FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

True to the hell fire dragon's word, as I appeared at Central two weeks after Iris gave birth to young Khamsina, Devlin announced to me that the party was heading to his planet for the feast of Ramanahad. Zac decided to come with us, he wanted to test his assault tower on something less smooth that the flat corridors of Central, and Devlin said that was perfectly fine. So the party heading to Draco's planet consisted on me, Salbar, Blake,obviously, Javid, Simba, Iris, Draco, Dev and young Khamsina.

We assembled at seven o'clock in the morning, and teleported from the Great Hall with Silverine's farewell wishes. We arrived heavily in a glade. There was a gentle stream ebbing to the right of us, and we were standing around a large stone that someone could easily lie on.

"It's karma that puts us here every time." Draco smiled. Devlin laughed merrily.

"What happened at this place?" Simba asked.

"Firstly, it's where Tahir met us, when we first found out about Central, and Secondly it's where Draco finished my virginity." Devlin smiled fondly at his cousin.

No comment from me. Instead I changed into my tripod form, and sat down on the grass, allowing my friends to strap Zac into his seat.

"Abigail's been placing stuff like shock absorbing gel between the metal, so it should save a few more of the bumps." he commented, as I tilted him violently getting to my feet.This had to be done one leg at a time, and looked slightly ridiculous, but standing at nine feet, no one was prepared to comment if they saw me baring down on them. Zac got himself comfortable, and we followed the dragons towards the village. Javid and Salbar had full kit, as did Simba and Blake, and we looked pretty interesting as we wandered through.

This was why the party of dragons coming to meet Devlin were actually hiding in the tree tops. Ten minutes of walking, Draco spotted movement in the branches, and he spotted one of the escort.

"Here, you're supposed to be on the ground." he called jovially.

"What are these creatures you bring with you?" the one that had been challenged replied.

"They're obviously Devlin's friends." a voice said, and we all turned to see an adult Hell fire standing there looking in interest.

"How do you do it, Conteur?" Draco asked, as Devlin went up to embrace this new dragon,"I never heard a sound."

"Morning, dad." Devlin said, wrapping his arms around Conteur in a hug. Dad? I thought, then shrugged.

"Good to see you in one piece, son, how is the exploring going?"

"Mostly interesting, I'll tell everything after we get to town." Devlin replied, as the dragons in the trees came down. There was about six of them plus Conteur, and they were looking at me in curiosity.

"So who are these friends of yours?"

"Javid, Salbar, Blake, Simba, Alduin is the three legged creature, he's in one of his transformations, and Zac on top of him in his little stinger site.Iris is the elf with my daughter, Khamsina." Draco introduced. Conteur nodded.

"Welcome all. I am Conteur Dreadwood, Devlin's father, and a member of Eight. Follow me."

He walked through us, and the two Hell fire's and Draco led the way along the path. Iris stepped to the front so the aged hell fire could look at the baby.

"Truly beautiful." Conteur smiled,"Although I expected nothing less from you and him together." he said, with a roguish grin. Iris flushed, as did Draco, and Devlin chuckled.

"Conteur, you do have a knack for that sort of thing."

"Yes." I replied," he's got my own talent of making people feel embarrassed, except I do it by being nearby."

"Since when did you embarrass us?"

"Since I stormed up to those wolves at Javid's planet."

"True." Simba replied,"I thought you had lost it for a second there."

"Hey Alduin, I found something wrong with this path." Zac said, as I walked.

"What's wrong?"

"It's gravel, right?You're leaving huge indents in the ground as you walk.Could you try walking a little more gently?" the G'zara suggested. Conteur looked back to see this G'zara looking down at my carapace.

"Not without lurching a bit more,Zac." I replied tactfully. Zac shrugged, and Conteur spoke to me.

"So you are one of the others that underwent this process with my nephew?"

"Nephew?" I said in confusion.

"Draco." Devlin translated, and I added two and two.

"Sorry, bit slow on the uptake there, Conteur. Yes, as was Simba. This is one of my two forms."

"I see.What is the other?"

"To show you, I'd have to remove this G'zara's assault platform, but it flies very fast." I said. Conteur smiled.

"And Simba?"

Simba didn't bother to waste words, and suddenly there was a tank driving along the gravel, it's tracks making easy work of the gravel road.

"His other one's cooler." Draco said.

The Apache appeared equally as suddenly, and took off slowly into the air. The aerial gunship stormed ahead, it's rotors beating the air and making conversation impossible.He flew ahead, towards the village, and we talked about various small things. The forest cleared, and we saw Draco's town for the first time.

The entire town was built on an island in the middle of a fast flowing river. The entire thing shaped like a tear drop, the flat end pointing up river. To prevent eroding away, they had used some special metal and set it up against the rock. It went all the way down into the bed rock at the bottom, Devlin told me.There were three bridges to the town, one from this side, two on the other, and the other two quickly joined roads that headed away in different directions.

To the town itself, we only saw a few noticeable things from this distance. Firstly, there were plenty of houses along this side of the bank, and second there was a very tall circular building roughly in the middle of the town.

Zac got off me at this point, his seat was not as comfortable as Abby had thought, and he removed his collapsible tower, and shinnied down my leg. We had also stopped for we came across three more dragons.

Simba was merrily circling the town in his Apache form, his rotors beating the air heavily and creating a lot of noise. All the dragons in the town were by now aware of this flying form, and a couple were rising to examine the helicopter. I changed into my Raptor form.

"I'm just going to go for a flight." I said cheerfully to Conteur, as Draco took hold of my nose and pushed it upwards. The reason for this is because the glower's ion engines easily had enough power to push me up almost vertically.

I ascended on full power, and banked away.

"Here comes a speed run." Javid said through my head set."Simba, I hope you're watching for low flying aircraft."

"I've got three dragons hovering beside me, I have a lot more to be interested about." Simba replied, as I banked around, and zipped back.

No one in the city was expecting it, they were all watching the helicopter and it's draconic escort, so I came barrelling over at almost Mach 2, and everyone ducked in reaction to the sound. Simba was clear of my passage, but all of the four received a gentle shiver of air due to my displacement.

"Now that is fast." Conteur said to Draco."What is it, and how fast is it capable of going?"

"Alduin calls it a VTO Raptor, and it's one of his aircraft on his planet. The scale speed he can manage is about four and a half times the speed of sound, but only at height because otherwise he begins to burn himself from air friction."

"I see." the adult hell fire was trying to see how such speeds were in fact possible.I was meanwhile banking around back towards the village, and I caused a stir by landing on the bridge and running to a halt directly beside the first of the houses. Dragons came rushing up to look at me as I stopped, and my engine whined to a halt. Then I changed into my bionic form.

O.K., it was mean. The dragons stepped back in astonishment, as the small human stood tall, weapons, bag, steel body and all.

"O.K., Devlin."I said in Draconic."I've just arrived at the village, I seem to have caused a stir."

"The term stir doesn't really cut it." a female voice said from directly behind me. I chuckled, and turned to face an adult female. She was again a foot taller than me, and her tail flicked idly as she surveyed me in interest.She was quite pretty for a dragon, and she was wearing a dragon version of a bikini.

"Ah, you're looking at Wildfyre, the mathematics teacher and member of Eight." Draco said in my ear.

"Wildfyre, is it?"I smiled, and proffered a hand."My name is Alduin, I am one of Draco's team."

"Yes, he has spoken many times about you. We find the fact you broke his virginity of particular interest."

"I cheated." I smiled slightly, with an appropriate gesture with my hands, and Wildfyre laughed.

"Yes, he told us ALL about it. Mind you, I don't think many dragons would have expected it after their prey had been ravaged like that. Your stamina must be impressive."

"I do a lot of exercising, Wildfyre.I also took up karate, or hand to hand lessons in your language, so when Draco insists on wrestling me, I have a few tricks up my sleeve." I nodded. One of the dragons nearby tapped gently on my arm, the steel let out a quiet ting noise.

"This is what Central has?" a dragon asked,"How good is he?"

I changed into my tripod form, and turned to face the draconic crowd. Flame washed over my hemisphere.

"Alduin, stop frightening everyone." Devlin said in my head piece.

"He wanted to know what I was capable of." I said, still in Draconic, protesting to the Hellfire. Simba landed beside me, and he changed into his bionic lion self.

"Is this your first time here?" the lion asked.

"Simba, obvious isn't it?" I replied, turning to look at him.I changed back into my bionic form, and walked with the tiger back towards the bridge the others were at. Wildfyre walked beside us, and the rest of the dragons trailed behind.

As we got to the bridge, Conteur had gotten everyone else there, and the older Hell fire had a surprising request.

"Draco says you have weapons on board your plane and tripod, do you mind giving these younger dragons a demo on them?"

I bowed."Not at all, Conteur. I will just consult my armoury." I activated my link to Central, and continued in Draconic."

"Silverine, I know you're there, can I have about thirty litres of rocket fuel?"

"Ah, they want to see your fuel bomb, correct?"

"Indeed." Draco had put one hand over his eyes in horror.

"You just had to let that human have a go at demonstrating his power."

"And so what, you and Simba are going to as well?" Conteur looked confused.

"Me and Simba aren't...well, terrifying." This coming from the dragon who terrifies most of Central, I felt flattered, and Devlin giggled when I convulsed with silent laughter.

"So shall we get it over and done with?" Conteur clapped his hands expectantly,"We still have today and tonight before Ramanahad begins, and the youths arrive."

"Youths?" I turned to Dev.He spoke in Centralite to me.

"Every couple of years, we have a test to find out who is the best of the almost adults, they compete in many ways, physically and mentally, and the best one has a shot at joining Central."

"Wow." I replied, just as a older dragon came up.

"So, these are the new arrivals?I had been conversing with Arvia when I heard a deafening noise over my house.Which of you rapscallions are responsible?"

I lifted a hand.The dragon looked appraisingly at me.

"You almost vibrated all the silverware off my cupboard."

"Really?" Devlin looked interested."Hear that, Alduin, at low level you can cause things inside houses to shift."

"A new definition to the meaning of 'moving house'."I grinned, and Simba groaned on cue. Wildfyre grinned.

"Is his humour always that bad?" she grinned at me.

"No Wildfyre, sometimes it's much worse.He has a really nasty sense of humour." Draco replied. The older dragon whose name I didn't know chuckled.

"As do most of Central. Silverine I recall..."

"Let's not go there, Tokoz." Devlin said, raising a hand to interrupt the other dragon,"Silverine is quite possibly the most sexually ravenous creature I have come across."

"Is someone taking my name in vain?" the familiar voice of the Lupogriff replied, and we all turned. He was carrying a tank of clear liquid under one arm, and was looking very amused. I came forward, and took the fuel from him.

"Thanks, Silverine, they were just discussing our abilities."

"Can I stay, I want to see this first hand?" the Lupogriff was grinning at the dragons in his own mischievous way.

"Sure, and I don't want to know why you're looking at one another like that. Can someone make a target on the plain for me to aim at?"

A dragon named Stryker nodded, and disappeared, while I went over to the bridge, carrying the fuel. I changed into my Raptor form, with the bomb connected with it's special extension. Any bigger, and it would be on the ground. I ignited my jet engines to get moving, and then my ion engines to get me airborne. Draco pulled out a speaker, so I could speak to everyone while they walked towards the side of the city that over looked the plain.

Dragons flocked to the roofs, getting a clear vantage point. Stryker had somehow found an archery target made out of solid steel, I later realised it was used by dragons practising using their flamethrower. I banked around, and aimed at it after he got out of the way.

"Right, I shall attempt to fire my heat seekers on it." I said casually.

"They'll miss." Simba said.

"I know." I replied, as I dived on the target. The four heatseekers streamed from my craft, and landed haphazardly around the target.

"Powerful, but not exactly accurate." Conteur said, looking at the four mini explosions. I circled around to use my guns. They could hear my guns burst into life, and there was a series of pinging noises as the bullets bounced off the target.I went around, and then spoke.

"Next, my proper missiles." I went some way back, so I could easily get a lock, and flew in fast and low, firing all six missiles. There was a series of explosions on the target, and the steel device was blown backwards.

"That looked good." Tokoz said, with his usual commentary. I gained height, and banked around to let my bomb go. I only had the one bomb when I was carrying the Fuel Air bomb, but it was more than enough. I dropped it, and it detached from my craft. I flew past, with Draco recording, and again the outer casing exploded outwards, scattering fuel everywhere, and then the inner bomb exploded.

As I turned back around, I was aware that all my friends were being very quiet.

"Did it not work, or something?" I asked, slightly worried.

"Oh, it worked alright, Alduin."Silverine said,"I'm just trying to find the right words for what it looked like."

"Poetry and destruction in perfect harmony." Wildfyre suggested. The archery target had been made to survive worse than this, and Stryker ventured back onto the field to prop it back up on a stone.

I landed in the field about a hundred yards from the target, and changed into my Tripod form.I got myself comfortable standing on the field, and then aimed my Heat Ray at the target, firing a low burst.

"Not very powerful." Conteur said, looking at the ray strike the steel target.

"You had to say it..." Draco began, as I fired a maximum power burst. The air itself felt singed, and when I switched the ray off, there was a very large hole in the centre of the target.

"Ow." Tokoz said innocently, looking at the target as it fell over. I stomped back over towards them, as Simba changed into his attack heli form, and took off.I was invincible to his gattling cannon, this had been proved earlier, and he decided to kill two birds with one stone by firing at me.

There was a volley of machine gun fire as the helicopter began circling around me, the gattling cannon firing six rounds per second at my armoured carapace.Sparks were thrown up with every blast, and I hunkered down under the weight of the fusillade.I released my black smoke, and disappeared into the midst of it. The gattling cannon continued it's relentless hammering, Simba had thermal imaging, and I walked forward, continuing the smoke. Simba followed.

"Come out little Tripod."he chuckled merrily.There was a flash of my low setting heat ray, and it narrowly missed his cockpit.The low setting would have no effect on him either. I stopped my smoke as I got to the bridge back to the town, and Simba stopped his gun fire.I walked out from the smoke, blackened streaks over my carapace from the explosive rounds, but unhurt. Everyone was impressed.

"It withstood that battering." Tokoz said, looking at me as I thumped across the bridge, as Simba began circling the target.

"Right." the lion said," my missiles.I have lots, so try and count them."

"Seventy two!" I called merrily.

"Spoilsport." he replied,"Although that's not including my special missiles."

"They are called Hellfire, not surprising, and you carry twelve. I know your armament." I came to a halt beside Salbar, and changed into my bionic form. I began brushing soot off my shoulders as the attack heli began it's rain of fire on the target.

He fired them off in very quick succession, the rockets streaming from his wingtips one after another. Each missile landed on or very near the target, and there was a small explosion. There were twelve larger ones, which were his slightly bigger Hell fire missiles. I drunk a bottle of Lift Plus while I watched this demo.His gattling also smacked against the target with a series of metallic noises.

Draco looked at the swift flowing river."Well, I have no guns, but I can do what these two can't." And with that the dragon dived full length into the flowing river. I leaned against Devlin as everyone charged forward to look at where the dragon had disappeared. But he didn't surface. I stood there, looking up stream. Draco wanted to circle around the town and blitz past us.And after two minutes, he did just that.

The water was swift, but not white, and the silver bullet on the river was instantly noticeable. The wave piercing boat came around the head of the island at full rip, and blasted downstream in front of us, the current adding to the boat's speed. Two fountains of spray were thrown up as the high revving engine surged. Draco flashed down stream, leaving only a trail of white water, like a comet's tail.

"Well,"Simba said, as he hummed in the air," I'm bored enough." He took off after Draco. I dived off the side of the wall towards the water, and changed into my Raptor form, igniting both engines. My jets left trails of steam on the water, and then I was flying hard and fast after the Apache.

Devlin was speaking to Conteur.

"They are very excitable, especially Alduin, but they're good guys."

"I'm much impressed by their abilities." he said, as I banked around the Apache and flew back. I felt very content, and I went into a series of rolls and letting off flares. The white lights detached from my craft in a group of bangs and pops, and white lights broke off everywhere.

"I think he's enjoying himself." Conteur said as I passed overhead.

"You have no idea how nice it is to go to a planet your friends come from." I said, banking up into a loop. I let go smoke, and left a white trail all through the loop. Then I flew extremely low level through the fields towards the town, aiming directly at the bridge. Devlin moved over until he was standing in front of me.

"Alduin, don't you dare."

Too late, with a flash I passed feet over him, his clothes rippling back in the maelstrom of air currents. I shrieked along the main road and out the other side.

"Nice, mate, I hope you're paying for the broken windows." Devlin said sarcastically.

"Really, how many?"

"None, yet, do it again, see how many." I laughed. That was about the point one of the special ion engines decided it had had enough. There was a small explosion on my right wing, and I felt the engine detached with a bright flare. It landed beside where Zac had dismounted, he was busy making adjustments to something of his, and the smoking wreck landed about twenty metres from him.

"Alduin, did you just drop something?" Zac asked.

"That's never happened before." I winced in pain. It was as though something had gone numb in me, and I flew on my regular engines back to the group. I hovered gently until I landed on the bridge, and Devlin realised I was some what different, and rushed up to lend assistance. I didn't change, and Devlin interlinked with me, so I could see what had gone missing.

Because of the unique position of the ion engines above the regular ones, the only damage to me was a large black patch all around where the engine had been, and I was minus one of my vertical tail fins.

"Alduin's lost his fin, how bad would that be?"

"Don't worry." Zac called through his interlink."It landed beside the wreckage of the engine. I'm coming to give it back. Does anyone have a welder?"

"Interesting, bio mechanical doctoring." Simba said, hovering back."I've got a mini welder, and I suppose putting it back in place before he changes will mean that what ever it was can be fixed with one of my ointments. Just don't change, Alduin."

"I'm not stupid." Dragons were rushing up to look at the damage, and after two minutes, Zac arrived, holding the bit of metal and the wrecked ion drive over one shoulder. Simba landed beside me, and changed.

The process of welding stung, but after two minutes he was done, and I changed. There was a collective gasp of sympathy, and I saw my entire right leg had been blasted by the explosion, burns ran up and down it's length, and as I took off my shoes, found two toes had white lines running across them.

"Abigail!" I shouted into my head set, as Simba began applying a special liquid to my numb toes.

"Yes?" the tiger asked after five seconds. I took the ion engine from Zac, and looked at through my glasses.

"This ion engine just blew up in flight."I could hear her interlink with me, as she examined the broken rocket. Most of the interior was melted and smoking.

"Damned if I know what did that, I tested those fully before lending them to you."

"I almost lost two toes during the blast, what could cause that damage?"

"Well, two options. One, it suffered an internal explosion, or something flew into the intake."

"How could you work out which was which?"All I was saying was interwoven with small gasps of pain as the cooling liquid touched my burns.

"Wait, I've found something. Traces of calcium in the drive workings. Structure of calcium suggests it was a part of a bone. My guess was a small bird or something."

Birds had grounded jets before, but because I was that much smaller, a bird strike would be that much worse.

Javid laughed in relief." Alduin hit a bird at Mach 2.8, and it obliterated his ion engine, now that has got to hurt."

As Simba finished, I stood up. My clothes looked a mess, one side of my trouser leg was intact, as was the waist, but from the upper thigh downwards on the other leg, it had been burnt off.

"I think I might need a new pair of black trousers. Could you imagine the looks if I turned up to work looking like this?" I fingered the perfectly frayed edge. Devlin chuckled.

"You do have interesting effects in changing forms."

This wasn't getting me a new pair of trousers, so I changed into my Tripod form, so I wasn't so bad looking. I followed Devlin and Conteur back to their house. All the team save Draco and Iris followed, including Zac, who was getting quite a few stares, being almost a quarter the height of some of the dragons. Devlin's house was quite nice, a nice two storey house with all the creature comforts a draconic family would need.I changed into my human form as I entered, and looked around. The light was made by chandeliers and oil, and produced a fairly good light. A female dragon announced herself as Lee Kim, and took great interest in me, this slim creature I was. I had put my working ion engine in it's special slot in my bag with the broken one, that was enough flying for me for one day.

Iris and Draco were off to Arvia's house, Draco's mother, to show her her new grand daughter. It was getting on to lunchtime, and we were served a delicious meal by Lee Kim, who had been forewarned of our arrival by Devlin. Lee Kim sat down, and we ate ravenously, me and Simba noticeably, due to our use of our weapons during our demonstrations.The seating arrangement was Conteur at one end, Dev at the other, and then along the sides Lee Kim, self, Javid, and Salbar, Blake, Simba and Zac on the other.

We discussed many things about Central and here, the two parent dragons very interested about everything. Silverine had disappeared, now I came to think about it.

"Has anyone seen Silverine?"

"With Tokoz, I guess." Conteur looked thoughtful.

"Who do you think is on top?" I asked, to a loud round of laughter.

"Silverine, Tokoz doesn't mind bottoming that much." Devlin replied,"What makes you so sure?"

"Devlin, when we're talking about that demented Lupogriff, it's for certain."

"Fair point." the Hell fire conceded, and we continued eating. The meal finished, Conteur asked what everyone had planned.

"I'm tired."I replied,"I think I might like a little sit down, or lie down."

"I'm keen to have a further look around." Javid said to Devlin. Salbar, Simba and Blake followed suit, so I was informed by Conteur that he and Dev would show everyone else around, and Devlin told me that I could rest in my room. Blasted ion engine, I felt drained after that boom.

So after they all left, leaving me and Lee Kim in the living room, she showed me to Devlin's room. He had all the fairly usual stuff, bed, wardrobe, etc., and as we both entered, she shut the door behind her.