The Divine Gambit Ch. 09

With nothing better to do, I went and sat on one of the stationary bikes and started pedaling while I thought about how exactly I wanted to approach Zoey. She was a security advisor for one of the most influential people in the world; Perhaps I should just be direct and ask her what happened and why she reacted as she did? On the other hand, she was still a teenage woman, no matter how much development I had missed after leaving for college. I should probably try to approach it more delicately.

I was so invested in trying to construct a plan that I wasn’t aware of the twenty minutes passing until Zoey was standing directly in front of me. Even then, I wasn’t aware who it was until she placed her hand on mine. Then I was completely startled and reflexively jumped in response, hard enough to nearly knock myself off the seat.

“Hey, James. Are you in there? I called your name like five times.” Usually, that sentence would’ve been spoken with a lighthearted affectation, but Zoey was already reticent.

I rubbed my surprisingly sweaty face to try and capture some control over my thoughts. “Yeah, sorry, I’ve had a hectic week. Listen, before we get started today, could we talk?”

A flash of icy terror shivered through the statuesque woman before she clamped down on her emotions. Her voice was robotic and impersonal, uninviting of any connection, “No. Not now. Not here. I don’t mean to blow you off, but not here.”

I figured that was reasonable enough. I wouldn’t exactly want to have this conversation in my office.

“Alright, I understand. What are we doing today?”

“Legs. Squats, Calf Extensions, Stiff Leg Deadlifts. After that, some ab isolations and half an hour of HIIT cardio.”

I slowly slipped off the bike and followed her to one of the racks to start our Herculean workout. We started light and gradually worked up, alternating sets. The height difference caused our starting positions to differ to prevent adjusting every set – I used a deep low bar, and she took a very high bar approach. She observed every attempt I made carefully, giving slight adjustments and comments about my form.

She was incredible to watch. We worked up to 405 for several triples, wildly beyond what I had done in my previous life and an amount that definitely would’ve gotten a few second glances in a public, commercial gym. Add in that it was done effortlessly by a lean, lithe woman, and every head in an average gym would’ve been watching. Still, Zoey seemed distracted, moving at half speed, and not invested in her own workout. She was critical of my attempts but unfocused on her own.

Eventually, we moved on, continuing to the secondary exercises for the day. More volume, lighter weight, less rest but lower intensity. Still here, Zoey continuously advised me on slight changes she thought I should make. Whenever I asked a question, she had practical reasoning behind her suggestions. As the workout progressed, I realized I had one of the most knowledgeable instructors dedicated to helping me achieve my goals. In this domain, she was equivalent to Antonin. Aisling had indeed assigned her best.

During every exercise, after we had finished with squats, Zoey would walk off every few minutes. After the third time this happened, I was curious, so I watched her. The fourth time, I observed her as she went and talked with another girl. The other girl was remarkably forgettable. She was lean but not muscular, neither particularly tall nor noticeably short, her features plain but not ugly, and her shoulder-length brown hair fell straight in an unexceptional manner. Out of everything I saw, there was only one thing that I would remember.

Her eyes. Brown, unadorned with framing makeup, they would otherwise be unassuming. Instead, they were inhospitable and proficient. When she talked with Zoey, her sharp eyes roamed the gym floor, moving in a pattern from spot to spot with an intensity and purpose I didn’t understand. When they met mine, they focused further and lingered even as she kept speaking. I returned to my lifts, eager to remain inconspicuous for as long as possible. Those eyes scared me.

As we procedurally worked through the remaining exercises Zoey had decided on, she continued talking with the other girl. Eventually, I was left with only a HIIT segment on a bike, and as it was already set up as one of the programs, Zoey departed. It was a grueling affair in its own right, and I had just completed the most intense leg-focused workout of my entire life. Ultimately, I was heavily sweating, breathing laboriously, and very fatigued. I spent the last few minutes fantasizing about cuddling with Beth in the tub when I got home, hoping that imagining a reward would be enough incentive to complete the workout.

The timer beeped, and I coasted into a relaxing cooldown period. I closed my eyes and focused on gaining control over my breathing, my legs gliding through the reduced intensity pedaling on autopilot. After several minutes, Zoey and the forgettably intimidating girl walked over to me. I got hints of curiosity from the new girl, mixing with some trepidation and caution.

Zoey introduced her with the distastefully professional manner she had adopted for our interactions, “James, this is Corporal Mallory Serrano. I’ve asked her to assist with your instruction because she’s more familiar with the next steps than I am.”

The tawny-haired woman smiled, but it didn’t reach her calculating eyes. She was still focused on evaluating me.

“Honestly, Zoey, I don’t even know what the next steps are, but I trust you to do what needs to be done.”

“We need to get you to shift into your other form completely and then to grow used to manipulating your wings. I’m sorry to admit that I still don’t know what you are — I should’ve asked that on Tuesday, but... If you’re not a were, what are you?”

I scratched my head and offered a pained smile to indicate my discomfort. “It feels weird to tell you if you haven’t been briefed already, but you’ll find out when you get me to change, anyway, so it should be fine. I’m a dragon.”

Mallory laughed, assuming that I was joking. Her eyes refocused a moment later when I didn’t join her laughter. Zoey’s colorless eyes were opened wide in dismay, her mouth slightly ajar.

“Wait, you’re serious? Aren’t there only like five in the whole world?”

I nodded, “Yeah, six now.” I gave them my uncomfortable smile and asked, “So, I’m done biking. What are the next steps that Mallory is needed for?”

Zoey recovered enough to answer, and she gestured towards the far wall, “We’re going to take the elevator to the basement. There’s an Olympic-sized swimming pool there that I’ve reserved for the next two hours. We’re going to see if you can fully shift while in the pool and get used to moving around in your other body in a place where it’s safe to do so without endangering yourself or your surroundings. If that goes well, and you can shift, Mal’s going to guide you through some swimming drills to simulate wing movement while flying, so you can get some practice without having to actually fly.”

Mallory nodded slightly and said, “I’m a werebat and a scout for the security forces. Most fliers are.”

“That sounds incredibly reasonable. Lead the way.”

On our way to the elevator, I grabbed my bag from one of the diminutive day lockers in the entranceway. We entered the elevator and rode to the basement in silence. When the doors opened, the incredibly familiar scent of chlorine filled my lungs and made me slightly nostalgic. I was glad to be doing this for the first time in a pool, an environment I was intimately comfortable with.

Zoey pointed out the men’s changing room and said, “Leave your stuff in there. Wear your towel out; don’t bring anything else. I know it’s awkward, but you’ll just ruin anything you wear.”

I nodded, familiar with that from when I destroyed my shirt growing wings, and walked into the locker room. I stripped off my sweaty clothes and left them on the wooden bench to air out and dry. If Zoey had reserved the entire pool for the next two hours, no one would come around to be bothered by my selfish behavior. I slid my bag into one of the lockers, wrapped the towel around my waist, and took the steps up to the pool deck.

I was impressed by the facilities I saw when I opened the door to the deck. It was a genuine Olympic pool, with eight lanes of fifty meters. The lane lines had been removed, and the pristine surface of the water appeared like a mirror with its peaceful serenity. I was the only one on the deck, and only the hum of the maintenance machines and pumps joined me. The lady's locker room was on the other side of the pool, near the shallow end, so I crossed the pool deck and sat down on the pool's edge with my legs in the water. The ripples reflected out across the entire surface of the pool as I waited for my instructors to join me.

Sitting on the poolside, I realized I could hear a discussion from the lady's changing room.

Mallory’s voice came through the muffling effect of the door, “Honey, you need to tell him. You need to talk to him. You’re going to destroy yourself in this purgatory. Maybe there’s something you don’t understand going on. We definitely don’t have all of the information.”

Zoey’s voice came next, but emotionally charged and full of anguish instead of the monotonous one she had been using, “I just can’t believe it. How could he have lied to me for all those years? How did he hide it from me?”

“Oh, sweetie. I know this whole situation hurts, but we don’t know everything. If he is what he says he is, we’ll know soon. He wouldn’t be here, petitioning Aisling for permanent residence and requiring flying training if his situation was anything near normal. You need to talk to him and listen to what he says. I checked the tapes after your shift; He was floored when he saw you. He isn't orchestrating this, at least not to that degree.”

I tried to close my ears, realizing they were talking about me. I didn’t want to eavesdrop on their conversation, but the echoey nature of the deserted pool environment meant I had already heard more than I needed to. I focused on the water and splashed some of it back and forth, adding ambient noise to mask their discussion from myself.

After another ten minutes, the metal door clanked, and the two women came out onto the pool deck, similarly garbed in just a towel. Zoey’s was too short to cover her lengthy torso completely, offering shadowy glimpses of her tantalizing temptation with every step she took. If her pale eyes weren’t blatantly irritated and puffy, conspicuous signs of her crying during the exchange I had inadvertently overheard, she would have been irresistibly desirable.

Mallory stepped up to the pool's edge, unwrapped her towel, tossed it towards the spool of lane lines sitting on the deck, and leaped into the water, violently disrupting the calm surface and splashing me. I instinctively reacted, turning my head away and closing my eyes. When the moment passed, and I looked back, I realized Zoey had used my aversion as an opportunity to stealthily doff her own towel and slip into the water unobserved.

I unwrapped my towel and pushed off the wall with my arms, sliding into the pool comfortably. The water was cool but not harsh. I dunked my head under the water and then surfaced, welcoming the familiar burn the treated water gave my eyes. I met Zoey’s eyes, striving to ignore the bright pink nubs proudly sticking off of her taut, perky breasts. She was here to teach me about having multiple forms, and we were naked to prevent destroying clothes in the process. I only hoped my will was enough to contain my desires.

“So, James, I don’t know how this works for dragons, but for weres, we have a second internal mind. Our animal soul connects us to the primordial and distances us from being fully human. I can coax mine forward when I need to be more wolf or clamp down and restrict her when I need to be more human. Is any of this familiar to you?”

I nodded while keeping my eyes glued to hers, “Yeah. The archivist talked directly to mine on my second day here and had him shift a bit. I grew wings in the library. I’ve done that once more on my own.”

Mallory interjected, “Woah, yours can talk? That’s amazing; a were’s soul is more instincts and animalistic urges than the complex intricacies of humanity. Figures that a dragon would do more, actually.” She gave no indication that minutes earlier, she had been consoling Zoey in the locker room over my intrusion into their lives.

We slowly maneuvered further away from the wall and towards the deeper center of the pool. Gradually the floor fell away until we reached a point where Mallory had to bounce on her toes to keep her head above water.

“This should give us enough space. Mal will go first and will talk you through her prompts. I’ll go after. If you’re still willing after that, you’ll try,” Zoey spoke with authority, the lingering effects of her emotions firmly put to the side. When I didn’t object, she turned to Mallory.

Mallory frowned and said, “I won’t be much help here. I usually just imagine myself flying, the freedom and spontaneity I could have if I was in the wind, and the bat soul does the work to get me there.” She shrugged and waited a moment to see if anyone had any comments.

When none came, the physically unimposing woman closed her eyes, and I felt the mana in the air around her ripple outwards. Her arms became long and slender, a thin webbing of skin stretching from her hips to her wrists. Her skull structure morphed, her ears moving up, and her nose becoming more prominent. Her ears shifted to the top of her head, wiggling and flicking several times each. After only a moment, where the girl had been before, a four-foot-tall brown bat was now.

I could still see some of her facial features after she had transformed. Most outstanding, her eyes had retained their pressuring, imposing, guarded keenness. She was sculling the water with her wings, now easily treading in place where she had been struggling to stand a moment ago.

“Sorry, I don’t really have any other cues that I use.” She apologized, jarring me out of my observation and creating some mental discord for me. Seeing a bat speak English was uncomfortable, even if I knew it was a woman. After a few moments of letting me observe, she returned to her familiar human shape but moved to a shallower spot in the pool and leaned against the wall.

Zoey said, “It’s pretty standard to abandon the cues once you’ve become accustomed to being in both bodies. You can remember how it feels to be in the other one and the path you took to get there. I use a similar thought exercise to Mal, but of running through the great forests chasing my prey. I focus on feeling the wind where my fur should be, the ground beneath my padded paws, the change in my hips so I can run on four legs, and how wagging my tail in joy feels. I try to touch most of my body mentally as I go through the process, willing them to go to the other side.”

With that said, she took a further step away from me and inhaled intensely. Her face began to elongate, a protrusion growing from her nose and mouth. Her ears slid up her head. Her shoulders and hips wiggled, and her limbs shifted perpendicular to her torso. All at once, brilliant white fur sprouted and covered her entire body.

Where Zoey’s well-honed human form used to be, there was now a regal and intimidating eight-foot-tall white wolf. The snowy dire wolves of fiction evidently had a basis in reality, and Zoey was one of them. She licked her nose and then yawned as she stretched to stand on her hind legs in the pool. Her massive forepaws floated lazily in the water, and the murderous potential of her claws was evident by their size alone. Astoundingly, my instincts offered not what I had expected – I was drawn to pet her head, share my meals with her after we hunted together, and provide her shelter from the elements. Perhaps the dragon soul had some relation to werebeings. A question for Antonin.

Several moments passed where her silvery eyes simply observed my own. I nodded, and she melded back into her human shape. The deeper water made it significantly easier to avoid unintentionally ogling her. Until she stretched her arms over her head and leaned back after she was done with the return transformation, elevating her breasts above the water line. I couldn’t believe that it was for my sake, presumably simply a natural reaction to adjusting her body, so I averted my gaze. When she realized what she was doing, she hastefully pulled her arms back down to her side, splashing water at me in the process.

“Alright, so I should just be able to want to shift, and he’ll help me get there?” I asked both women.

Zoey answered, “It’s a starting point. If we struggle, there are a couple other techniques to try, but chil— beginners usually find them confusing.”

I shrugged. I wouldn’t have been offended if she had called me a child — I was only a week old as a dragon, after all. Perhaps it was something to do with the mate connection she felt, causing discomfort and shame to call your companion a child. Hopefully, she would be able to talk to me at some point soon.

I closed my eyes and willed my essence into my mind, searching for my dragon soul. I found him, but there was another presence beyond where he lay. I could only assume that it had to do with my dream and hoped there wouldn’t be any consequences. Who was I kidding? Of course, there would be consequences, likely major ones. For now, I had to ignore it and entice my dragon spirit to control my body.

He needed no enticing, my thoughts conveying my desires instantly. He took over my body and couldn’t get through the shifting process fast enough. Whereas before, he had gently and slowly shifted, controlling precisely which areas partially transformed, today he could not be hindered and morphed my body entirely in a moment.

My feet shifted, sliding wider apart as my body grew, my new claws dragging along the tiles of the pool bottom. My tail rocketed from the base of my spine, the deadly spike at the end thankfully pointing away from the other two people in the pool. My wings sprouted instantly, spreading nearly the width of the pool. Another fraction of a second and any lagging portions caught up. I was now a bright red, twenty-foot-long dragon sitting in the middle of a swimming pool. The water surged away in concentric waves as my sudden change in size caused tsunami-like conditions emanating from the pool's center.

I felt contained, collared and restricted, as if I still wasn’t completely transformed. I hadn’t fully unleashed my true form. My left forelimb felt heavy as if I was shackled to a cuff of metal. I realized that I hadn’t removed the suppression ring when I had gotten changed, and somehow it had come along for the ride through my shift. It was probably for the best. I resisted the instinctive urge to roar proudly, my human side only barely convincing the dragon that announcing ourselves would be detrimental to our goals.

With my physical changes came mental ones, and I acclimated to how differently the dragon body perceived the world. I first noticed the adjustment of the interminably pervasive chlorine smell. Next, I recognized that Zoey was gripping onto my left forelimb with both hands to support herself. And she was… moaning hoarsely through clenched teeth. Another tenth of a second, and I saw that Mallory was in a similar situation, except she was holding on to the pool wall, and her left leg was trembling rapidly. What a mess.

I took a moment to mentally assess my body for wholeness, and I took the next several to pray that the effect on my two instructors was a one-time thing that would quickly wear off, or at least something I could learn to dampen. I stretched my wings towards the ceiling, now completely understanding Zoey’s stretch — I felt like I had to manipulate some part of my new form as if I had just woken up from a whole night’s rest.