Amid the ruins of the Miami State Correctional Facility’s perimeter wall, four dragons and one super powered FBI agent stood next to a magic cage of glowing blue energy while the people inside were wondering why Clark Kent hadn’t bothered taking off his disguise before acting all Superman-ish.
On the other side of the bars, M was watching Debra talk to her distant relatives with some annoyance on his part. With his heightened senses, it was easy to detect if a person was lying to him, if they were human that is. Whenever a dragon took human form, they might of walked, talked, looked, and maybe even smelled human, but anyone who got a look at how their body worked on the inside knew that there was definitely something odd about them. It was like the creatures just strapped on a human skin without bothering to try and get the internal organs right. They had a heart, lungs, and everything else that a person had, it was just that the rhythm was… off. All shape shifters were like that really. In situations such as this one, it annoyed M to no end.
“So, you’re from Jade?” Debra asked with her arms crossed. Looking at the group, she wondered what made two Platinum dragon’s hang around with an Iron. Just by looking at the way they had acted during the fight, he wasn’t just some lackey they had around for basic chores.
“Jade?” Ranma asked in confusion.
Idiot, Jane mentally screamed as Sue stepped on the boy’s foot to shut him up while Debra looked over to him and blinked.
Then again, if she and the others said they were from Jade, that lie would have lasted a few minutes at best. Actually, with Ranma, it would have been in the seconds. She also dismissed The Retreat as their point of origin, that place was far too small for three ancient dragons to go unnoticed, and far too easy to check.
“No, we never took part in the exodus,” Jane lied as she thought up a way to explain their presence and apparent lack of knowledge in human civilization. Of course it would also need to explain just why they were veritable unknowns in the dragon world.
“What?” Debra asked with a frown.
Jane sighed and rolled her eyes, as if she had told this story one or two too many times before. “Sue, perhaps you and our husband should let the humans go, and have the other one quell their fears while I take care of this.”
As the other two did as instructed, Debra looked over at the Iron, then back to the two women. All of a sudden, she could think of a few good reasons just why she had never heard of a group like this one living on their own even when back in her mother’s company. Especially while she in her mother’s company.
“Well, if you want our life’s story,” Jane said as she ran through the lie she had just created. “We were part of the second generation born after the great war. It wasn’t long into the uh, Ice Age, as the humans call it, and we went into stasis. After we woke up and the Dreadwing fiasco happened, Sue and I decided that being around and reminding T’mat about it was not a good idea. We went to an uninhabited island East of here and settled down. At least it was uninhabited at the time, now it’s infested with humans. Elves are gone though, at least I think they were elves.
“By the time the magic of this world started to wane, we had already made a good lair for ourselves and didn’t want to leave it. So instead of just packing up, we knew the old hibernation spell, and we just went to sleep. Obviously, we didn’t think the ‘low tide’ would last as long as it has. We abandoned our old lair for something more private, and…” Jane rolled her eyes to add to the effect, “at the request of my husband and co-wife, we’re taking a little look around before going back to sleep. Although, by the way my husband and Sue are, I may have to be putting up with these era for a bit longer than I had originally intended.”
Debra listened to the story, then looked back to the Iron and frowned. At first seeing an ancient Iron with two Platinum, it had brought up some rather conflicting emotions. But if these were of the second generation, he’d be a little too young to be the Iron she had searched for several years back. Still, a dragon of his age going undetected for so long wasn’t unheard of. “So why are you lingering here then?”
“My husband has a little thing for… what do they call them, gadgets? Sue… well, I don’t even want to talk about it. Now that we’re away from Japan, I hope to never see any of them again.”
Debra opened her mouth to ask another question, but was called away by M. When she got over to him, the man crossed his arms and looked down at her. “So?”
The FBI dragon glanced back at the woman, then over to her boss. “Well, I’m not sure. The story is a little hard to swallow as is, I can tell they‘re not telling me everything, but they’re too old for anything else to make sense. This isn’t the first ancient dragon to just fall off the radar and come back. As to all this,” she held up her hands and gestured to the walls, “it could have been a mistake. Remember what I told you about my first trip to Earth?”
-Several Years ago, before any of us were around-
“I’ve freed the humans from your belly foul Iron serpent!” Debra shouted as she knocked over the steam-powered locomotive while it’s passengers ran away in fear. “Now you shall pay for your gluttony!” She needed to hurry though, judging by all the smoke it was breathing out, the monster was preparing to attack.
-Present Day-
As the memory replayed itself in her mind, Debra fought down a blush from appearing on her cheeks.
M raised an eyebrow. “They did attack a prison.”
“No, they attacked a ‘correctional facility’,” Debra told him, actually using the quotes. “I told you all this damn political correctness was stupid. This is why. If the sign had just said jail, they might have left the place alone since it was obviously housing an out of control lair guardian to keep it from running amok.” At least that’s what they could have thought.
Although, it must have been a pretty weak guardian for it to be housed inside a normal federal prison. Still, she could tell the boy… Debra shook her head and reminded herself that despite what the dragon’s human form looked like he was older than her, he was telling the truth about the lair guardian. Most dragon’s made terrible liars when dealing with someone who wasn’t overawed by their presence, and he fit that description to a T.
M raised his eyebrow. “And the monster itself?”
Debra let out a sigh and shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. Thanks to the way the aura trails have been scrambled, I can only tell you that one was here a few minutes ago. It could be anywhere by now.”
So now they had a roaming magical pit-bull to worry about. M really hated Mondays.
Still, it wasn’t the first time a well-meaning person from the anti-techno side of the tracks had caused trouble like this. “Okay look, it’s obvious that we’re not going to be able to hold them in a containment facility.” Well, they might be able to, but keeping them there would be far more trouble than it was worth, and probably end up really pissing them off. It would just be more trouble than it was worth. “You can’t just send them back where they came from?”
“This is where they came from,” Debra told him. They decided not to go to Jade, and I know you were eavesdropping so don’t act like you weren’t. If you haven’t figured it out by now, my race is pretty stubborn by your standards.”
M rubbed his forehead as he felt a migraine coming on, that was an understatement. His whole body ached and there was going to be a mess of paperwork thanks to this incident… but, with the way Debra was going on, she wasn’t going to just drop it. “Okay look, arresting them would cause too much trouble, but we can’t just have them roaming around and doing whatever they want. I’ll put them into your custody.”
“What?” Debra asked with a frown.
“We can’t have them running around… unsupervised, and since you’re the one pushing for them to be let go, it’s only right for you to be the one to be the one to make sure nothing else happens,” M told her.
Debra let out a groan, she should have guessed this was going to happen. Still, she probably was the only person on the planet they’d listen to. Old dragons didn’t like it when younger, shorter, weaker creatures whose entire civilization wasn’t even around before they were started barking orders at them.
Although, there was one little problem with M’s plan. “What if they don’t want to accept?”
“Then we have a problem,” M told her. Which was the truth. Now that the cage holding the hostages had been released, they were more than likely to be caught up in what would go down. To top it off, he had already started to stress his body thanks to all the freezes. All and all, he just wanted to back to base, get fixed up, and forget this mess ever started.
Next time, M decided he really needed to ask for them to surrender. Experience had told him that always gave the bad guy the first shot, but things like this were avoided. But no, he had to ignore standard procedure and try rescuing the hostages. For the fourth time since this whole mess started, M wished that when people called the national guard because of a dragon attack, they actually said a dragon was attacking them!
As M ran over his thoughts, Debra walked over to Jane to tell her about the deal. It was obvious she was the one in charge of the group. Although old fashioned, multiple marriages had never been the taboo of the draconic society they had been for humans. For beings that lived an untold amount of years, thinking that two creatures could stay together all of their lives was ridiculous. It was odd though, usually a single powerful dragon took lesser mates, Debra hadn’t heard of a relationship where the lower dragon had any real say.
Well, she had heard of one, but considering how bad that was supposed to have ended, there hadn’t been any since that she knew of. If her mother was telling the truth about it anyway.
Debra looked over to the Iron again and shook her head. All this thinking about that particular subject was really getting to her. For a moment she actually thought his aura looked familiar. The woman just shook her head and went to the group’s leader.
For her part, Jane listened to the whole thing and considered Debra‘s offer. It would lead to less trouble, and from the little she knew of US law, the princess would only be following them around for however long they were in the states. “Sounds fair. I guess we could use some help getting around without causing anymore… accidents.”
“How long have you been awake anyway?” Debra asked as they made their way over to Sue and Ranma to tell them. Judging by what Sue and him had been talking about while Debra had been distracted, the boy would be keeping his mouth shut.
Jane frowned and looked at the ground as she thought up the best explanation of how to explain at least some knowledge of the modern world. “Well, going by the human’s calendar… two years,” she finally said.
The answer almost shocked her… almost. But Debra just shook her head and continued on. Maybe she had been living with humans for too long.
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(Posted Sun, 07 Dec 2008 02:27)
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