Scales like Stars Pt. 07

Author's Note: This is my 100th story. Or at least, nearly my 100th story. For every week for the past 100+ weeks, I have posted one or two stories. And through it all, I have been read by loads of people. All of you have been amazingly supportive - whether it was as simple as just coming back to read my stories time and again, or sending me a long critique about my writing, or just giving my story an honest rating at the end!

*****

Merton pinched the bridge of his nose as Brash snored atop his head.

"Run this by me again," he said.

"Okay," Lisa said. "Dragons originated on Earth as weapons of warfare and magical creations made by human wizards. One wizard decided to use them against his enemies, and the resulting war devastated the planet. It's probably what's behind pretty much every ancient flood and story of Atlantis and why every human culture in the world has art and legends about dragons. In the end, the wizards were dead and the dragons left behind a devastated planet and the mage-blind slaves. Us." She inclined her head slightly. "The dragons formed the Five Talon Empire-"

"Technically," Relix cut in, taking a pause from her snuggling of Merton. "They formed the Empires of Qesemat and Asamat, split between chromatic and metallic dragons. It was only after the Dragonstar Wars and the creation of the War Spheres that the Draconic Empire was formed under the Prismatic Throne. That was then stable until...well, by this point, I usually fell asleep during history class."

Then she went back to squeezing Merton's naked body. Merton smiled and hugged his wife back. Then he felt a bump and saw that Julia, his girlfriend, was pressing against his other side.

"Can I snuggle Merton too?" Brash asked, waking up.

"You're already his hat," Lisa said.

Brash gasped. "That is the most important job. Hats are the snuggles of the head."

"Quite," Lisa said, then shook her head. "Still, there was one survivor: The man who created the first chromatic dragons and set them to war. He fled here...and from his regrets created this place." She gestured around herself.

"Fuck me sideways," Merton said.

"Well..." Relix murmured, sounding tempted.

"Later, honey," Merton whispered.

"I'll bring the lube," Julia said, giggling.

Merton shook his head. "So, this is literally the Fortress of Regrets? And these shadow things are..." He looked down at the pile of obsidian monsters that he had been busily hacking up while Lisa and his wife had stumbled on the originator of this mysterious floating castle. In the vastness of prime negation, it had seemed to be an impossibility. Something where only nothing could exist. "What?"

"Her conscience," Lisa said, sighing. "What a guilt brain can do after a few thousand years of wallowing next to a pool of radiant energy. While also being the brain of an arch-mage that makes the most powerful draconic sorcerer look like Gandalf the Grey."

"Planescape and Phlan, Jesus Christ," Merton said, putting his hands to his face.

"What?" Trevor asked, frowning. "I usually get your fucking stupid references and in-jokes, but I'm lost."

"It's not important," Relix said, drawing her snout away from Merton's arm. "What is important is we get to Earth."

"...que?" Carlos asked.

Relix sighed and then slipped her arms around Merton's belly. Her scales rasped gently against his taut belly muscles and Julia took her chance to bury her face against Merton's abs. She started to lick him affectionately. Which reminded Merton to remember to ask her later how the flying fuck she had not only gotten magic, but also learned magic. But so many things had been happening so quickly that he felt like he was doing all right if he managed to keep abreast of the important stuff. Like the dragons. And the space politics. And the assassination attempts.

"If Earth is the homeworld of dragon-kind, and not Draconis Prime," she said. "Then there will be artifacts left of the old empire. Maybe we can find something that will give us an edge against the other dragon suits. Those were powerful enough to wipe out a dragon freehold." She shook her head. "There must be something left."

"After...what? Ten thousand years?" Lisa asked. "Not to mention, humanity has never found anything. Zip. Nada. Zilch."

"Where was Atlantis?" Carlos said. "If we never found it, maybe there are artifacts there?"

"...where could Atlantis possibly be?" Trevor asked, slapping the back of his head. "Man, if only there was some kind of Atlantic ocean to search!"

Carlos looked at Trevor, crossing his arms over his chest. "Dude. Trevor. You can't go looking in the obvious places. Where do you find your car keys? In the obvious place? No, you find them behind the couch."

"Uh, no, actually, I find my car keys in the place where I put them. Which is on the fucking counter, which is where everyone puts them!" Trevor snapped, his eyebrow twitching. "Listen, this is all insane. Why the hell would a ten thousand year old artifact do diddly to a modern starship? There's this historical myth called the dark ages, which is where most of fantasy fiction gets the ass-backwards idea that older stuff is better than newer stuff. Well, guess what, we aren't goths squatting in the Roman Empire wondering how they built aqueducts. Fuck. If we're going to Earth, we might as well go for the nukes."

"How many nukes could Earth possibly have?" Relix asked, sneering slightly.

"Twenty thousand," Merton said.

"Fifteen thousand," Lisa said.

"Between fifteen and twenty thousand!" Carlos said, cheerfully.

Relix blinked. "Oh. Right." She clearly had just remembered Merton and her's first meeting.

"Hey, question," Carlos said, lifting his hand. "What happened to the old wizard?"

Lisa shrugged, the strap on her laser rifle shifting along her shoulder. "I shot up the pool of radiant energy that was sustaining her life. It seemed like she was ready to go." She nodded. "Why?"

"Sooo...you...took the wizard whose regret keeps this place stable off life support?" Carlos asked. "Before we stabilized the portals so that they'd head to Earth?"

Lisa and Relix both blinked. And, with fantastic timing, the Fortress of Regrets took the cue. The ground heaved as if they were in a 7.5 earthquake, sending the few armsmen, Gunner, Speccy, and Merton's friends sprawling onto their backs and bellies with cries of alarm. Brash went soaring off of Merton's head with a squeal of delight, while Relix held Merton in place by by wrapping around him like a snake and plunging her tail into the ground as if it was an anchor. The shake was followed by aftershocks and a groaning, crashing, rending noise. Chunks started to fall from the metallic ceiling and Merton screamed.

"Back to the shiiiiiiip!"

Relix unwrapped and dragged him to his feet.

"Brash!" Merton shouted. "Help everyone!"

Brash flapped his wings, then dodged away from a massive head that fell from the ceiling, tumbling through the cracks as if some vast statue that had been part of an upper level had come spilling down. The head struck the ground with a tolling like a gong. Brash swept forward, his arms growing to absurd Schwarzenegger beef-slabs sticking out of his small, cat-like body. He scooped up Trevor and Lisa with a sweep. Carlos, keeping his feet with remarkable skill, grabbed onto Speccy and helped the four armed purple skinned engineer to her feet.

Gunner grabbed one of his armsmen and dragged the woman out and away from a tumbling chunk of wall slab which would have pancaked her.

The whole group rushed towards the airlock, which was starting to shake and jar free.

Merton looked over his shoulder - one last glimpse at something that had stood the test of time longer than any structure on the Earth had. He saw the darkness, lit patchily by the mage lights that Speccy had set up, being split by the deeper, purer blackness of the plane of negation. He could see those bizarre machines, crumpling as stones the size of small houses fell on them. He could see the floor dropping away like teeth from a kid with scurvy, dropping into blackness and infinity. He shook his head slightly, then leaped onto the airlock.

The door slammed shut behind him and the Talon-9 bucked as it skidded away from the Fortress of Regrets. He got to his feet in time to look out the airlock window and see the Fortress collapsing inwards, swirling and groaning as the chunks lost definition, becoming dust, and then tiny particles, all of them twisting on a whirlwind of destruction. At the center of it, he could see a sputtering, strobing light.

The debris fell inwards.

And then with an unceremonious pop and minute poof of smoke that dissipated nearly instantly, the Fortress was gone.

"Well," Relix said, sourly. "I guess we'll have to take the long way to Earth now."

"No," Merton said, shaking his head. "Learning the origins of dragons is interesting...but what we need to do is get to Draconis Prime and tell your father about the threat from House Byraugh, Xosh, and Forin before they make their move. Nothing on Earth can stop them, unless the ancients left some super weapon there."

"Like the draconic command words that let them control the entire species for millenia?" Lisa asked, her voice dry.

Merton paused.

"Fuck," he said, before pinching the bridge of his nose. "Speccy, where can our planar whipple shields bring us too?"

"They'll bring us right back where we started from," Speccy said, brushing some dust from her shoulder as the inner door of the airlock opened and each of them started out into the corridor.

Julia chuckled, quietly. "So, in other words, right back into the guns of House Byraugh."

"Essentially," Speccy said, frowning. "There is an advantage. This detour has given our subspace drive time to refresh itself. If we arrive and instantly translate to subspace, we'll get away." She paused. "If only we had our ablative wish armor."

"You know," Trevor said, sourly, crossing his arms over his chest as he glared at Lisa. "If only someone hadn't murdered the ancient archmage."

Lisa glared right back at him.

"No," Speccy said. "Even with a wizard of the 17^th level or higher, we'd still need a hundred and fifty thousand credits worth of diamond. Even with our nanofabricator, we couldn't produce that much without finding a planet or asteroid." She shook her head. "We need to find another way to survive the few seconds it'll take to arrive, chart the course, then drop into subspace."

They all went silent.

Thinking.

"We could go to Sigil?" Carlos suggested.

"Sigil?" Speccy asked.

"Uh, it's the city at the center of the multiverse?" Carlos said, blinking. "It sits at the top of an infinitely high spire in the middle of the Outlands. Ruled by the Lady of Pain? It's a place where everyone talks like a cockney gangster and beats each other up over definitions of the universe. Nice place, really."

"Never heard of it," Speccy said, frowning. "But draconic exploration of the Outer Planes is...minimal at best."

"Why? Not enough gold?" Trevor asked, still sour.

"Yes," Speccy said, half distracted. "We can recalibrate our planar whipple shields for the outer realms and arrive in the Outlands. Then we fly for Sigil and find a portal back to our universe? Is that what you're suggesting?"

Carlos shrugged. "We mage-blind slaves seem to have some knack to guessing what's up. Might as well. Worst thing that happens is we're in the afterlife with nukes. That sounds funny as hell."

Speccy, Relix, and Gunner all looked at Merton. Merton realized that they had actually started to think of him as a leader. It would have been funny if it didn't also make his gut knot like a pretzel. But since he was the one here...he gulped and nodded, his hand sliding up and down Relix's back, his other arm looped around Julia's shoulders. Holding the two of them relaxed him. Centered him. He nodded again, more firmly.

"Lets do it."

***

Merton sprawled in bed, his eyes closed, feeling the adrenaline of the past few hours ebb from his body, like tides slurping down drains. That was a mixed metaphor, but on the other hand, fuck off, Merton was tired. As he lay there, the door opened and he felt a warm body thump across his belly. Merton wheezed and sat up - and saw Julia sprawled across him, as if they were a sexy, humanoid + sign. Though finally, he had some fucking pants on. That was nice.

"Oh!"

Brash landed on Julia's butt and curled up there, like a kitten. "I claim this butt for dragon kind."

"Welp," Julia said, her voice muffled. "You heard him, Merton. Relationship over, I'm a dragon's pet now."

"Yay!" Brash cheered, then sobered. "W-Wait, no, I don't want you to stop nose nuzzling!" To demonstrate this, he shifted to his humanoid boy form and rolled off of Julia, with the side effect of mashing Merton back onto the bed, since he now had a girl on his belly and a dragon-boy on his chest.

"Why am I under at least two people?" Merton asked, his voice muffled by Brash's hip.

"Because Speccy is a slave driver. Who knew that sneaking into the biotech lab and secretly giving myself magical powers would lead to some kind of ramifications?" Julia asked.

"Gasp!" Brash said. "Ramifications? They're my least favorite kind of ifications! My favorites are centaurification, girlification, goldification..."

"Brash..." Merton said, slowly, his voice constricted. "Why is your favorite centaurification?"

"Cause centaurs are cute and also, if you have the biggest dong, they'll be like, 'yay, you have a dong of exactly the right size, for I am a horse!'" Brash said, cheerfully. He was still sprawled on Merton's chest. "Also, you should bang!"

"We should bang," Julia said. "Save that I've been dumping level one spell slots into the whipple shields to start the re-calibration process. By the way, Speccy says we should be heading out within the hour."

Brash snorted. "I'll use magical powers to make you all excited for sexy times!"

"But I'm tired too, Brash?" Merton said.

Brash scoffed. "That's why I, Brash, am here to help you!"

"Brash, wa-" Merton started - but it was too late. The by now very familiar feeling of Brash's body enfolding and connecting to his swept Merton from head to toes. The click in his ears was almost missed in the sudden rush of energy that surged through Merton. He wondered how Brash was doing that. The first thought was gross, but effective: He was likely circulating Merton's blood and hormones through his dragon body, and using the natural regenerative powers of a dragon to clean out fatigue toxins. The end result was that it only took six heart beats for Merton to feel as perky as if he had snorted a line of cocaine.

Space cocaine.

The third most addictive form of cocaine. Right after snuggle cocaine! Which was totally a thing!

"Brash, are you influencing my thoughts?" Merton asked, his hands going to his muzzle and rubbing against his eyes.

"...no..." Brash said, sounding guilty. "That's...natural...wibbly...interference from...snuggle fields..."

Julia had rolled off of Merton's lap. Looking down at her, Merton felt the normal rush of love and happiness that seeing Julia inspired in him. He might also be feeling feelings for Relix - though they hadn't had time to talk about them since the Ouster raid - but Julia had been with him longer. And seeing her lithe perfection transformed from words on a screen to real life (with a slight detour into "finding out she was trans and hadn't transitioned yet"-ville) was enough to send Merton's heart racing. His cock hardened and he gulped as he saw the unique, draconic shape of it. Red, with ridges along the bottom edge, and a triangular tip, already welling with eagerness.

Julia's tongue flicked along her lips as she looked his cock.

"Want me to, uh...spice it up?" Brash whispered in Merton's ear.

"How so?" Merton rumbled as he watched Julia pull her arms under her body and push herself up to her hands and knees. Julia crawled forward, her rump in the air, giving her a sleek, kittenish look. Her tongue darted along her lips and Merton felt his dick getting even harder.

"Well, we're a living, breathing, shapeshifting fuck machine. I can add more dicks. Or less dicks, if you wanna be a lady! Or I could add an aphrodisiac to our pre-cum, so one lick will drive Julia so wild that you'll have to fuck her into the deck to get her satiated. What's your favorite?"

"Julia," Merton said around a clenched jaw, his fingers digging into the matress underneath him as he tried to keep from just pouncing on her. Her lips touched the firm scales of his balls and she shivered slightly as she slipped her tongue between his nuts, her eyes fluttering shut as she breathed in his musk. Part of him wondered if she was already drugged - but she merely drew her mouth back and whispered, huskily.

"Yeah?"

"Do you want, uh, an aphrodisiac? On my cock?" Merton asked. "Our...cock? Is this technically a threesome?"

"Technically, it's an awesomesome," Brash said, loud enough for Julia to hear it.

"I'm not sure what the proper terminology is for a fuck-session with a dude, a girl, and his kamui," Julia said with a wicked grin.

"A god robe?" Brash asked, sounding confused.

"You speak Japanese?" Julia drew her head away from the bright red cock that she had started to quietly lick - more like a kitten than a girl getting ready for a blowjob.

"Well, I am a dragon," Brash said, sounding smug. "But seriously, what is a kamui?"

Merton bit his lip, then closed his eyes and thought everything he knew about the anime Kill la Kill at Brash. He remembered being able to select targets and such with a thought. And Brash had already demonstrated an ability to do information retrieval, considering he had pulled several songs from Merton's iPod and played them in Merton's head. A moment later, he heard Brash gasp. What happened next was utterly disquieting and completely discombobulating. Merton felt as if his entire body had been grabbed. But it wasn't just his skin. No.

His bones felt as if something had them in a vice grip. He felt his heart beating against the pressure of a wrapping that didn't penetrate his skin, and yet managed to enfold his every organ. It was not painful, but it was weird as fucking hell. Then the grip shifted and squirmed and within a few seconds, he felt as if bits of him had been tossed into the air and juggled. Again. No pain. But in the same way that a dentist picking at plaque isn't painful, but still feels weird as hell...this felt weird as hell.

He screamed the whole way.

And thus, he was able to hear his voice stretch up the register, like Captain Rhodes from Day of the Dead.

From the scene where zombies tore his head off while he was screaming at the top of his lungs.

Yeah.

Again, not painful.

But it still left Merton panting as he sat on the bed, blinking.

"Tada!" Brash said, cheerfully.

"Oh. My. God." Julia had drawn back, her jaw hanging open. Merton stood stock still, shivering, looking at a fringe of black that hung before his head. He normally cut his hair pretty short, since he hated bangs. But now he had them. Then his brow furrowed and he saw a band of...red. In his hair. His hands went to his head and he saw he was wearing a thick red glove on one hand and a red wrist band on the second. Also, his fingers were...not dainty. But they were a fuck of a lot thinner.