Chapter 5

“Wait, wait, wait,” Geo said, sticking his finger over Darryl’s shoulder to point at the laptop screen. “I thought you said that your Mom boned a dragon named Brash first. Isn’t he your dad?”

Darryl’s nares flushed. “Well, uh, she said that she boned him first. But she started fucking dragons at age, uh, eighteen. I’m eighteen. And she’s nearly forty. So, uh...”

“Dude,” Geo said. “Your Mom’s, like, a huge slut for dragon dick.”

“Dude!” Darryl turned to face him.

The faint click and snap of a pistol magazine slamming home turned every dragon and one well-fucked Princess’ attention to the secret agent in the room. At that moment, Darryl really felt, like a punch in the gut, just how weird his life had gotten. Sasha flipped her hair back over her head, frowning slightly as she looked at the new attention focused her way.

“What?” she asked.

“Is that loaded with dye again?” Darryl asked.

Sasha undid the catch and dropped the magazine into her palm, showing each of them the hard, metallic tips of the bullets in the magazine. She slapped it home again. “Nah. These actually are the dragon killer bullets.”

“Dude,” Geo whispered.

“Yeah, I know,” Darryl said. “We can’t just shoot my dad!”

“Why not?” Geo, Sasha, Xia, and even the bound and gagged General Sharpe asked at the same time.

Darryl growled, standing up. He clenched his fist as he glared around the room. Lightning felt as if it wanted to burble out of his mouth, smoke roiling from his nostrils as he felt every bit of anger and frustration at his father and his mom and now his other father crackling through him. But it wasn’t just frustration at them. It was a frustration at what they represented. A world where people in power manipulated those who weren’t for their own ends. A world where a religious zealot could kick him in the stomach and tell him that he had to ‘man up’ to fight monsters. A world where people lied and cheated to get something close to happiness, instead of just being themselves. He trembled slightly, his eyes closed as he tried to hold back on a window shattering roar.

“Darryl’s right,” Aliya said, her voice soft. “We don’t even know why Tebondarious wants to get Darryl killed.” She sighed, shaking her head and brushing one hand through her hair. Darryl noticed that, at some point, she had gotten her cross back from Xia, allowing her to focus on the situation rather than the ample amounts of draconic cock that was swinging around the room. Not that she seemed to be entirely at ease, her eyes focused entirely on the ceiling.

“Fine, we shoot him in the kneecaps,” Sasha said, angrily. “Jesus, Darryl, you’re the one trained from birth to fight these things. I’d have thought you, of all people-”

“Have you ever thought that that’s maybe why I act the way I do!?” Darryl shouted, flinging out his arm. “That maybe I decided, at a very young age, that I didn’t want to be a murder-happy dragon killing hobo! Maybe I didn’t want to react to every situation by grabbing a sword and hacking at people? Maybe I just ... I just...” He sighed, shaking his head. “I just want to be normal. I want a normal girlfriend and a normal life and ... maybe I’d keep the fucking ... huge ... dick...” He trailed off, blushing.

Sasha walked over, then leaned against his shoulder. Her eyes half closed as she nuzzled against him. “Hey,” she whispered. “You also want to keep the flight and shapeshifting. And the lightning breath is pretty sweet.”

“Don’t forget the magic,” Xia said. “I’ve been working on my biomancy, I should be able to cure cancer by the time I hit the midterms!”

“Wait, what!?” Darryl jerked his head up.

Xia blinked, reaching up to rub her paw along her muzzle. “What?”

“Guys?” Aliya said. “More stuff is coming through the laptop!”

They all hurried forward and Sasha tapped the unmute button. Tazo’s voice came through, faintly muffled: “-on’t understand. If you have the reds and greens along, why do we need the rest of the Council?”

“Tazo, Tazo, Tazo,” a soft, melodious voice purred. “This is why you need to let me handle these things. I understand european dragons in a way you do not. And while you Chinese might gripe and moan and complain, there’s still three metallics or chromatics to one of your bearded kind.” There was a faint sigh. “Now, I need you to go to my offspring and apologize. Explain to him that you were merely testing him to make sure that he is properly skilled. This is true. Technically.” Tebondarious chuckled. “Have him visit my mansion in San Francisco. There, I believe that we can turn his uncanny ability for survival to our advantage. You say that he has a deep well of anger? Resentment?”

“Definitely,” Tazo said. “And if the rumors I hear are true, he’s into serious sadomasochism. Do you know that he’s roleplaying with his harem? Several students have mentioned that his...” he gagged slightly. “His human pet actually bosses him around.”

“Really?” Tebondarious sounded uncertain. “Hmm. I’ll need to test him. We don’t need a pussy.”

Both dragons chuckled.

“Come on,” Tazo said. “There’s a few girls desperate for an easy-A. Which means we get an easy ... T.”

“Don’t even ... try ... to be clever, Tazo,” Tebondarious said, sounding tired. “But I’m always a fan of teenage dragon pussy. Color?”

“A red and a gold,” Tazo said, chuckling as they walked away from the mic. The faint sound of the door closing made Darryl’s jaw click as his teeth worked against one another. He shook his head a bit, looking at the others.

“So, what’s the play?” Sasha asked, looking at him seriously. Darryl smirked.

“Tell me if it’s stupid, please,” he murmured. Sasha grinned, then mimed making a whipcrack with her hand. Darryl grinned back and bumped her hip. “Okay, here’s my idea. Tazo is one of the people whose part of this conspiracy. Mr. Lung and the other chinese dragons, and the metallics, they’re not in on it. So, that means that Geo, Xia, Aliya, you all need to get to work. Aliya and Xia, work on figuring out how to make more of those crucifixes.” He nodded to the necklace hanging around Aliya’s neck. “I think Sasha would love having one, and that’d definitely help if she has to go into action.”

Xia nodded. “Actually, studying it, I think that it’d work just as effectively if worn by you, or any other dragon. T-That is, it’d suppress your pheromones, even more effectively than deliberately suppressing them.”

Darryl nodded slightly. “Geo, though, you need to convince Mr. Lung this stuff is real and get him to warn the chinese and metallics.”

Geo grinned. “Dude, we got him on tape. Right?” He looked at Sasha.

“MP3, actually, but yes,” Sasha said, grinning and lifting her fist. The two of them bumped knuckles.

“Cool!” Darryl sighed. “And Sasha...” He looked at her.

Sasha blinked.

Darryl paused. “I’m going to need you to call up my Dad.”

“Which one?” Sasha asked. Then blinked. “Oh, right. That one.”

Tazo and Darryl flew through the air together, soaring high above the vastness of San Francisco. The city seemed to shimmer like a million gemstones, glittering in the darkness of the night. The cloud cover that normally spread over the coast was sparse this time of year, giving Darryl a perfect view of the slowly winding streets. He flapped up, slightly higher than Tazo as Tazo pointed at a large skyscraper. “There’s your Dad’s place.” He rolled onto his back, backwinging to keep pace with Darryl.

“No hard feelings, right?” he asked.

“Dude, none at all,” Darryl said, grinning slightly as he flew over Tazo, then slowed. He started to hover, careful to not bend his chest too much. “But I want to ask you some questions...”

“Sure,” Tazo said, nodding.

“How the fuck do you know I’m his son, considering what a, uh, turboslut my mom was?” Darryl asked, trying to effect the casual condescension and sneering superiority that most dragons seemed to hold when referring to humans. Even favored humans.

Tazo laughed. “Well, there’s your coloration. But there’s also something else.”

“Oh?” Darryl asked.

“Well,” Tazo said, rolling his shoulders in time with his wing-beats, as if he was trying to loosen himself out. “Basically, your Dad gave me a spell. It was made to detect a dragon with the right mixture of human-ness and dragon-ness, the exact mixture that he was going for when he was fucking every pretty human chick he could cuck behind some hunter’s back.” He smirked.

“Wait, my Dad could, like, choose how much of a dragon I was?” Darryl asked.

“That’s what he said,” Tazo said. “You’re supposed to be, like, seventy-thirty, ya know?”

Darryl shook his head. “Magic, I guess.”

“Shapeshifting,” Tazo said, reaching down and cupping his balls.

Darryl really didn’t want to imagine the mechanics involved. And so, he wordlessly dove forward, shooting towards the skyscraper. Tazo moved to catch up with him, his wings sculpting the air as he soared forward in a winding, curving arc. The two of them slowed and landed on the rooftop. Darryl found that it was illuminated by brightly glowing yellow lamps, casting a warm, buttery glow along the carpet and gold gilt that led the way to the out-thrusting entrance to the building proper. A pair of subdued looking human women stood before the door, dressed in literally nothing save for golden collars. If the chill bothered them, they didn’t show it as they opened the doors and bowed to the two of them.

Tazo casually slapped one on the ass as he walked with Darryl down the stairs. The stairs led straight into a large ballroom, with tile floor and gold gilt along the walls. There was a massive portrait, easily twenty feet wide, of a handsome looking and dignified blue dragon with a longer snout than Darryl and a chipped horn. He was standing poised on a mountain, his eyes fixed into the middle distance, as if he was surveying the vast world that he had yet to conquer. Kneeling around his feet were several worshipful looking women, painted in loving detail, one cupping his balls, another looking utterly shocked to have her nose within two inches of a dragon cock.

It was sooo...

Fucking...

Tacky.

“Son!”

The booming voice made Darryl turn. The dragon from the painting - Tebondarious strode forward, wearing only a red sash around his shoulders. He put his hands on Darryl’s shoulders, beaming at him as he looked him up, then down. “Son, son, son...” he shook his head. “It is good to see you, after so long, after so much waiting.”

“Thanks,” Darryl said, trying to keep the hackles that were being raised from showing on his face or posture. He coughed, then looked back at the portrait. “Uh, nice painting?”

“Do you like it?” Tebby – as Darryl immediately began to think of him as – asked. “It took me several days to paint it, I had to get the memory exactly right. Do you want anything to drink?”

“Uh, sure,” Darryl said, nodding. He walked with Tebby to a serving girl. She was just as nude as the ones on the roof, and had a slightly intimidated look on her face as she held up a silvery tray with goblets on it. Tebby took one. Darryl took the other, but the goblet was more slippery than he expected. It started to tip from his hands and he quickly made a lunge for it, felt a twinge of pain from his chest, and the goblet hit the ground. The liquid didn’t spill from it, though. A glowing field of force kept the liquid within.

“Cold out?” Tebby asked, arching an eyebrow ridge.

“Fingers still, uh, warming up,” Darryl lied, rubbing his hands against his chest. He looked down at the goblin and, rather than bending over, reached his tail out and tossed it into the air. He caught it, then sipped from it.

“Well,” Tebby said. “I’m sure you’re filled with questions.”

“Why did you leave me with that abusive asshole?” Darryl asked.

Tebby smirked slightly. “Do you promise to hear me out, Darryl? To refrain from judgment until you’ve heard the whole of my statements?”

Darryl narrowed his eyes, letting the suspicion he felt show on his face. His lips pursed and he slowly, subtly, nodded, then sipped from the goblet. The wine tasted amazing, but he was unable to enjoy it. His attention was entirely focused on his father and keeping his current form. Tebby sighed, rolling his now quite empty goblet between his palms. It twinkled in the light of the glittering chandelier that hung over the main hall. He licked his muzzle, then nodded, as if he had come to a decision.

“How do you feel about the latest in human politics?” he asked.

“Uh, specific human politics or...” Darryl asked.

“I’m speaking of generalities,” Tebby said, waving his hand. “Plastic fills the oceans. Acid rains from the sky. Temperatures grow warmer and warmer, these are the subtle things. But it’s clear that human civilization – which so many dragons have grown fond of – is nearing a terrible danger. A danger that we, as thinking beings, should guide it out of. You with me so far?”

Darryl nodded subtly.

“The issue, though,” Tebby said, walking with him past the serving girl. “Humans adore their freedom. We let them glut themselves on it, and we patted ourselves on the back for metallic good sense.” He shook his head. “We chromatics always knew better. Freedom is something best kept to those who know how to use it well.” He grinned. “And so, several among the chromatic community, myself included, think that maybe it is time we return to the old ways...”

His walking brought them past several pillars and to a large map of the world. It showed, in dark red, what Darryl recognized as the vastness of the old Roman Empire, spanning the entire known world at the time. There was some subtle purple coloring filling China and Japan and the rest of the Asian region, to indicate the draconic control there. Tebby gestured to this with his hand.

“You want to take over the world?” Darryl asked.

“Of course!” Tebby said, with such conviction that Darryl snorted and jerked his head forward – which caused an intense stab of pain from his heart. He put his hand on his chest, choking back a gasp and another laugh. “I don’t jest!” Tebby sounded slightly annoyed.

“No, no, it’s just, you sounded exactly like fucking Raul Julia,” Darryl wheezed. “So, right. Dragons rule, humans, uh, drool.”

“An ... apt ... metaphor,” Tebby said, sounding like he was growing less and less certain of Darryl the more he spoke. “But yes. The only problem is to convince the rest of the Draconic Council to take control, to size power from the humans who have brought the world to the brink of ruin, we would need to have a casus belli!”

“Gesundheit,” Darryl said, cheerily.

“That means cause for war,” Tebby said, and Darryl could see his estimation of him drop another notch.

Good.

“And let me guess,” Darryl said. “My abuse at the hands of my fake father was ... what ... supposed to rile everyone up?” he asked, before taking another sip from his still half full goblet. Tebby shook his head.

“No, he was supposed to kill you,” Tebby said, casually.

Darryl was rather happy that dragons were supernaturally tough, it let him blow wine out of his nose without it feeling more than just kinda weird. He coughed and spluttered and mimed being totally shocked. “What!?”

“Dragons, in your state, assume their true form when under extreme emotion and when exposed to raw magic. As your false father was emotionally abusive and he was going to train you on dragon hunter artifacts at some point, you’d be transformed. I didn’t expect you to survive to go to Prismatic High. There hasn’t been a dead dragon in thousands of years ... one slain, so ... innocently. In the prime of their youth. By a dragon hunter...” He sighed. “It just wouldn’t be born.”

“But I was never given the dragon hunting sword,” Darryl said, slowly. “Dad never trusted me. I was too much of a pussy.”

“Hmm...” Tebby sighed. “I know it may seem cruel to you. But think of how many humans would have been saved if we could rule.”

Darryl nodded slowly, then stuck his tongue out of the corner his mouth. “Y-You’re not ... going to try and kill me right now are you?”

Tebby snorted. “Of course not. That wouldn’t really fit my plan. Rather, I want to ask you to join me.” He put his hand on Darryl’s shoulder. “Your real father. Where a dead son would serve, a live son, raised by both worlds, speaking before the Dragon Council, you could be the exact reason to push the whole of our kind to slough off our lassitude and our decadence and make this world great again.”

Darryl looked down. His eyes closed. He turned away from his father, sighing quietly. “I have to think...” he said, softly, looking around the main hall. He saw one of the windows and walked towards it. As he walked out, he shook his head. “You, uh, know that’s kind of a big thing to ask of someone you just admitted you tried to have killed, right?”

“True,” Tebby said, his voice sounding deeply regretful.

Darryl stuck his tongue out of the corner of his mouth, thinking. Looking.

Blink blink.

A red light glinted from the roof of a independent bookstore that sat within line of sight of the skyscraper. Darryl sipped the last of the wine from his cup.

“You can take all the time you need to think about it,” Tebby said. “I can, of course, send you back to Prismatic High with the finest members of my harem.”

Darryl nodded, spreading his wings, as if he was about to leave. But then he stopped. “Oh, wait, one thing...” he said, lifting up his finger as he walked forward. “Exactly how fucking stupid do you think I am, you blithering egomaniac?” he asked, his voice blunt.

The look on Tebby’s face was absolutely priceless.

“You do know that human beings have these things called nuclear bombs and that they kind of like using them when they have no other choice, right?” Darryl asked, shaking his head. “I am almost embarrassed. Here, I was hoping your plan might actually be interesting. Instead, you’re some two bit cartoon villain.”

“Now, listen here!” Tebby growled.

“And you didn’t’ even fucking search me!” Darryl said, laughing, throwing his head back, letting himself laugh great, big belly laughs.

Tebby snarled. “You’re not wearing clothes, you ingrate-”

Darryl made a choking, gagging noise, grabbed at his throat, his muzzle. His throat bulged outwards, growing wider and wider. Then his hand closed around something within his mouth and he yanked it smoothly free. A rasp of metal on leather filled the air as he leaned his head forward and vomited the now much more flexible scabbard out of his body. Gleaming in his hand, untouched by his internal juices and glowing with magical flames, was his father’s – his real father, for good and ill – prize dragon hunting sword.

Tebby gaped at him.

“By the way,” Darryl said. “We’ve been recording everything. They’re called laser microphones. Fun toys, the kind of things you get with a human girlfriend.” He smirked. “Do you surrender, or ... do I get to work out my anger issues on your blue ass?”

“Kill him,” Tebby snarled.

Tazo sprang at Darryl from the side and for the second time in Darryl’s life, he let everything his father had taught him flow through him like second nature. He spun to meet Tazo’s flying tackle with his foot, catching the chinese dragon in the chest. Tazo rebounded and flew backwards, a serving girl running screaming from the room. But before Darryl could feel a thrill of satisfaction at that, his father sprang at him, claws gleaming with magic fire. Darryl parried one blow, but another smashed into the side of his head. He felt a flare of pain and went flying backwards, smashing into the glass behind him. It exploded and Darryl found himself tumbling through the air. He tried to work himself around, but his head kept ringing.

He smashed into the hood of a taxi. A shocked looking Shik man gaped at him, his turban knocked askew. Darryl waved, his head ringing.

Then his father and Tazo landed to either side of him, their wings furling behind their back. The woman in the back of the cab ran, screaming, scrambling out of the cab, while other humans with more eagerness and less common sense lifted their phones to start taking pictures. Darryl reached for his sword, but saw it had landed in the sidewalk about ten feet off, blade first. It had sunk to its hilt.

Tazo grabbed him by one ankle, jerking him up and swinging him hard against a lamp-post, which bent with a squeaking, howling sound. The streetlight smashed into the sidewalk with a spray of glittering glass as onlookers went scrambling for cover. Tazo grabbed Darryl by the horn, lifting Darryl’s head and his hand in the same motion, his fist curled shut. He brought it down, but Darryl caught his fist and then surged to his feet. He smashed his head into Tazo’s snout.

“Look out!”

It was the taxi-cab driver. Darryl flung himself down as Tebby’s lightning breath smashed through the air where he had stood. It hit a storefront window and blew a smoldering hole through the glass, leaving a cherry red ring and a haze of cracks around the impact sight. A store mannequin had been reduced to ash, and fires were starting to flicker inside of the building. Darryl shook his head and stepped to the side, evading Tazo’s claw slash.