Broken Chalice

Something exploded nearby, resounding agonizingly in her hearing. What was going on now? The battle was over; why was there still fighting?

The dragon lurched from her hiding spot, bloodied staff held defensively as her battered mass emerged. From atop her head, the young kitsune she so cherished danced between the curving horns. It chirped noisily as it stared across the devastation before her.

"What do you see, Agahsi?" she questioned with her mind, broken tail limp upon the ground.

The creature scurried to the end of one horn and stretched forward, one delicate paw shielding the muted sunlight from its eyes. He squeaked audibly before jumping back down and sliding along her neck to rest upon one shoulder. Its fox-like head pushing through the bloodied and tangled mane on her neck to reach the dull-blue frill that protected hear ear holes.

"Men coming." he said perfunctorily before jumping back to her head once more and tapping with one of his four tails to her right. She turned in that direction and inhaled a great gasp of the acrid air around her. Among the tang and bitter spice of the battle-field scents, she discovered the sharper aroma of those whom Agahsi spoke of. It was a large unit it seemed and they too would fall before the warriors around her. She was a scout and what battle she fought would be merely self-defense.

This was Hell as Earth had never known before.
One year ago…

“Li’l momma” Fred said from by the fridge, “Quit workin’ yerself so hard”. He was always saying that, ever since she’d started. Her efficiency and demeanor was favored with her coworkers because it saved them several steps more often than not. Unfortunately, her hard-working self was far too clumsy and resulted in trouble more oft than not. Can you say dang?

“Yea, yea, I know” Laura replied tiredly, replacing the knife beside the cutting board and scooping the diced onions into the bowl with the rest of the cheese-spread ingredients. It smelled wonderful, but damn if those roots didn’t wreak havoc on her eyes.

Anne shuffled into the room with some more cups for the paper goods and headed to her work-station, pausing only to put the majority of the collected sleeves into the box above the warmer. The clock behind said box ticked on, already nearing eleven o’clock, casting its deaf tones to the four weary workers below. God, would this day never end?

For the umpteenth time that day, the hairnet fell from Laura’s brown haired bun and dangled against her back precariously, wishing to fall to the floor and cause chaos anew to the quartet. But it didn’t. The stubby hand of the woman reached around and plucked it from its perch, resetting it to her head, changed gloves once more, and started blending the aforementioned mixture. It was late and they were all tired. All other employees had left and now they were the only ones. But what did it matter anymore? Jennifer didn’t care, nor did Angela. Everything had changed, and the biggest one of all was soon to unfold.

Ten minutes after she’d finished, Jennifer sighed from the desk and looked at her employees, saying “Alright, I say we just head home….it’s late and we’re not gonna accomplish anymore for tomorrow now. Clean up and clock out and I’ll see ya tomorrow.” And so they did.

Laura called the campus police and asked for a ride to the stadium while the others headed their own directions, leaving her by herself at the main elevators of the hospital. Finally, that day had ended and she would be going home. Just another day as a caterer at the university hospital. She sighed.

Meanwhile, just around the corner, low voices argued as they studied a note with blotched writing on the surface, it’s crooked hand speaking of something almost other-worldly. One peaked around at the closed-eyed Laura and grunted, crinkling the paper in a tight fist and abandoning his companion for a moment to confront this seemingly random young woman.

“ ‘ey, joo” he said, an accent the likes of which she couldn’t even begin to place. “Ai kno’ joo”. His voice was sharp, deep, and held a note of cruelty almost on its tongue. Immediately, laura dispised the voice and willed it’s owner away from her. But the man stayed, leaning forward and almost pressing his oft-broken nose into her personal space. “Wha’s joor nehm.” Was he Russian or Spanish? She couldn’t tell, but she hated him all the more for getting so near.

To her left, a new voice intruded, hissing serpent-like against her pony-tailed hair and the open ear as well. “Yesh, isss heeer.” He croaked crudely, stretching a fat-fingered hand to carress her sweat-mottled sleeve in delight. As if on cue, the two broke into an argument, striding before her and duking it out with verbal sabers.

“We musss’ do eeet!” The second howled at the first.
“Naht ‘ere!” Sssomeone will see! Dey will know!” Now he sounded German. What was with this guy?
“No!”
“YES!”
“NO!”
The battle continued between the two beings before coming to an abrupt end as the second turned to her and sneered, stretching a hand forth again as the first mimicked him, their hands finding her shoulder in an instant and closing in an iron grip that would have crushed a diamond.

With a yelp, Laura knelt, reaching for her shoulder that blossomed with pain, their fingers digging into the white shirt that was a part of her work uniform. “Let go’f me!” she cried in distress, venturing further with the renowned “FIRE!” call that people answered to immediately. Someone had to help her after that. Shouting fire was the best way to gain attention, unlike saying Help.

But she was there's and there was no stopping them now. None would come. One of the little beasties set about applying a choke-hold, forcing her struggling to lessen and lessen till she was unconscious, and a dead-weight in their arms....

.....Her memory jumped back to the present and the war she was involved in.

The men were nearly upon them when the warriors she was allied with let their montage of ammunition loose. Burning air, burning flesh, rumbling; smells and sounds bombarded her senses once again. Screams of pain from both sides were loosed as friend and foe fell beneath the fire-fight. Aghasi yipped atop her head and dove between twin gold wings, using her larger bipedal frame as his shield. She had thrown one of her arms and one wing forward, protecting her as shrapnel from a man-thrown grenade exploded somewhere before her. The stinging dirt-riddled air was alive with the static that was lifted.

A louder cry to her left turned her attention just as someone grabbed her tail and yanked her back, a startled yelp leaping from her throat. Wind whistled above, just where she’d been standing from a projectile from the enemy.

“Asiil!” a voice shouted in her ear. “Damnit, stay down! Yer gonna get killed up there!” It was Damian, a young wolf-anthro from Memphis.

Her mind flitted briefly to…

….The transformation was horrendous. People of every race were lined against the wall, IV’s set in their arms. And she was amongst them. Their cries made her shiver and she wished to cry as well. Laura knew what was happening now and knew the agony that was soon to follow.

As if on cue, pain lanced her bones and flesh. She could feel her limbs stretching as a bellow of firey pain belched from her lips. Cringing features were lifted, her hands clenched into fists.

Someone howled to her left, another groaned to her right. Her voice was giving out, scream falling to a hoarse grunt as the change continued. Her feet pressed through the shoes she wore now, exposing the lengthened part and the talons that were protruding from each toe. Something pushed downards from behind her, moving along her leg and stretching the slacks that kept her unexposed. Her skin was changing now, the rippling slowing as flesh became scales, the color shifting from a sickening white-tan to a more handsome orange-gold.

Her clothes shredded then as the chains were released and the collected people collapsed to the ground, continuing in their shifts. Laura howled once more as two great bulges pressed against her spine. She resembled something like a lizard by now, her face not quite lengthened to its appropriate position and her tail not quite filled with the muscle that still grew. Her neck grew now, stretching her head from its body and building thick muscles along its stem. The bulges in her spine shifted and she fell to her side, writhing in pain. With a sickening tearing sound, they burst and two great wings of crimson flaps and bat-like build fell onto the floor.

Her strength was giving out, yet the change did not stop. Powerful muscles stretched her back, tugging at the two wings, moving them around her naked frame. She arched her back and the scream deepened, becoming more harmonized somehow. Her hair lightened to that of snow and her body stilled at last.

One of the original things approached her now, several others like it moving to those on either side of her to examine their “experiments”.

“Welcome back…Asiil” it said tenderly, laying a blanket before her and turning away.

…”Damian, you brat, why’d you do that?” she growled stiffly, rolling over and righting herself. Damian had been at the station as well having been captured by a different crew of kin-collectors. He stood to her shoulders, his fur as black as ebony. She had known him at one point, though not consciously.

He’d been in a dream of hers, as a powerful lycanthrope with an alabaster gentile and two others. His counter-personality, as she’d come to call it, had been the will for freedom and to recognize that of a similar sentient. That was only how he’d found her, through that link in dreams.

“Yer not hurt so get over yerself” he snapped back and crouched, peering over the lip of the embankment he’d pulled her from, Aghasi now jumping onto his shoulders to watch as well.

Ahead, men were creeping forward, the aerial allies failing in holding them back. Their time was running out…

…New clothing; new form; new people. Everything from what she’d known was different and yet the same. No, she had not known life on Earth in her dragon form, but that was not the point. In the collection these beings had made, there were only two other dragons. The majority had been anthro-animals and mythological standards like the mer-creatures who now resided in adapted water tanks.

Asiil walked with one of these nameless beings, blue scrub pants specially tailored for her size and shape clothed her legs while a smock of the same shade adorned her top half. It was like being in a rehab center for druggies, she thought. The occasional fretting cry would come from one room or another while people in more humanoid forms talked calmly and conversationally with other. What a strange place this was. It could almost fit into one of her stories.

“The other facilities have a wider range of control for the collected, you see,” her guide was saying. “They can house larger species or more element specific types that we cannot. You and one of the other dragons are our largest so far. It’s difficult to find appropriate space for your kind, unfortunately. If we had not elected to do it ourselves, the others may have left you from what is coming.”

She frowned at this. What is coming? What did he mean by that? She asked him, ducking through a doorway that was taller than she. A naga passed by down another corridor, moving with what looked like a crab-taur. A very strange place indeed.

…The drone of a fixed-wing was heard overhead and a missile scoured the land several yards behind her. The wave of heat that suddenly washed over them was as intense as any. This was it…

“Hey Damian, come on, let’s go outside”, she called to the wolf who’d been working on a hand-puzzle in a corner nearby. The anthro looked to her and beamed, immediately dropping the toy and coming towards her. She’d been told they weren’t allowed to leave very often from the facility, but today was her day and she’d take every advantage of that as she could.

Once out, she checked the clock on the wall above the door. 10:43 am.

Time. Memory.

….Another explosion rocked the ground as a missile met the water way nearby, washing them with another heat. Man was strong and numerous. They would win. The kin-clans could not. 10:43. 1043. Her mind fought between memory and present. She wanted to see again. See. 1043. A roar ripped from her throat, the others lifting their own voices in defeat as the final came to land.

The time had been 10:43:22. The Chalice had been broken and time had been lost.

If there exists no possibility of failure, then victory is meaningless. -- Robert H. Schuller