Commission for  tsii
A pleasure to work on this one, especially since it's a pretty unique method of draining. Thank you for the commission!

Power is only loyal to the owner, as Zigs finds out with the help of a mysterious amulet.

---

A breath of life

Zigs looked at the kobolds staring at him. He counted expressions of curiosity, excitement, wonder. Even respect. But none of them held the fire that he was hoping to inspire.

“Come on, aren’t any of you tired of this? Of being under the foot of the High Command? We're better than this!”

“I dunno.” Zigs looked at the kobold who had raised his voice. “We get food, shelter, protection. Not easy things to come by this far out. So what if we have to suck it up, I think I speak for all of us when I say it’s worth it. Besides, it’s not like you could do anything about it anyway.”

Zigs sighed. He’d expected the kobolds to be submissive, but not to this degree. There was no desire for change, no fire. “Oh, mark my words, I’ll do something about it. Watch me.”

“We have watched, and you’ve done nothing. If you walked up to one of the dragons right now they would squash you like a bug, and you know it.”

Zigs had to admit the kobold was right. At 3’6 he would barely come up to a dragon’s waist, and he certainly did not have the strength to make up for the size difference. “There’s more of us than them. If we just –”

“Look, you risk yourself if you want. I think we all just want to stay safe.” The kobold looked around as murmured agreements filled the air, and Zigs sighed. There would be no convincing them, it seemed. With a heavy heart he turned and walked away.

*

Zigs held himself to the corner as a guard walked past, breathing heavily as the imposing figure failed to notice him. If he was caught down here he would probably be executed on the spot, or at the very least thrown out of an airlock. This close to the engines the floor rumbled, the metal walls of the ship conducting the sound through his soles, and it was helping to obscure his footsteps. The kobold understood that he would need more than just words to change things. Rebellions were forged in fire and blood, not in democracy - he needed to show that their draconic masters could be stood up to, that they could bleed. He needed a weapon.

He knew exactly where to get one.

Captain Teranis liked to think of himself as a philanthropist. He was no world conqueror – he found the idea horribly crude - but he did engage in a spot of cultural appropriation from time to time, stripping natural resources for profit and reaping the benefits of being more technologically advanced than whatever world he preyed upon. The Vault was where he stored dangerous artifacts and technology from the planets he pillaged. If there was anywhere that Zigs was going to find a weapon he could use, it would be here.

He couldn’t use the main door, but his size allowed him to slip into the Vault via a ventilation duct, and he dropped quietly to the floor. He walked among the storage units like a shopper, inspecting each item. None had descriptions or explanations, and so he prioritised things that he could easily carry. He finally settled on a pistol with an odd, helix-shaped barrel, and was about to pocket it when something caught his eye. It was an amulet, a golden figurine of a dragon held by a chain. He walked over and grabbed it, inspecting it closely. Though he had assumed it was gold, in fact it seemed to be made of something else, something he couldn’t identify. It was cold as well, as though the metal was leeching the heat from his scales. With a shrug he put it around his neck – no point leaving it if he could carry it as well.

He was so preoccupied with the strange amulet he failed to notice the guard that was patrolling the room. The guard, however, did not fail to notice him.

“Hey! Come here, you little runt!” He was large, a dark green dragon almost 7ft tall and heavily built, with a paralytic blaster hanging from the belt of his spacesuit. A nonlethal option, but the guard was not interested in using it. He pinned Zigs to the floor with one massive arm, leaning his weight into it, and glared down angrily. “Sneaking around in the Vault, are we? I could take you to the High Command and go through things officially, but that’s a lot of red tape that I’m not going to deal with. Besides, their solution will be the same as mine anyway.” The dragon opened his mouth, emerald fire lighting up the back of his throat.

Fear gripped Zigs, and he struggled and squirmed, but it was no use. As the light got brighter and hotter, he flailed desperately, swinging his arms with reckless abandon and striking the guard repeatedly. Faster and harder his blows got, and still they were utterly ineffective, like pebbles thrown against a mountain. As the fire blasted towards his face, he yelled in terror.

However his yell quickly morphed into a moan of pleasure as heat suffused his frame, coursing through him with fierce intensity. Instead of being scorched by the heat he basked in it, welcomed it in and let it ride through his body. It felt like hot water was running through his veins instead of blood, and as the fire continued to wash over his scales that water thickened into syrup, deliciously slow and viscous. He was so focused on the sensation that he didn’t notice that he was growing until his pecs were intruding on the bottom of his vision, jutting out of his chest like two basketballs. What felt like thick lava was pulsing down his arms, filling them with power and strength and forcing his biceps outwards. Each arm thickened and widened, going from twigs to thick logs of scale and sinew, his new biceps larger than his old torso. Abs punched out of his abdomen, each one eliciting a quiet whimper as Zigs’ usual inhibitions were washed away, lost in the tide of ecstasy currently carrying his mind up.

If he’d looked up, he’d also have noticed that the guard was looking far worse than before. He whimpered in pain as his body shrivelled, his muscles deflating just as Zigs’ swelled with rock solid mass. It wasn’t just muscle that was being poached from his shrinking frame either: his horns, once long and proud, were slowly receding. Zigs gratefully received the nubs of bone, lengthening out of the top of his head and giving him a decidedly draconic look, a little odd on his frame but nevertheless instinctively threatening. His wings, the hallmark of any dragon, were slowly transferred to the growing kobold, leaving him with fleshy stubs behind his back as Zigs stretched developing flaps of skin and tendon.

But this was simply a side effect of the muscle growth, which was what really captured Zigs’ attention. How could it not, when it felt like hot sludge pouring through his body, leaving steel cords of muscle were there were none before, forcing his body outwards with each lustful breath. Those breaths came faster and faster as the guard shrunk, as his decades of training and discipline were stripped away, and Zigs grunted and bucked, the movements of his body feeling heavier.

“Mmmnnnn, yessss, that’s - wh – what the hell! Gah!” Zigs finally snapped out of the pleasure and growth – induced stupor to see the guard looking as though he hadn’t eaten in a week. His arms were twigs, devoid of any kind of definition, and his whole body just screamed weakness, thin limbs quivering with fear. Zigs encircled the guard’s arm with a thumb and forefinger, marvelling at the thickness he had in just a hand, his fingers alone thicker and rounder than the guard’s bicep.

As he did so he realised just how much bigger he was. He’d pumped up to nearly 5ft tall, but more importantly he had filled out nicely. Muscle and sinew flowed over his thickset body, and combined with his new draconic features he felt like a different kobold. He stood up, letting the guard fall to the floor, where he looked up in horror before getting to his feet and running as fast as his trembling body could carry him.

“Man, this is…hoo.” He looked himself over for a second, running sharp claws across his pecs and biceps, and as he did so he noticed that the pendant was suddenly hot to the touch. It could have been the fire, but the metal itself looked normal, not even glowing or smoking. “I mean, it’s got to be this thing, right? Why else would they keep it in there?” he reasoned with himself. He briefly considered going back to the worker kobolds, showing them the amulet and gaining their trust in leadership, but then another thought crept into his head. “Why lead an army, when I can be the army? All I have to do is figure this thing out.”

He looked at the pendant again, closer this time, his eyesight sharper than before. Now he could pick out the little flames engraved in the metal, the microscopic conductors weaving their way under the surface. It was engineered, he realised. Engineered to make him stronger. Engineered to have an on switch, hidden somewhere. He had a sneaking suspicion that he knew what it was, but he needed to confirm it. And for that, he needed another guard.

It didn’t take him long to find another dragon patrolling the corridors near the Vault, perhaps attracted by the noise. He wore the same official spacesuit, black and compact, and upon seeing Zigs he ran over and pulled out his pistol rather than going for a pin – the kobold’s size forced him to reconsider his options. He fired, the neuroparalytic shock pulsing into Zigs’ chest, forcing him to fall to the floor convulsing. The guard grinned darkly and walked over, holstering his firearm.

“You’re a big one. Ain’t never seen a kobold like you, but kobold’s a kobold. You all die the same.” He opened his maw, and fire glowed at the back of his throat. Had the paralysis allowed it Zigs would have grinned.

This time he welcomed the flow of fire infusing his body with strength. Paralytic weakness was replaced by fiery strength, power, and a feeling of solidness that rose through his body. The fire purged the paralysis from his muscles, and he grinned as he regained use of his mouth. “Yes, I am a big one. And you’re about to make me bigger. Hehe.”

Zigs’ sadistic chuckle caused the guard to immediately panic and cut off the flow of fire, but the damage was already done. Zigs’ already bulky muscles had swelled to bodybuilder proportions, his feet leaving little clawed marks in the floor, and he was eye-to-eye with the guard, having grown to 6'4.

“Th-that’s not possible!” The guard startled at his own voice, which was thin and reedy, and he groaned as fatigue forced his limbs to quiver and shake, struggling to support the pathetic weight of what was left of his body.

“Still got the energy to speak, have we? Looks like we need a little more out of you. Come here, little dragon.” He walked over to the dragon, grabbing him with an arm that was twice the size of the poor guard’s torso, thick with more muscle than he had in his entire body. One arm pinned the guard to his titanic chest, the other directed his hand behind the chin, compressing the fire glands found at the back of the jawline. A quick punch to the gut caused a gout of flame to spurt from the guard’s unwilling mouth, and Zigs smiled at the orgasmic sensation of his strength increasing, muscles swelling and popping out as he hulked his way up to nearly 8 ft tall. His underdeveloped wings grew into magnificent sheets, flight muscles like large slabs of obsidian bulging under his scales. He marvelled at the power in them, his back barely straining despite their significant size and the wind pressure exerted on them – where other dragons would be blown around by their own bodies, he had the strength to stand firm. In fact he had strength to spare, as he wasn’t even straining.

As the flame petered out, Zigs stared down at the weakened guard, who was looking at the meagre few ounces of muscle he had left with an expression that fell somewhere between disbelief and utter horror. One thick hand encircled his neck as Zigs picked him up, almost laughing at the way he bicycled his legs around.

“Thank you for this, you really have given me everything. Of course, if you want it back, all you have to do is raise your hand.” Zigs pinned the guard’s arm, his trunk of a bicep obscenely large next to the guards’ little incline, and watched as the poor dragon tried in vain to push back, to even make that massive arm budge just a millimetre. Zigs just grinned at his futile attempts. He did this because if felt good to dominate one of the guards that had done similar to him, to emphasise the strength difference between them, to make it clear that his chances of going back to normal were less than zero. Tears fell down the guard's face as he realised just how weak he was, and just how weak he was going to stay for the rest of his life. Size was status, size allowed you to boss around others, something the guard had known for his entire life. But his life was stolen now, and he was looking at the reaper of his power, his eyes roaming across that insanely muscled body.

Zigs meanwhile was thoroughly enjoying the experience. “No? Happy as we are? Good, because that’s how I’ve had to live. THAT’S HOW I’VE SPENT MY LIFE, UNDER YOUR FOOT! NOW WHO’S THE RUNT, HUH?” He squeezed, grinning at the yell of pain before throwing the poor dragon aside like a piece of trash. As he stretched he smiled, feeling the heavy power coiled in his musculature, confidence massaging his mind with savage thoughts. HIs theory had been right – it was fire that activated the amulet, fire that allowed it to drain. With the knowledge safely stored away in his head, he began walking. There was someone he had to visit.

*

“Rhaenir, Rhaenir, Rhaenir. You’re a tough cookie, you know that?” Teranis knew that was an understatement to say the least. Rhaenir had been held for nearly a week now, during which he had been subjected to intense questioning, and Teranis was starting to run out of options. For not the first time he wished he was bigger – even for a red dragon he was on the large side, a round 7ft and well-built, but Rhaenir was 8ft tall and wider than any dragon he had ever known. Intimidating him physically was impossible, as the difference in their sizes was too great. “All of this could be over, you know. It’s easy. Just….explain your mind to me. Explain why you felt the need to attack General Hirgovar.”

The heavy manacles binding Rhaenir’s arms and legs to the wall prevented movement, so as a response he instead spat in Teranis’ face. The red dragon sighed, and signalled to a nearby technician, who nodded and turned a dial. Rhaenir yelled as electricity coursed through his body, the high voltage leaving red, flowering marks on his obsidian scales. After a few seconds of intense pain the electricity stopped, and Rhaenir sagged in his restraints.

“I don’t enjoy this any more than you do, Rhaenir.” Teranis sighed, clasping his hands. “Look, I don’t make many rules, but I enforce the ones that I do, and I do so for a reason. Being a dragon is a responsibility more than anything. The kobolds serve us because we are strong, but the moment they sense dissent in the ranks then they will seize upon it. Do you want that?”

“Strength. You don’t know what that word means.” Rhaenir’s voice was wracked with pain, but the defiant tone caused Teranis to growl and signal again. Grunts of pain filled the room as the manacles electrified, and Teranis turned away, unable to stomach the torture.

“The kobolds caused this. I’ve seen you talking with them, thinking you were keeping them safe. Well you’re not. If you’re not going to tell me anything, then I’ll get it from them instead. But know that if you force me to do this, then they’re going to be screaming the answers, bone by broken bone.”

Suddenly a large bang caused Teranis to jump in fright, and his eyes widened as he saw the source: Zigs had broken through the steel door and was striding towards him purposefully. He was nearly 10ft tall, built like a tank and sneering with stolen confidence. A guard dangled from his meaty grip, and he casually threw the rake-thin dragon away as he walked forward.

“The only one who’s going to be screaming anything is you.” Zigs said as he gripped Teranis by the neck, being sure to compress the fire glands with his fingers. A gut punch forced fire as well as spittle to spray from Teranis’ mouth, and the grunt of pain quickly turned to one of fatigue as his size was siphoned away, inch by inch. Bulky arms deflated into quivering twigs, and the red dragon yelled in fear as his chest deflated, cannonballs of muscle becoming soft lumps of sagging flesh. Zigs meanwhile roared in ecstasy as strength billowed through him, steel cords of muscle winding around his body and causing him to sink into the floor slightly, nearly a thousand pounds of solid muscle proving too much for the steel to handle.

“P-please, you can’t –” Teranis’ words were drowned out underneath Zigs’ beastly snarls and grunts, the massive dragon unable to hold his composure as he swelled even higher, grinning as he stripped the starship captain of everything he needed to lead. Size, confidence, charisma, it was all taken. Even the draconic features, the wings and horns that marked him out as superior, were thieved from him.

NGHH! Down boy, down where you belong!” Zigs pushed Teranis’ head down, forcing him to bend to his power even as he grew larger. The captain looked like a kobold now, 4ft tall and so thin that you could mistake him for a corpse, his features gaunt and pallid. His scales were now a faded pink instead of bright red, the colour and vitality leeched out, and he stammered as Zigs dropped him to the floor, flexing gigantic stolen muscles in his face just to rub in the power he now wielded. “We served you for decades, for centuries. You lorded it over us for years. Well let’s see how you like a couple of decades of servitude!”

“You c-can’t, you don’t know –”

“Oh please, like you can tell me what I can or can’t do anymore.” Zigs flexed a bicep that was larger than Teranis’ entire body, and stretched his wings out behind him to make more of an impression on the quivering kobold. He picked up Teranis by the neck again, hoisting him into the air without so much as the faintest hint of exertion. “All it would take is a little squeeze, and you would be dead. But I don’t want you dead, Teranis. I want you to beg, beg for your life. I want to see the last of your pride crushed out, your last hope of defiance squashed from your pathetic body. In short, I want to make you my bitch, the same way your made me yours once.”

“B-but -”

“BEG, YOU MISERABLE RUNT!”

Teranis screamed in fear, a dark stain spreading from the crotch of his spacesuit as he desperately beat at the thick trunk of Zigs’ arm, trying his best to make him let go. He might as well have been wind for all the effect he had, and as Zigs torqued his grip tighter and tighter, he finally began to beg for his life. “Oh god please, I’m sorry, please let me live, oh god oh god, please allow me to live, please, I beg you, please –”

Zigs let the captain go, and he dropped to the floor with a thud. “Pathetic whelp.” he sneered, and Teranis could do nothing but nod his head and accept the title, all traces of his former confidence gone.

Zigs finally looked up from the captain and noticed Rhaenir watching him with eyes like saucers. He walked over, purposefully staring into the dragon’s eyes and tilting his head when he didn’t look away. “You. What’s your name, and why are you being held here?”

“My name is Rhaenir, and I’m held for crimes against dragonkind. But that doesn’t matter, what matters is who we fight against.” Rhaenir looked pointedly at the snivelling kobold on the floor. “We share a common enemy, it seems.”

“Why should I care?” Zigs walked slowly closer, his stride confident and his chest bulging. “You think I need your help?”

“Strength will only get you so far.”

Zigs laughed, a deep booming sound that Rhaenir felt rather than heard. He also felt the thumps of Zigs’ footsteps as the dragon approached, leaving small indents in the floor. “Strength is all I need, little dragon. Look at what I’ve done already.” Zigs leaned down, and Rhaenir noticed the amulet gleaming around the dragon’s neck. He made the connection instantly, and a plan formed in his head.

“I don’t mean that. You’re looking to free the kobolds, but there are failsafes in place. One wrong step and they’re all dead.” Rhaenir inwardly grinned as the mighty dragon stopped smiling, taking him seriously.

“Tell me.”

Rhaenir looked up at the cameras in the corners of the room, and Zigs understood the message: he didn’t want anyone else hearing. He leaned in close so that Rhaenir could whisper in his ear, and as he did the black dragon struck. His mouth shot forward, and with a cold snap he closed his jaws around the amulet and jerked it loose, swallowing the thing whole. It made an uncomfortable lump as it went down, but Rhaenir didn’t care – he could feel the power in it as it moved down his gullet, and he instinctively knew that his theory had been right. The amulet was the source of the power, and having it inside him was the same as having it on his neck.

Zigs meanwhile was stunned at this sudden turn of events, and Rhaenir took the opportunity and clamped his jaws around Zigs’. He wasn’t able to reach around to the fire glands, but luckily for him Zigs was so surprised that he involuntarily coughed, a flood of fire pouring from his mouth as he struggled to control the new, large fire glands that he had inherited from Teranis. The transfer of power began immediately, and Rhaenir grunted in bliss as his scars faded, the marks of nearly a week of torture fading from his body as he began to swell. Muscles bulged all across his already large frame, and it quickly became clear that he was rising to obscene levels of strength. One arm rippled as power shot down it, the sensation not unlike a lightning bolt cascading down his limb, bulking it up as it went. It was enough to rip the thick steel manacle from the wall, and Rhaenir looked at the broken metal with surprise. Zigs tried to pull himself away, but the black dragon used his free arm to grab the back of Zigs’ head and pull him in tighter. It didn’t take long before the other arm ripped itself away from the wall too, and this one encircled Zigs’ shrinking waist. At first he could barely reach halfway around, such was the width and breadth of Zigs’ back, but as he grew the arm crept around, lengthening and thickening, until was all the way around and then some. Zigs struggled and struggled, but he was fighting a losing battle as his strength was siphoned out. 8ft became 12, then 16, and it didn’t take long for Rhaenir to rip his way out of the last of the restraints, the lab filling with the sound of shearing metal. Zigs finally broke the contact and staggered back, looking down at his body in horror. Gone were the magnificent wings, the ivory horns, the thick payloads of muscle that had once defined his frame. He wasn’t skinny, but he had a runner’s build rather than a bodybuilder’s one now.

“What have you done?” he asked fearfully as Rhaenir dusted the last of the metal from his body and strode towards him confidently.

“I’ll be honest, I have nothing against your plans. They’re virtually the same as my own after all. However, there’s a big difference between them.” Rhaenir leaned down and picked up Zigs, manhandling the kobold like a doll. “In my plan, I’m in charge.” he whispered, before gripping Zigs’ head in one gigantic hand and pulling him in for what looked like a deep kiss. But Zigs’ flailing arms and unwitting spurts of flame indicated that only one of them wanted this kiss, and Rhaenir couldn’t help but smile as he swelled thicker and taller, his strength surging in ripples of muscle that flowed across his frame, bulging with stolen strength while Zigs moaned and struggled, each pathetic blow feebler than the last as the remains of his strength were drawn out. “That’s it, don’t fight it. Let it all go, you don’t need it anymore. I need it more than you do. Theeeere we go.” Rhaenir whispered as one would to a child, calming words that made it seem as though he had good intentions, when in reality he was taking everything he could. His ego grew to match his body, and he forced Zigs to kiss him even deeper, grinding their faces together and inhaling as hard as he could, wringing out every last drop of strength like water being wrung from a towel.

Finally the flow of strength stopped, not because Rhaenir wanted it to but because there was no more strength left to give. The difference between Zigs now and just a minute ago was almost inconceivable, and he was smaller than he had been as a kobold. He had already been thin when he started, but now even the slight muscle that he had was gone, and his whole body trembled uncontrollably with weakness. His strength was completely obliterated, sucked out, and he was forced to lie there and watch as the 20ft tall behemoth looming over him flexed and grinned.

“Oh Zigs, you are so generous.” The chuckle that followed was hideously mocking. “Come, I still have need of you.” Rhaenir picked up the dragon and threw him over his broad shoulder as he began testing out his new body on the laboratory equipment nearby. Scaled fists punched through delicate equipment like meteors, sending showers of sparks cascading across the room, and in many cases he followed it up with a foot stomp that left a deep crater in the floor, sometimes even a hole to the next level. He also took his time with some of the more solid equipment, such as the holding rack that he had been tied to – despite being made of almost 2 feet of solid metal he grabbed it, fingers sinking in to the steel alloy, and bent it out of shape. The sound was horrific, metal squealing loudly as he forced it out of shape, but he looked as though he was bending a twig for all the effort he put into it. In fact everything he did looked effortless – the main axle for the rack snapped like a pencil, the steel ring that acted as ballast was folded like rope, and then torn to pieces like paper. The more expensive equipment looked like sparking putty under his immense strength, rare alloys twisting and folding.

“That should about do it, I think.” Rhaenir surveyed the remains of the lab, which looked as though it had been hit by a very violent hurricane. “Apologies, but this place brings up some bad memories for me. Now, I believe this amulet was most likely obtained from the Vault, am I right?” Zigs nodded weakly, and Rhaenir grinned. “Good. If you wish to see your precious kobolds with their internal organs intact, I suggest you lead me there. See, the thing about power is that it’s a means to an end for most. Many get hung up on the power itself and fail to see further. Like you.” He looked at the skinny kobold resting on his enormous shoulder, the muscular movements of his shoulder shifting Zigs’ entire body. “Me, I’m in it for the long game, always have been. But if I’m going to get anywhere, I’m going to need a lot more where this came from. I’ve got big plans, my tiny friend, plans that I need strength to carry out, more strength than you could ever concieve. So be a good little kobold and show me the way, why don’t you.”

Zigs pointed a trembling finger, and Rhaenir’s footsteps thumped away, the whole ship shaking as the titan went to make himself even more unstoppable.