The Wolves

Earth

Underneath Jarvis Island, South Pacific

August 14, 2019

07:25 HST (13:25 EDT)

We made our way back up the spiraling passageway leading to the small beach.

"This will be different than diving into the water like we did to get here," Selalea said. "You'll need to get enough speed in the water to breach the surface and begin building altitude. Alternatively, you can just teleport in the air."

"I think I'll try it the first way, but teleport if it doesn't work out. It will be cool." I replied.

"Alright, shapeshift into your dragon form, and let's head out."

Most of the other dragons had already transformed back into their natural dragon forms, and were slipping beneath the surface. Selalea stepped away from me, and began her transformation, with her son doing the same. I started my own transformation, and waited for it to finish. Selalea and her son had already made their way out of the cave, so I followed them as soon as I was able.

Twenty red dragons were swimming around, using their large tails to help propel them through the water. When Selalea saw that I was ready, she made a noise and started propelling herself towards the surface. Everyone followed her, and soon there were twenty-one dragons quickly swimming to the surface.

Just the speed the rest of them were going at made me realize I wasn't going to be fast enough to maintain flight when I left the water. I was falling behind, but I still wanted to give it a shot. I tried swimming harder, and could see the surface of the ocean. When I breached the water, I extended my wings, beating them as hard as I could. Unfortunately, I couldn't stay in the air. Before I hit the water again, I teleported a kilometer in the air, and dove down. I didn't see any dragons below me, and then realized that they had probably blended in with their surroundings. I did the same, and was able to see them all flying north.

I teleported to catch up to them, and that signaled the rest of them to teleport as well. Soon we were teleporting a couple times per minute, with small breaks between each teleport. Before long, I could see Lehua up ahead, with a few figures standing there waiting for us. We descended, landing a short distance away, and became visible while switching to our human forms.

I was the last one done shapeshifting, as always. Looking over, I saw Selalea walking over to my mom. As I walked over, I was able to catch the beginning of their conversation.

".. thanks for letting me be a liaison between our two peoples. It will allow things to proceed much more smoothly going forward."

"No problem. We have more than enough room, and we're happy to accommodate you," my mom replied. "The meeting was a lot faster than I was expecting. I thought it would take many more hours, yet."

Selalea chuckled. "Dragons don't need as much sleep which results in council meetings sometimes lasting for days. Thankfully, this is one topic we are united on. After meeting with my fellow council members last night, I knew it wouldn't take us long to come to a decision."

"Well, I'm sure you're anxious to get started, and Jonathan is probably starving right about now," she said looking over to me with a grin. "Let's head back to one of our bases."

"Works for me. The council will be making an announcement shortly, and then they will begin preparing our eggs for transit."

"Speaking about that, all their eggs aren't beach ball sized, so Abi will need to recalculate how everything is stored. It's not a huge issue though, she has more than enough room," I said.

"Alright, let's head through and we can discuss everything over lunch. Yuki, would you mind opening a portal back to the base?"

Yuki nodded. Turning, she made a gesture and a portal appeared in front of her.

"If you'll follow me," my mom said before turning and walking towards the portal.

I allowed Selalea and her son go first, and then followed. The rest of the dragons accompanying Selalea followed me, and soon there was a small crowd in the lobby of the base. Upon seeing Yuki, which signaled that everyone had come through, Selalea led everyone towards the cafeteria.

[I'm going to get out of my armor, and then I'll be at the cafeteria,] I sent her.

[Okay.]

I teleported outside my room, and walked in. I put my weapons away and then channeled mana through my armor to loosen them. When everything was off, I hung them back up and then got dressed in the clothes I had been wearing earlier in the day. I hadn't even worn them for an hour, so they were still clean. When I was done, I teleported to the cafeteria. All the dragons were easy to see, since they were all wearing red clothing. All of them were currently in the line to get some food, even though they had eaten less than an hour earlier. Even Selalea's son, Ilnod, was in line with his mother who was putting food on a plate for him.

I went over and grabbed my own plate, joining the line. Ahead of me, I could see the dragons had mountains of food on their plates. I grabbed an assortment of food as I made my way down the line. When my plate was full, I scanned the room looking for my mom, Selalea, and her son. I spotted them and made my way over.

Sitting down, I chuckled and said, "I have a feeling the chefs are going to be very busy for a while."

"Don't worry, we won't eat all your food," Selalea said with a laugh. "If we're somewhat close to an ocean, we can hunt for our own food."

"Why would you need to be close to an ocean to hunt?" my mom asked.

"If dragons hunted on land, there probably wouldn't be much wildlife left. Thankfully, there is an alternative. Dragons are very good swimmers, as Jonathan can attest to, and much of our diet consists of fish."

I nodded, while chewing my food. I swallowed and said, "We had to swim down to an underwater cavern to access one of their cities. When we left and headed to Lehua, we had to get enough speed to breach the surface and have enough speed to start flying. I wasn't fast enough to do it, unfortunately. I had to teleport high above and then dive to get some speed."

"Many young dragons don't get the hang of it right away. I think you'll be able to do it soon enough."

"The rest of my day is free, so I was thinking about going to practice it later today," I replied.

"Huh. We never thought to look in the water for dragons," my mom said.

"It wouldn't have helped you much, had you known. Our ability to camouflage is better underwater, than it is above it."

"I can see that. So what is this about eggs not being the same size?"

"There are more than just dragons. There was a split early in our evolution. Originally, we looked very similar to lizards, but over the years that began to change more and more. One of the splits evolved into a more bipedal form, while the other ended up being much larger and grew wings. We call the bipedal form dragonkin and consider each other cousins. They're eight feet tall on the lower end, and as high as twelve feet tall on the higher end. They possess the same abilities dragons do, they just can't fly," Selalea explained.

"That's not all. While on my tour, and subsequent meeting with the dragon council, I found that there are different breeds of dragons and dragonkin, and each of them have different powers. Red, blue, yellow, black, white, gray, purple and chromatic," I said. "That reminds me. I forgot to ask if I could scan a dragonkin. That would be another cool form to have."

"I'm sure we can accommodate that at a later time," Selalea replied.

"Dragonkin? Different breeds?" my mom asked. "Perhaps you should start from the beginning."

"Selalea, would you like to explain it?"

"Sure," she replied, then looked over to my mom. "As Jonathan said..."

Over the next twenty minutes or so, my mom ended up knowing as much about dragons as I did. Together, we now knew more than any non-dragon or dragonkin ever had. We ate while we talked, and even took a short break to get seconds. I had seen the other dragons go back for many more helpings, so either they were still hungry, or really enjoyed the food.

"I wonder if we have the ability to breathe different elements while in our dragon forms. We gained the ability to camouflage, but haven't tried to breathe fire or lightning or something else. We'll have to find out," my mom said.

"Do you always acquire the abilities of things you scan? Selalea asked.

"In all of our recorded history, yes. Camouflage, and the ability to scan our surroundings are just two of the abilities we have gained thanks to scanning. There is a fox-like species native our home planet of Nedovis that is able to scan their surroundings thanks to their two tails. Most Scyftans keep them as pets, so most of us have that ability as well," my mom explained.

"Interesting. I would imagine you won't have any issues then, you'll just need to practice. Perhaps we can set aside some time and I can help you out. I may only be able to help with fire, though, since each breed's abilities work differently."

"That will help a lot, thank you. I think once we have the first one down, it won't be too hard to learn the others on our own."

When everyone was finished eating, my mom left with with Selalea, her son, and all of her followers. They were going to meet up with my dad, and then head up to the moon to meet with Tich, though they didn't know that, yet. That left me sitting in the cafeteria trying to decide what I should do for the rest of the day. I did want to get better at flying and swimming in my dragon form, but that could wait until later. I ended up deciding to go up and see Abi. I got up and started towards the portal room.

[Mom, can you ask Selalea if she got the specific numbers of dragonkin eggs and dragon eggs? I'm about to head up and see Abi, and I need those numbers so she can revise things a little.]

[Sure, one moment,] she said. After a short time, she sent back, [She says there are one hundred ninety-three thousand two hundred sixty seven dragon eggs, and three hundred twenty-two thousand seven hundred thirty-eight dragonkin eggs.]

[Got it, thank you.]

[No problem. Selalea says to ask Abi to plan for more eggs than there are currently. The two numbers she gave us add up to five hundred sixteen thousand and five eggs. Three more than there were yesterday.]

[Will do.]

The light was red for the door leading to the portal room, so I pressed the button and waited. When the light turned green, I opened the door and stepped through. Once on the other side, I saw two Spectres I had never seen before guarding the room. They immediately bowed when they realized who I was.

"None of that!" I commanded. "You don't bow to me."

"But you are the king!" the one to my left exclaimed.

"Even so, I don't like people kneeling before me. Stand, and don't even start with that 'sire' or 'milord' bullshit. My name is Jonathan, or Jonuth if you prefer. What are your names?"

"My name is Zogyr Kograch, mi-"

"Uh-uh. What did I just say?"

"My apologies. Jonuth."

"Good. And you?"

"Zazsi Alzizsi."

"Nice to meet you, Zogyr, Zazsi. Can one of you set the portal to the moonbase, please."

"Certainly," Zaszi said, turning and hitting a button on her console. "You can go through now, mi- Jonuth."

I thanked them both and then turned and went through to the moonbase. Once there, I teleported outside of Abi's hanger, and went through the security process to gain access. When I was done, the door opened and I walked just inside, waiting for the door to close behind me. When I was sure it was closed, I looked at Abi. I couldn't get over how much bigger she got in the span of a few days. When we had gone on our flight the day before, she wasn't even five hundred meters long. Now? She was just over seven hundred fifty meters long, two hundred fifteen meters wide, and just under one hundred eight meters tall. She wasn't even this big when she appeared over Lehua last night.

[I'm glad it takes longer and longer between growth spurts for you,] I laughed. [If you continued to grow at this rate, you would easily grow beyond this hangar in a few days.]

[It's all thanks to Alexandra,] Abi chuckled. [Without her giving you that Legendary Mana Regeneration Skill Gem, I would only be a little bit bigger than I was yesterday morning. I must remember to thank her.]

[Well, growth will probably slow down a bit more, soon. I'm probably going to start leveling up Precognition, and that will use most of my mana regeneration while active. You'll have to make due with the excess mana I generate while I'm sleeping. Can you make a door so I can come in?]

[Coming right up.]

A door appeared near the middle of the ship, so I walked over and boarded Abi. Rather than go up to the bridge, I started towards the cargo bay where the eggs would be stored.

"You're going to have to make some changes. I found out that there are dragonkin, as well as dragons. The former are much smaller, and as such they produce soccer ball sized eggs, rather than the beach ball sized eggs that dragons do. Can you calculate how many shipping containers we'll need for one hundred ninety-three thousand two hundred sixty-seven dragon eggs, and three hundred twenty-two thousand seven hundred thirty-eight dragonkin eggs? I'm not exactly sure how big a soccer ball is."

"Approximately eight point six-five inches," she replied immediately. "I noticed that there are three more eggs than there was yesterday?"

"Yes. Selalea asked that you plan with some additional room for eggs that may be laid between now and however long it takes to load all the eggs. So far there have only been three, but I don't know the rate at which eggs are laid."

"I'll make the calculations. Give me a moment."

I continued walking, and it wasn't even ten seconds later when she had a number for me.

"With appropriate padding, and each one being placed in their own one thousand cubic inch boxes, I can fit two thousand, one hundred sixty dragonkin eggs per standard shipping container. In total, it will require five hundred eighty shipping containers, which is substantially less than the original number of one thousand one hundred forty-seven shipping containers. I can half the size of the cargo bay, which would leave twenty empty shipping containers."

"What about food and stuff? They can hunt, but they're probably going to need some food until they can get around to doing that. I'm thinking they'll spend a lot of time at the start hollowing out a cave or chamber to store all their eggs."

"That's where dimensional storage comes in. They will have access to the entirety of my dimensional storage to load as much food and other supplies as they wish."

"Oh," I said, finally arriving at the cargo bay. "Can you reduce the size of the cargo bay so I can see what it will look like? You'll also have to create enough rooms for a few thousand dragons and dragonkin in their human forms."

"Sure. Walk over to the far side of room and I'll get started. I generally don't like changing my layout while people are inside, but since you're the only person here, it should be fine."

I walked to the far side of the room and waited. After a few seconds, a wall started growing up out of the floor, and cut the room in half. When the wall was done, two doors were created to allow access to the other parts of the ship.

"Done. The room is now twenty meters long, fifty meters wide, and twenty-six meters high."

"Cool," I replied, looking around the room. Now there were only going to be three rows, with two cell guides separating them. It was still hard to imagine six hundred shipping containers fitting in such a small space. "So I've been thinking about something. Just how strong is the crystal that forms the ship? Is it on par with the alloy the Warvyns developed for the fleet of ships Thomas had commissioned?"

"I was very impressed with the strength of the alloy they created. When the ships get here, I will see if I can determine what it is made out of, and if it can be replicated. My crystalline structure is much stronger, and I have the benefit of being able to quickly repair any damage I sustain. Why do you ask?"

"I was just wondering if it has the strength to withstand the stresses imposed on it if it was used to build some mass drivers. Obviously some coils would be needed to propel the rounds, but crystal would compose most of each barrel."

"It would easily be able to withstand the stresses that Warvynium can withstand, and could withstand much higher stresses. The problem with mass drivers is the massive amount of mana I would need to be able to fire them consistently. I would wait until I reach level forty and shift into a form similar to the one you showed me yesterday. By then, my mana reserves would be high enough, and there would be enough crew on board that I could fire rounds at a rapid pace."

"Ah, it was just a thought. What about the rounds themselves, though? Could you take a heavy metal like tungsten, form a crystal around it, and then fire it? The tungsten would give it the mass and allow the round to actually be fired, and the crystal would provide the penetrating power."

"That should definitely be possible. I can create fighters, so I don't see why I wouldn't be able to. I had never thought about growing additional crystal to make physical projectiles."

"I didn't know you could make fighters."

"I can, though it requires a very high level person to pilot them. They require mana like I do, but also can't store nearly as much. It would require someone being able to regenerate one thousand mana per second at minimum. They wouldn't be very effective, though."

"So what you're saying is that mages would be needed to pilot any fighters you produce."

"A mage would be adequate, but someone with a nice mix of intellect and agility would be better, as that will afford them better reflexes. In fact, dragons would likely make very good pilots, I think. They're natural fliers, so they have the reflexes needed, and they should have sufficient mana regeneration as well."

"Dragons? But wouldn't them not being able to level prove to be a big hindrance?"

"Not as much as you might think. I was scanning the dragons on Lehua when I arrived there yesterday. I found that none of them had sacs in their body to produce their flame, like is described in myths. Instead, their flame is generated and sustained using their sizeable mana regeneration. Based on my scans, I think Selalea's mana regeneration might be at five thousand mana per second, but I'm not certain. None of the other dragons with her were slouches, either, but none of them was above twenty-five hundred or so."

"What was her son's mana regen at?"

"Just shy of four hundred, I think. Very good for him being so young."

"No kidding. It would be nice if my mana regeneration was around four hundred at four years of age. Alright, if mass drivers are out of the question for now, what about missiles or gauss cannons instead? It can't be very good to rely on just energy weapons, can it?"

"If I were a conventional ship, you would be correct in not relying on one weapon type. However, based on everything I have seen in this galaxy, there is nothing that could withstand my energy weapons for long. That being said, it won't hurt to come up with some other weapons. That's another thing. I can keep fully built weapons in my dimensional storage, and replace them as needed. If we were in a fight and my beam weapons weren't cutting it, I could swap them out with something else almost instantly."

"That's pretty cool. So what is going to happen with your growth when you're transporting the eggs to Mezotis 3 and 4? You can't exactly stop and take some time to grow."

"I can go a short while before having to go through another growth cycle. It should take about twelve days to get to Mezotis 3 and 4. I will probably end up leveling two or three more times before we depart, and by that time it will take four or five days to accumulate enough mana to being another growth cycle. Or even longer than that, if you spend sixteen hours a day leveling up Precognition."