Chapter 1

The FIVE TALON EMPIRE has fallen!

The vile blue dragon, XOSH, overthrew the PRISMATIC EMPEROR and sought to create a galaxy ruled by only evil dragons. However, he was stopped by in his tracks by the most unlikely of races: Humanity. Using their technology and stolen magic, the UNITED NATIONS successfully defeated the CHROMATIC DOMINION and slew XOSH.

One of the heroes of that momentous day, MERTON MILES, went on to adopt the dragon, BRASHIVALAMPATHORUS, whose unique skills and abilities may yet be the secret that saves the galaxy from a new age of darkness.

If he can avoid ... the SCHRODINGER SNARE

Kira Preen Nashem Vin Lim, the Princess Beneath the Mountains and Heir to the Gemstone Asteroids, daughter of King Logarn Preen Nashen Vin Lor and Queen Beardless Preen Nashen Vin Zin, was nestled in the librarium demiplane of her personal spaceship, finger-banging herself as hard as she fucking could. Her fingers plunged into her sex, her thumb rubbing against her clit as she panted heavily, her moist breath fogging the plastic-wrap covering of the ancient text she was reading. The illuminated manuscript lovingly detailed every single inch of the immense draconic cock plunging into the willing sex of a (now very naked) lady knight.

The manuscript was from the Five Talon Empire and was about the various conquests of the red dragon Styrenaexinos, but Kira honestly wasn’t interested in the text, or the history. She opened this tome every day, to this page, to wallow in the decadent fantasy of a dragon claiming her. Taking her. Ripping off her confining dress, freeing her breasts, cupping and squeezing them as their long, sinuous tongue snaked into her throat and they took her and took her and-

The entire demiplane shuddered. Books tumbled from the shelves and a large tome of Prudence and Chastity: How to Control your Daughter’s Boundless Lusts by Snively T. Snoot, a dwarven scholar of the 9th century PDE, fell directly onto Kira’s head. Stars flashed before her eyes and she toppled from the chair, sprawling on the ground beside the desk that she sitting at.

“ ... ow...” Kira whimpered.

Kira emerged from the demiplane, rubbing at her head and adjusting her dress as she heard the wailing klaxons that echoed through the ship. Guards in sculpted helmets charged past, carrying heavy crystal-beam weapons. The magical weapons were preferred by dwarves than railguns or lasers, simply because of their reliability. Magic weapons didn’t jam, didn’t run low on ammo, and were relatively plentiful. She whistled at one of the guard columns as they ran by, waving her hand. Two broke off, jogging up to her.

“Princess Kira!” one of the guards – a fresh faced, bushy bearded male – saluted. “We need to get you to the escape pods!”

“What?!” Kira squeaked. “What happened? Is it a reactor breach? A shield collapse, a-”

“We’re under attack, Princess,” the other guard, a female who, unlike Kira, could actually grow a beard. Kira flushed at the angry tone of her voice and tried to batten down the flare of jealousy at seeing the other girl’s luxurious bristles.

“By who!?” Kira asked. “This is an outrage! I’ll contact the Metallic Senate, we’re flying under a diplomatic license and the protection of the Bronze and Gold houses. We have United Nations papers, for the god’s sake!”

“We don’t have time for this,” the female guard said, pulling a wand of sleep. “Nox!”

The sleep spell struck Kira in the chest, sending her sprawling down in unconsciousness. Her dress flared around her and her face mashed against the ground as several of the books she had slipped into her pockets and forgotten about spilled everywhere.

“You just sleeped the daughter of King Logarn...” the male guard whispered.

“He’ll thank us later,” the female guard said, grabbing onto Kira and lifting her up by the feet. “Get her arms!”

Guard Captain Brunt was getting too old for this shit. At neatly two centuries, he had lived through six revolutions, five guild wars, two trade negotiations that had devolved into active shooting wars, three nuclear bombings, and now, the collapse of the entire Five Talon Empire. Through it all he had served King Logarn and his family ... and he was getting damned tired of ending up in situations like this. Dwarves were solid, tough folk. But even they had limits.

He had arranged his men around the airlock door that the boarders were cutting into. They crouched in alcoves, behind deployed mage-shields that would block most laser-fire and absorb any incoming magic missiles. They had their rifles readied. Those who knew magic were holding their spell components. Sleep spells, magic missiles and lightning bolts would join in with the rays of frost that the magi-rifles fired. All would be focused on a tiny three foot wide airlock. But as the airlock was the only part of the ship that wasn’t made of ten meter thick adamantine, it was the only possible entrance that the boarders would use.

That didn’t make Brunt any more happy about who he was facing.

“Steady, men,” he muttered.

The faint rumbles and bang of the bigger ship that had closed around theirs echoed through the airlock. Brunt shifted his grip on his magi-pistol, glaring at the airlock.

The door didn’t fall inwards. There was no laser cutting. Instead, it simply exploded outwards with a flare of hot light. Smoke poured outwards and several of the dwarven guard jerked their heads aside. Smoke roiled and a spherical shape floated forward. Long, curved tentacles covered with hideous, segmented chitin, each ending in bulbous, staring eyes studded the sphere. In the center of that sphere was the biggest, most baleful eye that Burnt had ever seen. His eyes widened as he realized what it was.

“HOLD FIRE!” he shouted as he ducked behind cover.

Too late.

Several of his guard opened fire. Rays of frost leaped down the corridor, flaring blue against the fog that spilled from the airlock. They struck the hideous Beholder shape.

The world seemed to end – in a roar of hideous gas. Greenish smoke smashed into Brunt’s face and beard with the force of a sandblaster. He was knocked off his feet and his ears were filled with the screams of the guards who had been fractionally closer – and fractionally easier to kill than his grizzled ass – to the gas spore. Gas spores were the bane of anyone who tried to go up against a Beholder. Nearly identical but far easier to slay, gas spores were filled with compressed and highly acidic gasses. This one had added flechettes and artificial shrapnel to the mixture, from the sounds of screams that came further down the corridor. Dwarves lay in twitching masses. Some groaned as they clutched at metal shards protruding through thick armor. Others simply ... melted.

And over the pain and cries filling the corridor, Brunt could hear the clatter and clunk of plastiarmored boots.

The figures that emerged from the greenish gas were clad in body concealing armor. Powered struts and hydraulics hissed and clunked as they charged into the nearly cleared corridor. Their rifles – heavy looking plasma casters – belched greenish bolts of star-fire, which struck the few dwarves that stood. Smoke roiled and billowed outwards as the surviving dwarves fled. Brunt shook his head and started to stagger to his feet. His ringing ears filled with the sounds of plasma blasts – and with something else.

Whirr-CHUNK.

Whirr-CHUNK.

Whirr-CHUNK.

Brunt lifted his magi-pistol as a shape, larger and more imposing than even the gas spore, started to loom in the roiling fog that still clung to the airlock. He pulled the trigger. The magi-rifle sputtered and died as the shape stepped forward on legs as powerfully built as a dragon’s, though they were made of smoothly machined components and hissing strands of synthetic cybernetic muscle. The two legs connected to a curved throne that shrouded a spherical shape in cables and life support systems which whurred and burred with an ominous, continual breath. But while the mouth was concealed by a mask-like covering, the eye remained horrifyingly visible, glaring down at Brunt within the center of that scarred, mangled ruin.

An arm made of glittering cybernetics thrust out – whirring and crunching as it closed around Brunt’s throat and lifted him upwards. Brunt clutched at the metal claw around his throat, his legs kicking as he gagged.

Lord Darkeye, the Cyber-Beholder, glared at him. Brunt tried to remember what King Logarn had instructed him to say.

“T-This ... is a courier ship! We’re ... protected by treaty. The United Nations-”

“If this is a courier ship, Captain Brunt,” Lord Darkeye’s voice buzzed from under his mouth-guard. “Explain to me why you have a conjoined demiplane!” He slammed Brunt into the wall. “Where. Is. The. Princess!?”

Brunt tried to spit in the Cyber-Beholder’s face.

“Defiance is useless, Captain Brunt.” A tentacle, tipped with a swirling blue eye, swung around. Brunt couldn’t look away. His eyes widened as a horrible blue-white light flared across his face. He trembled ... and then smiled at his best friend, Lord Darkeye.

“She’s being bundled into the escape pods. They’ll be launched to Earth.”

“How ... irritating.” A different eye flared purple and Brunt screamed as his new friend reduced him to ash. Turning to one of his hobgoblin soldiers, Lord Darkeye pointed his ash caked metal claw at the white clad goblinoid. “Sweep the ship. Find the Princess before she escapes!”

“That’s just the thing, m’lord,” the hobgoblin said, his voice muffled by the power armor that he wore. “An escape pod has been launched. It’s already hit subspace and-”

The purple beam of light swept the hobgoblin from head to toe. He turned to ash before he could even scream. “That is for failing me,” Lord Darkeye rumbled.

The two other hobgoblins who stood near the corner leading into the rest of the ship glanced at one another. Neither wanted to be the first to admit that the leader of the sweep was standing behind them, hiding flush against the wall. So, wisely, they said nothing as Lord Darkeye started to incant. His voice was a hissing rumble and his tentacles writhed, drawing the somatic designs of the augury spell. Once he had finished, he spoke the last magical phrase and the spell unloaded from his mind with a flare of light in a series of geometric patterns.

Lord Darkeye closed his large eye and listened to a voice only he could hear.

He growled, then slammed his cybernetic arm into the wall hard enough to dent the armor-plate inwards almost six inches. He swung around to face the hobgoblins that all stood at terrified attention.

“Princess Kira has escaped. And worse ... she seeks refuge with the most powerful, most dangerous and deadly dragon in the entire galaxy.” He shook himself. “A beast so intelligent he foiled the schemes of the Chromatic Emperor himself. He’s armed with every weapon that the Five Talon Empire could forge and has the backing of every single Metallic Republic and the United Nations.” His metallic hand clenched into a fist. “I want all of you to be utterly focused as we begin the next stage of our glorious mission.” He thrust one finger at the hobgoblins. “He will be even more merciless than I.”

“Yes, Lord Darkeye!” The hobgoblins bellowed as one, thrusting their arms out in salute.

I woke up from the dream where I was in the mansion with the guy and the fedora and he was trying to tell me something super important about kitties when my auntie, Lisa, picked up my room and shook me gently from side to side. I flailed and scrambled around and shouted: “I’m up! I’m up! I’m up!” I focused and, with a loud pop, I vanished from my room and onto the flat screen TV in the middle of the room. The flat-screen wobbled and Lisa put her hands on her broad hips.

‘Brashivalampathorus Castrovel Miles!” she said, scowling. “Get off there right now!”

I leaped off the TV and scrabbled along the signed still from They Live where Goliath from Garogyles after he had been turned into a black construction worker punched the wrestler guy a bunch and finally arrived on the top of the ceiling. There, I clung, looking down at Auntie Lisa by craning my head around a bunch.

“I’m awake!” I said.

“It’s seven ten!” she said. “You need to get to school!”

“Right!” I said, then dropped from the ceiling. As I fell, I transmformificated into my normal human form. Normal human form meant being skinny as a rail, but just a bit muscular, with black hair, green eyes, and the biggest dong I could get away with. I beamed at Auntie Lisa and bowed. “Ready for school!”

Auntie Lisa put her hands over her face. “Brash. You’re forgetting something.”

I rubbed my chin. “Oh! Right! I had this weird dream where this guy in a fedora was telling me about kittens! But it was in a mansion with this evil ghost with a machete and a welding mask and-”

“Clothes!”

I blinked, then looked down at myself. “Oh!” I slapped my forehead. “Duh-der!” I focused and extruded some sweet-ass threads. It wasn’t super hard. Basically, all you have to do is turn your cells into tiny happy sewing machines with smiley faces. Technically, the smiley faces aren’t required, but then your cells would be kinda bummed, right? Then turn some other cells that can have tiny gribber grabbers that can grab air atoms and then fiddle them around. Move some whizzy bits here, some floopy bits there, and some sticky goops somewhere else, and boom. Air becomes the stuff that tiny sewing machines can turn into cotton, cotton turns into a T-shirt and jeans, and then you’re all fancy as a pantsy! Just synthesize some paint and you can even make it shiny!

I beamed at Auntie Lisa.

She sighed, slightly, looking at my chest. “What is that?”

I grinned. “It’s a fedora! Like from my dream!” I pointed at the hat design I had added to my golden shirt. It made my chest look like it had a UFO flying across it. Vrrrrr! I thought the gold went super well with my emerald and silver lined jeans!

“Firstly,” she said. “That’s a trilby. Secondly, when I said clothes, I should have specified uniform.”

I grumbled.

Vrr. Sew sew sew.

I stood in my Princeton Preparatory School uniform and tried to not look completely sad and miserable. It was just ... such an ugly color. Who would want to wear black and purple when you could be shiny? Secondly, it was the exact same every single day. Show up to school once in bell bottoms with huge sunglasses and everyone loses their minds! It’s basically exactly like racism. Except for all the different parts.

“All right, now, if we hop into the-” I knew Auntie Lisa was going to say car. But it’s not technically breaking the rules if you teleport away before someone can say something dumb! In my mind’s eye, I could see what she would say after I was gone. I was pretty sure it’d be: Man, my honorary nephew is the best dragon ever, also, I want to pet him a whole lot when he comes home!

My teleport range is, sadly, a bit lacking. Some days, you just wanted to visit the moon, you know? I couldn’t get to the moon. Heck, I couldn’t even get to Princeton Prep from Auntie Lisa’s house. But I could get to the garage, where my bike was parked. It wasn’t a motorcycle, since that would have been way too slow. Instead, it was a peddle bike. The frame had been augmented by some spellwork and was made from titanium and fancy space parts. Like, the parts that the UNDF used in their space-fighters. Dad had bought it for me from Alpha Centauri!

Not that, uh, there were bike shops on Alpha Centauri. The only planet there that had humans on it was still getting its legs under itself, like a newborn duck that was also a colony with ten thousand people on it. No, I mean, Dad had sent the electronic moneygolds to the bike shop near Auntie Lisa’s house and the bike shop had delivered the bike to me wrapped up with a bow and there had been an e-mail video message from Dad. He had looked tired and happy and he had grown a beard, which made him look even more like a badass space adventurer.

I mean, he wasn’t a space adventurer anymore.

No, he was something that was way more important. Apparently. He was a space ambassador. He went from place to place with Mom and they talked to the various space places that the United Nations wanted to be friends with. Right now, they were in the Megallanic Clouds, talking to the drow. But I could never figure out if it was dr-ow or dr-oh! Dr-ohhhh? Dr-owwww? Whatever! They were talking to the Sexy Black Skinned Space Elves Who Used To Be Jerks But Weren’t Jerks Now and seeing about becoming their friends.

Which was ... kinda sad.

Cause it meant they were, uh, seventy thousand light years away on my birthday.

But Auntie Lisa, Dad’s friend from back before Mom had kidnapped him and he had gone on his first space adventure, was taking care of me, which was nice! Auntie Lisa and her wifo, Susan, were super cool! Also, they were girls that kissed other girls! Which was basically, due to math, fifty times better than regular girls. Girls = awesome! Girls + kissing is an awesomeness conversion factor of about a 1.5. And then girls kissing girls multiples the awesomeness conversion factor by one hundred! So, actually, it was a hundred and fifty times better.

That’s just science.

While all of this went through my head, I was doing the important job of clicking my bike helmet on. Safety first!

Then I swung my leg onto the bike, put my feet on the peddles, and made a quiet vrrroom noise. My cybernetic HUD whirred to life. Targeting reticules flared around every parked car in the garage, making them stand out more against the shadows cast by the morning sun shining through the entrance. I grinned as my HUD threw up a line to target. I turned my handlebars just so and then started to peddle. The chain bit and whirred as the wheels squealed with an all mighty screech before catching at the ground and launching me forward at fifty miles an hour.

I was a dragon.

I could peddle really fast.

I hit the ramp then launched into the air, sailing over a car that was passing by the parking lot – it was semi-underground, see. My wheels smashed into the asphalt in the middle of the road and I banked hard, my knee nearly kissing the black. I used a tiny focused spurt of draconic flight to right myself and shot towards the yellow light. It turned red right after I was through and I whooped as I practically flew towards the highway on ramp. Fun thing about dragons and flying? It was not super much about their wings.

According to the science peeps I had talked too, scaling laws and dumb physics prevented dragons from flying unless they were super tiny. But that’s why magic was a thing. And magical flight persisted, even when you were in your human form.

I think the wings were just for show, honestly.

I zoomed up the on-ramp with a blaring of horns behind me. Once more, I was airborn. I smashed to the ground, the wheels bucking under me and I really put my legs into it, kicking the gears to the most max strongest. My front wheel bucked up and I grinned and kicked on some cool bike-peddling music. Ages and ages ago, I had eaten my Dad’s iPhone, so I had his whole music library interafaced with my cybernetics, which meant that if I wanted, I could play any song ever.

And today, I felt lucky.

I was pretty sure I could get Cindi Fong, the prettiest girl in school, to go with me to the party at Mika’s house this weekend.

So, I put on the most romantic song ever: I Love My Computer by Bad Religion.

“I love my Computer!” I sang, weaving past two huge trucks carrying rocket components to the San Francisco space port. “She’s always in the mood!”

With a smell of burning rubber and a hiss of wheel on brake on streets, I skidded past Princeton Prep’s front gates, onto the lawn, past the trees and through the rose bushes before finally plowing into the hedges that ringed the building. I grinned as I kicked my way out of the scramble of green and twigs. “Hah! Perfect landing!”

“Mr. Miles, I see you are late. Again.”

I flinched, then hopped off my bike and turned to face Principal Celeste. She was one of the first elven immigrants who had come to the Bay Area, and she still managed to look like she didn’t quite fit in. I wasn’t sure if it was the chalk white skin or the fifteen feet of shimmering, nebula colored hair made of arcane energy that flowed from her scalp to the ground and then to the space behind her. Being a Star Elf, this was normal for her. Being a principal for a human style high school, this was very odd and no matter how normal her clothing was, that didn’t make it more normal. Actually, it kinda made it more weirder-er. Weirdester? Weirdification was occurring!

“I was having this super weird dream!” I said. “Like, there was this guy with this super posh accent and a mansion and he was wearing a fedora!”

“Ahem,” Principal Celeste said, coughing ominously.

“R-Right.” I blushed. “It was a trilby.”

“Detention!”

I slouched into my first class – math – grumbling to myself. I sat down in the only open chair and screamed as I realized I was sitting right next to Cindi Fong. She had been scribbling a few notes on her grid paper, frowning slightly, and my scream made her leap almost out of her chair. Cindi Fong was blond. Well, not actually, since I could see the black roots. But she had dyed her hair blond, which was super brave. She was also a cheerleader, which made her even more brave, since humans were super fragile, but she still got tossed around in the air! And not even for money! She just did it to help the sportsballs players!

That bravery was why Cindi was the prettiest girl in school.

... also, her boobs.

And her butt.

Like, um, she had the cutest butt ever. And it was usually visible, cause the school uniform was this weird paradox. It was designed to not distract boys, apparently, but it also included skirts? And skirts were basically the fastest way to induce buttology into your eyeball peppers? I didn’t get Earth sometimes. But I did like skirts. And I did like Cindi. She was super brave, and pretty, and she didn’t freak out because I was a cybernetic genetically engineered draconic superweapon who had kinda sorta saved the world a little bit. I mean, if any old human had been in the same position I’d have been in, he or she or they would have done the same thing! Humans were cool and brave like that!