A groggy, monstrous yawn reverberated around the polished walls of the house. Morning had just broken on the horizon, and the light began to shine through the windows somebody forgot to blind the night before.
The oversized inhabitant exhaled a puff of smoke from her nostrils; she despised the agonizing process of waking even more than the mortal need to sleep. Her heavy tail slinked around the circular velvet king-size bed before dropping onto the cold wood floor. Her housemate must have woken up before her, otherwise they would have been nested between her body, manifesting a string of the letter Z above their head.
Speaking of the Devil, a cheery voice called out past the hallway. “Skybie! Bakey bakey, eggs and wakey!”
“Yes, just a moment, Nova.” Well, with the happiest entity in the universe as your best and only friend, the mornings don’t get too bad.
The larger being—or, as some call her, the dragoness—opened her expansive closet, which had long since taken the space of the no-longer-needed bathroom. After choosing the right attire for the day, consisting of a Triple XL-size dress shirt and purple slacks, Skyber rounded her way into the neatly furnished hallway and found her partner in crime shoving an entire box of cereal into their mouth, cardboard and all. A large bowl of oatmeal waited for her, decorated with fruits and toppings.
“This is oatmeal, Nova.”
“Correct!” The being gave a thumbs up as an omnipotent round of applause cheered Skyber on for her brilliant observation. “There’s not a problem with the oatmeal, is there?”
“No… none at all,” Skyber sat down and took a spoon. Usually her breakfasts were more… filling, to say the least. She would have liked a little bite to her meal; something that could at least bleed.
The two eldritch-like people sat at the creaky wooden table for a while. Skyber had an uneasy look on her face for some reason—and Nova could tell it wasn’t about the oatmeal.
“Is it about our new neighbor?” they asked.
Skyber looked up. “The only thing I find more frightening than myself is your intuition.” She put her spoon down. “I have a bad feeling about that boy.”
“You mean the little pipsqueak you threatened at the library for checking out that thriller romance you wanted?”
“…No. The new boy. Two houses down from Pearl. His mother poses no threat, but her son obviously has other plans. Be he as ignorant as he is to what’s under New Era, he’s still prone to wander into trouble. Who knows where Pearl and Saki took him last night?”
“Oh, I’m sure it’s no big deal!” Nova waved their paw dismissively. “You know those two, they’re about as responsible as we are to Deg!” They beamed. “Besides, Mason’s just nervous about moving to a new place. I’m sure most people would be as tense as he is right now. Don’t worry, he’ll come around sooner or later!”
The dragoness’s mood remained unchanged. “Please. The last thing we need in this town is more Electi making a name for themselves. It’s bad enough that foul ERATech got here before I did. We cannot afford to attract any more attention. Especially to those we can’t trust.”
She saw a truck pull up to the front porch. “Mail’s here.”
“I’ll get it!” Nova jumped from their seat and swooped right out the door.
The mailwoman pulled up to the strange residents’ mailbox in her postal service truck. Nova could tell the vehicle had seen much of its years, but the same certainly couldn’t be said for the driver. Her wild black hair seemed to defy the laws of gravity, and her uniform was covered by her usual flowing green cloak. However, she was wearing a leather eyepatch instead of her usual black one. “Morning, Nova,” she said. “Nice day today, isn’t it?”
“It sure is, Kay!” The ball of fuzz spread their arms out with the rays of sunlight peeking through the clouds behind them. “Got anything for the Wyrmond-Kami residence?”
“Let’s see…” Kay reached into her mailbag inside the truck. Her hand rummaged around, before grabbing a small cardboard box, taped shut and stamped. Then, she let go, yet the box was still in the air. It floated slowly to the recipient. “This your package?”
“Deg’s new dog tag!” Nova jumped into the air, exploding like a firework before reforming to snatch the package. “Thank you so much!”
Kay seemed as happy as Nova was. Her pure white grin complimented her warm, umber complexion. “All in a day’s work. I should get going, got more mailboxes to fill.”
“Okie dokie! See ya later!” They waved goodbye as the mail truck sputtered away. Taking in the fresh morning breeze (as well as a hint of exhaust fumes), Nova went back inside their cozy one-story house.
“Making friends with the delivery woman again, I see?” Skyber’s voice growled as she fitted her luxury purple blazer on.
“Yep! You should try making a friend sometime. You never know when you need a helping hand.”
“Which is why I have you. Otherwise, I think I’m perfectly fine keeping to myself in a town such as this.” Despite Nova meaning the best for her, she still couldn’t help but feel the strange notion that they were dissing her. “Anyhow. Has that dog’s collar come in yet?”
“Right here, baby!” Nova opened the box and unveiled a shiny new collar. The band was a bright red made with firm nylon webbing, holding a small cowbell engraved with the name “DEG” on the front. On the back were another two lines of engraving listing the owners’ home address and phone number that one would have to use a magnifying glass to read.
Even Skyber was pleased. “Impressive. Now all we need to do is find that little mutt. He’s out back, correct?” She stepped around her companion and opened the sliding glass door that led out to the backyard. Like every backyard in the neighborhood, this one had only a room or two’s worth of land, if compared to the space inside the house. All that could fit was their pet’s dog house, an outdoor table, and some wind chimes hung below the patio roof.
Among these things, Deg was nowhere in sight.
“Nova, come out here,” the towering creature said.
“What’s wrong, Skybie?” Nova tilted their head as they came out.
“Have you misplaced our dog?”
“What? It was your job to take him out here last night, silly. Where is he?”
“That mutt can’t have jumped the fence. His legs are too stubby. Can’t have dug under it either. Unless…” The annoyed behemoth stomped around to the narrow patch of grass leading out to the front lawn. Between the safety of the backyard to the outside world was guarded by a single wooden gate.
Left wide open.
“He ran away.”
“Whaddya— oh.” Nova’s smile faded. They fiddled with the collar in their paws. Skyber’s breath turned to smoke. The smoke fell as ash.
“Remind me.” The dragoness turned around. “What was the reason we adopted that mutt from the shelter?”
“To… to protect him. To make sure he lives a happy life here.”
“A-huh. I see. That leads me to my second question.” She closed the gate with enough force to rattle the whole fence. “For what reason did we decide to take that one home, out of all the ones you wanted that day?”
Nova’s blank eyeholes looked more hollow. They didn’t answer, but they knew all too well.
“Well, I’m sure you saw it as keenly as I did for you to make that face.” The soles of Skyber’s shoes left char marks on the grass. She kneeled down to face her housemate. “Look. This is not your fault. Perhaps I should have been more cautious last night. No matter when Deg decided to go on his little escapade, he can’t have run that fast. If anything, it’s that damn hound’s fault to bounce the second we took our eyes off him.”
The air warped around the brightly colored being of fuzz. Skyber strained to soften her voice more. “Honestly. We clean up his own waste for him, and this is the thanks we get. Such a spoiled little thing. He’s probably across the block, simply rolling around in a pile of mud.”
“I told you, dummy,” Nova eventually said when they regained some of their smile, “he was always curious about the outside world.”
The rotary phone rang from the living room. Skyber huffed and went back inside. It was on the fourth ring before the dragoness came to pick it up and stop the incessant noise. “Who is this?”
“It’s me, Pearl! And I keep telling you, Skyber, you should really get a cell phone so you know who’s calling you.”
“Get on with it,” the being rolled her eyes. Speaking of incessant noises.
“Oh yeah! So, um, I was heading to the lake today, and I thought it’d be nice to have a friend over. Saki can’t make it this time, he’s with his brother today. So I was wondering if you and Nova…”
“Can’t. Apologies, but we have a mutt to catch. The gate from our backyard was left wide open, and the damn thing ran off overnight.
“…Oh my gosh, Deg’s gone? Do you need me to round up a search party?”
“No, no, we’re plenty capable on our own. Have fun at your little pond.”
“Lake… but okay, if you say so. Good luck! Call me if you found him, or just need some help!”
She put the phone down, seeing Nova right next to her.
“What was that about people you can’t trust?” Nova teased.
Skyber exhaled more smoke.
Of all the inconveniences in Skyber Wyrmond’s long, long lifetime, losing her dog had to rank in the top 1000. Maybe even the top 100. But the sudden disappearance of a beloved pet was not the issue. No, her issue was far bigger. It was the pet himself.
Nova knew it too. He wasn’t some ordinary dog they found at the local pound. He was something extraordinary. Something they had never seen anywhere besides humans or anthropomorphic humanoids in history. Perhaps the Shiba Inu was an anomaly. Perhaps he was a precursor for what was to come. But the only thing certain was that they needed him back. No matter what.
There was hardly time for running aimlessly about. New Era may be a small town, but not a town where lost things could be easily found. If Skyber were to have any chance of finding Deg, it would be from the air. Which was exactly what she did.
The beings agreed on a plan before they left their home that morning. Nova would search from the streets, scouring every nook and cranny and asking the residents around for their missing dog. Meanwhile, Skyber would take to the skies, making use of her dragonesque wings for once. Not that anything was stopping her before, aside from the unneeded attention. Regardless of whether Deg was found, the two would return to their house to regroup and assess their situation by dusk.
The dragoness soared across the buildings and roads and cars and bus stops, swooped by the trees and puddles and hills and clouds, and still no sign of the missing canine. It hadn’t even reached noon before Skyber felt something in the pit of her stomach she hadn’t felt in decades:
Worry.
She flew over the last of the residential areas, scanning more thoroughly than a well-trained falcon. Deg was most likely the first one of his kind. Maybe even the only one. To lose him would be dangerous. To let him get in the wrong hands would be catastrophic.
And if she knew anything about wrong hands, they were right here, in this town.
The thought of them stopped the dragoness. What if they found him? No, that was preposterous. They wouldn’t randomly pick a mutt like him off the street to run experiments on. Plus, they knew better than to mess with her dog. That is, if they knew what was good for them.
They’d best know what’s good for them, she thought as she found herself en route to the ERATech Labs.
She could see them from her vantage point in the skies—about three minutes by flight. The layout of the buildings had hardly changed over the decades, as if the whole complex was frozen in time. Though for such an unassuming biotechnology company, they sure needed a lot of private land.
Skyber took quick note of how disgusting the fields looked. How gruesomely unnatural the plant life grew. A sure sign of science dabbling in what should never be dabbled in. It was one of the things she never stopped hating about humanity. Their incessant curiosity was their downfall as much as it was their strength. Once they found something they could not immediately take advantage of, they stopped at nothing to strip it apart to see what made it work until they could. And to her, that was ERATech in a nutshell.
The monstrous wings on her back folded in, and Skyber touched down to soft, tall grass. Her shoes crushed the infertile dirt below her. She took a few steps forward, scanning the field for her lost pet. Obviously he wouldn’t be here. She would have seen him from her bird’s eye view. So why was she still here?
She stopped again. Under her next step was a pair of tracks—tire tracks. She followed the chaotic trail with her eyes; they entered the field drifting all over the place, got stuck long enough to burn a hole in the ground, swerved around a bit, and came back the way they entered. A peculiar scenario no doubt, whatever transpired when the tracks were made. And the tracks looked particularly fresh.
Although it wasn’t Deg-related, it managed to pique the dragoness’s interest. It was trivial by her standards, but nevertheless she wanted to know whose foolish idea it was to take a joyride all the way from town to this field, only to drive back out.
And that was when she sensed a presence. Two presences. Skyber peered around and spotted a pair of still bodies on the dirt, just ahead of where the tracks were. She suspected if she had been in the air a bit longer, she would have seen them much sooner.
They were human. Well, one of them was, at least. A square-built man in a black tracksuit, laying face-down. The other was a scaly reptile Anthro in primarily dark brown leather clothing, sprawled unconscious on his back. They obviously weren’t supposed to be here, but there they lay. Skyber approached the two. Time for a wake-up call.
She punted the Anthro in the gut with her dress shoe. He choked, air escaping his lungs. The Reptile’s eyes opened wide, coughing and sputtering awake. He found a humanoid monster-like creature staring down at him.
“Good morning,” Skyber said.
Forcing the air back into his lungs again, the Anthro scrambled back on the ground, moving to shake his accomplice awake. “Bill! Bill! Wake up! We’re in the deep shit now!”
“Uh? What?” The man had a much slower coming to. But that didn’t matter too much when he looked up to the dragoness’s menacing glare. Both men were now facing the new threat.
“At this point, it’d be rather rude of you not to wish a good morning back. Where are your manners?” Skyber tsked and shook her head condescendingly.
“Who the fuck are you and why are ya here?” The stout man named Bill spat.
“So you two are simply rude people. Good to note.” She impatiently took her pocket watch out to check the time. “I should ask you the same question. But if you must know, I’ve got a stray mutt of mine who escaped my lovely abode just this morning. I don’t suppose either of you have a clue where my dog might be?”
“You stay outta our business, woman! We ain’t snitches to no one!” The Anthro interjected. “And we ain’t seen your damn dog!”
“Hm. Funny, because I happen to see two of them right before my eyes. Fine, let’s try a different approach, shall we?”
The grass the dragoness stood on started to smoke. There was now a charred imprint where her soles left the dirt to take another step forward. She carefully removed her white gloves, revealing a set of hideous, sharp obsidian claws. The sunlight’s brightness paled in comparison to the violet embers that bursted from her irises.
“H-hey, that’s close enough!” Bill fumbled around on the ground, picking up a switchblade with the metal warped and bent forward like putty. Yet, it snapped like brittle when Skyber crushed the blade with her hand. This only frightened the mortal pair more.
“I’m only asking this once more, before I tear your organs to shreds.” The grass Skyber had stepped on erupted into flames. “Who are you, and why are you here?”
“No! Please don’t hurt us!” The Anthro cowered in fear.
“Stop being a pussy, Jeff!” said Bill, also cowering in fear.
“You have three seconds to explain yourself!” The monster announced. “One!”
“Okay, okay! We’ll talk!” Jeff cracked. “We’re just two associates from the Frontier! We ain’t after nuthin’ but information!”
“What information?” Skyber growled offensively.
“Just about the damn science lab!” Bill responded. “We were tryin’ to pass as visitors! No way they’d let us through the checkpoint without a car, so we thought we’d nab one from a couple a fuckin’ no-good brats who came down here, but they got away! Shoulda just killed them before we thoughta hotwirin’ it first!”
That explains the tire tracks, she thought. “And what would a lowlife human like you be doing associating himself with the Frontier?”
“I’m only in it for the money, honest!” Bill testified. “Our boss would pay us a handful if we’d just scope the place!”
“Scope the place for what?” More embers escaped her eye sockets.
“We don’t know! The boss wouldn’t tell us!” Jeff cried.
“Who is this ‘Boss’ I’m hearing so much of?” The entire field began to smoke.
“If we said that, you’ll have to kill us!” Bill stretched out the crushed blade still attached to the handle, making what little was left of it into something akin to a utility knife.
“Oh, is that all? That can be arranged.” She charged straight at the man. Her palm wielding five deadly pikes reached past the knife, latched onto his arm, squeezed, and yielded a disgusting crunch. Bill screamed, holding onto his arm as blood spilled out from his sleeves. Jeff looked on in horror.
“That was just for holding your little toy at my face,” Skyber said offhandedly. “Children shouldn’t play with weapons. Now. If you know what’s good for both you and your employers, answer me: Who is your boss?”
But before she could manifest her threat into a reality, a loud BOOM ruptured the sky. Her new priority turned to the source of the explosion, which happened to be from the very institution she swore she would never return to. At least, not with ERATech in the way. From under her feet she not only felt the burnt grass, but a wave of energy. And not just any sort of energy, either. It was the kind she could sense. She could feel it rush underneath and past her, seeping into the soil and up the tall grass. They started to glow. She turned back to the—
There was nobody there. Bill and Jeff had escaped her sight.
Her eyes narrowed. The first thing she looked for was the blood trail leading away from the scene, but it looked like they managed to hide it well in their frantic state of panic. She thought of burning the whole field down, but she knew what that would lead to.
A stupid mistake, for sure. Usually her prey would have been scared stiff, but she let her confidence get the best of her. She should have heard them escape, but nothing still. They must have been Electi. And even if they were, she wouldn’t have sensed them in this ocean of energy. It would have been like searching for… well, needless analogies aside, there was no use now. Still, she realized how sloppy she had gotten since the last time she had done something like this. Living a cushy life with her eternal partner had turned her soft.
Besides, she got what she wanted anyway. Not counting Deg, that was. Even so, she found it rather bizarre that such a pair from such a place would have traveled all the way here to scout out a seemingly indifferent science company in the middle of Nowhere Town. Unless they knew something about it…
No. Impossible. She waved the thought away. She doubted they would even act on it now. She saw the look on their faces; no matter who they worked for or what their business was, they would never come back in their lifetimes. It felt good to traumatize some well-deserving people again.
“Well, that was entertaining,” Skyber said aloud to herself, stretching her wings. With the men out of the way, her primary focus was on those laboratories. As much as she dreaded doing so, and as little of a chance there was that Deg was inside, there was only one place left to check that day.
Though, there was still one thing that plagued her mind as she took off towards the entrance.
What had caused all this?