Chapter 1 - Great Dragon

Chapter 1

???

"What the?" Asked Airah as suddenly she was a in a featureless white plane, extending to the horizon. There was a peaceful, blue sky, but it looked subtly wrong. She looked to the side while pinging her mindlink, checking that Stellyra was indeed here with her, and-

"Apologies for the abruptness, but something has come up."

Airah looked at G as the woman exited some kind of portal.

"What do you mean? Where are we? What the hell is going on?"

"You've been pulled out of stasis, and this is my briefing room. Normally I would have personalized it to your taste, and allowed you to decorate it, but there is no time."

"No time? Can't you literally stop time?"

"Yes, but that ability is limited. Also, it isn't truly stopping. In truth you were experiencing time trillions of times faster than a normal human. If you'd had access to an atomic clock at the time, it would have ticked. Slowly, yes, but ticked nonetheless. Regardless, I have already spent most of that ability today, and I am nearing my limits. As I said, there is no time."

"Alright." Airah raised her hands placatingly as G raised her voice. "What's going on?"

"An...opportunity has arisen." Said the woman, instantly reverting back to her cool demeanor, without even the hint of her previous outburst. "An opportunity so great it has to be exploited. My client agrees, and find this opportunity so enticing that they have considerably upped their payment if it was taken, and ceded on several negotiating points."

"Ah. So a rush job?"

G smiled.

"In some ways I suppose so. But that means a higher compensation for you."

"Ah? In which way?"

G took a deep breath.

"First and foremost, your immortality and dominion over that world, as originally promised. Then, with the payment that has been offered...I am ready to guarantee certain transfer of technologies to your Galactic Empire, upon mission completion."

"What kind of tech?"

"Multiverse jump drives, jump jammers...and the true immortality tech."

"That's....huge, correct? And wouldn't that gather the attention of the Gods?"

"Not if it is made to look like a natural series of discoveries. Which will be especially easy as your Galactic Empire already has the base theories for all of this, it just needs nudges in the right directions and a handful of key breakthroughs."

"Uh uh. And besides the immortality, this would help our nation how?"

"First and foremost, the multiverse jump drive would enable your Galactic Empire throughout the multiverse. But the jammers would prevent interference or outright attack by other polities. After all once you have the capacity to travel the multiverse, many protections afforded by the Gods are lifted, and the jamming tech requires specific breakthroughs to develop. Many nations are destroyed or conquered before they manage it."

"Right. I suppose that is fair. Wouldn't it eliminate one of your sources of exceptional individuals though?"

"Even a whole galaxy produces few people that meet my criteria over the course of centuries, even less so that I can quietly nab away in a perfect erasure of evidence like your own almost demise. And believe me, I am being paid far more than enough to make up for the loss of one of my head hunting grounds."

"Right."

"I am also ready to offer something that is rarely on the table." G closed her eyes. "If, IF, the mission succeeds, and the client is fully satisfied with its outcome, I will work out a way to get you back into your home dimension, back to your Galactic Empire, in a way that will not cause enough ripples for the gods to investigate. That would, of course, mean giving up your dominion over the world you would be deployed to, but still."

"You are being that well paid?" Said Stellyra, and Airah nodded along. After all, G had been afraid of taking their bodies when she'd recruited them. Somehow bringing them back from the dead, especially as they were galactic heroes, would  be extremely complicated.

"You have no idea." Said G as she smiled, before sighing and rubbing her forehead. "However I really, really don't have the time to speak about this. There are only a few minutes left in our subjective time before the window closes."

"Alright." If there was one thing that Airah understood, it was rushed lectures/briefings. There were few ancient terran historians even on Alytra, and they were busy enough that even meeting the living, breathing hero they learned about in their history books would only keep them still for so long. "So, summary?"

"Your objective will be to kill the five Great Sages, who steer the political currents of that world in the shadows, and have complete control of the extraction of the Essence of Creation. Changing their minds just won't cut it, and the clients will be pay extra for this, hence the offer for you to go back home. There are several catches. The first one is that this reality is significantly different from your own. A variant of what you would call 'magic' exist there, alongside a great deal many anomalies in a similar vein. Do not rely too much on what you 'know' is true, because it just might not work there."

Airah smiled.

"Good thing we've been recently memory wiped then."

"Precisely. Partially blanks slates always work better in such an environment. Besides, I chose you because of your flexibility and potential for greatness, not what you know. You've been, over your life, an admiral, a CEO, and even a special forces commando. Regardless, you'll have to learn a great deal about this world. I will forward you a briefing package but it is incomplete."

"What about languages? And the people there? Are they humans or...xenos?"

"I will load a full translation routine into you. It will translate things to Terran equivalents, you will be able to understand all tongues, although I am given to understand the name of some places and terms might be translated into foreign terran languages. I will see about getting you a patch for that as soon as feasible. And they are humans, and variants of humanity, who have been created through mutations, or meddling in their genetics."

"Good, we're used to those. So, what about our body, since you didn't bring my original one? Will it able to be house us both."

"Well...." G positively squirmed. "It is actually the opportunity that launched all of this. The body you will be brought into is that of a Great Dragon, which will indeed be more than able to house you both. I'll have more details in the briefing package, but great dragons are, well, dragons as you picture them, in the western style. They are fully capable of using magic and highly intelligent, thus your use of a linked AI, as long as you keep her a secret, should be passed as being just a genius in some ways. And eccentric, I suppose."

"Wow wow wow! You want us to be in animal's body?"

"Not....truly. Great dragons have a human form they can transform into, although there are some limitations. But yes, you might have to spend time in the body of a non-human sapient. I am aware of the cultural issues, but great dragons were originally created by human hands, before their creation, as most biological constructs do, let alone sapient ones, evolved out of their control. So truly, it would be no different than inhabiting the modified creatures some humans lived in in your galaxy."

Airah licked her lips, and sighed, looking at Stellyra, who shrugged.

"Hey, when you think about it, not that different from a Devourer, right?"

Airah nodded. That was true enough, as you had to commune, and essentially become the ship to truly command it.

"Alright. And that magic?"

"You'll be able to wield it. In fact, great dragons can wield it a great deal more easily and instinctively than most beings." G looked at her wrist. "Look, there really isn't time. Do you accept the job or not?"

There was a hint of true, raw urgency in her tone, and Airah looked at Stellyra again, who nodded.

"Alright, we'll take the job."

"Great! Walk through that portal then, I'll take care of the rest." G called out as they made their way to the glistening doorway that had just appeared. "Oh, and due to the gods watching, and the sages' own interference, I will only be able to contact you periodically, and offer minimal support besides information! I'll try to get as large a datadump to you as possible, and have a talk, but not that much more. I will, however, be able to monitor you, so there shouldn't be a need for lengthy briefings, although I might need some clarifications."

Airah and Stellyra nodded.

"Alright, anything else?"

"No. Now go!"

They nodded once more, and stepped into the doorway.

And everything vanished in a flash.

*****

"Hey! Hey wake up!"

Airah blinked, and raised her head as she heard Stellyra's voice.

Which brought her to immediately collide with a tree branch, and smash her head through.

"Wow, wow! What the..." Sarah stopped as she realized her voice was booming, and while definitely feminine, absolutely not of the right pitch of her own voice. Plus it sounded almost inhuman, like it was being spoken by a giant.

Then she realized that her body didn't feel like she expected to.

"It looks like we're there. And that G was as true as her word." Said Stellyra as she appeared in front of Airah's head, with the peculiar feeling she had when it wasn't a hologram, but a projection straight through the mind link that bound them together. "You are a big girl now! And scaly."

"Fuck you." Rumbled Airah, before angling her head to look at herself.

She indeed looked like what she'd imagine a dragon to look like, at least in the western tradition. Her vision was somewhat limited by the lack of mirror of course, but she could move her long neck to look straight back at her own body easily enough. And strangely the movements felt natural, and not repulsive or alien as she'd expected them to.

She had four scaly legs, with hands at the end. Each had five fingers tipped with some seriously vicious looking claws. She also had a pair of massive wings, and a long tail behind her. Oddly enough she wasn't covered in spikes like some dragons in popular media, just golden, shimmering scales.

"Great, I look like a gold looter's wet dream. So much for camouflage."

"Hey worse comes to worse I'm sure we can find a large enough mud puddle somewhere."

Airah chuckled.

"I suppose so. Alright, uh..." She looked around, they were in a forest. There were some mountains in the distances, and they appeared to be somewhere in the foothills surrounding them. Other than that, nothing. Shit, did they even- "Do we have a map?"

"Going through the briefing package....Uh, not really no. We have some information on the wildlife, but that's it."

"Stars damn it."

"Yeah. There is some interesting stuff in here. Including how to turn into your human form. It's some kind of reflex, here, I'll stimulate it."

Airah blinked as she felt...odd. It was almost like someone was trying to flex a phantom muscle, she concentrated on it, and flexed it fully.

Her vision dissolved in light, and suddenly she was there, standing in what definitely felt like a more human standard body.

Stellyra whistled softly.

"Well, at least G didn't short sell us on the human body. Very nice."

Airah looked down and smiled. She indeed looked very nice. Her skin was heavily tanned, which might not be natural, or might be due to her being completely naked, and thus having nothing to prevent her from tanning. She had a rather sizeable chest, larger than the one she'd had on her original body, which she wasn't against, and she was taller as well, by a solid ten centimeters at least, propelling her to a meter eighty to perhaps even a meter ninety! And she was muscled. As in, very muscled, she had a 'six pack', as some called it. She'd never truly exercised past her first few memory cycles, back when she'd been some kind of special operative -she had very few memory flashes of it, and her journals of that time were sparse, before the naval academy taught her to write a proper captain's log-. After all, once she was a CEO, and later a navy officers, she had goons or marines to do the heavy lifting. Or, you know, guns the size of sky scrappers and even whole cities when she was in her Devourer.

"Indeed, she didn't. Like it?"

Stellyra chuckled.

"Yeah, but not enough to sleep with you!"

They both laughed. Their bond was deeper than anyone could understand, and although they more or less inevitably fell into a romantic or even physical relationship immediately after a memory wipe, they moved into something past that fairly quickly. Their journals were very clear on that, and they were closer than even identical twins in many way. Mainly because twins couldn't partially merge their minds together, but still. So they laughed and they joked about it, but truth was neither of them was interested in the other, and even just in this memory cycle they'd seen each other naked -as well as in her case, being walked in on while she was being busy with another very much naked person- numerous times and they didn't care.

"Right, so, what now?"

"I guess the first thing would be to test your new body. And by that I mean the dragon one, mostly. Humans are all well and good but they can't fly, and well..." Stellyra gestured at the forest around them. "This isn't exactly easily passable terrain, especially for a naked human."

"Fair enough." Airah flexed the mental muscle again, and turned back into her full dragon form. "This is surprisingly easy, all things considered."

"The documentation has some notes saying that on top of the translator, they basically implanted you with most of the physical impulses and reflexes of a dragon, to make the transition easier." The AI looked up at Airah's head, which she had raised into the air. "Wow you're big."

Airah chuckled. She didn't have measuring tools, but judging by Stellyra's appearance, and the trees around her, she had to be a solid six meters long, and three tall, which basically put her in the size league of a WW2 medium battle tank. And given how she'd just obliterated the branch she'd hit while barely feeling a thing, she was considerably tougher than a human, although she'd rather not test if she was as tough as a tank, if at all possible.

"I suppose so. I mean I'm a giant, firebreathing lizard." She blinked. "Wait, can I breathe fire?"

The AI looked closer at the imaginary panel she had made appear in front of her, on which briefing documents were scrolling through quickly.

"Apparently so, yes. It's this-"

As soon as she felt the mental muscle twitch, she flexed it.

Fully.

She reeled backward as a veritable torrent of flames were vomited from her mouth, spraying it everywhere, and setting basically everything with a few meters of her alight, as well as making a very pretty show to anyone watching.

She froze, panicked, and Stellyra sighed.

"Well, I suppose it's a good thing that you're fireproof as well, at least according to this."

Airah slowly nodded.

"Alright, before you start another inferno, let's try the most crucial ability of a dragon, shall we? Let's see if you can fly!"