Sorry this has been so long in coming, folks! Umbriel's nemesis Zoë gets another tale and a strange new twist. If you're new to Umbriel's story, here's the rest of it: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4. The art is by the awesomesauce  drpickelle but sadly it is no longer available for favoriting.

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The Second Tale of Zoë Jaszczurka

"Um…Zoë? The Alphas and I have been talking and…well, frankly, we're a little weirded out."

Zoë Jaszczurka had, not long ago, been the student head of Alpha Omicron Nu, Oceanside State's premier honor society for young women on the rise. Now that position was held by Missy Spengler, who stood in the doorway of Zoë's private room in the Alpha house.

"I don't care what you think," said Zoë. She was in a corner of her room, reading books taken--not checked out, but taken--from the Oceanside state library and archives. The lights were off--unscrewed, in fact--an the only illumination was from candles.

"Look," Missy said, advancing into the room. "I understand why you resigned the leadership. It's a tough job! Managing these girls is like herding cats on a good day, and considering how you got them all whipped into shape it's no wonder you burned out a little."

"Yes," Zoë said darkly, still just a silhouette against her candles. "I guess you could say I 'burned out' in a manner of speaking."

"Right! Of course. And I know there were lots of nasty rumors flying around-"

"People saying I got trashed and pranced around in a dragon costume, wasn't it?" said Zoë. "Before waking up naked in the hills?"

"Whatever it was," Missy said, though she--and everyone else--knew the story to the very last detail. Hell, it was corroborated by two pledges from the Alphas' sister organization for men. They, after intense therapy, confirmed that Zoë had dressed in an elaborate dragon costume to scare Umbriel Van Buren, a prospective (and rejected) Alpha who had embarrassed her by wearing a similar costume. And they'd gone on to claim that Zoë, fueled presumably all manner of legal and illegal substances, had proceeded to disrobe and run wildly through the hills on a bender. "We know it must have been hard, but that's no reason for…this."

The sweep of Missy's hand encompassed the entirety of Zoë's room. Lit by flickering candlelight, she had taped dozens of pictures of dragons, xeroxes and original leaves from books. Many had certain parts of their anatomy circled, a horn here, a tail there, with names scribbled incomprehensibly nearby in grease pencil. The pastel colors, sweaters, and brightly colored flip-flops that had once been part of Zoë's regular ensemble were all in a heap in one corner; everything that remained was black or red or some shade thereof.

"I can decorate this stupid space however I want," grunted Zoë without looking up.

"Well, perhaps, but the Alphas do tend to expect a certain amount of…decorum…in decorations," said Missy. "And then there's the matter of, well…your failure to conform to a professional wardrobe."

Zoë looked up for the first time, her eyes fierce against the firelight. She'd let her intense red hair clump together into nascent dreadlocks, combed back willy-nilly over her head, and she was dressed in near-skintight leggings and top in dark colors. Bright and gaudy golden bangles hung off her in a stark contrast of color, and a scarf with a scaly pattern was knotted around her neck. "Professional wardrobe?" she sneered. "The concept of a wardrobe at all is a laughably human construct. I wear what makes me feel closest to my true self. These fabrics remind me of my true, fine scales rather than the greasy skin I'm forced to inhabit."

"Oookay," said Missy, nervously. "What about shoes? We do require Alphas to wear shoes in the common area, and you…haven't been."

"Do the wielders of real power in nature wear them?" spat Zoë. "Even if all I have are cruel mockeries of strong talons, it makes me feel closer to what I truly am."

"I was afraid of this," said Melody. "Look, we are here for you, Zoë, but only if you let us in. I am afraid that I have no choice but to expel you from the Alphas."

Zoë said nothing.

"You have one week to vacate the room, and we have a counselor standing by if-"

"What, you think that I'm broken up over that?" Zoë shouted. She rose from her seat and approached Missy. "That I'm going to be reduced to a blubbering husk by that news? The old me might have, weak and petty and irredeemably tainted by humanity."

"Zoë, please-" Missy began.

"But now I've tasted real power, and had a chance to soar on my true scaly wings," Zoë continued. Her face in all its pale intensity was inches away from Missy's. "When I return to my true form, I'll be a goddess among you. You'll beg my forgiveness, at seeing my true magnificence instead of this pink husk, as a dragon's ambition goes far beyond the rule of men to their utter domination and destruction."

"Zoë-"

Zoë swept Missy's legs out from under her with a well-placed kick, and laughed at the sound the Alpha majordomo made when she fell. "Dragons take. They care only for what you can do for them, and that you will obey their commands."

Whimpering, Missy tried to escape on all fours, but another blow from Zoë laid her flat on her face.

"I was a dragon long before I knew it," she continued. "And when I shed this ridiculous form…everyone will know. There will be a reckoning, oh yes."

Missy retreated through the ajar door; Zoë slammed it shut and locked it with the deadbolt, presuming that she'd seen the last of any interruptions that night.

Returning to her studies, Zoë was putting the finishing touches on her plan. It had been an accident, ingesting the tiniest bit of that silly girl Umbriel Van Buren's blood. Zoë had meant to capture the girl's transformation into some kind of were-dragon on tape, to expose her to the world as a freak…only to find that, as that drop of blood inexplicably reshaped Zoë into a red dragoness, they were both freaks. Zoë's eyes momentarily rolled back in her head with pleasure at the thought of the raw power that had been hers, the powerful beating of wings and the gouts of flame issuing forth, the teeth and claws…the experience had changed her forever. Zoë's old ambitions had been misdirected toward the Alphas and people; her new ones were far, far more interesting.

As near as she could figure, dragons--now rare and all but extinct--had long known the secret of assuming a human guise, and their escapades as such had left a trail of many offspring with humans. These people of draconic ancestry needed only the merest amount of dragon blood to bring their dormant and glorious scales to the surface, and the stronger the bloodline the more complete the change. Umbriel was different, Zoë was sure of that; she'd likely come by her form as a curse, probably upon some disgusting dragonslaying ancestor. But although she could find no record of it, Zoë's own family clearly had a strong draconic bloodline, enough that she would assume the form of a full-size dragoness…but only temporarily.

Permanency, that was the problem. That was also why it was no good tracking down poor silly Umbriel and bathing in her blood; it would only be temporary.

Zoë, though, had a good idea of where to go next. Before she left, she set her room and her notes ablaze, grinning toothily as she snuck away in the opposite direction from the fire engines and sirens.

Dr. Cal K. Chervena, PhD, answered the knock on his apartment's front door only to be greeted by Zoë's fist ramming into his eye.

"Oww!" The portly illicit chemist, illicit pharmacist, and illicit geneticist cried, stumbling backwards.

"You're the one who provides all the kids at Oceanside with their happy pills," said Zoë. "The ones that use untraceable animal genes to give a natural high."

"Y-you must be mistaken, Miss," Cal choked.

"Don't patronize me," said Zoë, kneeing her fat host in the groin before hoisting him up by the front of his Hawaiian shirt. "I've done my homework."

Cal skidded across the room, his bulk no match for Zoë's precision, and stumbled into a table full of glassware. "What do you want?" he cried.

"Like I said," snarled Zoë, "I've done my homework. You've worked with Dr. Sárkány, with his research on historical dragons and dragon's blood."

"It's just a name," Call cried, frightened. "Resin from a tree that grows on the island of Socotra!"

Zoë gave Cal a headbutt for his trouble and rolled him onto a fresh table with a fresh set of glassware shattered and experiments ruined. "A single dab of the stuff made that idiot Umbriel go draconic. I need something with the same effect, only permanent."

"What?" Cal cried. "That's…"

"…beautiful, I know," Zoë said. "I want that power, Dr. Chervana, and I want it now and forever. And you're going to give it to me."

"L-look," cried Cal, holding up his hands. "I…I know of something that might work. A preparation of the resin and actual dragon's blood from an ancient--and living--lineage, combined with stabilizers and recombinant viral delivery mechanisms…if I had time, I might be able to do something." This was the very opposite of Cal's stated goal of saving the world through pharmacy, but with what he was pretty sure was a sprained arm and bruises, saving himself from the curiously powerful girl who had invaded his dingy apartment sanctum suddenly seemed to have priority.

"You have one hour," Zoë snarled, "before I slit your fat throat and find someone else."

In a panic, Cal took to his lab and hurriedly mixed the components of the serum. "It's not entirely a science," he said. "There are other things that would help. Drawing a thaumaturgic circle with lit candles…"

"Do it," Zoë demanded. "Do it all."

Dr. Cal K. Chervena, PhD, whimpering, did as he was told. Using a mix of powdered gold and dragonfly wings, he drew the thaumaturgic circle with its inscribed triangle and set three blood-red candles at the points. At the same time, his gene sequencer chugged in overtime, preparing the scientific part of the process. It wasn't an elegant solution; it was more like taking everything that might cause a human to express draconic traits and mixing it in with retroviruses and ancient magicks for permanency.

"You…you're sure about this?" said Cal, his hand trembling as he handed over a tumbler full of viscous red liquid. "I mean, informed consent is an important part of the scientific process, and whatever happens to you-"

"Even death would be preferable to a minute longer in this body," Zoë cried.

"V-very well," Cal said. "Drink this while standing at the center of the inscribed triangle."

Zoë strode to the proscribed location and, tilting up the tumbler, drained it of liquid in seconds. Smashing the empty cup against the floor, she could already feel something powerful deep within her, stirring and beginning to well up.

The first signs of change were on the back of the hand which had held the cup; suddenly there were angry red scaly splotches everywhere, like a rash, spreading voraciously across her skin. The feeling, and the pebbly new texture of her skin, spread rapidly to her extremities.Her toenails dug into the linoleum as they stretched to brutal points even as they took on an deeply crimson coloration, the blood-red claws metamorphosing violently Zoë's as the rapidly, pleasurably scaly spread reached them.

Strands of her red hair began clumping loosely together, taking on a tacky, horny texture as they stiffened and began to hold themselves erect atop Zoë's head. Horny ripples spread up around her calves, poking runs and tears in her leggings. The delicate, cruel features that had once been the envy of all the Alphas began to protrude and grow in the throes of the burning metamorphosis beginning to wrack her body with pleasure.

Instinctively, Zoë hunched forward, her spine writing back and forth as the nubs of nascent wings dug against her shoulder blades before bursting forth from her flesh and her clothing like some sort of glorious newborns hatched from among the splashes of angry red scales devouring her back.

Zoë's legs, once envied by fools who didn't know the joyous song of scales, were losing their ridiculous human form and tone, becoming perfect forests of crimson. Her very stance changed as her toes continued to crack inward and outward, with some straining to grow claws and pads to support her new and glorious form while others popped and ascended, meant not for idiotic flat-footed locomotion anymore but the grasping and disemboweling of prey from the air.

The skirt she wore bulged as the python of a growing tail peeked out, lines of beautiful thorny spikes already apparent on its dorsal surface. Zoë's arms bulged with new muscles too, for they would have to bear the scaly weight of her true form as well, the swelling pads and claws of her hands a testament to what was to come.
Hearing her very bones twisting and snapping as they reformed, and feeling her weight shifting to the balls of her new claws, Zoë let out a triumphant cry of pleasure.

"Yes, oh yes!"

And the wings! Growing every instant, tearing out the back of Zoë's silly human raiments, their membranes, thorns, and claws were swiftly maturing, closer to being ready for the hunt with each rhythmic, pleasurable pulse of the girl's shoulderblades. She could feel her chest deepening with a dragon's powerful flight muscles, fresh tears like fault lines appearing in her top as her firm breasts were subsumed--silly ornaments, Zoë thought, as she watched her curves die and her nipples shatter into scales through the widening tears in her clothing. Silly ornaments, when all one needed to feed one's young was tooth and claw. Rags were flung about as the expanding wings beat for the first time, stiffening and inflating with each powerful motion.

"…change me…"

Bellowing, Zoë thrust her head forward she continued to change. Her spindly human neck was now growing as well, thicker and longer, and a deep burning sensation welled up afresh all along it as the first flames were ignited, along with the mechanism that would send them forth in massive gouts against her enemies. Her face contorted in pleasure as it nuzzled outward, each ragged but triumphant breath sucked in through new and growing daggers of teeth. It wasn't long before the remnants of Zoë's human features were obliterated from her growing muzzle. Her hair continued to harden, to shrink, to loft skyward, becoming a forest of wicked horns where once there had only been a foolish cosmetic affectation.

"…twist me…" Her voice was now at a deeper register, awake with power and menace.

With Zoë's thickening hips and deepening chest, her new muscles and tendons pulled her into a four-legged stance, sending the shredded remains of her now-useless clothes in every direction. She had sloughed off everything that was human; now all that remained was to grow. A great spasmic brought her elegantly scaled new neck up even as her new front claws tore into the floor. Amber's wings Reaching their full extent, Zoë's wings were at last voluminous enough to bear her upward on thermals. Her tail writhed, growing, on the ground, while Zoë's snout snapped into its final position, and the new dragoness witched her membranous ears in triumph.

"...make me what I was always meant to be!"

Her new form now fully developed and proportionate, Zoë reared her head up and examined herself with red-rimmed eyes.

"YES!" she roared, pumping her new wings and tail in exultation. A great gout of flame issued forth, sending Cal--who had until then been transfixed by the metamorphosis--fleeing out the door for his very life as his apartment began to catch fire.

Zoë saw this and ran with it, stomping from room to room and bellowing as she set it ablaze. She didn't want to stop at his apartment, either, oh no…she would see the entire building an inferno. Bursting through the windows in a tsunami of shattered glass and twisted steel, and reveling in the fact that she felt no heat and no pain, Zoë put her new wings to work, flapping about the structure and belching fire and smoke upon it from all angles. People fled before her, streaming out the emergency exits, and as the fire department arrived she gleefully exploded an engine with a short, curt fireball.

"Do you see me now, Umbriel?" she roared, taking flight again. "Do you see me? Who has the power now, Umbriel? Who has the power and the will to use it? I win!"

The new dragoness did a lazy circle over downtown, raining fire upon it, before turning to head for the hills overlooking it in the distance.

"Come and face me if you dare, you pathetic little half-dragon, and feel the wrath of true power in the hands of one who's not afraid to use it!"