Chapter 4

Defiantly, I waited for the dragon to kill me, looking right at him. To my surprise, he just lay down in front of me, and in a low grumbling voice, asked, "Why did you attack me?"

I just stared at him. Again he asked, "You said you made a mistake. You meant your attack on me, right?"

I moved a little, causing a lot of pain in my broken arm and screamed out from the pain. The dragon edged closer, and seemed to inspect me. With his low grumbling voice he asked, "Your arm is broken? I'm sorry for hurting you that much."

I clenched my teeth from the pain, but managed to say, "My arm is the least of my worries. My back is broken as well. I can't feel my legs at the moment."

The dragon seemed to look with pity at me. He said softly, "I'm sorry about that. Though I'm a bio-elemental, I don't have experience with humans. I do have some family that can heal you, though. Do you want me to get them? I can call them telepathically."

I laughed, though it soon changed into groaning as the pain shot through me again. "Don't bother with that. I will heal faster by myself. I'll be back to normal soon enough."

The dragon looked at me in wonder, "What do you mean, little flier?"

I scowled at him for calling me that. "I mean I can heal from almost any wound in a record time. It just hurts like hell, though being hungry doesn't help, either."

The dragon sort of chuckled. "I can help with that. Do you like fish?"

"Right now I'll eat almost anything. Thanks!"

Just before he took to the air, he said, "I'm called Parseth, by the way." He took off without giving me the chance to tell him my name.

I made myself a bit more comfortable, though every movement was painful, to say the least. It didn't take long for Parseth to return. And he carried with him a few large fish. They looked a bit like barracudas but not quite. They sported a big beak like a marlin. Well, as long as it was tasty, I didn't care what they were. Parseth made a surprisingly soft landing near me and as he laid down the fish said, "Sorry, but I don't have the power to fry the fish for you."

I smiled, "That's all right. I think I can make a fire somehow." I pointed to the side, "Can you give me that dried moss and a few of the stones over there?" I pointed to where several flint stones were lying around.

Parseth gathered the items I wanted and with my directions, we were able to start a fire to cook the fish. As it was being cooked, he asked, "So what do people call you, little flier?"

I laughed, "Well, not "Little Flier" in any case. My name is Oriana Pratt. But everyone who tries to kill me calls me Raven."

For a moment Parseth looked at me, not understanding the joke. But then he got it and laughed with a rumble that I could feel in my stomach. "You're funny, Raven. Yes, I was trying to kill you as well."

I laughed with him. "Well I did try to kill you first. I'm sorry for that. I thought you were a Verosaur. I encountered those in the Jungle to the south."

Parseth asked inquisitively, "A Verosaur? What is that?"

I explained to him what I knew, and what I had seen of them. I couldn't be sure, but I think I saw his eyes glistening with anticipation of hunting one himself. The fish were ready, so he gave one to me and we ate our fish in relative quiet. It was a little difficult for me to eat with only one hand, but I managed. As time went on I found that I could already use my formerly broken arm again. And then an agonizing pain started to come from my legs. I screamed out from the pain and Parseth looked at me, worried, "What is wrong Raven?"

I grimaced, "I just felt my legs. I'm hurting, as the nerves in my spine must have healed enough to pass on the signals again."

"What can I do to help you?"

I winced as more pain shot through me. "There isn't anything you can do. I know that a bio-elemental like you can make a sedative or painkiller to make me feel nothing. But my unique hybridism makes it impossible to give it to me. You see, I'm immune to any toxins and poisons. Even worse, my feathers are laced with a deadly toxin. And unlike you, I don't have any control over it. I'm always poisonous." I looked down at the ground while saying that. I even felt a tear escape from my eyes. 'Damn those female hormones! They make me far too emotional.'

Parseth made a funny looking face at me. "You will be an outcast from your people then?"

I just nodded and wiped the tear from my eye. "I just want to get back to my parents and ask who or what was responsible for this."

He looked up in surprise. "Someone did this to you?"

"Yes, I heard that this kind of change wouldn't have happened like this. They said that the drugs had a unanticipated effect." I said in a grim tone. "Besides, I was kidnapped from my home and kept like a lab rat inside a secret facility. They did several tests on me, and even tried to kill me more than once. That is how I got the knowledge I was almost indestructible."

Parseth looked at me while I talked, and somehow I could see that he cared. "Why do I get the feeling that you know what I'm talking about?"

Parseth looked away for a moment before telling me the story how his kind were created, and that they had been kept as slaves. He told me about a cat hybrid called Sanura, and how she'd set his kind free. After he finished, I found myself crying a little. 'He really does know how I have felt these last weeks.'

"I'm glad to have met you, Parseth, and though we started on the wrong foot, I hope we can be friends," I said while drying my tears.

"I am glad to have met you as well, Raven. I think we're already friends. I would very much like to go flying with you." Parseth's voice sounded very warm. He reached out to me with a hand-like paw. I put my dainty little hand on top of his and we promised each other to meet again. He told me that most of the dragons lived in the Rocky Mountains, so I could start looking for him there, else his family would know where he was and could direct me to him.

It was getting late, so I prepared a place to sleep. Parseth did something similar, for his sleeping habit I guess and soon we were off to dreamland.

Early in the morning I woke up, hearing the birds singing and I stretched out feeling great again. Everything was more or less healed and I wanted to get back on my way again. Parseth had waked up as well and looked at me with a sad expression, "You're leaving now?"

"Yes, I want to get to my destination. I've already been underway for a long time. I want to finally end this."

"Till we meet again." I wish you good fortune, Raven." Parseth's voice sounded warm, yet there was some sadness there as well.

I gave him sort of a hug. It's hard to hug something a lot bigger than you. "Good fortune to you as well, Parseth. I hope you find what you're looking for."

Parseth looked at me in wonder, "How did you know I'm looking for something?"

"Why else would you be so far away from your family? I can guess that you're relatively young, and want to see something of the world. Am I right?"

Parseth blew quite a strong wind from his nostrils. I guessed it was the equivalent of a sigh. "You are very observant, and quite right, little flier."

I scowled at him for calling me that again, but then again, I was tiny compared to him, so I really couldn't blame him for calling me that. I let it slide, "Well, I have to be going now, so once again, good fortune to you."

With that, I jumped into the air and beat my wings hard and fast to get some altitude. Parseth didn't follow me. He just kept on standing on the ground, waving goodbye. I smiled, thinking about what had happened. He was quite a good guy, for a dragon. I was lucky that he hadn't finished me off. 'I think I have a new big friend in this world.'

Still smiling, I was once again exhilarated, happy to be flying and on my way again to my destination. But thinking about my destination made my mood sour. I really hadn't thought out what to do when I arrived at my parent's home, the White House. I might even get blown out of the sky as a threat to national security by whatever force was there to defend it. And there were a lot to chose from, Secret Service, FBI, Police, Air Force, Navy, Army, Marines, and probably other agencies that I didn't know about. Well, I had heard of something called ASA, but I hadn't been able to find out who they were and what they were about. I couldn't very well ask Mom about it. She would have known that I had been eavesdropping and would have punished me harshly for that. Then a thought entered my mind, 'Did Mom do all this to me because I wasn't careful enough and she is punishing me? I think I was careful enough in my search for what ASA could be. But if she knew, then why didn't she tell me? Why did she go away and have me kidnapped? Was it plausible deniability? I did hear about that before. Oh man! If she had anything to do with it, I might be flying straight into a trap.'

I had been thinking so hard I really wasn't paying attention to my surroundings. Suddenly I found myself surrounded by about eight advanced single seat Hover platforms powered by Synergy thrusters and jet engines. An amplified voice said, "Land now and surrender, or we'll open fire and destroy you."

I thought, 'Ha, good luck trying to destroy me. I don't think you have the fire power to do that.' In an ice-cold tone I asked, "Who are you to demand that from me?"

The metallic voice replied, "We're the proud successors of our brothers in Kansas. Like them, we believe that all hybrids are animals, and should be registered as such."

I had heard of those morons in Kansas. Some 20 odd years before they'd managed to pass a state law that all hybrids were to be considered exotic animals which needed to be registered and collared like a common house pet. I snarled at them, "I'm not an animal, and you'd better stay out of my way."

The man probably forgot that he still had his loudspeaker on, so I heard him give the order, "Open fire on that piece of vermin."

I stopped flying straight anymore at that point. I weaved, banked and twisted out of the way at every possible angle. My turning circle was a lot less than they could manage with their platforms and if they killed their forward momentum to try to follow me, I could just out fly them on speed. But still, some of the shots from the zealots came pretty close. One even grazed my left calf and left a painful mark on it. When another shot hit my right wing I lost some feathers and I decided I'd had it with them. I was going to fight back with extreme prejudice.

After outmaneuvering them quite elegantly, I had one of them were I wanted him. I went after him and as I was overtaking him just barely past his left side. All the platforms had a bubble canopy on them, but the thin plastic was no match for my wing. My left wing sliced through it like a knife through butter, and my feathers grazed the man on his left arm. He died almost immediately and his platform went out of control and crashed with a satisfying explosion on the ground.

The other pilots now really got worked up and doubled their efforts to kill me. In their haste they didn't watch each other too closely any more and two of them had a midair collision. The ensuing explosion damaged a third, causing it to fall helplessly out of the sky. Two men got scared seeing their numbers dwindle so fast and hightailed it out of there. The last two remaining platforms started racing at me and fired bullets and grenades like a firestorm. I managed to dodge most of the ammo flying my way, but not all and it started to hurt and annoy me. In a desperate attempt, I hurled two feathers towards them, one for each of them. They didn't even flinch, meeting them head on. 'Are they stupid? Or do they think that my feathers can't penetrate the bubbles?'

One feather got stuck in the bubble all right, but the other managed to get through, though it lost so much momentum that it just fell harmlessly to the floor of the platform inside the bubble. The man inside got really scared seeing it though, and yanked his platform sideways, crashing into his buddy flying there. The first platform exploded quite nicely, but the last one just poured on the speed at maximum and hurled towards me at an impressive speed.

I dodged the incoming platform by ducking under it just in time, but as it came close, the platform exploded quite spectacular. This destroyed almost half of my right wing and scorched me and the back of my dress. I screamed out in pain as red hot pieces of metal shredded through my skin everywhere on the back of my body. I lost all ability to keep on flying. Well, how well can you fly with ¾ of your wings, anyway. I fell to the earth thinking, 'This is it, I'm going to die here.'

I smashed through some tree branches which reduced my falling speed quite a bit, but I was still going towards the ground too fast for my taste. When I hit the ground head on, I tried to break my fall with my hands, but my right arm shattered and my left arm broke in at least two places.

As I lay on the ground, I groaned, "Owwie, bad landing." and was amazed that I was still alive. 'As long as I'm still alive, I can heal again and be on my way soon. As long as I don't die of thirst and hunger first, that is.' I knew that I would need some food again soon with my high metabolism. And healing from such injuries required more energy and i.e. food. Unfortunately, with two broken arms I wasn't likely to catch something to eat.

As I lay there groaning and contemplating my fate, I heard a sound to my left. I rolled over a little and groaned louder from the pain shooting through me. The sound of branches breaking became much louder, and I saw a big shadowy figure through the trees. I lay very still, hoping that it wouldn't notice me and just pass me by. I mean, I wasn't not afraid I'd get eaten or anything, my toxins will protect me from that. But I could get killed.

Then from the big shadowy figure, a deep but pleasant voice sounded, "Hello?"

I wanted to get away. I didn't want someone to get hurt by accident. 'Unless this is one of those men that tried to kill me. But his voice does sound friendly.' With a groan I said, "Don't come near me, please."

The big figure came closer and I could see that he wasn't entirely human looking. He had kind of brown and grey fur. And his mouth looked a little like a muzzle. Well that ruled out one of the attackers. He said, "I'm not here to hurt you, I just want to help you. You don't have to be afraid of me."

While trying to retreat a bit, I felt pain shoot through me again. I groaned loudly.

"Please don't move. I'm coming over to help you." The hybrid man did sound genuine and nice, so I couldn't let him get closer.

"No, don't come closer please. You don't understand. I'm poisonous! If you touch me you could most certainly die a horrible and fast death." I paused for a moment, and then continued, "Besides that, I can heal by myself well enough, thank you."

The big man still kept coming closer to me. I wanted to get away, but I couldn't. As he crouched down towards me the light caught his face, and I saw a rugged but relatively handsome young bear hybrid. And not just any bear, he was a grizzly bear hybrid. I got a good look at his huge hands as well. They looked normal but big, and he had big menacing claws on his fingertips as well. He softly said to me, "That's okay I'm still going to help you. I can deal with any toxins you might have."

Now I was a loss for words. 'Who is this guy?' "Who are you? What do you mean with 'I can deal with any toxin'. Are you poisonous yourself? I don't understand."

He laughed with a booming bass, "I can be poisonous if I want to. I'm a bio-elemental, I found out after my rather late change. It made me change my major from Legal to Medicine. I haven't even told my parents about it yet."

I looked at him, 'Strange young man. But he seems nice enough.' "So who are you?"

"My name is Henry McCoy, my friends call me Bear, though a few of my closest friends insist on calling me Beast. I still haven't found out why."

Despite my situation I chuckled. He looked at me not understanding, and I laughed out loud now. When he couldn't take it any more, he asked, "What's so funny?"

I giggled, "My grandfather had a collection of old comic books. There was a mutant codenamed Beast, but his real name was Henry McCoy."

Bear stared at me for a moment taking in the information, then he started laughing as well. "I see, now I get it. So because of my name, they named me ... Well I'll get them later. Right now I think I should get you out of here and to my tent." He pointed up at the sky, "It's going to rain soon, so would you mind coming with me to my tent to be dry?"

I rolled my eyes, "Well if you put it that way, no I wouldn't mind at all. But I need some help to get up. I've got ¼ of a wing missing, and two broken arms."

Bear came closer still, and after sampling my toxins from a feather, carefully picked me up in his strong arms and carried me to his tent. It wasn't far away, so we reached it quite soon. Good thing, too, as the first raindrops started to fall just as we went in. I looked in wonder. This wasn't just a tent, it was positively huge. Bear noticed, "Yes I have a big tent. I need the room, as I'm quite big myself, now."

Yes, I had noticed that. As he put me down carefully on a field bed that dwarfed me, I asked, "So why are you here, and not with your parents."

Bear sat down on a folding seat, that bended out of shape quite menacingly, "I've had a kind of heated argument with my stepdad. He's always lecturing, and very gung ho for MORFS survivors, yet he never spends a lot of time with me. But his father, so in effect my step-grandfather is nice. He's an empath, but his job takes him away long times. Anyway, I haven't been home for 2 years now. I can support me self so I don't need them. I do feel sorry for Mom, but she's only called me about half a dozen times all this time. I wanted to tell her about both my change as a hybrid and the change in major, but I still haven't."

As I thought about my parents, I guess my face betrayed my feelings, because Bear asked, "Why the long face? Say, what is your name?"

I looked up at him with a grimace, "Some people call me Raven, though I don't know why." I giggled at that.

He laughed, "Well I don't have a clue as well. But go on, Raven, why did you have an expression like that?"

"I was just thinking about my parents. I've been kidnapped from my home and experimented on. Then, as I am on my way home. some idiot militia decided that I should be considered an exotic animal to be caged or shackled."

Bear nodded, "I've heard about them. I don't think that they are legal in their operations here. But similar groups are legal in Kansas."

I nodded in agreement, "I know that. I hope they can be stopped soon. But on the subject of place, where am I exactly, I think that I'm somewhere in Arkansas, but my maneuvering screwed up my navigation."

"We're in the middle of the Ozark national forest. Where are you headed, Raven? You said you're on your way home right?"

I nodded again, "Yes, I'm heading towards Washington DC. My parents live there at the moment."

Bear looked at me in awe, "Wow, a big city person, I would have never guessed. You seem so at ease in the open sky here. So are your parents rich or something? Were you kidnapped because of that? Did you have guards or something?"

My face must have given away my feelings, as Bear kind of lurched backwards a bit. In a very cold voice I said, "I had plenty of guards. But I got kidnapped in my own home while I was out with MORFS. I'm not sure, but I think my parents might even be involved themselves."

"How can you think something like that? Are you parents that cruel? Did they beat you? Where do you live?" Bear asked inquisitively. "I know Washington DC a bit myself. I had a girlfriend there once."

Grimacing, I answered, "Oh I lived in quite a big house with a very big lawn. Part of the house is even open to the public, you know. Oh, and it is painted white."

It took a little while for Bear to grasp what I said, then he looked at me with unbelief. "You... ? No, you don't mean ... Do you mean the... ? No, it can't be, they only had a son who died recently."

I looked down to the floor. "I was the president's son. My MORFS changed me to a girl with wings. And I was taken from the White House. I didn't die."

I looked up at Bear who still looked back at me unbelieving. "You're serious? But you're so feminine! And it was months ago that he was reported dead."

I shrugged, "Well, don't believe me then." As I changed position, the sheer teddy on me fell open and I flashed my naked breasts at him. He didn't even look away as I scowled at him, feeling exposed.

He just smiled, "I'm studying to be a doctor, so I have seen everything before, Raven." When he looked away, I tried, but couldn't put the teddy back into place with my broken arms. Even worse, I could see that the thing was ripped at several places, probably from the explosion of the hover platform. Bear looked at my carry bag that lay down in front of the bed and picked up something.

He rose up to his full height, "Where in the hell did you get this?"

I looked at what he was holding, it was the digital card that Captain Cordell had given me. I snarled, "None of your business, actually. But if you must know, I made a stop on a cruise ship and the captain gave that to me to make contact with his son. He is supposed to be working with an organization to help MORFS survivors."

Bear growled, "Sure he is, he's so busy that he doesn't even have time for his stepson. Why do you think we had the argument?"

Now I was a loss for words. But I finally I managed to stammer out, "You're Captain Cordell's grandson?"

Bear nodded before squinted at me, "So my gramps gave you this. Why?"

I told Bear the whole story about my stop on the cruise ship. As I told him the story, he sat back down again and smiled several times. After I finished, Bear said, "Yep, that's Gramps. Now you can see why I like him. That is the only good thing that happened after my Mom married Warren after my dad died."

I smiled at him but then heard my stomach growl. Bear heard it too, and said, "What a bad host I am. You must be hungry. What would you like?"

"Everything you have would be good, but I'm afraid you'll have to feed me. I still can't use my arms yet."

Soon he came back with several trays and started to put spoonfuls into my mouth. He ate quite a lot himself as well, and we had a good time eating. I did notice that sometimes his attention wandered off to my naked breasts, but I pretended not to notice. As the meal ended he cleaned up before asking, "Can I take a look at your arms please? I do know a lot about broken bones along with other injuries. I can even fix them for you."

I hesitated, I didn't want something to interfere with my natural speedy healing. "Okay, but only look. Don't try to fix anything yet. I can feel it healing already."

Bear took both my arms one by one in his hands and I could feel a slight tingle both times. My suspicion reared its ugly head and I asked, "What am I feeling? You're not trying to heal them, are you?"

"No, no. I'm only probing deeply into your arms. You are right, you're healing at quite a rapid rate. I've never seen anything like this on someone who's not a bio-elemental. Are you sure you're not a secret bio-elemental?"

I shrugged, the pain from my arms making me wince. "I don't know what I am. Just that I'm a hybrid with wings, a lethal poison and a fast healing power. I never heard anything about what I am. My kidnappers and torturers might know something. But they never shared any of it with me. Now, a question for you, can you give me something to wear so I'll be a little less exposed?"

I couldn't see it because of the fur, but I swear that Bear was blushing. He stammered something, but then said, "I'll look, but I don't think I have anything for a girl with wings."