complicated series of gestures with an abrupt movement, as a fiery circle shimmered into being in the air in front of the group. She nodded to the other two girls.

“OK, just step through and we’re there.”

Morgana stepped through casually, it wasn’t as if this was a first for her, Pastel with rather more nervousness – she’d never been through a magic gate before. As soon as Thulia had followed them, she gestured again and the gate shrank to a point of fire and vanished.

Morgana and Thulia looked around, eyes wide. The Arrivals area was big, with what looked like a permanent gate arrangement made of red crystal, the symbols on which were fading fast now that they were here. In a way, it was familiar – it was just an off-plane version of an airport arrivals. Except that it was unlike any arrivals the two girls had even seen. A loud cough from in front of them drew their attention to a desk in front of them, manned – or maybe dragoned – by a man dressed in dark robes who was looking at them somewhat impatiently.

“Identification, origin, destination?”

Thulia pushed past them, her tail swaying a bit behind her. “They are my guests. She took the red crystal pad the man offered her and rapidly filled in some details, which the man looked at carefully.

“Very well, as you are in transit you don’t need any entry documentation as long as you don’t leave the concourse. Thulia, are you taking responsibility for them?”

She nodded. “I am, we’re just going to one of the waiting lounges, and then we’ll be gating back to Earth.”

He nodded, and made a gesture. A small globe of what looked like green fire appeared in the air next to her. “Please follow the guide, it will take you to an available lounge and then to one of the exit gates. Please be careful and considerate of others while you are here.”

As the girls made their way up a ramp, following the globe, Morgana looked a bit puzzled. “I thought he’d have spoke dragon or something else, not English?”

Thulia smiled, “He was. The important attendants use a translation system. You just thought he was speaking English. Or in Pastels case, American.” Paste just made a rude finger gesture at Thulia, which made her smile even wider.

“So where are we going?”

Thulia pointed to a door up ahead. “There. It’s a private waiting room, we can get drinks, snacks, and watch the traffic in the concourse. Makes sure none of the bigger creatures in transit step on you, and with any luck there will be some full dragons there for Pastel to admire.”

Morgana’s eyes brightened at the mention of snacks, as the three found some surprisingly comfortable seating.

“Thulia, if I can ask, why do so many of the people here use a human form, or something similar

Thulia sat back. “Well, Pastel, it’s partly practical, partly traditional. A human sized form is far easier to move around in, we can make smaller and less energy-intensive gates, and human hands are more flexible than a dragons claws. Since we can shapeshift, using a human-type form is often convenient.”

Then she pointed over at one side. “However, if you want to fly home and take all your luggage...”

Pastels eyes went wide. Three dragons were standing there, coloured black and gold, as they made their way to something looking suspiciously like a short runway. They gathered themselves, then leapt into the air, a classic fantasy trope except for the luggage each of them was carrying. You don’t see many fantasy dragons carrying a suitcase.

“Oh wow! Thulia, can you do that?”

Thulia nodded. “Yes, but it takes a lot of essence. Its not hard here, but the density level on Earth makes it a bit of a nuisance, and it takes a few minutes. Just getting around on Earth as a humanoid dragon can be a nuisance enough. My 20-foot form wouldn’t fit in many places on Earth.”

“Nuisance?”

Thuli nodded to Pastel. “Tails.”

 

The End