In the mansion’s servant quarters, one maid remained in her room. She’d not been disturbed when the lights had gone out, after all, she’d lived for centuries before mankind had harnessed electricity, and she had ways of making her own light. No other maid had come to warn her of the attack, or ask her to help fight off the horde, because they knew she could handle herself, and they feared what kind of games she might play when offering “help.”
Myra had been calmly reading by the light of her own floating flames when she heard the first gunshot ring out. It was a sound she’d heard many times before in her life, and she knew something was wrong when she heard it inside the house.
By the time she’d made it to the source of the sound, she found Marceline applying a second set of webs to the drones she’d captured, “just to be sure.” When the spider had explained the situation, Myra rushed out in a shadowy form to see for herself. She shook her head when she saw the army of latex creatures waiting outside the walls.
She scoffed. These hollow figures were hardly a threat. She would need to think of some way to handicap herself to make removing them even remotely interesting. Should she could refrain from fire spells? Or maybe no petrification? Perhaps-
Her thoughts were cut short by another gunshot, followed by the screeching of tires. She saw the drones turn around, and start to move in the direction the sound came from. Could it be what they were looking for wasn’t in the mansion anymore?
She rushed through the crowd of drones like a shadow, following the sounds of scraping metal and squealing wheels. When she caught up to the source, she was just in time to see her granddaughter pick up Master with her tails, have a unicorn toddler hop on her back, and leap away for safety. Only for a lucky bullet to strike Skyla in the leg.
A pillar of green flame erupted in the middle of the street, leaving stone statues in the shape of drones in its wake. When the pillar cleared, a building-sized nine tailed feral fox let out a fierce growl, and positioned herself under the falling Skyla, Curt, and Emma, the fur softening their landing.
“ALL OF YOU WILL BURN FOR THIS!”
+++
Kent grit his teeth as the giant fox appeared. He’d heard rumors of this creature since he’d move in, but he assumed it had all been superstitious nonsense, ESPECIALLY the part about her working for this Evenson fellow. If she really had that kind of power, why would she serve others with it?
But knowing that Evenson had this world’s gun made that all clear. Obviously, he must have wanted as powerful a slave as he could get. And now she stood between him and the safe, peaceful, simple life he wanted.
He sighed. He’d hoped it wouldn’t come to this. “Bring me three captives.”
The purple Chimera drone nodded. Three humans, one a young boy, another an elderly man, and the third a middle aged woman, were pulled in front of Kent by his drones. All of them gagged, bound, and blindfolded.
Kent adjusted the options on the gun. The latex drones he’d made were chosen as a matter of practicality. Reasonably strong and versatile, yet needing nothing, not even food, water, or air, in return. But while their tirelessness and resistance to injury meant they could win any war of attrition, they had little to speak of in terms of actual combat ability. With no particularly good methods of doing harm on their own, Kent had to resort to arming them, and even then, he’d had trouble getting enough guns and knives to supply them all (especially when a handful of gun shops had unchangeable people as employees. Stealing the guns by force would have certainly attracted the police).
Now it was time to create something that could fight on its own. Something with devastating strength, sharp cunning, and implacable endurance. A pity they would require food and water, but if he disposed of them after they were no longer needed, he wouldn’t have to worry about a resource drain.
Each human was hit with a red bolt in turn, and one by one, they felt intense pain as their body stretched and grew. Bones and muscles became thicker, their clothes tearing as each of them doubled in size, then tripled, and kept going. Their hands and feet bled as claws forcibly ripped through each finger and toe to form new claws. Millions of cold, black scales grew over their bodies as they fell to all fours.
More bones formed at the end of the spines, one after another, becoming thick, powerful tails. A second pair of arms formed on their backs, with long, thin fingers. A leathery membrane formed between the digits and their backs, producing massive, bat like wings.
The beasts groaned and roared as their jaws stretched outward, teeth sharpening and tongues forking. A pair of heavy horns sprouted from each one’s skull, while their eyes turned red, their pupils becoming slits. Their growth continued, the top floor of the building straining until they took to the skies.
As their necks extended, the former humans minds were slowly sealing shut. Their emotions, their memories, their hopes and dreams, fears and worries alike, all silenced under a single directive: Obey your Owner. Owner’s Will was everything. If they were not acting on Owner’s Orders, the only things they should be doing was either wait for more orders, or follow the base instincts to eat, sleep, etc, so they could live to continue to receive Orders, the only thing that set them apart from the drones, mentally. They knew better than to harm their Owner, or through inaction to allow Owner to come to physical harm, without Owner, there were no Orders, and without Orders,there was nothing. They remembered waiting together for centuries for Owner to be born so they might Obey. And somewhere deep within their base draconic true nature, they felt a sense of pretentiousness towards the latex drones, they were the superior tools to carry out Owner's Orders. Anything that prevented Owner's Orders would be annihilated. They weren’t human. They were never human, as far as they, or anyone but Kent remembered. They were always dragons, living solely to serve.
Young dragons remembered feeling alienated towards these elders, unable to approach them to ask for their experience in what it meant to be a dragon, being ignored with the most soulless of indifference. The former blank maids remembered these beasts only as a working models, like a scaled down airplane, rather than role models to look up to. Even when domestic service had become a proud tradition in the district, the three black dragons were seen as 'other.'
“Kill that overgrown fox!” Kent pointed at the kitsune several blocks away. “Kill it!”
The building-sized feral dragons launched three balls of fire toward their target, and wordlessly began their flight.
+++
As Latex drones futilely attempted to harm the giant vixen, Myra turned to look at her Master, granddaughter, and the unicorn all resting on her back. “Emma, can you heal Sklya?”
“I think so…” The unicorn panted.
“Then do it! Meanwhile the rest of you can watch as I make an example of these THINGS!” Large orbs of fire danced in the air around the kitsune.
“Wait!” Curt cried out. “Don’t kill the drones!”
The giant fox head turned to the human on her back. “Don’t kill them? They tried to kill my granddaughter! They tried to kill YOU! They’re not even alive, and-”
“No, they are alive…” Skyla panted, wincing slightly under the glow of Emma horn. Her bleeding was, thankfully, starting to slow. “Search their souls. They’re innocents, bound under a tighter magic than even you can make.”
Myra looked back over the little drones below her. Peering into their minds, one after the other, all confirmed the same thing. Skyla was right. She wasn’t sure how, but these creatures had living souls under an enchantment unlike anything she had ever seen. It felt like a mockery of her work whenever she liberated mortals of their finite existence: the silence of their spirits was deafening!
“...Very well, Master. I will show mercy to the puppets that cannot control their fates. But the one who forced them into harming my daughter WILL suffer.”
“Oh, I have NO objections there.” Curt nodded. “Once we find him, and I get him to tell me how to reverse this curse of his, he’ll be all yours.”
“I look forward to-” Curt and the others clung to Myra’s fur for dear life, as she suddenly leapt to the side, a trio of fireballs landing where she had stood seconds ago. The four of them turned, and saw three gigantic dragons lift off from a nearby apartment building, and soar toward Myra, sparks leaving their glowing maws as they got ready to strike again.
“All three of them at once?” Myra coiled her body, entering a fighting stance. “Skyla, are you healed?”
“Yes!”
“Then all of you, get out of here! I’ll deal with the dragons, you find whoever’s responsible for these puppets.”
Skyla wasted no time. Still in feral form, she lifted Emma and Curt onto her back, and leapt from her grandmother’s back to the roof of a nearby building. Myra did everything she could to keep the dragons collateral damage, or her own, from landing on her Master or her granddaughter.
The drones seemed to have been dispersed by Myra’s earlier attack, and no longer knew where Curt had gone, but that was little comfort to Skyla as she saw her grandmother madly leaping and dancing to avoid the claws and fireballs, attempting to retaliate with her own magic attacks, but not able to focus for long enough to complete any spell that would do meaningful harm to them.
“Ugh!” Skyla growled. “Those old dragons picked the worst time to interrupt! If we had grandma’s help, we’d have no problem searching the whole neighborhood for Kent.”
Curt’s eyes widened. “No, they didn’t pick the worst time. They picked the PERFECT time! All three of them at once. When dragons are usually solitary creatures,” Curt said, as if non-anthro dragons hadn’t only been the stuff of fiction moments ago, which as far as his and everyone else's memories were concerned, was true for centuries. “They’re not doing anything to each other, they’re all focusing on Myra. As if they have one goal, and one goal only.”
Skyla gasped. “Wait, are you saying…?”
“Kent modded his gun so he could make almost ANYTHING, and we would think it’s normal. And three dragons that normally wouldn’t work together suddenly all show up at once, seemingly only to take down our biggest trump card? Seems VERY convenient for Kent, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, it does,” Skyla nodded. “But what can we do about it? Grandma can barely handle those things, and we’ve still got no clue where Kent is to try and stop him!”
“We don’t?” Curt grinned. “They all came from the direction of that apartment building.” He pointed off several blocks away. “So either he’d ordered them to wait there until he gave the signal, or that’s where he transformed them to begin with, and the times we remember seeing them before are false.”
“It’s as good a lead as any.” Skyla nodded, then turned back to Emma. “You’re doing okay? You look pretty drained from that healing spell.”
“I am…” Emma responded weakly.
“You’ve done more than enough, Emma,” Curt said, picking her up, and gently setting her on the roof. “You should be alright up here for now, but teleport back to the basement of the mansion when you have the strength to, okay? It’ll be much safer for you there.”
“Yes, Master.” Emma bowed as best as she could, and Skyla bounded away from rooftop to rooftop.
+++
Simone had been playing at home that night, far from the chaos, when out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a hint of orange light in the night sky out her window. Getting up to have a closer look, she saw in the light of dozens of fireballs, the three adult dragons, attacking Myra, near Master’s house.
“What do those guys think they’re DOING?” Simone shouted. “Don’t they know they’re gonna hurt Master? And if they do, they’re gonna have one VERY ANGRY princess to deal with!”
The little anthro dragoness shoved open the window, and took flight, ready to show those feral idiots who was boss around here.
+++
Kent scanned the area for any signs of Evenson with his binoculars, but the flashing fireballs flying this way and that created all kinds of glare that made it difficult to focus. He shook his head. If he couldn’t monitor the situation effectively anymore, then he figured he might as well retreat into the building, where he was safer, until Evenson had finally been captured or killed. His slaves were no threat with their Master gone either way. He stepped back inside, the purple Chimera drone following him, leaving thirty drones on the roof as guards, nearly half of them carrying guns of one type or another.
Skyla leapt to the roof of an adjacent building just in time to see him leave. “You’re right Curt, that was him! I saw him!” She looked down to the road below. “Great… no idea what we’re gonna do about those, though…”
“Lots of drones I take it?” Curt said, getting off her back.
“Oh, right, forgot, your night vision isn't nearly as good as mine,” Skyla said. “Yeah, there’s a lot of them around every entrance to the apartment. A lot of them have guns, too.” She sighed. “I could melt a bunch of them with a big enough fireball, but I don’t want to risk killing them if there’s a way to change them back. But I definitely can’t fight that many on my own if they can just get up again after every attack.”
“We’ll think of something,” Curt muttered. “We’ve got to.”
“CURT!” Came a shout from above. The couple looked up to see Carrie and Kathy flying in circles above them with Anna and Leroy on their backs, and some sort of orbs, crackling with electricity in their hands. “Thank God we found you!” The two dragons and their riders flew in and landed beside Curt and Skyla.
“Glad to see you too!” Curt hugged Anna tight as she got off one of the dragon’s backs (he could barely tell which was which in daylight). “Are the maids in the mansion safe?”
“For now, yeah,” Anna nodded. “So, do you know where this guy is? Kent Bailey, you said?”
“Yes.” Skyla nodded, and pointed to the building swarmed with drones. “In there.”
“That’s no problem!” One of the eastern dragons said.
“Not for you, Skyla!” The other said.
“Just fireball ‘em all!” They said in unison.
“If only it were that easy,” Skyla saighed, repeating herself. “The guy’s enchanted people into becoming those things."
If this was anyone else (sans Master), the twins would think she was joking, but hearing Head Maid Skyla herself say this shook them to their core, and the twins hugged themselves. It was like your mother telling you beyond a shadow of a doubt that auto-vacuums had human brains in them! They remembered when drones had first gone on for sale, thinking them weird, but interesting, even wanting to buy one or two!
"I’m not gonna kill someone who didn’t even want to attack us,” Skyla finished.
The two dragons put their fingers to their chins, then looked at each other, and grinned. “We’ve been prepping a big storm spell to hold the attack at the mansion at bay,” said one.
“But we can use it here and now,” the other spoke.
“To blow that army away!” They spoke together, holding up their pearls, which glowed as tiny streaks of lightning flowed from them.
Curt smiled. “That’s perfect! Let’s unleash the storm!”
+++
Simone was finally in range of the three dragons, circling around the giant vixen. Who were these arrogant old drakes to think they had any right to harm one of Master’s Maids? Master and all of his friends were part of HER kingdom, as far as she was concerned, and she was going to protect it! Age didn’t matter, size didn’t matter, if they wanted to get to Master's family, they would go through her!
She flew right into the center of the fight, flapping around fireballs. Even though she was young, and her scales not fully developed, she wasn’t going to let the heat get to her! ‘I will survive,’ she thought, mentally paraphrasing an inspirational quote she heard once, ‘because the fire inside me burns brighter than the fire around me!’
She probably wouldn’t have found it nearly as inspirational if she’d known the quote originated from a mentally unsound video game NPC.
Once she was in the center of the fight, she flew above it all, and took a deep breath. Her eyes, for a brief moment, glowed a bright yellow.
“YOU BIG, SMELLY DUNDERHEADS!” She shouted at the top of her lungs. “STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING THIS INSTANT! YOUR PRINCESS COMMANDS IT!”
The three dragons all stopped in sync, and looked up at her. Something in her voice, for the briefest of moments, carried just a hint of authority, of unbreakable divine will. The Orders of Owner, for one brief moment, were superseded by the Order of something far greater.
But that divine voice had not yet fully developed, and it lacked the confidence and pride required to control the three beasts’ collective attention. And once the new Order to stop had been pushed out of their mind, they realized that this little creature above them had, even for a short while, subverted their desire to carry out their Owner’s Orders. Even if it was just a fluke, it could not be allowed to happen again. The fight with the kitsune was put on hold, so that this creature wouldn’t be able to interrupt it again. All three ancient dragons flew up toward the tiny anthro dragoness, jaws open wide to deliver crushing blows.
“S-STOP ! THAT’S AN ORDER! D-DON’T EAT MEEEE!”
The faltering in Simone’s voice only further convinced the dragons that she was not fit to listen to.