CHAPTER THREE

We race. Obstacles pop up ahead of us, but we flawlessly navigate past them, even activating our thrusters to highest level in devil-may-care defiance of general practice. Since we became each other, we are able to see more through each other’s eyes than ever before, more truly joined now; we both draw on her experience of the track, and too soon we’ve reached Artha waiting.

I slow my running to prepare for it; the ex-Red is alongside us, and our humans reach to each other to hand over the baton. Odd; we’ve practiced this before, and yet he seems distant today.

Typical Red.

He watches me as we lean together. It is I attempting to synchronise with him, on my own; difficult, but certainly not impossible for a dragon of legend. We will discuss this later.

Nearly there, the humans’ hands close to each other; and then an iron ball from behind us, sending me crashing into the end of the track almost on top of Kitt.

“The baton!” she screams, seeing it fall towards the ground behind us.

And then I see my littermate reach behind himself for it, and activate a mag-pull to easily take it with Wyldfyr’s energy.

I’m impressed, though it is over so quickly that I doubt many others have seen.

Kitt seems to notice it as well. “It’s a drac move,” she says, “but Artha—how?”

A level of subtlety and skill distinct to what they have showed before in our training with Mortis, definitely.

We slowly pick ourselves from the side of the track as we see Moordryd Paynn, activating his thrusters to maximum level; he’ll burn out like that, she absently claw-taps to me, and I agree. But he’s catching up fast, slightly ahead of the Red (clever Artha, hold your strength…)—

—when his saddle blows apart.

Kitt cheers as Artha crosses the finish line in an easy first; we march with him to the winners’ block, grinning as we join him and the ex-Red there.

Why didn’t you synch? I hiss to him.

His tail flicks out lightly at mine, a swift, pointed touch. Why should I slow for you, oh mighty Dragon of Legend?

My lip curls. Because we need to win the races!

You did not win the race. He snickers. Need I mention a certain fall?

I growl slightly; he and Artha saunter off ahead of us, back to the tent.

“Nice move, Artha,” Kitt calls to him as she breaks away from a keen bystander. He looks back, but a new voice interrupts before he can reply.

“Very drac.”

A fair-haired woman, riding a Sky-class; she grins at him. I sense admiration from Kitt, and then recognize she’s the champion Budge introduced at the start of the race: the Academy’s rising star.

“I’m Chute,” she says. “Your dad raised my first dragon, Artha Penn.”

“Uh, hi,” Artha replies, flicking his hair back and posing. “Thanks.”

“It’s not everyone who can handle a mag like that—especially from a Pack-Sky blend like that,” Chute continues, approaching Wyldfyr. “Very interesting dragon you got there.”

“Yeah. Sharpfyr’s great,” Artha says, patting the dragon, using the name under which we registered him.

Kitt jumps into the conversation, perhaps slightly miffed that the Academy racer has focused on Artha and not us. “We think both our dragons are great,” she says, rubbing behind my ears to my gratification. “Do you want to go with us for some after-race coffee? Our treat, I was right behind you in the Vortex race last year and saw you win…”

“Sure,” she says, then turns back to Artha. “Heard rumours about your father,” she says. “Is it true he’s…”

“You’re under arrest!”

Another interruption; I growl, but three security dragons are around us already. Kitt signals to me to calm down.

Moordryd Paynn, with them. I bare my teeth at the dragon Decepshun.

“What’s the charges?” Artha asks, sliding from Wyldfyr to confront the Captain.

“Gear tampering,” Faiar says as Moordryd laughs.

“My saddlebolt blew,” he explains. “I was ahead in the race. You made me lose!” He glares at Kitt.

“What’s your proof?” she asks as the security officers surround her. “Let me go!” she cries in outrage.

“We found a detonator in this gear pack.” Faiar hefts it, marked with the jagged incisions forming Sharp Edge’s symbol. “I’m sorry, but I’m placing Kitt and Artha under arrest pending further investigation.”

Moordryd and Decepshun’s smirks are identical. I’m willing to fight this, to protest this injustice with all the powers I possess. But Kitt shakes her head no; I would probably hurt the security officers badly, feeling as I do. I growl anyway, letting them be terrified at the sight of my teeth.

Chute, though, has other ideas. There’s a shout as she and Wyldfyr run for it, and then Artha’s magged away to join them; they disappear, Dragon City Security in hot pursuit.

“Mag me!” Kitt calls, willing now to join them and help them escape; I do so, clearing my path from the capturing dragons as quickly as I can, blasting them away while Kitt fights. We run after our friends, ready to protect ourselves from this—and then trapping gear comes down at us from both sides, imprisoning us in place. I roar as we’re surrounded, ready to take as many down as I can, but Kitt calms me, reluctantly.

Faiar approaches, his arms sternly folded. “I prepared for it, but I didn’t expect you to resist arrest, Miss Wann.”

She sighs. “You got us,” she says, left depressed as the brief adrenaline of the chase fades.

Disloyal behaviour for both Artha and Wyldfyr; but he did not have a choice, after all.

“Cuff them, boys,” he says. “We can’t risk them running off as well. You’re aware we could charge you for resisting arrest?” he yells at her, turning on her. “Artha as well? Frankly speaking, I expected better from you.”

“The Academy could kick Chute out for this!” Kitt protests as her hands are weighed down with heavy green restraint gear, and my legs are trapped in black control gear. “She must have known we’re innocent!”

“That remains to be seen,” Faiar says, as Moordryd laughs again.

--

She’d spoken to Faiar many times before as one of the Dragon Booster’s official spokespersons, and now it seemed he believed everything said against her. And Beau, trapped in the dragon holding section; she hoped he was okay.

That being said, they had tried to escape. But still, to be trapped in here with Phistus…

Her companion banged on the bars of their cell. Again.

And again.

She’d had enough.

“You think you could do something better with your big fat head, Phistus?” she yelled. “Like, maybe working together to think of some better way out?”

He turned to her. “You’ve got an idea?”

Kitt paused. “I don’t know, but…”

He returned to hitting the walls.

“Wait!” She held out her hands. “Try breaking these instead!”

Phistus looked down at her. “Hold them steady and brace yourself,” he advised, and slammed his fists down on her hands.

The restraints held, though were dented, and she was sure her wrists were bruising. “Try it again!” she said, bracing herself.

The wall exploded as her hands came free.

She and Phistus were thrown down in the cloud of smoke. She saw a small grey thing flung through the air, bouncing towards him; she started toward him to get him out of the way, and then felt herself magged out through the broken wall and running for it as sirens blared behind them.

“Beau, what about Phistus, how…”

“He’ll be fine,” someone sitting behind her said, and she twisted around to see Rivett.

“I ought to go back now and turn you in for stealing the Horn!” she said, outraged. “What do you think you’re doing?”

He held up his hands. “I surrender, Kitt! I just wanted to prove my—devotion to you; I have read Dragon City Security secret files and discovered that our encounter last time was not as I hoped…”

“In other words, you’re sorry we found out. Beau, please keep him magged on,” she said. “I’m going to get some answers this time.”

“By the way, I knocked out your friend for a very good reason,” Rivett said softly. “You see, Moordryd Paynn plans to steal his dragons, and I would think that you need some privacy in order to help him…”

Privacy. He…

“Yes, I know who you are,” he said in response to her unvoiced thought. “As I said, the Mechanists think you are worthy, Kitt. You must use our gear. Accept our help.”

“Someone else needs my help now,” she snapped.

Now, Beau!, she signalled; Beau magged Rivett into a wall, and then she fired her trapping gear to pin him there.

“We’ll be back,” she promised him, and went with Beau to transform.

--

His wraiths, defeated; the raid on Phistus’ stables a clear failure, despite his father’s attempt at imprisoning the big lug.

The damn Dragon Booster again, of course. With the stupid Academy racer to help him.

It wasn’t fair. He’d tried.

At least he hadn’t got caught at it, he told himself sourly. Even if Sharp Edge had been proved innocent and even gotten away with blowing up Dragon City Security because Faiar was a biased twit, he and Cain would just have to win the next relay race…

…or face his father’s extreme displeasure. Once again.

--

After facing the gruelling obstacle course taking him through what he’d previously assumed were just the Citadel’s old dusty attics, he was ready to collapse, but Word Paynn didn’t seem inclined to let him.

“You allow Kitt Wann to constantly run over you on the race tracks, and then the Dragon Booster defeats you away from them. A poor showing indeed, Moordryd.”

“’m…sorryfather…”

“And don’t close your eyes when I’m talking to you!” Word wheeled on him. “Pay attention, Moordryd. Do not think of these courses as punishment, consider them opportunity to prove yourself!”

“…sorry…” he mumbled.

“Get out of my sight.” Word turned away, staring at one of his screens. “I expect to see you and Cain on the practice tracks next morning. You will win the relay, if you can do nothing else!”

--

Cain flashed him a sympathetic look as Moordryd sank into a chair.

“Cookies?” he offered, along with a glass of chocolate-flavoured dragon’s milk.

Moordryd took one and bit into it, noting the Draconee-Yum flavour.

“Your dad’s not very happy, is he?” Cain asked worriedly as Moordryd chewed while dipping another cookie in the milk. “He’s…scary, Moordryd…”

“My father’s a Paynn. Like I told you before, we don’t do happy.”

Saying it didn’t sound as impressive as before.

“Anyway, Cain, we have to win that relay.” He clenched his fists so hard he didn’t realise he was destroying the cookie he held in his hand.

“That’s gonna be tough. Kitt Wann and that new dragon, even the stable boy…” Cain’s shoulders slumped. “They’re getting too good.”

“So we have to stop them, Cain.” He dipped a finger into the milk and started drawing out patterns on the table. “We could…no, we tried that…we could…no, that involves fire-breathing hydrags from Abandonn…we could…”

“You’re tired,” Cain pointed out.

“Oh, brilliant observation. I’m always tired these days—Moordryd, just pop around to steal some dragons, yes of course it’s godawful in the morning, everyone else is sane and sleeping for the race tomorrow, and you’d better win against bloody Kitt Wann this time, oh, you didn’t, I’m going to mag-blast you now, do better next time!” He slammed a fist down on the table. “I hate my life.”

“I have an idea,” Cain said quietly.

“Fine, let’s hear it, I’m sure it’s fucking great. Hey, I think I’ve even got it figured out. Why don’t we scream and run away again! We could go to Wheat City and make a living baking cookies where the Dragon Booster won’t get us! What a clever idea, Cain!”

Cain looked thoughtful. “Hey, yeah. That is a good idea.”

Moordryd banged his head into the table. Milk washed over the rim of his glass.

“But it wasn’t my idea,” Cain continued, getting a cloth to wipe up the spill. “My idea was to map out your father’s Citadel. So that you could win all his training courses.”

“Yes, and we have the spare time—when?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I have spare time,” Cain said, wringing out the dampened cloth in the sink. “I guess you could try asking me nicely?”

--

Rivett had escaped somehow, though she’d left the scene as quickly as she could while Artha explained things to Faiar. Several choice curses later and she returned to the scene, standing with Parm as he established their honesty, seething inwardly at the (the third now, or was it even the fourth? Scale it!) escape and the fact someone was loose in the city who knew who she was.

“Like the Academy motto says—do justice at all times!” Chute concluded happily. “Pretty drac moves fighting off those wraiths, Artha.” She looked across at Kitt, holding Parm’s gear pack. “So how’d you and Phistus make it out? We found you’d already escaped when we swung by.”

“Parm beat you to it,” Kitt said nonchalantly as Beau casually stood on his foot. “Right, Parm?”

“Owaarghpaingetoffaarghow…”

“Sorry he accidentally knocked you out, Phistus,” she said. “I couldn’t stick around—I just went to tell the Dragon Booster what was going on and hid until I found out I wasn’t a wanted woman any more.”

“Too bad you didn’t join in on the action,” Chute told her. “At the Academy, it’s all go!”

“We’ll find out when we get there,” Artha said, grinning. He stretched. “But for now, I guess it’s time for us to go home.”

--

Our friend seems very upset as I am groomed, that night. “I suppose you want to tell me what all that was about?”

“I’m sorry,” Kitt says to him. “Are you all right?”

“Oh, yes! I’m sure with a nice cast to wear, I’ll be considerably less crippled in several months’ time.” Parm folds his arms. “If that’s what I get for attempting to cover your tracks as the Dragon Booster, I’m not so sure I want to do it any more!”

“I’m sorry,” she repeats. “The thing is Rivett rescued me.”

Lance lets out a gasp. “I was right! We did see him again!”

“I left him tied to a wall, but he got away,” she explains. “I’m sorry I sprung it on you, and I’m sorry Beau trod on you.”

“Yes yes, I’m sure you are. Now as for the extensive medical treatment I’ll no doubt require, I—”

“Oh, stop complaining,” Artha says. “Weren’t you flat-footed already?”

“Pancake-footed now!” he retorts.

Artha laughs, and I snort in agreement. I was not trying to hurt him; I take Parm up with my tail, hanging him harmlessly upside down.

“Bad dragon!” He flails at me, almost starting to shriek. “Stop! I mean it! Put me down immediately!”

“Gently,” Kitt says, and I lower him to the ground. She seems cold about the incident; I prod her with my snout to question her about this. “You’re…really hurt, Parm? I should have let you just—”

He walks away; clearly he’s hardly permanently harmed.

She sighs, though. “We shouldn’t have done that,” she says softly to me. “We have this power, and then we just hurt our friends like that…”

He was not hurt; I play harder than this with the others, and none of them mind. I do the same to Kitt, holding her upside down as I have done before. She at least does not mind.

“It’s still—I’m going to work on that,” she says. “We can think about what we do.”

Considering it, I suppose so; Parm is after all our friend, and Cyrano is congenial company compared to a certain alternative. I lower her to the ground, carefully.

“Not so much with me, though.” She flings her arms around my neck. “Good job today, Beau—no!”

I have her in the air again, swinging my tail; I dump her in front of Artha, eventually, and she brushes straw from her hair as she looks up. “Guess I need to think about what I say as well,” she says ruefully as Artha laughs, and joins in his amusement; Wyldfyr snickers also.

--

We have still not discussed the race, I say to the ex-Red, his pale scales gleaming in the dark.

What is there to say? I will not slow for you.

You will have no need, I promise him, and fall silent towards sleep.

Perhaps I should think about it, I suppose, him being the friend of at least two of my friends. But I am tired, and do not wish to spend time on whatever his problem may be.

--

“This is actually…really good, Cain,” Moordryd said, later, looking over the detailed drawing of the Citadel.

“There’s an installation of trapping gear in this sector here, and something with a concentration of red draconium behind that wall there—”

“Probably the fire grenades he had us steal from Pyrrah, remember?”

“Oh yeah! And that’s where he keeps his control gear, and the wraith lodgings are the lower two floors. There’s also the secret passages—” Cain brushed his fingers across the gaps in the walls, some of which Moordryd knew already.

And some he didn’t. “What’s this one?” he asked, pointing at one running through the centre of the Citadel, down from near his father’s bedroom.

“I don’t know.” Cain shrugged. “It’s got some tough security around it, tripwires and level-eight trapping and scorch-capture gear. Pretty old gear, but still fully functional. I think it’s a safe or something.”

Moordryd frowned. “He’s going to know we lost the race as soon as that meeting with Talis Mining finishes, and then he’ll be home in about half an hour if he takes a taxi dragon.”

“Yeah.” Cain shivered. “Moordryd, I’m scared…”

“I’m going to prove myself to him!” Moordryd slammed his hand into the desk. “Cain, navigate for me. I’m going to get into that safe.”

--

He climbed through tripwires and dodged scorch gear to shut off alarms, avoiding trapping gear meanwhile until at last he reached his goal.

Z.P., the initials on the safe read.

“Cain, I’m there. Heading back now.”

Moordryd felt jubilant as he lowered himself back through the security sensors to reach the secret door. Treasure, beyond his expectations—and he’d carried it off perfectly.

“Very good, Moordryd,” his father said. “As disappointed as I am in the racing result—I must say I approve of a little initiative.”

He tripped on the doorstop and fell to the ground, the safe slipping from his hands and bouncing across the floor, and looked up at his father.

Of course he couldn’t manage to do anything right.

“Ah yes, this.” His father picked up the safe, turning it over in his hands. “You can tell Cain to leave now if you like; this doesn’t concern him. I’d forgotten this entirely,” he continued. “It’s some of your mother’s personal belongings. The lock is standard Paynn Securigear 3.0—able to be opened with the factory combination 2-6-2-1-1-6-1.” He twisted open the rusted lid as he spoke, and set it down on the table. “The sapphire pendant I gave her—matched her eyes; some loose change; ancient draconium-amber necklace…”

Moordryd sat down opposite his father, looking with him through the debris his mother had abandoned when she’d disappeared.

“What’s this, Father?” He held up a rather large gray object shaped a little like a banana.

Word snatched it away from him. “Ancient draconium technology of very narrow application, Moordryd.”

“And these…letters?” Tied with a red ribbon, written on fancy-looking parchment.

“Mine to her, I think.” His father took them from him, opening the ribbon for a quick glance at them before tucking them securely into his sleeve.

“And these—wait, that’s me, isn’t it?” Moordryd looked down at pictures of a chubby white-haired baby crawling on a fluffy black rug he thought he could remember. “Gotta hide these from Cain.” He reached out to shuffle the pile over to himself, but his father was too quick for him and snatched one from the top of the pile, a particularly humiliating one with his nappy barely on as he drooled on the head of a pink-haired doll.

Marianna Susan! Magna Draconis, I loved that toy…

“Hmm. My current wallpaper is becoming rather tedious on my screens,” Word commented.

“Father, no!” Moordryd pleaded, but by then Word had tucked the humiliating viddgraph into his robes as well.

A set of dragonpearl hairclips; Moordryd hid one in his sleeve, because they really were very nice. An embroidered baby bootee.

“Yours,” his father said, as if it needed explanation. “Ah, those days…”

A racing viddgraph, her competing in the Leap of Lorius, pale red hair flying around her head.

“She was both brave and skilled,” his father said. “If only you were more like her.”

A scrap of paper; Moordryd picked it up, and realised it must have fallen out of the ribboned pile.

My love it is only a few hours until we meet again but in concern for our daughter I still worry…

“Your daughter?”

He handed the letter over to Word. He’d had a sister, once?

His father laughed. “It was while she was pregnant with you; we both wanted a daughter, though she seemed happy enough when you were born. Perhaps if you had been, you would have inherited more of her advantages…”

“You wanted me to be a girl?”

“Naturally.” His father tapped his claws across the letter. “Human women are lighter, more agile, more enduring; female dragons are all those as well as far more intelligent than male.”

Moordryd supposed he could have guessed that from Word’s honorary membership in Dragon City’s CLAWEM (CLub to Advance Women Eviscerating Men, which Pyrrah and Marianis were also known to attend), but he’d only assumed that his father had wanted to eavesdrop on take-over-the-world plans.

“I’m sorry I’m not your perfect daughter,” he said, trying and failing to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

“Yes. It is a shame,” Word said, looking at an elaborate bracelet in smoked purple and grey draconium as though he could imagine it once again on Moordryd’s mother’s wrist.

“So what’s this?” Moordryd said after a while, withdrawing a sparkly pink armband from the bottom of the safe, wrapped in a white scalesilk handkerchief.

“Oh, yes. It was very important to your mother, she told me,” his father said, apparently having not even noticed Moordryd’s sulking. “Funny. I never saw her without it.”

There it was in that picture of her in the Leap of Lorius, and a shape under her sleeve as she played with him in the rug, on her shoulder as she pulled down her shirt to breastfeed.

Moordryd slipped it on his arm, under the sleeve of his racing jacket. Not as good as your mother, he’d been told—but she hadn’t rejected him for not being a girl, and he could have her bracelet.

It felt strangely warm. Like he’d placed fairy floss in liquid form around his arm. Like it was fizzling around him, reading his mind to see if he was his mother’s son, after all. Like it—oh scales—had some serious side effect she hadn’t bothered to warn about—

--

“And, Dragon Booster, now you know the secret plans of the Light Blue Human Empire, I thought we might—”

The man, tall and dark with bright yellow eyes and a chin that looked like it had been carved out of granite, leaned towards him, his lips oddly soft and sensitive in his face. “You need say no more, Tran.”

A room, a bed done (tackily) in yellow and blue; they fell towards each other as though with the ease of long practice. His clothes disappeared from him in an instant, showing they’d never truly existed; his partner smiled both at his daring and the physical form he had chosen for the time being.

With a growl at the back of his throat, he flung himself on his partner, helping him untie the straps on his battle-gear in a flurry of limbs. The dark olive skin, tanned from days in the battlefield, his hair that unique shade of deep blue and scent of brassberry soap, the corded muscles—mm, so strong—starting to pin him down in return—

Wait, Moordryd thought. He probably shouldn’t be turned on like this. But there the evidence was, right in front of him.

Slightly larger (especially in comparison with the other, uh, evidence) and less circumcised than he’d have expected, but there. A surprise.

“You tonight,” Tierre grunted, finally kicking off his left boot and releasing him from the firm hold of his arms. “Looks like you’re morphed for it.”

“All right—”

He lay on top of his partner, the scars across the golden-brown back visible; he settled atop his shoulderblades, and concentrated as he altered the chemical composition and physical form of his body.

Oil-sweated skin between them, and then nothing at all; it was as though he wasn’t merely inside his partner, but surrounding; their forms had altered, both together as one as he felt himself building towards ecstasy.

His moment came; he manipulated his partner to feel the same, and they gasped together as he returned his form to another’s, imprinting it on his back as though writing indelibly on stone.

“Yes. That was—great—“

He smiled. “If you’ve got the energy—and inclination—I suppose you could reciprocate?”

The man under him easily flipped him over onto his back, those calloused hands scraping along his ribs, looking at his body as though to devour it. “Drakkus-at-night, you’re always…beautiful…”

And then, their eyes met as they looked into each other’s face.

A cry. “That form?”

--

He woke up with a crashing headache, strapped into a chair in his father’s study.

“Father?...Let me go?”

His father turned back from his screens. “Your middle name, Moordryd?” he fired off sharply.

“Drakkus,” Moordryd responded automatically. “Moordryd Drakkus Paynn.”

His father pressed a button on his control panel, and to Moordryd’s relief he was released.

“Why tie me down? What just happened?”

“I was worried, Moordryd,” his father said, smiling in a rather creepy manner. “But now I can see it’s merely improved you—and I know the truth now.”

“What?” Moordryd stumbled as he stood up; his balance felt all wrong as he tried to walk.

“Look at yourself. You resemble her, now. My…daughter.”

He looked down at himself, resting his hand on the chair’s arm.

“Meorganna Syntence Paynn?” Word asked dryly as Moordryd collapsed to the ground in a dead faint. “Perhaps now I can properly commence your training. And expect grandchildren.”

--

“Wow.” Cain looked down at his chest. Yet again. “You’ve got boobies.”

“I noticed.”

“So can I touch them?”

His best friend was holding a hand out to his chest. Moordryd stopped suddenly, stared at him to make sure he was serious, and then folded his arms protectively across his body as he continued walking at an increased pace.

“Aww, don’t be like that!” Cain complained, following along with him. “This is the closest either of us are gonna get to a real girl, right?”

“Too close for my liking,” Moordryd muttered. Then again, he had a rather bitter memory of Swayy slapping his face and calling him a foul little albino wanker several months ago when he’d asked her out, though at least she hadn’t let it interfere with their Crew relations. He could probably at least…investigate this body, right?

He looked down at himself speculatively. Boobies, not the largest he’d seen but more than Wann’s at least (hah, beating her this once!), fit figure (obviously), slender waistline and nice hair…

…Yeah. He was smokin’, baby.

“You’re thinking about it, aren’t you?” Cain crowed. “You’re thinking about it, I can tell! Do you think the multiple orgasm thing is true? Do girls’ nipples go all hard when you poke them? Do your boobies jiggle like—”

“Shut up, Cain,” Moordryd said coldly; his lieutenant obeyed, though his lips were still moving. “And get me a mirror,” he commanded.

Yes. He would definitely…investigate this.

--

“And—yes, excellent jump there, Artha too; just remember, your red thruster gear is absolutely vital to make the jump and finish, instead of decreasing the draconium quotient I advise you to save enough energy to continuously use it from the jump to the finish, although you must not overload your dragons…”

“We got it, Parm!” The ex-Red makes the next jump in the practice track, neck-and-neck with us; we fly zig-zagged down the building, leaping back to the street.

Wyldfyr’s thrusters activate, as do ours; the dragon is very fast, but mag-channelling to our own thruster gear we are able to keep pace, and then with rappel gear we leap to slide into first place.

The ex-Red growls at me; I snort in triumph at our victory.

“And that’s more or less it. In the actual race, however, Kitt, you will not have access to that overhanging bridge on which you hung your rappel gear, therefore I advise against that move; Artha, well done. Now I’d like you to both try again from the start, because that corner was a little shabby, especially with the malfunction in Sharpfyr’s turning gear…”

Kitt yawns. “Thanks, Parm, but it’s not so long ‘till sunset,” she says. “I think Beau and I know the track by now. Beau?”

We’ve faced challenges much tougher than this, and our friends have abandoned their snit; it’s all too easy for us. I nod.

“I’ll do the practice again,” Artha says. “Lance, can you get the spare balance gear for me?”

“You’re going out patrolling, I presume?” Parm says to Kitt. “I would recommend the extra practice, but I suppose you can easily summon us if there is need.”

“Thanks, Professor,” she says. I leap away, diving into the city’s narrowing streets. “Later, boys!”

--

It was probably, Moordryd decided, nothing short of narcissistic and possibly downright incestuous to consider one’s own female form in this manner.

Still, it wasn’t as though he hadn’t already had three full-length mirrors and a waist-height version of the statue of his head over the Crew-quarters in his bedroom.

He was still the same height, thankfully enough, though his balance was off; his hairstyle also remained the same (well, why would it change anyway?). His face seemed a little softer, more closely resembling his mother’s in the pictures, and he thought that with hair a little pinker he could have passed for the woman’s younger sister (bad thought bad thought!). A very nice figure, perfectly shaped breasts with no sag to them (did that come later?), and, well…certainly a bit empty, uh, there, but still, an actual girl’s body guaranteed not to slap his face or laugh at him.

Magna Draconis, Cain was going to be so jealous.

An hour later, he was firmly decided on the merits of the female body.

--

Two muggings, an averted disaster in a hall double-booked to the Flares and the Fish, and a rogue taxi-dragon needing a bit of roaring at later, we see our friends turning up.

All but one, that is.

“Artha’s boring!” Lance says through the VIDDcomm. “He just says he wants to practice—again.”

Guess we’ll have some competition, Kitt signals wryly to me. I swish my tail; it’s not that I begrudge Artha, but rather that dragon; why do I constantly feel the urge to leap on him and claw out his ugly yellow black-edged eyes?

“All right, let’s focus,” says Parm. “I’m decoding transmissions from Dragon City Security—there’s a gear robbery over at Talis Citadel, plus a Down City rockfall, details not forthcoming…”

Down City, Kitt signals; it’s her homeground, and the last accident there involved trapped people.

We travel down to do the mag-lift, as necessary if not as exciting; and then Parm realises that the sender of the transmissions was the same person as the last time simultaneous Sun and Down City events reached us. Kitt recalls the rogue faction of the Inner Order who have been known to infiltrate Dragon City Security to carry out black market raids under Khatah’s nose, and we meet up with him to find the location of their hideout and recover the missing gear.

Another fight; we win again.

Dawn at last, and we’re ready to return to the stables; though tired, there has been nothing given to us that we cannot do. Drakkus himself could not defeat us a second time, I vow, and soon we will be everything Mortis wishes.

Kitt returns to her normal form, laughing in exhilaration. “Good night, Beau,” she says as we prepare for sleep. “Where’s Artha?”

Lance yawns, but suppresses it. “I guess we could—go on a Quest to look for him? Maybe he’s been kidnapped by the giant evil purple dragon of legend, deadly enemy of the Silver Dragon Booster Ranger…”

“Someone’s been playing too many VIDDgames,” Kitt says, ruffling his hair. “I think you should go to sleep.”

“It is just as well it isn’t a school night,” Parm adds. “We should not allow you to follow us the whole night long.”

“But I wanna help…”

“Yeah, and you did.” Kitt yawns too. “Let’s call your brother and see what’s up.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Artha enters, dark circles under his eyes, though Wyldfyr seems in fine form. “Sorry, guys. I guess the patrol went off fine—I was just practicing, that’s all…” He yawns heavily. “Bedtime now, I think.”

Maybe we will win on the track tomorrow instead of you, the ex-Red says to me.

I ignore him as I sleep.

We will certainly defeat all we want to defeat.

--

“Cain, can you pull harder…” Moordryd managed through gritted teeth.

“I thought girly corsets were supposed to make them go out rather than in.” Cain obediently tugged on the laces. “Hey, that’d look good…”

“No, Cain.” His friend was actually getting pretty good about Not Looking At The Body, but he hadn’t risen to Crew-leader without keeping a strict lookout for possible misbehaviour.

“Hey,” Cain said suddenly; Moordryd could see in the mirror that his gaze was towards his shoulder, and so he allowed him to speak. “That’s a special armband from one of the ancients.”

“Why yes, Cain. I didn’t exactly have an operation to do this to myself, did I now?”

“It’s a special armband,” Cain repeated. “Maybe it’s like what the Dragon Booster uses to get his ancient powers of legend.”

“Oh, yeah. Totally. Maybe I can just say Release the Sparkly Pink and feel bolts of sparkly pink draconium charging me up to ten hundred gigadracs…”

The amulet was suddenly warm on his arm. He didn’t bother reaching up to it; he’d already tried to pull it off many times.

“Maybe it’s something like Pink Transformation Magic,” Cain continued thoughtfully.

Another sudden bolt of heat. He flapped his hand over the skin to cool it.

“Oh yeah! Pink Transformation Magic, Sparkles Unite! Something absolutely ridiculous like that, because nobody’s that…”

“Uh, Moordryd?”

He looked into the mirror, and then down at himself.

Pink armour covered him from head to toe, androgynously wound around his body in a way that made him seem neither male nor female.

“Oh, ha ha,” said Moordryd-alias-Meorganna, and buried his head in her hands. “The universe hates me.”

--

After at last figuring out how to stop the effect (Pretty Sparkly Pink Armour Magic Reversal…please?), he hastened down to the Crew-meeting disguised as himself (oh why does the universe hate me?), to announce his withdrawal from the Academy competition.

“You’re just being a coward!” Swayy folded her arms. “Wann’s getting too good. Someone needs to take her down!”

“I didn’t say I’d stop fighting the Dragon Booster,” Moordryd retorted in his lowest possible voice. (Magna Draconis, the corset was tight on him. Maybe Wann had an advantage after all. He’d pass out if this went on too long.) “She hangs out with him. We’ll get her then.”

“Or we can arrange a little accident,” Rancydd suggested.

Moordryd waved his hand to silence him. “No. We don’t need to. There’s one more thing I’d like to throw against her. You’ll see my father’s little surprise next race.”

He stood. “And until then—well, you have dragons to steal, don’t you? Now get out!”

--

“All right, unlace me. But no touching!” Moordryd flopped sulkily on the bed, giving up on the intricate knots the armour seemed to have tied as a side effect. “My darling cousin Meorganna, Father says, all the way from Stone City. Worse, he’s going to train me specifically for the role.”

“Well, there’s been mag-charged equipment moved into the East Wing recently,” Cain supplied. “With that and the anti-grav generators, I guess you’ll need Aero and shielding gear magged onto Decepshun.”

“Thanks.” Moordryd pulled on one of his old shirts, feeling himself starting to flop around now out of the corset’s confines. “And either go buy me some bras or raid Swayy’s closet, all right?”

Cain gulped. “I’ll get back to you on that as soon as I decide which scares me less.”

“As long as it’s soon.”

Moordryd left the bedroom, as ready as he could be for the training session.

--

“I can’t believe the entire race was postponed just for a late entry.” Kitt sighed as she sipped her hot chocolate in the teashop just off the tracks, unamused at being told that an earthquake in the Green Mountains had stopped the mystery competitor from arriving on time. “Just because she’s apparently some bigwig’s niece…”

“To be fair, her record appears to be flawless,” Parm said, looking at the statistics flashing across his screen.

“Appears to be?” Artha asked lazily, reaching for a clawmuffin.

“I say appears to be because I can barely believe it!” Parm said. “An almost perfect record, enough to nearly qualify her for the Elite Class track—and yet I can find no trace of forgery. Yet,” he added darkly.

Artha shrugged. “They’ll investigate if she’s not perfect,” he said, past his mouthful. “She’s not going to win this one!”

“And in the meantime you can compete in the skills race tomorrow, to round off your position in the points standing,” Parm said. “Perfectly acceptable.”

‘I’m just scaled off that we practiced for nothing.” Kitt sighed again. “And you know what? We’re way in the lead, and Artha’s gone up to seventh ranking now Moordryd’s quit. I’m crimefighting instead between now and then.”

“Be careful, though,” Parm warned. “This new racer may be a tough opponent!”

Kitt shrugged. “We’ll just do the Skills events, see how those play out. How about it, Artha?”

He raised his milkshake. “Good enough for me.”

--

“Well done, daughter. I can see that these skills will serve you well in the race.”

A week. A week of this exhausting punishment, the learning of mag-techniques foreign to him under his father’s direction, who had adjusted disturbingly quickly to having a daughter rather than a son.

A daughter he thought was approaching Academy-class, at least. He supposed that was one slight benefit, but he was tired enough to feel that wasn’t exactly benefit.

“The race is tomorrow, Father,” she said. “Any more advice?”

“Just run through my mag-training course one last time—and then get some sleep, Meorganna. You’ll need to be ready.”

He took a deep breath as he and Decepshun made ready for the course; the amulet’s hidden heat seemed to surround them like a glove, and they flung themselves through an ocean of magbursts. Drawing on Decepshun’s energy, he created a double force-shield to protect them, and then turned the shields inwards to act as a mag-drain, letting the power flow through them.

Enemy silhouettes appeared in the sky; he leaped up to face them, and conjured up a series of mag-bolts as he spun among them.

A sudden gap in the ground below. He concentrated on widening the mag-stream below them, shaping it into a dark glider that carried them more gently down.

Spikes loomed below them; he activated Aero gear and thrusters simultaneously, turning the glider into a rocket. The air ripped a sound from his throat as they went up almost parallel to the wall, leaping out to continue the course. More mag-bursts flew at him, and then it was quickly over as he and Decepshun panted at the end.

“Very well done,” her father said. “Remember all you have learned—and win tomorrow!”

--

The oven was empty.

He let the door swing back with a groan.

“Cain!”

His lieutenant made a sleepy appearance on the screen. “What? Do you realise what time this is?—Oh, Moordryd. Meorganna, whatever.”

“Yeah. Did you save dinner for me?” He’d left Decepshun with as much dragonfood as she could eat, and apparently the Dragon Eye cafeteria had been serving mushroom pies tonight; he wished he hadn’t had to miss that.

“They ate it all. You want me to come up?”

“Whatever.” Freezer contents: one loaf of bread, something green and ambiguous, two ice-flaked packets of mystery synth-vegetable…

Footsteps behind him. He abandoned the search, turning to see Cain in the doorway.

“So you’re hungry. Tough—”

“To stay on a girl’s diet? Ha ha bloody ha.”

Cain looked hurt. “I was going to say, tough practice.”

“Just find something edible.” Moordryd sat on top of the table, watching his friend explore the nearly-bare cupboards. Cain still wore a nightcap, blue with a purple bobble on the end; he contemplated telling him about it, but was distracted when he reappeared from the depths of the shelves with a bag of cookies in his hand.

“Slightly dry vanilla with macadamia nuts,” Moordryd commented, biting into the first one. His least favourite.

“I did find this as well.” Cain held up a transparent flask containing red liquid, and placed it over the heating element. “Preserved cherry juice with red draconium energizer. Should kick in about…oh, tomorrow?”

“Hand it over.” Moordryd grabbed a glass from behind himself and held it out. “Non-alcoholic, right? Not, of course, that I care—it’s just that they might test me tomorrow…” That, and his limited experience of alcohol consisted of small champagne flutes at his father’s occasional dinner parties, but he wasn’t going to admit that to Cain.

“That’s how I make it,” said Cain. He looked down at the flask. “But now that I think about it, I’m not sure if I…”

“Just pour.” He’d only have one glass anyway.

Cain reached out for the flask with an oven mitt, testing its heat; he nodded, satisfied, and poured some for both of them.

“Thanks.” Moordryd took a sip; much better than the cookies, and nice and warm in the cold night.

“This is kind of fun,” Cain said absently. “Like midnight feasts in those books—you know, the ones you used to like? The Twins Go To Finishing School?”

“You read those?” Moordryd asked, surprised; it had been years.

“Yeah. They were fun.” Cain reached out for another cookie. “But kinda girly.”

“They were not girly!”

“You’re very girly, Moordryd,” Cain said composedly, taking a long drink of the cherry juice. “The hair gel…the mirrors…the corsetry…your father’s assumption you’ll eventually procreate now…”

“Says the guy in the fluffy nightcap!” Moordryd reached across triumphantly and pulled it from his head. “Who cooks rather decent cherry juice, I have to admit.” He held out his glass for more, and drank it down.

“I’m starting to wonder if it’s cherry,” Cain said, but grinned with red-stained lips. “Who cares anyway, right?”

“Yeah. Girls together!” Moordryd waved the cap in the air, and then realised his present physical form. Cain had been getting even better at Not Looking, which made him feel almost like he was himself again; unfortunately, the armlet still wasn’t budging. He experimentally pulled on it again.

“And you have to remember to call me Meorganna tomorrow,” he continued. “Remember, my cousin from Stone City.”

“I got it.” Cain did look, then, but turned his head away quickly; they both took another long drink of the cherry.

“Do you think the others would laugh at me if they knew, Cain?” Moordryd asked after a while.

Cain considered the question. “Blarre, yeah, for sure. Rancydd, maybe not. Don’t know about Swayy.”

“I’d like to see them try it.” Moordryd looked down at herself, again. “Do you think I’m still prettier than them?” He lifted a foot up to the table, watching her leggings slide up across pale, smooth skin.

“Well, yeah. Your mom must have been totally hot.” Cain poured out two more glasses for them.

“Eww…” Moordryd shook his head; that one really put a crimp in his self-admiration. “So are you bringing up my mom because you really think she was hot, because even though she might have been that’s eww considering she or more probably he is like fifty now, or was it just because you like me and want us to get turned off that, because I really think we’re kind of getting turned on now?”

Cain looked bemused.

“No, it makes logical sense,” Moordryd said, holding up a finger. Magna Draconis, he was tired—or at least brain-tired, because his body still felt alert enough.

The cherry stuff…probably wasn’t, a part of his mind whispered, but he decided against letting that part of him have fair play.

“I’m hot,” he continued. “I’m definitely, still, very very pretty.”

“Yes, Moordryd. Do you want me to run and get your hair gel?”

“And you…well, you’ve been pretty decent about this whole thing, all things considered,” Moordryd said. He giggled—there was no other word for it; it seemed to bubble up from somewhere inside her, like a rippling stream of blue draconium.

Cain moved back slightly in his seat.

“So…”

Moordryd took his friend’s hand, and placed it on her thigh. Cain didn’t move away.

“Moordryd, we’re…friends, right? Still friends?” he yelped.

“No, I promise, Cain. We’re still friends.” He reached out a hand to touch Cain’s face. “We’ll always be friends.”

“Okay.”

Cain let her fall from the table into his lap.

“Now, you can do that thing you did when I hurt my back falling off Decepshun—yes, that’s pretty good,” Moordryd said, leaning into Cain’s strokings like an arrogant kitten. Touch was exciting, sensations all over her body seeming to pool at her centre, desperately warm. “Yeah—touch me—”

“I drunk we’re think,” Cain commented.

“So we just won’t do anything I might regret later,” Moordryd snapped. “Give me your hand…”

Interesting; his lieutenant had apparently figured out how to remove a bra at some point in the course of purchasing them.

“Pretty good, Cain—that took me a while to work out…”

“Yeah, I asked the salesgirl how they worked to make sure, they look kind of weird just hanging there and I wasn’t sure if that was what you wanted…”

He giggled again. “That’s really, uh, dedicated.” He reached down to touch his friend, rather surprised as he removed the clasps on his overalls; still, it was only fair to reciprocate. “A bit lower, Cain…to the right…no, your right…”

“Moordryd, please…Magna Draconis, yes…”

“Cain. That’s—yeah, that’s good, and your mouth…”

“Mmm, yeah—oh—”

“’S okay, both guys…or not…keep going…”

It was a rather pleasant drunken stupor, Moordryd considered, resting curled into the crook of his best friend’s arm, looking at his bra hanging from the fridge door across the room following a night of what he was sure qualified as at least comparable debauchery to his previous experiences.

That being said, there was still one more thing left to note.

“Cain? I think I’m a lesbian…”

--

A/N: The organization CLAWEM is based on our world’s SCUM, Society for Cutting Up Men (satire; as the saying goes, if you feel attacked by feminism, it’s probably a counter-attack).