Sarah and the Steam Dragon

Carmody and Achmed had dragged the heavy body of Creepy Bob to the base of the stairs. He was still out cold but his colour and breathing was a lot better than before.

“The old guy might make it, if we can get him to a hospital” Achmed said after checking him over.

“I’ll go upstairs and look for someone to help” Carmody replied, but had only taken the first step when a roaring torrent of air blasted her against the wall. She had a momentary glimpse of a dark, sinuous shape rushing past then the door at the top of the stairs was torn from its hinges and flew off into the hallway.

“Was that another of Albright’s creatures?” asked Achmed as he crouched protectively over the janitor.

“No” Carmody said, feeling relieved some how, “I think that was Sarah’s friend, Stanley”

She charged up the steps and went to the main foyer. The glass doors that led to the courtyard were shattered and dangling open from their hinges, stunned adults and a group of the Guard soldiers standing there. No one was hurt despite the wrecked doors yet they seemed incapable of deciding what to do.

“Hey, blondie” she said casually to one of the adults. He looked like he was in charge, wearing a dark grey suit and sunglasses of all things.

“Yes?” said the adult to the young student who had addressed him. “You are Carmody Brentwood from Year Seven, aren’t you?”

“Ah, yeah, that’s me” Carmody answered. She had no idea how this guy knew her name but she needed help so pressed on. “We have Creepy Bob, sorry, I mean we have the head janitor Mr Crepsley down in the basement. He was possessed by some evil black thing but I beat it out of him. He really needs a hospital”

The blonde guy looked really familiar to Carmody as he absorbed her words. His frown as he finally understood what she said was so much like Eric she blushed with embarrassment.

“Pardon me” she added hastily, “Are you Eric Hargreave’s guardian?”

“Yes, I am his older brother, Two” said Jericho-Two. “Do you know where Eric is right now?”

“He’s somewhere down below, chasing Mr Albright” Carmody said. “Can you also send him some help as well?”

Without a word being spoken, four of the Guard soldiers readied their guns and dashed down the stairs. Another pair arrived from outside, carrying a stretcher and headed to the basement as well.

“Eric has been trained to deal with these kinds of scenarios, Miss Brentwood. The Guards will assist him with whatever he needs to accomplish. In the meantime, would you please follow me outside?”

Jericho-Two stepped past the broken doors and out into the main courtyard. Carmody followed and could see crowds of parents and fellow students being herded out of the school grounds by more Guards and Police Auxiliaries. Everyone at the gates was being hastily checked against datapads to confirm their identities.

“Why are you checking everyone?” Carmody asked the blonde man, the one who called himself ‘Two’.

“As urgent as things are, I need to make sure Mr Albright does not escape me” Two answered. “However, what do you think that is?” He raised his right hand directly up at the sky over the school grounds and Carmody followed his pointed index finger.

A swirling vortex of dark blue light hung suspended over them, around two hundred meters up. It was lit by blue sparks like they had experienced in the auditorium. The whirling hole in the sky emitted a feeling of utter dread within her and she gripped the bat over her shoulder tightly, gaining comfort from its solid strength.

“I guess that must be a portal to the other dimension, the one the thing that possessed Creepy Bob came from” she answered steadily and looked back to Two’s face.

He gave her a calculating smile and lowered his arm. Her calm response seemed to please him.

“Good, you can see the opening, better than the rest of us” he said. He pointed to another place in the sky, far over the towers that surrounded the school. “And what do you see there?”

Carmody turned her eyes in the direction he was now pointing and squinted hard. Dark shapes, two she thought, seemed to be clashing and tumbling across the open air.

“I’m not sure” she muttered, peering so much harder it made her head hurt. “Is that two dragons fighting?”

“How convenient this is” said Two. “A pair of you, here in the same school. Archimedes will be pleased, assuming we all survive this”

Far off noises reached them, of buildings being broken and pieces tumbling to the ground many hundreds of meters below. Carmody shivered in the cool night air, her uniform still damp from all the black goo she was coated in. The darting black shapes in the sky were coming back this way and her pulse quickened.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” she asked.

=====

Sarah led the way, her knowledge of the school unequalled by anyone except the head janitor. If she had taken her friends along the more common routes they would have encountered the four Guards sent by Jericho-Two to assist them. Instead the Guards missed the students completely and spent a lot of their time calling out Eric’s name in empty rooms and corridors.

The three student friends dashed down deserted corridors, through obscure service doors marked ‘School Staff Only’, climbed emergency stairs and ultimately they reached the second floor Chemistry rooms.

Everyone was puffing hard, even Eric, mainly because he was still wounded from his previous fight.

“Are you going to be able to keep going?” Sarah asked him, worried at some spots of fresh blood visible on his jacket.

“I’ll be fine, we need to get the coal to Stanley” he wheezed, which alarmed the two girls more. He had never been out of breath before.

“Can’t you call your guardian?” Lilly asked him.

Eric looked almost embarrassed and shook his head no. “My connection to the quantum network is compromised. I can’t use it right now; and I lost my phone somewhere in the fight against those Zombie creatures”

“Okay, we can manage by ourselves” said Sarah, trying to sound more confident than she felt.

They gathered in front of the Chemistry room that Mr Hanson used for his classes. There was a security pad next to the door, as there were dangerous chemicals stored in the laboratory. Only teachers and school staff would have access cards.

Sarah tried Creepy Bob’s access code on the door but it flashed a “Code Deactivated” message from its tiny screen. After all this time, someone had finally stopped it from working!

“That is really bad timing” muttered Sarah. She pressed her face against the inset window panel in the door and looked at what she could see. There were lots of workbenches, stools and some cabinets against one wall.

“Hey, Lilly” Sarah asked, “Do you remember which cabinet had the mineral samples in?”

Lilly pulled her friend out of the way and pushed her own face against the window panel. She twisted and squirmed, then let out a small cry of triumph.

“I see it!” she announced. Lilly focussed hard and then stood back, closing her eyes. “Quiet, you two” she admonished them as they both asked what she was doing. “I need to concentrate”

With a pop of air, a clear plastic box filled with mineral samples dropped into her waiting hands.

“You are a legend!” squealed Sarah and flipped up the lid to take a fist sized chunk of black coal from inside. “Let’s get to the roof so I can feed this to Stanley”

=====

High over the city, unseen by its millions of inhabitants, two dragons fought. One was small, barely four meters long, covered in blue scales with a white belly and dark black scales and spines along the length of its back.

The other was huge, all pitch black scales and spikes with two big bat like wings projecting from its shoulders. This beast was over thirty meters long and with a similar wing span. It had two powerful rear legs and the wings were both tipped in sharp talons nearly a meter long. Its head was long and barbed, a cruel looking thing with yellow eyes that glared hatefully at the world it found itself in.

Stanley, the smaller dragon, was dodging and weaving for all his worth, careful to avoid the slashing strikes of the bigger one. His opponent was a Scout of the Dracoris Abyssal, black dragons that served the entity known as the Abyss.

As dangerous as the talons were, the real threat to Stanley was the toxic black gas that the Abyssal could belch forth. To something as weak as a simple human, a whiff of the gas would mean instant death.

As a Dracoris Vapora, Stanley was resistant to a degree. Yet he knew he was a young dragon and had never faced the Black Cloud before. It was not certain he could survive it, even at the edge of a cloud.

He was making rushing attacks on the bigger dragon, turning inside of its own attacks to rake his claws across its sides and belly. Sadly, Stanley claws were having little effect on the thicker scales of his enemy. One mistimed strike on the Abyssal had already left him with a long gash down his left flank, blooding oozing down to his tail as he rolled and twisted out of the way.

Stanley had tried using the tall human built towers as cover while he kept the Dracoris Abyssal occupied. Then the black dragon had sent a huge cloud of black gas across the tower and Stanley had been horrified to see the humans inside retching and falling down as the toxic vapours reached them. His only choice had been to fight in the open sky, trying to keep his enemy away from the vulnerable humans.

In a gap in the fight he had seen the humans at the school were now clear of the buildings. The Guard soldiers were formed up around the perimeter, keeping the inquisitive people back. He felt relieved that the humans were safe now and wondered if Sarah had escaped too.

His momentary lack of attention was nearly his death. The Dracoris Abyssal dropped like a stone from above and sprayed a thick cloud over Stanley. Instinctively he dived low and was only caught by the edges of the toxic vapour. Yet that was enough to cripple him.

The black gas seared his eyes and lungs, scorching his nostrils and making him scream in pain. He tumbled to the earth, uncertain of where he was. With a painful crash he slammed into the roof of the south wing of the school, shattering solar panels and crushing ventilator stacks.

“Stanley!” he heard Sarah scream and tried to open his eyes, but everything was blurry darkness. Overhead he could hear the victory roar of his enemy, circling around to attack again.

“Sarah!” he roared out “You must get away. The Abyssal is coming back. It will kill you!” The pain from his wounds was immense, but the thought of losing Sarah was a greater hurt. Then he felt her small arms gripping his neck, her small girlish head pushed up against his.

“I won’t let you fight alone” she said to the dragon. “We have Black Rock for you, here in my hand”

“It’s no good” Stanley whispered, “The Abyssal has blinded me. I can’t fight what I can’t see”

Sarah turned and watched as the big black dragon circled lazily in the sky. It looked like it thought it was unstoppable now that Stanley was defeated.

“I can be your eyes” she said to Stanley. “Carry me with you and I can guide your attacks”

Lilly and Eric had run up to where they had seen Sarah vanish from their view. The roof was damaged here, a huge crater in the panels and pipes evident. Their friend was somewhere in there, hidden from their sight.

“Sarah, that portal seems to be getting bigger” shouted Eric. “If your friend Stanley is going to stop it, it needs to be now!”

“Hear that Stanley,” Sarah said, “We need to go fight the bad guy right now”

Stanley realised he had no choice. “Give me the Black Rock” he told her and Sarah carefully placed it between his open jaws. He swallowed it down without chewing, the taste even more intense than the Black Rock from his own world.

It tasted good. The burner in his gut took it in and he felt his inner fire surge with unexpected power. Steam bubbled from his nostrils and Sarah stepped back as the heat of his body grew rapidly.

“Stanley, your chest is getting super hot!” she said in alarm. “How are you going to carry me?”

“I’m sorry, Sarah, but you will have to ride on my back” he answered. “It will be cool enough there and you won’t be scalded by my steam breath”

Sarah eyed the wickedly sharp spines that ran down the ridge of his back. She had seen them flip erect in battle with the Zombies and tear those creatures apart.

“Okay, Stanley, I trust you. Just don’t forget I am on your back” She clambered onto a foreleg and then straddled his spine ridge. She used her legs to hold herself in place and was going to put her hands around his neck.

“No, grab my horns with your hands” Stanley urged her. “You can guide me that way as well as with your voice”

“Of course, like steering a bicycle” she realised. Sarah did not think she should tell Stanley she had not ridden a bike in three years, not since crashing her last bike really badly and breaking her arm.

“Ready, Sarah?” said her dragon mount.

“Ready” she agreed and with a push of his legs they leapt into the night sky.

=====

“It looks like the small dragon crashed onto the school roof” Carmody relayed to Two. “The big dragon has gone off to the west but is coming back around”

“Do you think you can guide my Guard to shoot the big dragon?” asked Two. Carmody looked at the Guard soldiers with their rifles held in their hands. The soldiers were silent and imposing in their visored helmets, watching her intently from within.

“I don’t think those guns are going to be powerful enough to pierce that dragon’s scales” she replied, unsure how she knew that but certain it was true.

“Hmm, in that case we will need to deploy the Railgun” he murmured and a single Guard soldier, a Japanese looking woman, trotted up with a two meter long weapon resting on her shoulder.

“Unit F-Zero-Three, you will go with this girl. She is now your designated spotter to take out the Anomaly” The female Guard soldier nodded at Carmody who was amazed to see she wore no helmet, just a peaked cap. The woman’s right eye was artificial and gleamed with its own greenish light from under the cap, spoiling the appearance of humanity. She was amazingly pretty even so, Carmody thought to herself.

“Miss Brentwood, please go with F-Zero-Three and kill that dragon, the big one. These other Guard will be there to protect you and the shooter”

So saying, Carmody found herself flanked by four of the male Guard soldiers. Together with the female sniper, F-Zero-Three, they ran into the school building. Carmody knew they needed to be on the rooftop to have the best chance of taking the big dragon down.

As they ran inside, she saw Achmed being treated by a Paramedic from the Police Auxiliary. He was sitting on the ground, looking exhausted, while a drip of some sort was being fed into him.

“Are you Okay?” Carmody asked, watching Achmed’s eyes bulge out when he saw her entourage.

“Overdid it with the Scanning” he said tiredly. “Haven’t ever used my ability this much before”. His head nodded to one side and his eyes closed.

“He’ll be fine” the Paramedic assured her, gently laying her friend’s head onto a rolled up blanket.

“Thank you” Carmody said and rushed off once more, the booted feet of the Guards clattering on the tiled floors. She smiled as they dashed past the ’No Running in the Hallway” sign and headed to the stairs.