To Act In The Shadow

Her claws rapidly tapped on the large keyboard before her, producing text and graphs on the enormous wall screen that lit the room.

Darzarath's mind was split between things. On one hand, she wanted to finish this paper, move forward with her projects. On the other hand, she kept thinking back to what happened not even two days before. Things had taken a sour turn, and she knew that she'd have to deal with the consequences soon enough.

She continued her typing. Every stroke of the keys brought thoughts to her mind. Until it clicked to her, that she had some unfinished business.

It was late evening, with the sun already set and a shroud of clouds making it a particularly dark and cold night. The perfect combination for allowing Darzarath to take a stroll in town.

She left her lair and office, gliding slowly and surely towards one of the smaller towns that littered the coast of the region. Usually she'd run into trouble with the local air traffic control, had she been flying during the day or in a more clear weather. But with a starless and moonless night, she had free reign. Her colossal form, already hard to spot due to her dark metallic scales against the backdrop of the cloudy night sky, shimmered and faded against the shadows that made the night. Weightless, almost formless, she skimmed the shadows of the rooftops, prowling the darkness like a predator would their prey. She was looking for a specific address, and soon enough she reached a small house.

Curiously, the house was completely dark. No lights were on, and it seemed to be the only one in the neighborhood to be with their lights off.

Darzarath stopped on top of a house in front of her target, and observed, looking for any clues to the whereabouts of the person she was looking for. She spotted an old second-hand car parked in front of the house. The blinds seemed to be all closed, and the lawn seemed well kept enough to not cause argument whether the house was inhabited or not. Her observation would've been finished there hadn't she spotted finer details that would escape a common human's notice. The roof had an unusual amount of antennas, stacked one atop the other in unusual shapes. The windows seemed to have some sort of sensors mounted all around their frames. Even the roof's corners seemed to have small cameras, clustered so to cover the full range around the house.

She was unsure how to proceed. It seemed she had underestimated her target's capability for self-defense. However, she couldn't just further delay the matter.

She hunched down to get a better look to determine if she had missed anything. That's when she noticed a small blinking red light coming from the bottom of a partially raised blind. She focused on it, trying to determine what it was. It took her a few moments to realize what it was, but when she did a bright flash came from the same source as the red light.

The flash dazzled her, burning into her eyes, causing her to rear and then tumble forward as she roared in pain. Her concealment was quickly dispelled as she fell into the road below, lit by the road lights. Having suddenly regained her physicality, her scales, wings and tail began leaving deep marks in the road and the nearby cars and walls as she thrashed to regain her footing.

Snarling, she quickly regained her senses and rolled her self back up straight, staring at the now lit house with adrenaline-induced anger.

"Hah! How'd you like that, you overgrown lizard!?" A young man's voice called from some speakers, apparently installed along the house's windows. "I've got more of that where it came from. Sod off or be flashed! I've warned you!"

She kept snarling at the direction where the voice came, her eyes still stinging and partially blinded from the sudden flash. She was caught unprepared, and in her rage she couldn't stand it.

"A fine trick, for someone seeking a death wish." She snarled.

No response. The neighborhood around her was beginning to wake, more houses becoming lit and people shouting, asking what was going on, kids cryings, dogs barking. Thankfully she had not hurt anyone. Witnesses were the last complication she needed to deal with, but if she didn't act fast now she'd have a lot more in her claws than she was looking for.

She began for the man's house, and the perimeter wall, that would stop cars and burglars, proved useless as she simply walked through it, with plaster, concrete and brick harmlessly crumbling against her scales and the sheer might of her size. She closed in to the house, leaning her enormous head against the outer wall, pressing slightly against it.

Darzarath heard the wall's groaning complaint against her exertion, cracks slowly extending around her head. But the soft sound of destruction wasn't the only reason she was leaning against the house that barely managed to reach to her shoulder. She focused, attempting to hear for any commotion inside the house.

At first she didn't hear much aside from creaking metal and cracking concrete bricks, but suddenly she heard something moving with hurry, apparently barefoot if the dulled thuds were any indication. She kept her focus, following the sounds until she heard a door lock being turned.

She was already compromised by her quarry. She would not let him escape her so easily.

She pulled her head away from the house, ignoring the sounds of sirens coming from the distance. She'd deal with them later. She hunched down, bunching up her hind legs, loading herself to jump. Except that she didn't plan to jump _over_the house.

Ascar ran out of the house as fast he could. He did not expect that the "fat lizard" could get angry enough to actually contemplate attacking him, let alone destroying his house. He fumbled with the back door's lock for a couple moments, as he cursed himself for always procrastinating on fixing it. When he eventually managed to unlock it, he swung open the door, taking his first step outside.

He felt a gust of wind sweeping him off his feet, landing him face-down in the back yard's dirt as a cacophony of crumbling and shattering came from his house. Debris fell around and on him, a rather sizable chunk of concrete landing right next to him, missing his leg by less than an inch.

Ears ringing, head thumping with pain, heart pumping with adrenaline. Ascar was completely stunned to the ground, almost unable to move as the slightest movement shot pain all over his body.

"Ascar Reyn." A growling voice called from behind him, the ground itself vibrating with the sheer power of that voice. "I can appreciate a man that can stand their ground and play their games straight, but I am not here to play games. We have business to attend to, and you are going to take the deal wholesale."

He tried to fight the pain to turn around and look at his interlocutor, but she beat him to it, and almost launched him across the yard with a flick of a claw that was almost as big as his whole self.

He was powerless to fight back against the enormous black dragon that loomed above him, who reached down with a paw and grabbed him with surprising dexterity, if only with a little too much strength as he heard a cracking sound come from his body and pain suddenly flare up from his chest. He wanted to shout and scream, but her grip allowed him to barely breathe, and even then the pain was enough to discourage him from the effort as she took off.

He managed a look down to where he knew his house was as Darzarath took flight. All he saw was rubble and dust, lit by the road lights and the approaching police cars.

He woke up suddenly, almost throwing himself out of whatever kind of bed he was in currently. The last thing he remembered was watching as his house, or what remained of it, got further and further away, an incredible pain pulsated in his chest as he barely breathed in a dragon's tight grip. That's when he realized where he was now.

The room was dimly but uniformly lit, and an enormous window, on the opposite end of the room to the king-size bed he was in, afforded him to admire an absolutely stunning landscape. There were no decorations he could see right away, until he looked up and saw that the absurdly tall ceiling was seemingly painted and engraved with strange geometric patterns. They reminded him of something, but he couldn't recall what.

"You're awake." A powerful voice came from a darker part of the room. "Color me impressed by your endurance."

The dragon. Darzarath. Now he remembered why he was here.

"Look.. ugh... If it's for those photos..." He started as tried to sit up in the bed.

"Yes." Darzarath interrupted him. "It's because of the photos. But there's also much more."

He heard the sound of rustling scales and scraping claws as he noticed what previously was just a formless shadow rapidly took shape of an enormous black-scaled dragon, with eyes of an astonishingly deep red, and a body that seemed to present itself as the incarnation of raw physical might. A shiver shot down his spine as he realized that nothing would've stopped her from killing him earlier, hadn't it been for something she wanted from him.

"I know your line of work." She spoke. "You make a living by quenching the thirst for knowledge of certain groups of people. I just so happen to be interested in knowing more about some of your... 'customers'."

"I am sorry, but I believe I've got moral standards that apparently you don't have." He rebutted. "I'm not going to sell out some fine people to a psychopathic murderer, especially if they're a being renown for having little qualms in taking lives when it suits them."

"Is that what you know me for?" She mused as she slowly paced in front of him, blocking his entire view of the large window. "I must say, I had expected someone with your attention to detail to be more... open minded. I'm not disappointed, but rather I'm not entirely certain that my investment of time and effort might be worth what I expected it to return me."

Ascar then felt something large approach from the side. He didn't turn entirely to see it, but he could see in the corner of the eye that it was her tail, and it was tipped with an enormous halberd-like blade that could easily slice him entirely in half with little effort.

"I hate wasted investments." She continued as she settled down on the floor once more, this time keeping her physical form. "So I'm gonna capitalize."

"You're completely out of your mind!" He said, almost losing his cool as the large blade inched closer. "Not only you act like a complete loon, but you talk like one!"

"Hmm, is that so?" She said, resting her head on her arm. "Admittedly, I've not had much personal time in a very long time. I guess that trying to keep up with a top-capital corporate environment took its toll on me."

Ascar turned his head to glare at her in disbelief. How she could be so casual in a situation like this only consolidated his idea that this dragon must have been a sociopath as well. She returned his glare with a grin.

"Alright! Just what kind of game are _you_playing godsdamned dragon!?" Ascar shouted at her as her blade stood still in front of him.

"Hmm? Game?" She mused, keeping her grin the more he looked nervous. "Who said I'm playing?"

"THEN WHAT DO YOU BLOODY WANT FROM ME?" Ascar screamed as he almost broke into hysteria.

The room turned quiet for a moment. Her grin faded, turning into an extremely serious expression as she retreated her tail back to the floor.

"Gus Hopter." She said. "Give me Gus Hopter, and I'll give you more than what you could've ever managed to get your hands on in your whole career."

"Hopter?" He muttered as he leaned back down. "THAT Hopter? I... I don't know..." "Gus Hopter, lead politician of a major party, industry veteran, former military officer, connections in both the high-rise and the underworld, and yet has an apparently spotless record." She quickly summarized. "I know he's wound up in the under-table dealings of half continent. I also know that he's going to run for office the coming months. I want to catch up to him. I want leverage against him. I want him to fail. And I want to win."

He stared wide-eyed at her. He knew that she had more going on to her than what corporate ads and web rumors let on, but he had never imagined that she had the wits to turn a situation around on a dime with this ease. He was stuck in a tight spot, and whatever leverage he could have used would have been for naught regardless of what he tried to obtain. He felt in a checkmate.