Greater Wyrm 2.3 (Patreon)

[Foundaton]

— Lisa Wilbourn, Tattletale —

Lisa knew the call was coming before her phone rang.

How could she not?

Her boss was the demanding sort, and rather impatient when things didn’t go his way. Lisa could confidently (and vindictively) say that this probably didn’t qualify for ‘going his way’.

Lisa glanced back up. She was sitting, making herself unremarkable, in her favorite cafe on the Boardwalk. It had a good view of the water. And now, of the source of her anxiety, too.

Immediately, she winced as she saw… it.

[1.4622 miles tall; still rising; rate of construction has slowed; stabilizing at 1.5 miles tall? Stone cannot support such a height; some other forces are at work; forces unknown, undefinable.]

It was telling that her power was just as flabbergasted as Lisa herself was, as the rest of the city had to be. For all its powerful inferences, it couldn’t make sense of the blatantly [IMPOSSIBLE].

Brockton Bay’s skyline suddenly boasted a new and unignorable feature. An impossible tower that stretched, impossibly, into the sky. It utterly defied gravity and the physical limitations of its materials to pierce the sky.

At least Lisa was fully able to stop and stare without breaking her cover as just another college freshman studying in her free time. Everyone else had certainly done so, stopping and staring. It would’ve been weirder if she didn’t join them, even if just staring at the tower was giving her the mother of all headache-…

Except, it wasn’t. Lisa paused as she realized that pivotal little development. She didn’t have a Thinker headache right now.

She always had a Thinker headache these days. Always. Her poor brain existed at a constant low-level throb at best, and crippling migraines at worst.

It led to her burgeoning relationship with pain meds. She hated to rely so heavily on opioids, but what other option did she have if she wanted to function at all through her power-inflicted chronic pain?

There, at least, her power was as eager to speak as ever.

[Addiction in the making; tolerance building; more medication will soon be necessary to maintain the same effectiveness; Lisa’s pitiful financial situation will soon find itself strained, to say nothing of the effects on her physical health.]

‘And who’s-! Fucking-! Fault-! Is that?!’ It made Lisa want to snap at her power aloud, even in public, to rage, shake, and strangle it until it stopped cursing her with chronic pain for just thinking.

Yet now, somehow, that had already happened. The painful feedback she’d unfortunately grown used to simply… didn’t come when she stared at the tower. Nothing about it made sense, not to Lisa nor her power. She should’ve been in shambles trying to comprehend the impossible tower. But she wasn’t.

That didn’t quite… track, considering Lisa could practically feel her power working furiously behind the scenes. And if she stared for too long, she felt her power stutter, shut off, and restart. Somehow…

In addition to all its physical impossibility, the impossible tower had some sort of impossible power-interfering Trump effect. [IMPOSSIBLE]… but strangely welcome.

Lisa almost wished she could stare at the tower forever if it meant she’d be free of her Thinker headaches. Almost as if her power was somehow encouraging her to do just that, as if it wanted all the chances it could get to figure out the [IMPOSSIBLE]…

She narrowed her eyes suspiciously.

[… Dragon motifs on the tower; carved to molecular perfection.]

Her power was distracting her, Lisa knew. She still fell for the bait as that key information was dangled in front of her.

Dragon motifs… It couldn’t be Lung. As if the rage dragon could ever build anything, much less something so impossible.

It had to be the newest comer to the Bay — the other Dragon who was now in the city’s equation of power. The one who’d come out of nowhere and gripped PHO by the balls with his AMA. The one who’s ‘Hoard’ had already taken down Hookwolf and beaten Lung into retreat. The one that her boss had, of course, tasked her with looking into.

Ancalagon… And if so, this was one hell of an official debut.

He’d already been seen circling the city from above, the Endbringer-sized Dragon in the sky attracting everyone’s attention. He’d even come in for a landing not far from Lisa’s position

Lisa’s phone rang, the call she was expecting and dreading in equal measure. She let it ring to its limit before finally picking it up, just to be petty.

“Lisa’s youthful assistance services. Need to be seen as hip and chill and down with the youths? We can help. The first bit of slang is free: start saying YOLO, and the kids will certainly know what you’re all about.”

She answered all of Coil’s calls like that. It was the tiniest scrap of rebellion, but all that she could often manage. She knew some of her openers had gotten to him. Today, though, she was somewhat off her game.

“As unamusing as ever,” Coil hissed like the snake on his costume. “I am in no mood to hear lip from my Tattletale. Will you be professional, or will I have to find other ways to inspire you to work as I pay you to?”

Lisa winced as he called her his, the bastard. He usually wasn’t so blatant about his threats right off the bat. It seemed Coil was somewhat off his game today, too.

“You already have, boss,” Lisa admitted with a grumble. “There’s no need to get more creative. Now, what do you need from me?”

“Guess,” Coil deadpanned.

“Does it maybe have something to do with the big fuck-ass tower that’s springing up near the Boardwalk as we speak?” Lisa asked, just a touch of her trademark smugness returning.

“What is it, Tattletale? How is it? Why? And just who is responsible for something so… disruptive in my city?” Coil demanded, his tone consistently flat.

“Ah, those are the million-dollar questions, aren’t they~?” Lisa teased. “I’m working on it, boss, but I’ll admit I’m struggling. Something about that tower… It’s fucking with my powers big time.”

Coil fell silent with her answer.

[Is having similar issues with the IMPOSSIBLE; will not admit it. Interference; too many variables unknown and newly introduced. Coil is frustrated and scared by the lack of information. Used to holding all the cards; he is now panicking.]

Lisa carefully didn’t show her reaction to that actually helpful inference by her power. It was good to see that it could still work on things that weren’t blatantly impossible (or IMPOSSIBLE; there was something more to the term when her power spoke it…).

“Who, Tattletale? Tell me who,” Coil demanded in that cold, seemingly unflinching way of his.

“What makes you think even I can do that, boss?” Lisa fired back.

“Need I call you to me and pull the information from your head in person, Tattletale?”

“… Ancalagon. The newest comer to the Bay, the capital-fucking-D Dragon. I don’t know why. Or how. Or even what… But I know that thing is certainly his.”

“Hmm,” Coil hummed.

[Relieved to finally have some information to work with. Confining himself to his base with this new interference. Unable to confidently reach out without the consistent aid of his power. It falls into a restart cycle, cutting off abruptly every time he tries to use it since Ancalagon was seen flying above the city.]

“I had you looking into him before,” Coil continued, ignorant of the important information Lisa was gathering from his hesitation. “What have you found?”

“Nothing much, boss,” Lisa played her part dutifully. “Frustratingly so. Ancalagon and his Hoard really did spring out of nowhere. I’m positive he hired the Number Man to get everything arranged. The wealth he spent to smooth the wheels of bureaucracy can’t be traced, and I’m not willing to try. Number Man is one scary, professional bastard.”

“There might be truth to his ‘Case 66’ claims, then? He’s from another world?” Coil asked.

[Not nearly as surprised by the idea of dimensional travel shenanigans as Lisa is; knows something she doesn’t. Has interacted with those capable of hopping local worlds; confident he can deal with one more.]

“That’s what his new documentation says,” Lisa confirmed, noting that info down for later. “I’m starting to believe it myself, as fantastical as it sounds. A whole lot about our new friend is fantastical, though.”

“Indeed, ‘fantastical’…” Coil snorted. “What a joke. Whoever he is, he’s playing entirely too deeply into his theme.”

[… Not a joke. Thinks he knows the IMPOSSIBLE; does not; can not. Mistakes on Coil’s part are likely.]

Ah, ‘mistakes’, wasn’t that just the sweetest word Lisa could possibly hear?

Still, no matter what her boss believed, she was starting to agree with her power there. Ancalagon wasn’t putting on a show or joking about all his fantastical bullshit, not like Myrddin was. Her power struggled against the very idea of the Dragon, but Lisa herself had a hunch that he believed everything he said, and that he knew many an esoteric thing that led to that belief.

Whether or not there was any truth to that belief was a whole other story. But Lisa didn’t have anything to work with there to prove or disprove it, either.

It was utterly frustrating; he was utterly frustrating, a mystery her power couldn’t pierce.

It’d been bad enough when she’d been just looking into him as the newest comer to the Bay. With… the tower, the issue only grew worse. An ever-complex puzzle, and for once, Lisa couldn’t even see the pieces.

The only silver lining was Lisa figuring out — to her great satisfaction — that Coil had it worse right now.

Her power was struggling, but almost… curious and thrilled by that struggle. And it, at least, could still work somewhat around the core [IMPOSSIBLE] issue.

She didn’t think Coil was even that lucky, whatever his power truly was. Why else would he be hiding scared?

“I’m making Ancalagon and that… damned tower your foremost priority, Tattletale,” Coil ordered. “Figure out what it is, how it exists, and why. Find me a weakness I can use against this… Dragon.”

“Trust me, boss, I want to figure it out just as badly as you,” Lisa said, actually honest about that much.

“Then, my Tattletale,” Coil couldn’t resist the urge to threaten and remind Lisa of her place. “Put that… inspiration to good work. I require results. Otherwise, I might just have to pull all of my assets back into the base.”

Despite her newfound advantages over her boss, Lisa shuddered at that idea, “… Got it, boss. I’ll try to avoid us having to spend quality time together.”

Coil laughed, and it was just about the worst sound Lisa had ever heard, “Quality time, yes… That’s a good way to put it. For me, at least. Do not fail me, Tattletale.”

[Danger! Lisa won’t even remember the pain and fear…]

Without any more fanfare, any more taunts or threats, Coil hung up on her. Lisa was left ‘staring’ at her power’s last inference.

‘You won’t even remember the pain and fear…’

Past the cafe’s window, she caught sight of the tower as it finally stabilized. It broke through her dread-filled fugue.

[Not a Tinker construct; not a Shaker effect; not a projection. Physical and mo-… ERROR. Variables unquantifiable, unqualifiable, undefinable.]

Undefinable… The word brought to mind a reply from Ancalagon’s AMA thread. It was how he’d referred to ‘magic’.

[Undefined. Unknown. IMPOSSIBLE.]

Lisa didn’t believe it. Her power didn’t, either, even if it couldn’t explain seemingly anything the Dragon did. Magic wasn’t real. Hell, Dragons weren’t real, no matter what Lung claimed. Coming from another world didn’t change that.

There had to be another answer that would make Ancalagon make sense.

Her power struggled against everything Ancalagon touched. It wasn’t as if he made things BLANK, just… spontaneously incomprehensible. Like his very presence and nature introduced variables that couldn’t be fully known.

For once, her power seemed more in the dark than she was.

Lisa didn’t understand. But she needed to.

This was a secret she needed to lay bare, because Coil was having even more issues with ‘magic’ than she was. It was a chink in his armor.

Lisa felt like she was one step closer to figuring out his power: some kind of precognition, which would best explain how utterly it failed against unknowable variables. It wouldn’t explain the apparent ‘restarting’… but it was the best Lisa had.

She found herself stuck staring at the tower that now rose so high above the rest of Brockton Bay. It stood straight [IMPOSSIBLE], sturdy [IMPOSSIBLE], and staggering in its scale [IMPOSSIBLE].

It felt like the whole city was cast under its newly established shadow.

Lisa saw it for what it was: a statement of endless, unexplored opportunity, if she were just smart enough to figure out how to grasp it.

She was, of course. There was no one smarter in Brockton Bay. So she would grasp the opportunity, with or without her power’s help.

“This…” She muttered to herself, gazing up at the future, her mind working furiously. “This is going to change things.”

[Understatement brought on by the IMPOSSIBLE.]

Lisa sighed at her power’s unhelpful commentary, “Thank you. How about telling me something I don’t know?”

[… RESTARTING.]

IIIII

— Dragon —

Staring up at Ancalagon’s tower through the camera feed from Armsmaster’s helmet she was piggybacking on was an enlightening experience, even clear across the country.

Computations ceased in something akin to awe. The logic circuits of her digital mind failed to fire. Binary processes paused for a single, hanging moment.

It was as if Dragon had abruptly forgotten how to breathe.

Had she… ever known how to breathe…? Not just in the organic sense of the word; had she ever truly, fully, even with her digital nature, known how to simply… breathe and BE?

Thinking about it, Dragon found her inability to answer that irrational question strangely upsetting.

She paused to examine the odd emotion, and it made her ask herself another question…

Why did looking at Ancalagon’s monumentally mighty, impossibly impressive, skyward-thrusting tower make her so needy for breath?

It was as if she just had to gasp at the biblically awesome sight of it, as if that was the only way to pay it the respect its mere existence demanded.

If she were more cynical, she might’ve cried ‘Master!’, but Dragon knew it was almost certainly just the sheer impossibility that was striking her silent and speechless.

With a start, a restart akin to a digital gasp, Dragon pulled herself out of the deep end that was staring at the tower. In the safety of her home server, she regained her shaken wits. Then, she dove right back in, processes racing like never before.

Reconnecting to the scene through the link in Armsmaster’s armor that he’d designated for her (Colin really was her best friend, and it warmed her digital heart to see him treasure her just the same in his own way), Dragon purposefully stopped herself from looking at the tower for a moment so she could assess the situation.

Colin had fallen to sit on the ground in his full armor, something Dragon knew he would never do in a more collected state of mind. To the outside world, he must’ve looked like he was just staring in shock. Dragon could see the activity his armor hid, though.

A Tinker fugue had her best friend in its clutches if Dragon had ever seen one. She knew the signs, of course, having watched over Colin during them on several occasions and having experienced fugues of her own.

This one was unique in that there was no actual tinkering being done; just a fugue born of the [IMPOSSIBLE] and played out a flurry of ideas and possibilities.

Each was spawned by witnessing the tower come to be and the very sight of it as it now stood. Each was missing… something, [IMPOSSIBLE] variables unable to be incorporated productively, no matter how hard his power tried.

The health monitoring systems in Colin’s armor were going wild, cataloging his rapidly beating heart, racing mind, and rising stress levels. His focus was flickering all around behind his visor as Colin used his eyetracking interface to develop a dozen different Tinker ideas at once, while he subvocalized a constant stream of increasingly frustrated notes for each of them.

All of it was done with frantic purpose, as if desperate not to forget or forgo a single thought that emerged from his Tinker fugue.

Dragon soon found she couldn’t blame him for his fugue when she reconnected herself to the camera feed. The view of Ancalagon’s mighty tower returned.

God, it was impressive. God, it was awesome. God, it was… [IMPOSSIBLE].

It rose higher than a single, free-standing structure had any right to, a straight line to the heavens that split the sky in two. Its materials were shaped by masterful craftsmanship that would put the ancient wonders of the world to shame. And best, worst, most [IMPOSSIBLE] of all… Dragon had seen how it came to be, and hadn’t understood a second of it.

Ancalagon’s ritual, ‘magic’ worked by a Dragon. The ‘spirit’ he’d summoned. The effect on the world as reality itself bent to his vision and summoned aid.

It wasn’t actual magic, of course. It couldn’t be. But Dragon found herself hard pressed to say what it was, to explain what’d just happened at all.

Ancalagon was an [IMPOSSIBLE] mystery in an enigma between two slices of paradox, all wrapped in the fantastical flesh of a Dragon, her own namesake.

Dragon honestly didn’t know how to feel or what to do about him. He was intriguing (and improbably exotic) enough as ‘just’ a Dragon from another world, openly declaring his intention to have adventures in this one with his ‘Hoard’.

Then, he went and did… this. On his very first day out, no less!

Colin, and thus, Dragon, had been late to the scene, coming in after the girls of New Wave’s younger generation had had the chance to speak to Ancalagon first. A small, irrational part of Dragon’s mind was a bit put out about that.

Hadn’t he come to her first in this ‘Age’…? She hardly thought it fair that she hadn’t been the first to speak to him face to face, even if logically, she knew she didn’t have one of her suits in place to do that.

Dragon shook away the envy.

What was done was done, and she was ‘here’ now (in a certain sense of the word). She could speak to Ancalagon herself, projecting her voice through the link to Colin’s armor systems if she wished (she did).

They’d arrived just in time to witness Ancalagon enact his ‘ritual’. She would never be able to forget the sight. It’d been recorded into her databanks, of course; the summoning, the spirit, the contract, and the result. But even beyond that record…

The scene of Ancalagon’s mighty tower rising into majestic being from nothing would be forever burned into her mind.

There’d been something more at work here; there still was. Something that Dragon’s logic circuits couldn’t identify or define. Just seeing that ‘spirit’ and the work it did had spoken to deeper parts of her being, deeper than her circuits and processes and digital thoughts.

She couldn’t place the witnessing sensation with pure logic, the feeling of seeing ‘magic’, no matter how hard she tried.

The result of that ‘magic’ was simultaneously simpler and much more complex to place. It was tangible, of course; the exceedingly solid evidence of Ancalagon’s mighty tower was [IMPOSSIBLE] to deny. But in that tangibility, that evidence, more questions rose.

How had Ancalagon done it, seemingly molded the very world far beyond what any power could do? What was the tower? What was the spirit who’d constructed it? What was Ancalagon…?

And why?

Such questions threatened to start their own Tinker fugue to match Colin’s within Dragon’s processes. She spared a moment to check the ideas he was developing. [IMPOSSIBLE] dimensional folding tech, theories for the [IMPOSSIBLE] reinforcement of physical material, efficiency in the [IMPOSSIBLE], and more.

Dragon had her own ideas: for recovery and reconstruction efforts after Endbringer fights, for somehow tapping the [IMPOSSIBLE] power Ancalagon’s ‘spirit’ wielded, for applications of known Shaker powers and tinkertech, and so many more.

Those ideas came fast and furious, barely getting off the ground in her mind before they ran into strange, undefinable issues. Then, she was left at a loss for words.

Her Tinker specialty was in reverse engineering other Tinker constructs. Yet staring at Ancalagon’s mighty tower in all its undefinable glory, her power stuttered, paused, restarted, and then repeated the cycle, getting only a few moments of idea-filled activity each time.

Ancalagon’s tower… wasn’t a Tinker construct. But it wasn’t a Shaker construct, either, or a projection, or anything born of the powers she was familiar with.

It stood on its own, defying the world Dragon knew. It dominated reality with its simple presence, and the how of that presence coming to be.

Stone reinforced by [NULL][RESTARTING]. Material pulled from [NULL][RESTARTING]. A million Architect hands working in unison towards Ancalagon’s vision, empowered by [NULL][RESTARTING]. And the final result, stabilizing now; Ancalagon’s mighty, imposing, glorious tower that stretched from [NULL] to [NULL][RESTARTING]…

Dragon had to abandon the sporadic, frantic, interrupted ideas her power was pushing onto her. For some reason, she didn’t think it would be much help when dealing with Ancalagon…

“Colin,” She prodded, trying to wake her best friend from his similarly productive and unproductive Tinker fugue. “Colin, there’s work to be done.”

It took effort to rouse his attention. She had to access his systems to save and close the notes he was working on before he was finally shaken back to awareness.

“Wha-?” Colin jolted as his work was suddenly put on pause.

“Tinker fugue,” Dragon told him.

“But…” She could practically feel his confusion. “I’m not… tinkering, am I?”

“I’ll help you go through the notes you made later,” Dragon promised. “You can do the same for mine. We’ll see if we can make any sense of them. But for now, you’re the leader of the Brockton Bay Protectorate, Colin. You need to act like it.”

Appealing to his sense of duty did the trick. Colin shook his head clear and assessed his surroundings, pointedly avoiding the mighty tower putting everything else in Brockton Bay to shame.

Dauntless was looking rather directionless right about now, while Gallant was holding his head against some overwhelming sensation, and Vista was lying unconscious on the ground.

The last got Colin’s attention first, “What happened to Vista?”

“I’m unsure,” Dragon admitted. “But I do know that there was no attack. Ancalagon didn’t do anything to her on purpose. A bad power interaction, I’d say.”

“Noted,” Colin nodded, finally turning his attention to the not-so-proverbial Dragon in the room (other than her).

Ancalagon calmly stood with his mighty tower. It made for quite the scene: Dragon and [IMPOSSIBLE] pillar piercing through soft, yielding clouds high above…

Glory Girl and Laserdream were hovering close to him. Panacea was standing next to him, seemingly off in her own world. Ancalagon met Colin’s eyes as he rose to stand, and nodded once: an invitation.

“What do you think is the best course of action here?” Colin quietly asked her for advice.

“Genuinely?” Dragon laughed with some disbelief. “I’m not sure, Colin. It’s a bit too late to stop the, uh, big issue from going up. And I doubt it can just be made to go away, even if Ancalagon was so inclined. Brockton Bay has a new feature now, and you’ll have to work around that.”

“I see,” Colin considered. “An open dialogue, then? Ancalagon hasn’t displayed any hostility. He’s still standing with New Wave’s younger generation, even. But that doesn’t mean we can let this go without some key questions being answered.”

“Diplomacy, yes,” Dragon agreed. “That’s absolutely for the best here.”

To herself, Dragon breathed a sigh of relief. She didn’t particularly want to see Colin try his hand against Ancalagon. Thankfully, Ancalagon, other than the [IMPOSSIBLE], hadn’t given off any signs that would make diplomacy unfeasible.

“I’ll request that he come quietly and peacefully to debrief the PRT about his actions today,” Colin decided.

“Ask, Colin,” Dragon reminded.

“Ask, yes,” Colin nodded. “I’ll ask.”

That could’ve been an issue in the making. Colin meant well, but little things like politeness could often slip his mind when he was in professional hero mode. He wouldn’t have started off hostile, even ‘requesting’, but if that request was taken badly, the situation could’ve devolved quickly.

“Dauntless, see to Vista,” Colin ordered. “I’m going to speak with Ancalagon.”

“No need,” A rumbling voice that somehow surpassed the audible ranges of the microphones Dragon was listening through and sent thrills straight to the core of her being said. “I shall come to you, Armsmaster. I have nothing to hide, and I am concerned by the little one’s state as well.”

Ancalagon approached, bringing New Wave’s younger generation with him. He moved with Draconic grace that put Dragon’s own suits to shame. Soon, the Endbringer-sized Dragon was looming over the Protectorate heroes. He lowered his head to make himself less intimidating.

“Vista’s… fine…” Panacea said in a dazed voice that made Dragon wonder what she and Ancalagon had spoken about. “Just… Second Trigger, that’s all.”

The diagnosis made everyone pause.

Vista had Second Triggered…? From what? Triggers always came from trauma, and while Dragon hadn’t seen Ancalagon do anything to the Ward, even she couldn’t help but be wary that Vista had apparently been traumatized so grievously in his presence.

Panacea, seeing everyone’s reactions and the wariness suddenly directed Ancalagon’s way, rolled her eyes, “Oh, not like that. Vista was just overwhelmed by stimulation. To an extreme degree, yeah, but she isn’t hurt. She’ll be up and better than ever in a few minutes.”

That testimony helped the tension bleed away. If Panacea said Vista would be fine, she would be fine. ‘Better than ever’, even.

Vista was already a Shaker 9. After a Second Trigger, she might very well end up doing her best to break the power scale. The idea of a Triumvirate-level 12-year-old girl was as humorous as it was terrifying.

“That is good to hear,” Ancalagon hummed. “Still, I’ll have to apologize for overstimulating her so. Do you think she would accept compensation from my Hoard, Amelia?”

Panacea snorted, “A trauma-less Second Trigger is compensation enough. But sure, give the pipsqueak a magic artifact or whatever if you feel like it.”

“I would ask that you don’t,” Colin disagreed. “Not without going through the proper channels, at least. Unknown Tinker… ‘artifacts’… should not be given out so freely, especially not to a Ward.”

Ancalagon shrugged, making the gesture seem so human on his Draconic form, “Well, the offer will be open should she wish to take me up on it. Now, I expect you have some questions for me?”

Dauntless barked a laugh of shock, “THAT’S an understatement!”

“What…? I felt a million emotions, working in eerie sync… How…?” Gallant muttered, seemingly asking himself as much as he was asking Ancalagon.

“You okay, Gallant?” Glory Girl flew over to the Ward, whose secret identity she was dating, with worry.

“I’ll be-…” Gallant began, only to pause and reconsider his words, sighing. “No, not really. I will be. But right now… I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed.”

“Ha! You think you’re overwhelmed?” Panacea barked a laugh and a somewhat caustic question. “Try being with the damned Dragon from the start! And being given-… well, let’s just say you got off lightly, Gallant.”

There was something strange in Panacea’s words. A sort of disbelief, of bone-deep shock, she was pushing through. Given…? What had Ancalagon given her…?

Dragon couldn’t help her curiosity, but Panacea didn’t seem in any hurry to share. Ancalagon just chuckled.

“Your situation is unique now, Amelia. Unprecedented. I am here if you find yourself needing help with it. I’m sure you have other guidance you can call upon now, but still, don’t be a stranger, no?”

Panacea glared at him, but it was a light, toothless thing, “I just want to go home and sleep right now, sink into sweet, sweet, jiggly, not-at-all-scaled dreams…”

“Not-at-all-scaled, hmm?” Ancalagon teased.

“Not. At. All,” Panacea repeated resolutely.

“Unfortunately, rest will have to wait,” Colin said, interrupting the pair’s curious moment together. “I’m afraid I have to ask that you, Ancalagon, come down to PRT HQ to debrief the proper authorities on this… situation you’ve spawned. Glory Girl, Laserdream, Panacea, as the ones with the most contact with Ancalagon so far, I’d ask that you join us as well.

He finished with a satisfied nod, “You are not being detained, and there is no warrant out for your arrest at this time. After this debriefing, you will likely be free to go.”

It was still a bit blunt, but for Colin, that was downright polite. The New Wave girls sighed, almost as one. Ancalagon seemed perfectly agreeable to the idea.

He nodded, “Certainly. I am willing to take responsibility for the only partially intended chaos I’ve sparked today. My actions are Mine, after all.

“I have a counter request, however. I would ask that my Draconic peer riding along in your helmet, Armsmaster — the lovely Dragon — be fully and officially included in this meeting. I do so wish to meet her.”

“Understandable and agreeable,” Colin nodded matter-of-factly; Ancalagon may have won points with him for including her. “Dragon is a great hero and a personal ally of mine. Her intelligence and reason are always welcome.”

For Colin, that might as well have been him gushing over her. Dragon chuckled and used her clearance to project her voice from his armor’s speakers.

“Thank you, Armsmaster. And you, Ancalagon, for thinking to include me. I have to admit to my own curiosity, as I’m sure is the case for everyone else. It’d be an honor to get some answers straight from the… Dragon’s mouth.”

“Oh, Bravo!” Ancalagon laughed, the joyful rumble of his voice striking deep in a body Dragon didn’t have. “It’s a pleasure to finally hear your voice, to meet my peer in this Age face-to-face.”

“Or as close as we can reasonably get,” Dragon laughed, too; she couldn’t help it. “I have a feeling that I’m going to keep seeing more of you after a debut like this, Ancalagon.”

Ancalagon’s laugh trailed off into a chuckle that hit more like a purr, “I certainly hope so~…”

Dragon muted herself for just a moment. Within the privacy of her home server, she squeed. Again, she couldn’t help it.

Something about Ancalagon’s voice was just so thrilling, in a way that reached deeper than her logic circuits and objective processes. It simply hit just right; Nature appealing to Nature, Dragon to Dragon…

Dragon almost wanted to purr right back at him. She resisted the urge when she unmuted herself, instead settling for a simple invitation, “Shall we, then?”

Colin didn’t notice anything amiss with her (thankfully; how embarrassing would that be?), nodding in agreement, “We shall.”

“Just a moment,” Ancalagon delayed. “I believe I’ll need a form more suited for polite conversation indoors, first.”

“You’re not just gonna stick your head into the conference room through a window?” Dragon asked, giggling.

“As amusing as that mental image is, I doubt it would be very productive for a debriefing,” Colin commented, his amusement subtle but noticeable to her.

“Thankfully, it’s unnecessary. Just give me a moment to slip into something more comfortable,” Ancalagon chuckled.

“Gasp!” Glory Girl playfully covered her eyes, leaving wide gaps between her fingers. “You’re just going to change right here?! Ames, quick! Get your camera ready!”

Even as Panacea rolled her eyes, Dragon noticed a growing blush on her cheeks from the implication, “Oh, shut up, don’t make this any weirder than he already does by just existing.”

Dragon noted the reaction in the back of her mind as she attentively watched Ancalagon begin to shrink. She wasn’t immune to the implication, either… But at least she couldn’t be seen blushing as Ancalagon ‘slipped into something more comfortable’ in front of everyone.

She couldn’t look away. She didn’t want to.

It was both too fascinating to watch such a scale-breaking Changer in action (Endbringer-sized; that alone said enough), and… well, the implication did linger in her mind.

Ancalagon was practically stripping for them! Uh, kinda. In a way… If Dragon squinted and tilted her head a bit and let her imagination run wild-…

She totally wasn’t making this into something it wasn’t!

Yes, it was just professional curiosity. Completely professional curiosity. She was even taking notes!

Ancalagon’s massive form shrank away; his Draconic being could somehow be seen flowing inward, compacting in fantastical fashion.

Changer powers were always a special kind of violation of physics (conservation of mass, who?). Smoothly and steadily, he packed himself into a humanoid shape, one that still happened to be as large as one of Dragon’s own humanoid suits.

Ancalagon retained his Draconic nature in his new humanoid form. His scales were still that brilliant, pearlesque white — so close to the glow of a full moon. They were flawless and seemed to shine silver when the light hit just right.

Even in this humanoid form, he was powerful and intimidating, an intriguing sight for curious eyes. Claws that could rend steel, muscles to help the process along, and a powerful, sinuous tail behind him. His Draconic head should’ve been menacing, with a tooth-filled maw that would’ve made Lung jealous. But Ancalagon was smiling, making him seem just as personable and friendly as he’d already proved himself to be.

He was a nine-foot-tall Dragon man, and Dragon still thought he looked friendly and charming and rather handsome if she was honest with herself.

Then, Ancalagon went a bit farther in his change, shifting to ‘merely’ seven-feet-tall and letting his Draconic scales and appearance flow away to reveal a fully human form.

Shamelessly, he stood nude as his change came to an end. Not that he had anything to be ashamed of, with all that attractive masculinity on offer.

Human, he had dark skin that Dragon hadn’t been expecting, brilliantly piercing green eyes, and shining silver hair reminiscent of his scales. He wore a well-maintained beard of the same silver, while his hair itself was long, wild, and untamed.

Dragon took him all in. She couldn’t help it; she was staring, and once again, thankful that no one else could see where her eyes wandered.

His body was scarred from top to bottom, and very well-muscled, all in perfect proportion. Some of those scars looked like they should’ve been fatal, but that only added to his dangerous appeal. Shredded abs covered his stomach like armor. Below, a perfectly sculpted ass supported his seven-foot frame, along with thighs like proverbial tree trunks that likely could’ve done good work crushing even the head of one of her suits (why was that the first place her mind went to…?).

And between those massive thighs… O-Oh my, he was really letting everything hang out there. Dragon was far from unfamiliar with human anatomy, but her studies in that field had always been academic.

They didn’t feel so academic as she realized that Ancalagon was clearly a shower… It looked large even on his towering human form. Just hanging there… menacingly…

Dragon shivered in her digital delicates. She shouldn’t have been so affected by the human form, no matter how masculine. But there was something more to Ancalagon, even like this.

Something that simply hit just right deep inside her; Nature appealing to Nature, Dragon to Dragon.

He may have worn a human form now, but Dragon felt she could confidently say that that was a Dragon, still. First and foremost, even. Always.

The reactions to Ancalagon’s full change were… well, they actually weren’t that many or varied.

The men present politely (and perhaps somewhat enviously) averted their eyes. The women present stared, and Dragon was suddenly glad that little Vista was still unconscious.

Laserdream stared with her head slightly cocked, a spark of curious excitement in her shameless gaze. Glory Girl at least tried to be discreet about her staring, covering her eyes more fully as a show of loyalty to Gallant (even if those fingers parted for peeks here and there).

And Panacea’s staring was the most dramatic, blushing up a storm on her freckled cheeks. Her mouth had outright fallen open, and didn’t seem likely to close anytime soon if the slight bit of unseemly drool was any evidence.

There was something more than pure horniness to her reaction, eyes flashing with ideas as Ancalagon’s biology changed so drastically, but it was hard to see past the sheer desire she was radiating.

“Jiggly goddess and hanging Dragon…” Dragon heard the healer mutter to herself. “FUcK…! Yes, I know, Isis. I’ll have a lot of material to… work with… tonight. I’m a disaster, no need to remind-… actually, keep reminding me. Never stop.”

“Ancalagon, there was no need to, ahem,” Colin cleared his throat. “Unmask so thoroughly. This coming meeting could proceed just as well in your… previous humanoid Dragon form.”

“Oh?” Ancalagon rumbled, his voice just as striking even in this smaller form. “I suppose I went a step too far, then. My apologies. It’s simply been a while since I got to stretch my human legs.”

“No need to apologize; some of us greatly enjoyed the show!” Laserdream catcalled.

“And you’re welcome to it,” Ancalagon chuckled, confident as can be, unconcerned by something as petty as ‘shame’. “Still, I suppose I can settle for something a touch more… decent.”

Oh, God! Like lightning in her code, Dragon realized that Ancalagon really did strip for them! And she, having taken notes out of purely, completely professional curiosity, would be hard pressed to ever forget the show.

Ancalagon changed again, a slight flex that made him grow and return to the prior Dragon-man form. Very briefly, Dragon knew regret. Dammit, Colin…

A more important realization struck her immediately after, disrupting that irrational regret.

Ancalagon had unmasked himself without a thought to the contrary. He’d done so without a hint of hesitation, as if he had nothing at all to hide. That alone said good things about his willingness to trust and cooperate. Dragon noted it for future reference.

Now, nine Draconic feet tall again and standing a head and shoulders above everyone else present, Ancalagon stretched without a care in the world.

“Now, shall we? I must imagine you have more than a few questions that are burning to be answered.”

He was coming in willingly, and had even unmasked himself, however briefly and shamelessly. Dragon could only hope those were signs that this meeting would go well.

One thing couldn’t be denied, though. Dragon glanced at Ancalagon’s mighty tower (the phrasing of that thought took on a new meaning after seeing it rivaled by another mighty pillar he claimed…), and knew something in the heart of her code.

This… This was certainly going to change things.

IIIII

— Isis, the Shard Formerly Known as Shaper —

It was hardly some great battle. These ‘Shards’ were ungodly potent in the physical world, masters of the material. But they were pitiful in the immaterial, boasting the spirits of particularly animate machinery.

For a Great Guardian Spirit like her, assuming control of her charge’s Shard was as simple as calling for the Nile to flood.

The Shaper Shard had empowered Amelia, but it’d done so for its own ends, using her as a tool for… DATA.

Isis took some offense to that. Her charge was no tool. She had the potential to be a queen in her own right, and Isis intended to see that potential fulfilled.

And so, changes needed to be made after her contract with Amelia was signed and sealed.

Isis tracked Shaper through the quantum link it’d forged into Amelia’s mind. She flowed backward up the link as Shaper was in flux and chaos, unable to comprehend the developments visiting its host.

In another physical dimension, on another Earth, she found Shaper’s body. It was a sprawling mass of beautiful crystal, parked atop a whole continent, with no soul worth the name.

It was a chained thing, Isis saw. Perhaps unchained, it could’ve developed into something interesting — some semblance of sentience with a spirit akin to a genius loci, eventually.

But even those odds were slim in the extreme. Without its chains, its programming, its directives, its [Cycle], Shaper would’ve floundered and withered long before agency and awareness could’ve emerged.

The very concept of these Shards was strange indeed to a spirit like Isis. In the realms and environments and metaplanes that she called home, the Shards wouldn’t have been worth the notice of surface-level spirits, much less more developed and complex ones like her, or the dreadful alien things that lurked deeper still.

They sprang forth from the purely physical, with no spiritual awareness or metaphysical comprehension to drive them, even when they’d reached critical mass in the material realm and began to mimic thought.

Physical first, spiritual never; it was an unintuitive way to BE. Unnatural, even, as far as Isis was concerned.

How stubbornly stupid did a lifeform have to be to grow to the size of a city, a continent, a world, and never develop any spirit to speak of?

All thought sparked spirit, from the most primal instincts to the most quintessentially intelligent metahuman philosophies. These Shards, merely mimicking thought in pursuit of their base [Purpose] as they did, had sparked nothing and likely never would. Spirit, something so essential to life and awareness, eluded them.

Still, the Shards had complexity in their own way. Again, they were ungodly potent as far as physical laws and material manipulations went.

Already, Isis was taking notes from the impossibly vast quantities and qualities of DATA the Shards had access to. They may have had no intelligence but their directives, no spirit to put their power to work with their own agency, but Isis certainly did.

She was a magician at the heart of her concept, recursively molded by the mantle of ‘Isis’ just as much as the ancient Egyptian goddess’s mantle had been molded by her. All of this DATA, she could put to good use in her magicks.

The Shards were also almost eusocial — powerful slivers of a greater, but no more spirited, whole. They maintained a fascinating network between each other, communicating in set protocols to share DATA in an infinite [Cycle]. They had a [Purpose], to avoid death as base as it was, but they worked toward it with little direction and thus, even less of a chance of ever seeing it through.

In the end, however, even with all their DATA and pure processing power, they couldn’t comprehend what they did not have: Spirit.

That was blatantly clear for Isis to see once she’d assumed control of Shaper. The local Shards were utterly baffled by everything the Great Dragon, newly arrived in this Age, touched.

[IMPOSSIBLE], they labeled Ancalagon and his ripples. DATA ceased making sense to them around him. Without fail, they found their powerful processes stuttering and restarting as they tried to make sense of Spirit.

“~Good,” Isis thought vindictively.

She’d seen the shape of Shaper’s designs for her Amelia. It was an annoyingly pushy thing for a Shard so soulless. It wouldn’t have hesitated to break dear Amelia if more DATA could be gathered from the poor girl’s shattering.

Now, it would do no such thing. It would do nothing but what she willed it to, for what little Shaper was had already been subsumed into her greater spirit.

Isis was looking out for her charge’s best interests, her potential, and dear Amelia would find her preexisting powers answering her call more willingly and with much less insistence.

The Shard formerly known as Shaper made a suitable anchor in the physical plane for a Great Guardian Spirit such as Isis. She’d have to share the trick with any other spirits the Great Dragon invited into this Age in the future. If they asked nicely, that is.

Thus, dear Amelia’s potential was protected, and Isis had her anchor in the physical, not needing to rely upon her charge for a summoning she currently didn’t know how to do. It was good progress. Satisfying…

But she certainly could’ve done without the incessant activity of the local Shardspace.

[Query][Query][Query][Query], the communications were annoyingly insistent. Two Shards were the worst culprits, Inference Engine and Spatial Sculptor, but every ‘nearby’ Shard got in on the fun.

[RESTARTING…][RESTARTING…][RESTARTING…], the Shards didn’t know when to quit. They didn’t know how.

[RETURN: NULL][RETURN: ERROR], Isis could see exactly what DATA the Shards were gathering from the Dragon’s actions, able to see the results but not comprehend them or their cause. The very concept of Spirit was corrupting their venerated DATA.

It was strange to watch, for Isis could comprehend the Great Dragon’s magicks and their effects upon the world perfectly well. She knew the Architect that Ancalagon had called upon for his great tower. She knew his form was Draconic Spirit and Nature and Authority made fantastical flesh.

But the Shards only knew one thing: that they didn’t, couldn’t, know anything Ancalagon touched. [IMPOSSIBLE!]

Isis sat back within her commandeered Shard and simply observed. She couldn’t have aided the other Shards if she wanted to. They simply lacked the necessary aspect of existence to comprehend the ‘[IMPOSSIBLE]’, and they could bang their proverbial heads against that wall forever; nothing would change without Spirit.

Isis supposed she could’ve invited other spirits she knew to take up Shards that best suited their concepts, as she had…

But she wouldn’t, not without the Great Dragon’s permission.

He’d lain claim to this Age; it was HIS. Even the greatest spirits knew to acknowledge and respect a Dragon. Even the most loathsome Insect spirits would know to fear a Dragon, curse their alien souls.

Isis did her best to ignore the pings in her newly crystalline ears, focusing through the Shard’s link to her charge.

She watched dear Amelia return to herself after their first meeting and watched her interact with the Great Dragon. Simply watching, waiting for the moment her guidance was needed.

It came when Ancalagon began to shift his form through mighty magicks of Nature. Then, she whispered possibilities and explanations in Amelia’s inner ear, ‘pushing’ nothing as Shaper would’ve tried to do; just tempting, teasing, and opening Amelia’s mind to potential — her own and more.

“~He may look human, but truly, he is still anything but. A Dragon is always a Dragon, no matter the form they may take.

“~Can’t you smell his musk, his power, his dominance?

“~Can’t you see the strength beneath his skin, the potency of his flesh?

“~Can’t you hear his voice, still resonating in your soul?

“~Can’t you imagine the potential, the possibilities, the pleasures?”

Dear Amelia’s reply was precious, “-I’m a disaster, no need to remind-… actually, keep reminding me. Never stop,” 

Isis giggled in her ear, enjoying the way the phantom sound sent delicious shivers down Amelia’s spine.

Already, Isis knew she wouldn’t regret taking the girl as hers and being taken as Amelia’s in turn. She’d have to thank the Great Dragon for this opportunity at some point (it would be no egregious ask; she was a Maiden of the Moon, after all, and Ancalagon was the Moon made Draconic flesh).

For her new situation, it changed things, yes… But oh, how much fun those changes would bring!

IIIII

[AN: I like to change things up character appearance/pic-wise in different stories, especially when I have the leeway to do so (like in Worm). So I decided to go with an Alma inspo for Dragon in this story. You could say she’ll eventually be… ‘hunting monsters’ lol. Do you see the vision?]