“In my experience, no. He wouldn’t,” Demi admitted. Still, he grasped the rail. Still, he stared into the belly of darkness. “But…do we really leave him? Just because of some bullshit choice from Machaeus? Tell me, in your experience, do we really understand a damn thing about that thing?”
“No,” Howard answered chillingly fast. He waited a few seconds for Demi to make a counterproposal, to burst out, to say or do anything. But Demi was frozen there, on the edge. “Why don’t we try Marcus one more time? We should see if leaving is even an option first. I’m sure he has other units much closer to Mercury than us.”
“Fair enough,” Demi snapped, suddenly alive. He dialed the the long-distance frequency for the Dogs of War’s mission supervisor. He kept a finger on the transmitter of his survival suit helmet, to open the line. “Marcus. It’s Demi, following up on the earlier transmission from Jupiter. We’ve neutralized the perceived Dragon threat in the city of Nimbus. I’m in Deepcloud Pillar now, separated from half my unit. We’ve received warning from Machaeus that there’s activity on Mercury. Seeking...direction. I repeat: seeking direction. Marcus? Dammit!” Demi hammered a fist on the railing when only static returned to him.
“Captain...”
“What?” Demi lashed at Howard, only to draw back in regret a second later. He let his finger off the line to Marcus.
“Demi. I can tell you one thing about Machaeus. And it’s not from lab studies or field research. It’s from the memories of my grandfather. It’s from my own experience with Drogan,” Howard said, “Machaeus is after something…bigger. Bigger than me and you. Bigger than Dragons or humans, since it seems to ally itself with whomever serves it best that day. Maybe something bigger than everything. So…when it says our only chance to save everything is on Mercury, I think that’s something we have to consider seriously. Especially with the flight of so many Dragons earlier.”
“We… We just leave them?” Demi muttered. Howard surprised him again with another pat on the shoulder.
“Do you trust him?” Howard asked. Demi glanced to him, then back down to the darkness. Demi chewed on the thought, though the answer turned over in the pit of his soul instantly. He needed not give it life with words that failed justice. Instead, he took one last breath, and turned to head back up the stairs.
“Let’s go. If we can’t reach Marcus, there’s no telling what might be happening between here and Mercury,” said Demi.
“Yes sir.” Howard followed close behind.
“Seeking…direction. I repeat: seeking direction,” Captain Demi’s voice echoed through the haunted quiet of the gymnasium. “Marcus?” He called out, desperate. There was no answer but the crackle of flame and the crunch of glass under scaly feet. Marcus was nowhere near his transmitter for the Dogs of War. He was on the other side of the building by then, locking himself into an escape pod. “Dammit!” A Dragon’s talon crushed Marcus’ transmitter, and snuffed out any further cries of help from the Dogs of War.
Dawn scrambled back from heavy footsteps. A moment ago, she and the surviving three patients of the Slayer Program had been in another field test. Now she slid back over her splintered glass cell. White embers crawled across the shattered gym floor. Through the destruction waded a black-scaled Dragon. His eyes were the yellow specter of anger, yet none of it seemed aimed at Dawn. The beast paid little mind to Marcus and the nurses. He paid even less to Kylie and Morgan when they escaped the cells he ruptured with Chrysum blasts. Kylie fled instantly, while Morgan was trapped the moment she met those shimmering yellow eyes. She wore a look of familiarity on her face, which was now half glossed over by the black sheen of solid M-Particles. Even if she knew him somehow, though, the black Dragon seemed more concerned with Dawn. He lumbered through the hole he’d shattered in the side of her cell. His wings folded down around him.
“Of all the…” Mogan shuddered as she watched from the side, “I’ll be goddamned straight to hell… It is you.” Dawn dared not chance a look over to the terrified old woman. Not with the black Dragon looming so tall over her.
“Wh-wh-who? Who is he?” Dawn asked when he only stared down at her. The destruction with which he shattered Marcus’ field test implied malice, but now she saw it wasn’t malice meant for her. Now Marcus was gone and the Dragon was so close, his eyes looked more full of sorrow than hate. The beast bent a knee to get closer to Dawn. Her back pressed flat against the glass behind her. “What do you…” Dawn choked when the beast’s black claw stretched out to her, not to slice, but to take her hand.
Only then did he change. His talons retracted and flattened out to nails on fingers. His scales shrunk in, flattened out to a smooth, sleek black coat, then softened to skin. The Dragon shrunk, smoothed, and altogether shifted into another being. Only its yellow eyes remained the same. When the beast had fully become a man, he looked down on her and smiled. He stood as a stark tower of muscle, buck naked but for the jet black gauntlet on his arm. Something in Dawn knew who he was, memory or no.
“Drogan,” Dawn whispered. He wrapped her hand in his own and smiled.
“Let’s get out of here,” said Drogan. He helped Dawn to her tired feet before he turned for the old woman on the other side of the gym. “All of us. You’ve changed as much as I have, Morgan.”
“Ah, you haven’t changed. Look at you! You look exactly the same as the last t
ime I saw you. Leaving that warehouse, filled with blood...” the old woman laughed at first, quieting as she went. Then she ran three fingers of her only remaining human hand along the new glossy black Chrysum alloy plates that covered her body. She’d created them herself from a bucket of the stuff and sheer will during field tests like today’s; two legs, an arm and half her face.
“I never would have left, had I known you were still alive,” Drogan assured her. He and Dawn made their way through rubble and fire to approach the old half-woman. She snapped free from the shackles of sorrow suddenly, with a guffaw and a wave.
“Bah! I would have had half the intrigue in my life if I wasn’t who I am now,” Morgan waved off with a heavy hand.
“Come with us, Morgan,” Dawn broke in. Still entranced by the jarring transition of Drogan’s entrance, she didn’t realize she still clung to his hand like a child.
“Where?”
“Away. Away from humans and Dragons,” Drogan answered. “Past the edge of the Outerworlds, where we won’t be pulled into their wars as pawns or research projects.”
“You’re running away?” Morgan sounded like she’d been struck across her shins.
“Removing ourselves from the board,” Drogan rephrased. Morgan bit down on her half-mechanical lip.
“I’ll come with you as far as the SkyLine,” she said. “I still have business here, with more old friends.” Drogan nodded with regrets, and guided two of the fiercest women he’d ever served with through fire to the forests outside the lakebound facility.
The higher up Kalus carried Sophia up those stone stairs, the more the place looked like a house of worship. from what he could tell below, it, too was made from condensed particles in Jupiter’s atmosphere. Where Nimbus was formed from lab-engineered metals, however, this place looked to be lumped, smoothed and carved from a consistency more like clay. With Sophia under his arm, Kalus heaved his way up the tall staircase around the floating island, to the outer wall of the building.
It had high, dome-shaped ceilings, though the outsides were adorned with ornamental spires. Its tall, open rectangular windows let in Jupiter’s dense winds, though its doors were solid stone. Kalus forded through the heavy storm that shifted between gas and liquid, to the two slabs that marked the entrance. More than once the slam of a gelatinous cloud almost knocked him right off his feet on the way. Kalus let Sophia down to push the doors in, then dragged her in.
The howl of the storm outside became an eerie whistle through windows the second Kalus pulled the doors shut behind him. Inside, the stone had a much more refined, polished look. Something about it was artistic, almost mystical. Kalus had little time to appreciate the spinning nebulas of color around him, however, with an unconscious partner and a Dragon King to find. He pulled Sophia over to the wall and slid her down to a slumped-over sitting position. He counted a few of her shallow breaths, for consistency. She seemed, at least, to be in a sort of stasis.