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Chapter two: Fallen

Magister Jamie Sw’et wasn’t afraid. Which would probably explain her arrogance in the face of such a situation. This band of criminals were nothing compared to compared to the trained, well armed and merciless mercenaries that held her friends hostage, lead by a corrupt Terran Aristocrat whom Blake had long since replaced in the high council. And that was before she became a Commonwealth Agent, and the aforementioned boy’s Guardian.

She was very certain that with her mastery of wind, and one or two of her teams small reserve of greater elementals, these criminals wouldn’t stand a chance as they were swallowed by a hurricane localised entirely inside the bank’s foyer. With that said, doing so would mean risking the lives of the hostages, and such actions would lead to her cover being blown, certainly. She was less concerned for her cover, but if she were to somehow talk herself out of supposition, then it would be a media fuelled witch hunt, and they had a dragon right in the middle of it.

Which lead her to another line of thought. The boy, turned into a dragon so suddenly. She was aware of the room’s arcane content. There was no spikes, ever, let alone during the boy’s metamorphosis into a winged reptile. She ruled out errant spell casting immediately, though the knowledge of such spells were not wide spread on this version of earth, and made it very unlikely it was the cause in the first place. An enchanted item maybe. But still unlikely as he would have either been wearing it, or holding it though the change.

There was only one other common cause.

With that said, her expertise in the arts arcane were useless.

She heard a whimper, which wasn’t unheard of in a hostage situation, but this particular whimper came from a girl, fifteen, caucasian human, her black hair was frazzled, her eyeliner now ruined by the stray tear… again. Not out of the ordinary for a hostage situation, but when Jamie came out of the back offices, the girl was calm. Now, she was a wreck.

A chubby boy was comforting her, as best he could, but she could tell that the boy was trying just as hard to convince himself of the same thing. She raised the possibility that they knew the boy that had changed. She remembered seeing them walk into the bank together.

And now they were gripped in fear and uncertainty. While the hostages whispered their various conspires, unaware that they were wrong.

Again, her arrogance of experience. But she was certain that the boy’s now tenuous psyche would not benefit from this attention. Especially when a passing news helicopter, was at just the right distance and angle to record the whole thing. She only became aware of that fact just now as a television mounted on the far wall was replaying the live footage, in silent detail. But just looking at it gave a sample of the pain the process inflicted on the boy.

The world knows about him already, and he had yet to come to terms with his new found form.

A spike in arcane energy informed her of Blake’s return, but the hostage taker dubbed ‘Mikey’ and the teller who she concluded was the inside man had not returned after dragging the poor boy into the office.

“Does Ma’am like?”

“Ma’am likes very much.” The girl said looking over her formal dress, scrutinising her appearance at every angle, it’s single strap running over her left shoulder. “What do you think?”

Her question was directed to the dark skinned teenager with chiselled tattoo that covered the right side of his face. He was currently looking at his hands, making ebony black claws appear on the ends of his fingers and forcing them back into human fingernails.

“Glenn!” She snapped.

“What?” He looked up to see his companion shot a look at him that screamed ‘Not here.’ Once he got past the look, he saw the dress, hugging the teenage girl’s hourglass figure in it’s silk like gold embrace. He was speechless, stunned by the white hair teenager’s beauty. In his oppion, he would probably be fighting off every teenage heterosexual male in Beverly Hills Mall, and a few brave lesbian girls too, if they saw Clair Weli’sol wearing that.

At the Dianne Indigo Foundation Annual Gala, the Levertan beauty was going to make heads, and the equivalent of heads turn as she walked into the grand ball room, arm in arm with a strong and handsome Lycan in formal black tie, in his less then humble opinion.

He was staring at Clair for at least ten seconds when his phone forced him to move and answer it, while Clair and the shop assistant started talking about accessories.

“What’s up Blake?”

“Did you hear about it?”

“Hear what?”

“The California Union Branch in Downtown Los Angeles was being robbed. The same branch Jamie and I were probing for movement of finances that were used to finance illegal genetic experiments.” Blake explained. “I was just there, and now I’m in a hotel room with a dead body.” He could hear Blake pull the phone way from his ear and face to say “This won’t take long. I’ll be with you in a moment.” to someone. Given who was talking, it was probably the dead body he referred to earlier. Wait…

“Dead body? In a hotel room?” He whispered.

“Yeah. The late Mr. James Higgins who deposited large sums into a twelve digit corporate account held by dummy corp that was started by someone on the terrorist watch list, to vanished seven years ago. Very efficiently too.” Blake continued to explained. “Turned out he was here, in the city of angels. Now they’re carrying him to his rest.” He took a breath.

“Are you okay?” Glenn asked concerned.

“I might need to switch to decaffeinated chocolate milk for a decade or two. Did you two put a dint in that slush fund yet?” Blake asked.

“Dead body.”

“Right. I need you to get there as soon as Clair’s finished finding the right shoes for that stunning gold dress she has on. You lucky dog.” Blake informed him. “Doc Martins would be my suggestion. Stylish and functional.”

Glenn turned to see the shop assistant offering a pair of hot pink high heels that, if anything, did not go with the dress she had worn just moments ago. She could see her grit her teeth just at the sight of them.

“Anything but hot pink?”

“God yes.” He head the door knock on the other end of the line. “That’s the undertaker. Gotta go.” He hung up, and Glenn put his phone away. Clair walked up to him with a smile on her face, and a bag on her hand.

“Lunch?” Clair asked as she walked up.

“To go.” Glenn deadpanned.

“God yes.” Blake answered as he heard a knock at the door.

“Room service for Mr. Goodfellow.” Blake heard a woman’s voice, thick with a Costa Rican accent. “I have a bottle of 2003 Ivanhoe Shiraz.”

“That’s the undertaker. Gotta go.” He told Glenn before hanging up. He walked up to the door. “There must be some mistake. I didn’t order room service.” He called to the woman.

“The order was made on behalf and paid for by your employer, Miss Sheoth.” The voice on the other side said. “She wants to welcome you to the City of Angels.” Blake opened the door to admit a latin woman in a suit and wearing a pair of sunglasses. “Where’s the client?”

Blake pointed to the middle aged man on the ground. The woman walked up and examined the body quickly.

“How long has he been dead?” She asked.

“Best guess, twenty minutes.” Blake answered. “Your ideal client.”

“And the scene?”

“Process and wash.” Blake ordered. “Forward all reports to Clair Weli’sol and Korian Gordisi.”

“Understood sir.” And with that, the boy suddenly vanished in a flash of purple light…

…only to reappear in the office of the Downtown Los Angeles Branch of the California Union Bank. Just as two individual entered the empty offices, dragging something heavy… no. It wasn’t heavy, just large. In the reflection in one of the computer screens, he could see a bank teller and a young man in a ski mask drag in a dragon. The rags still clinging to the reptile in question, and from the whimpers of the man in the ski mask told Blake that the dragon was probably another human among the crowd just a few minutes ago.

“If he wakes up, he’s gonna eat us man.” The man in the ski mask said clearly. “I don’t wanna be dragon food.”

“Mikey!” The teller yelled. “Where’s the rope?”

The ski mask man threw a duffle bag on to the desk. The teller, already fed up with the situation dug around the bag and pulled out a coil of climbing rope, and proceed to tie the dragon up in the most complicated fashion he could think of, making sure arms, legs, wings, tail and for added measure, the jaw was secured and immoveable. When he was done, he spotted another bag, a black and red backpack.

“Mikey. This is it. This is the other agents bag.” The teller picked up the bag and they started to examine the contents, verbally sounding their thoughts. Blake muttered something about cleaning that bag more often.

“Eh, look at this. This guy Rusty certainly has a reoccurring theme for his flying school.”

“I don’t envy this guy. A doctor Arcflame had to prescribe some serious pain killers, and he didn’t even fill the script.”

“What language is this? Koran?”
“Newspaper article of shooting at a private school in Newcastle. Thirteen dead.”

“Some blueprints for an F-34 Valient Fighter Jet by Edge Industries. Maybe. I don’t think I covered this in shop class.”

“What are Advantists? And what to they have against Alterists? Has to be some sort of code.”

“Yuck. Is that blood? Why is it yellow?”

“DSC? What does that stand for? And who’s Zorath Flamecloak?”

“Is that an eagle feather? Looks way too big.”

“There are a lot of metal balls in here.”

“Wer Ith Vur Plisoic Nishka Kult? Is that german?”

“Crystal Blade Smithing using White Dwarf Forges? This guy has some weird reading material.”

“Tell me about it. Terragonia: A Dimension Jumpers Guide this incredible Post-Human Civilisation. What next? A book on werewolves?”

“How about a blog article on Werewolf Street Racers?”

“Is that a brain? In a jar?”

“Complete review of Vernia, the VRMMORPG?”

“To Henry, Happy Hatchday? What’s that suppose to mean? And is he really just giving him a solid gold dragon idol? How much do you think this thing is worth?”
"Coldplay Piano Music?"

“Geschichte des Tower: Fünfzig zweite Auflage. Guess this guy really does speak german.”

“Friday, 29th of June, 2015. Bring cake. Dracula Cafe, Budapest. Looks like he crossed out June and put May.”

“Ow! Why does he have a mousetrap in there?”

“Maybe he has a rodent problem. Hey, look at this.”

Damn it. Blake cursed to himself, hoping they wouldn’t find what they just found. A black, glass like blade grew from a silver hilt, a glass and steel cross guard extended from it’s sides. The sword however began to glow a bright and ominous purple. Blake cursed under his breath, nether the bank teller or the bank robber heard.

The sword was forged from four materials. Obsidianite Crystal, Demon Blood, Stainless Steel, and a piece of his own soul, now housed within the crystal blade. Together, the materials were forged in the heart of a white dwarf, and designed down to the molecule. Like the Eye of Horus that was on the back of his hand, it was a symbol of his position as Titania’s Champion.

Then panic turned to concern for the bank robber’s part. Obsidianite has an unusual property of glowing when the wielder or wear was in danger. The swords wielder was now the bank robber Mikey. And if the sword was glowing, something was about to happen, and it was going to happen soon.
“Sweet.” ‘Mikey’ exclaimed. “Retractable sword.”
“Odd thing for a Fed to have.”
“Who cares.” Mikey threw out, turning towards the dragon, whom Blake could sense was waking up. “Die dragon.” Mikey raised the blade over his head and prepared to bring it down.
Just as he did, the blade retracted back into it’s hilt and the cross guard collapsed, the sword losing all it’s lethality just made Mikey look like an idiot when he bought the hilt down.
“Come on.” He tried to flick the blade back out but to no avail. He looked over the purple and silver for a button.
“If your done playing around.” The teller said frustrated.
Mikey just grumbled. “Fine.” He threw the hilt into the pile of paper, books and junk. Blake hoped they were about to leave.
“Lets just lock the thing in here. If the Fed is in here, we’ll know.” The Teller explained, even though the dragon was tied up. Spoke more about the confidence in the rope he guessed. They left and the door clicked as it locked behind them.
Good.

“This is not good.” Clair finally declared after several minutes of pondering. The bank robbery has just gone viral, the transformation hit youtube and already has several thousand hits. And the live footage went to air only five minutes ago.
She was surprised YouTube hadn’t overloaded.
Beside her, Glenn was driving, mostly insisting since it was his famed blue mustang, updated and upgraded. That included the full iPod interface, Silverback playing though the surround sound speakers. Clair continued to search the local cyberspace for answers, but instead found more videos of assorted transformations. As it turned out, the bank robbery was not an isolated incident.
But how were they connected?
“Dianne’s Judgement?” Glenn asked.

“It’s going to have to be though the international court. This isn’t just localised in the United States.” Clair pointed out. “I’ll call Parker. Tell him to organise the paperwork.”