“You gonna go out there and see what’s going on? ’t stay in here for the rest of your life, kiddo.” Nahnco’s annoying monotone voice echoed behind Sapphyra. She sighs and looks back at Pearl.

  “Do you mind?” Sapphyra motions towards the tavern.

  “I’ll stay here…just for now, but I swear to god if something goes bump in the dark-” Pearl threatens.

  “You’ll be the first one I cry out for. I promise.” She gave her best friend a small smile and opened up the door, stepping outside slowly.

  The city, her city, had ged in ways unheard of. The ground was no longer paved with asphalt and crete sidewalks. In their pce were dirt and cobblestone roads. Each building transformed into one made of toy bricks, as if taken from a child's bedroom and scaled up to real life size. Ameri fgs no longer hung from their poles, repced by clotheslines shooting from one building to the in an intricate spider web fashion. Examining the clothes, it was clear they looked like someone pulled them from a renaissance fair or straight out of a medieval py.

  Sapphyra blinks, rubs her eyes a few times and ends up ping herself to wake up. It hurt, but if she was asleep, it must have been a deep nightmare because this as a new reality was just…jarring. That seems to be the theme of tonight.

  “Sapphyra? What do you see out there?” Pearl asks from just ihe door.

  She does not answer. Sapphyra walks along the dirt roads, dust kig up at her heels. She moves toward the probable source of the earlier crashing noise: a rather rge egg–taller than an office chair but not as wide as a linebacker–covered in bd white scales, the same scales on Sapphyra.

  It all still felt like a fever dream, even as she walks into someone's apartment building and bumps straight into a fuzzy wall. That erson, though they looked like a wolf on two legs that bent incorrectly at the knees. It wore clothing, a white long-sleeved shirt and dark tunits.

  “Hey! Watch where yoing, dragon!” His gruff voice reached her ears and made her horns tingle. She shakes her head and walks back towards the tavern, only stopping once she gets right o the egg.

  What an odd little thing, she thinks. Who would just drop a giant egg from the sky? More importantly, what was happening to her world? The mist mutating people was ohing, but the ndscape? The buildings? And from the few people she could see moving about oreet, they act as if everything is normal, like everything is business as usual.

  Maybe Sapphyra was the crazy one, maybe she and Pearl are the ones waking from a dream they didn’t know they were having.

  But then the egg glowed a bright blue light, and she suddenly felt a little less crazy.

  A hologram floated up into the sky like a movie on a projector s. A beautiful, tan woman with white fluffy hair that reminded Sapphyra of a sheep’s coat, and eyes greehan an emerald, spoke.

  “Citizens of Big Brick City. I e to you today on behalf of her gloriousness, the Dragon Queen. You are f two human thieves that have stolen a precious item from her Majesty. We see you using majik that does not belong to you–the Mists of Mirolo is a dangerous spell that has already ed your very existence. For the few of you who still have your memories, bring the two fugitives to Prayer Tower, dead or alive, and her Majesty has sworn that she will reset all the damage caused by the mist. You have a very generous 15 days to find them and bring them to the Prayer Tower or else her Majesty will raze the city.”

  Prayer Tower? Sapphyra squints at the woman in the sky until a picture fshes across the s. A tower that seems like a dead ringer for the empire state building in New York, fshes across the s. Something about the building called to her, as if she’d been there before. The picture ged again, this time showing the faces of two individuals she never would have pegged for criminals.

  Her parents. The air leaves her lungs as she stares at the picture of her mother and father, the word CRIMINALS! Fshing underh them.

  The glow vahen, and the egg returo its dormant state.

  “Wait. No. You’re lying.” She mutters to herself, staring at the egg in disbelief. Sapphyra wills it t the woman's face back. She has to plead their case, show that her parents are harmless. How could anyone mistake them for criminals, thieves?

  That was it. It had to be a misuanding.

  Sapphyra undoes her ponytail and runs her fihrough her hair, a little upset that her hair seems to be more coarse than before. She just had it straighte week!

  Sighing heavily, she walks back to the tavern and takes a seat at the bar. It’s her turn to pick up a bottle and drink this time.

  “How much of that did you guys hear?” She glumly asks as Pearl es over and sis o her, pg a hand on her shoulder.

  “Enough to know that otle is not gonna cut it. This queen or whatever, she’s got the wrong idea.” Sapphyra smiles at her, pg her haly on top of Pearls, still afraid she may hurt her.

  “Nah, they’ve got it right. Our folks are criminals through and through.” Nahnco added, sipping some water.

  “What did you just say?” Sapphyra raises a single brow at him as her aura turns dark and cold.

  “Hate me all you want, but how do you think I know so much about the mist? I was there with them. e to think of it, that’s probably why they alked about me. ’t have the world thinking their beloved stists stole every brilliant discovery they made.”

  She leaps before she thinks, typical of her, jumping over the ter to grab at Nahnco’s throat. Her hands passed through nothing but shadows as he slipped through her fingers with ease.

  “Close but not close enough, kiddo. You should really let me help you.” She heard his voice from behind her, but wheuro find the sourothing was there.

  She growls, “how I let you train me if I don’t trust you?”

  “The same way you blindly trust your parents to not be the criminals the queen is acg them of being–faith. I know you don’t trust me, you don’t know me yet. You will, though, just give me a ce. What’s the worst that could happen that hasn’t already?”

  Sapphyra loathed to admit it, but he had a point. Besides, she definitely needs some help with this dragon business.

  “... fine. I’ll learn from you.” She muttered softly.

  “I'm sensing a but here,” he added, finally appearing in front of her again.

  “But you have to be ho with me. Starting with everything you know about the mist and my parents and this dragon queen. How is it all ected?”

  He folds his arms across his chest. “Flex first, answer sed. I’ll give you the truth and nothing but it, but we’re gonna work on your powers too. So, flex.”

  Sapphyra squints while Pearl eats some chips and watches in the background.

  “I'm sorry?”

  Nahnco sighs. “Flex, you’re a dragon. You’re unstoppable. I know you’ve had that feeling before, like you were the biggest threat in the room. Take that feeling. It’s going to transform you.”

  “So like, literally Flex. Sounds simple enough. Why am I doing this?”

  “Just do it!” he growls.

  Sapphyra flinches, but trates like he says. Closing her eyes, she thinks back to when she all but bullied the first set of goblins she came across. The first time she felt like she had a purpose, like she erhero on a mission and no one could stop her. She owerful, beautiful. She wao feel like that every day of her life.

  {Flex Activated}

  Her eyes flew open as a cascade ht pink lights started from her lower belly and covered her pletely. In one moment, she was he only thing c her was the light. In the moment, her hands, legs and trew scales of ombre pink and ebony bck. The bber jacket, with pink straps crossing her chest, covered her chiseled arms and back. Her legs and waist were now covered in light jogger pants that held a scaled pattern. Her wings popped out of two new perfect spots in her uniform, as did her tail. The lights stop and she stands there, examining her new outfit. It was simple, but it felt plete.

  It felt like her.

  Sapphyra smiles but avoids looking at Pearl. She already has a feeling of what she wants.

  “Say it.” Pearl all but cheered behind her.

  “Say what?”

  “You just had a mother-luvin’ magical girl transformation! Say you didn't love it, . You know you did!” Pearl scrambles to get directly in her face, grinning from ear to ear. Her eyes roam over Sapphyra's body, taking in every highlighted curve and dip.

  Sapphyra blushes under Pearl's scrutiny, especially wheares at her crotch.

  “Hey, my eyes are up here!”

  “What was that ? Was that your flex? That was ughably sad. ime, put some real arrogance behind it, maybe even a roar.” Nahnented, shaking his head with a frown. “The more obnoxious your flex is, the more trol you'll have over yourself and your abilities.”

  “Mm, okay, sounds crazy, but it probably makes sense…I'm assuming it's a dragon thing?” Sapph rubs the back of her head.

  “Yep. It's a dragon thing. Sihat's out of the way. I'll tell you what I know, though it's not much.”

  “Every bit helps. I just o make some sense of the world.” She admits,trying to ignore Pearl's awkward touches on her suit. The st thing she needs is to pop a boner here.

  “Alright. Years ago, I was security for your mom and dad on an expedition to another dimension. The tech they were using was experimental and undoted, but the paychecks they wrote me were fat enough for me not to care.”

  “A portal to another dimension? I khey had theories and experimental tech, but the way my dad talked about it, it would never be pleted unless a miracle happened.” Sapphyra rubs her , pting.

  “A miracle happehey just covered it up so no one else could use it.” Nahnco lifts a mug of alcohol and chugs it down. “Anyway, we went through a portal. Don’t let the movies fool you. Walking through one of those things tears you limb from limb and spits you out oher side. When we made it to Drakkir, the nd of monsters, it was like walking into a war zone. Walk about a mile and it became the tropics of Costa Rica. We quickly realized that each of the little biomes we went through held different creatures and cultures. Some were fasating, like these small fuzzy creatures that only unicate by lights. Others were not so great, like the little green rapists you fought. Trying to get your mom out of that one was damn near impossible…”

  He stops, staring at the wall with a thousand-yard stare. Nahnco blinks and shakes his head.

  “The to one pce…they looked human, like us. Called themselves Majiborn. Fitting cus they had spells for everything. One of them was really sweet on your dad. Pretty sure I caught her trying to seduce him oime. Your mom got so mad, the only reason she didn’t murder the woman is because she offered her something that your mom couldn’t resist: ued magic that she could take back with her. We call it the Mist, but it’s actually a spell called the Mists of Mirolo. Mirolo is one of the many gods they worship. Wanna guess what her cim to fame is?”

  “Reality ing?” Pearl offered, finally sitting down to check her phone.

  “Close. ists of Mirolo is a spell that causes immense chaos to everything and everyo touches.”

  Sapphyra thought it was supposed to help people. How is mutating into an Anthro wolf helpful?

  The ehing was ughable.

  Sappyhra snorts and leans against a wall. “So, what, did they teach my mom the spell? I ook her for the magical type.”

  Nahnco shook his head no. “Course not. They gave her a jewel that taihe spell.”

  Sapphyra scratches her head and then asks more questions.

  “They gave it to her…are you sure? Or is the jewel the item the queen is missing?”

  Nahnods. “Yeah, I watched the woman give it to her. Now, whether it was okayed by their people? I’m not sure about that. Either way, I don’t think the queen would burn down all these i people if it was just that. Mirolo is just one of many gods they worship and that jewel wasn’t u all. In fact, it was one of several.”

  Sapphyra frowns. “Damn. And here I thought I was on to something.”

  “You-” Nahnco starts before an obnoxiously loud arm goes off on his phone. He holds up his index finger as he reads his s.

  “Hold that thought. Looks like the lecture is over. Now it’s time to get some practical experien.”