Rangavar didn't start out having a good day, and things might only continue to go downhill as he continues his search for wtf is going on in the research facility where he works. Meanwhile, Arro and Kraz might need the assistance of a certain powerful telepath to help protect them from their boss. A type 5 telepath, perhaps. If only they knew one who might want to help...

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Chapter 24

Rangavar really really really really really really really didn’t want to go downstairs.
He also really really wanted to know what was going on.

When he got to the nearest basement door, his paw paused on the doorknob. Most of his excursions downstairs were safe enough, but that was when he was actually supposed to be down there—when Zark was working upstairs. This time, he would very clearly be snooping. He was pretty sure the female Glitarian Darkal would not be happy about that.
On the other paw, the alternative was wandering around the ground floor worrying. He didn’t want to do that either. After appearing the key into his paw with a touch of magic, he trudged down the stairs, bracing himself for whatever he might find.

The basement floor was calm. As he strode down the long corridor, he kept all of his senses alert, waiting to find anything out of the ordinary. Well, also to detect the female Glitarian Darkal, so he’d have a moment’s notice to prepare for one of her famously tense conversations. He wondered if she’d ever tell him her name. ‘Female Glitarian Darkal’ was a bit of a mouthful. Even though he never had reason to say it out loud, it didn’t sound any better in his head.

“Rangavar.”

He whirled around. Distracted, he’d somehow failed to notice the exact thing he’d been afraid of.

She was in her full Glitarian form. She seemed to be more and more often lately. “I wasn’t expecting to see you down here,” she lied. They could obviously both hear it was a lie. She said it intentionally.

That meant she already knew why he was down here, too. He gulped. “Was the message this morning because of you?” he asked, even though he already knew that she knew his question. And he knew that she knew that he knew the real answer.

She tilted her head, the corner of her mouth beginning to pull back to reveal her fanged grin. “Why? Because it was fast? Are you impressed?”

He bared his own teeth a bit. Unlike hers, it wasn’t a grin. “Why don’t you just let the resources in, and then let everything go back to normal? You don’t have to do this.”

She crossed her arms, staring down at him. “What fun would that be?”

“This is ‘fun’ to you?” he growled.

He half expected her to do something to him then, for his tone, but she actually turned away slightly with a shrug. “Everything doesn’t have to be so literal, Rangavar.” She inspected her black talons for a moment. “Maybe the better word is ‘exciting’. So far, we have taken a great first step.”

“I…” He faltered. He wasn’t exactly in a position to make demands, of course. He had to tread carefully. “You came here to study the wraiths. How does destroying an entire world’s economy help that?”

She finally glanced back at him. “So many questions.” She reached out towards him suddenly, wrapping her talons around the back of his head, her thumb under the horn on his forehead. He froze in her grasp, pleading with his eyes not to change his form. She stared at him for a moment, and nothing happened. “It’s simple. The more we control, the more power we have. And the more power we have, the more we can do.”

He was too distracted by her grip to really pay attention. He was shaking as her golden eyes bored into his. Please don’t do it. Please don’t.

He was in a stockroom with nobody around. He stumbled backwards on his feet, suddenly realizing that he was Glitarian and needed to readjust his balance accordingly. And he also realized that he had no recollection of what had happened, where he was, or how he got here.

The stockroom had a wall lined with boxes, an air vent, and a lamp on the ceiling. It was incredibly unremarkable. Rangavar wished there was something to throw. He needed to throw something. He needed to scream. What had happened while she’d taken over his mind?

He took a few deep breaths to calm down. What good was his ability to resist telepathy if he couldn’t resist hers? Hers was arguably the most important to resist.

Stretching out his senses right now, it seemed he was at least alone. In his Glitarian form, he also assumed that she wouldn’t have let him out of the building. She was only trying to make a point. Another one of her mind games, or whatever.

He angrily grabbed the doorknob to rip it open, but found the door locked. The lock wasn’t on the inside. He turned it harder, angrier. He was sure she could sense him from wherever she was. Laughing at him. He used his anger to throw all of his force into slamming a shoulder against the door. It still didn’t open.

He closed his eyes, sighed, and stepped back to calm himself. He slowly brought some magic to his paws. Without much ability to control it, he tended to avoid it. But without control, it was also really, really good at destroying stuff. When he’d gathered his concentration, he released it at the door.

The door shattered.

Rangavar stormed out into the hallway of the research facility, apparently the ground floor. There was thankfully no one around. Fortunately no type Fives, either, to see him there; he still had to change back. He didn’t feel tired or sore from the previous transformation; Vaugh only knew how long she’d had him standing in there staring blankly at the wall.

He took another deep breath, focusing on his powers, suppressing the Glitarian energy traveling through his body. He growled as his back cracked, his shoulders rotating, arms hanging uselessly. The curvature of his spine finally contorted, throwing him forwards, so that he landed on his knees. The familiar prickling feeling of his wing feathers retreating into his flesh lit his nerves on fire, and he tried to stifle his continued growling, terrified that someone might suddenly appear and see him like this. Why had he waited until out in the open hallway? Because he was angry? Because he was stupid?

He gasped as his knees cracked out of place and he was thrown to the floor on his front side, chin banging the ground, unable to stop himself. The arches of his feet bent until he couldn’t take it, and then were back in place, the talons retracting, the scales all over his body jammed more closely together as everything became smaller. He dug his claws into the tile floor as his fangs curved back upwards into his gums.

As he lay on the floor afterwards, catching his breath, body radiating with pain, his only real hope for the moment was that nobody would find him like this.

His next hope was that he could skip out of work and get back to Arro and Jade before whatever the female Glitarian Darkal did next.

~

Arro ended up walking to Zark’s house. He didn’t want to. But Kraz didn’t have a hovercycle, and they both seemed to realize that it would be a bit weird for Arro to show up first and have to wait at the door.

“He’s not answering you either?” the much heftier dragon asked. His legs felt frozen and stiff with every step. It wasn’t just his jiggling thighs and blubbery belly making it harder to walk in this weather.

Kraz shook his head, staring down at his wristband. “He’ll get over himself. I just never know when that’ll be.”

They spent most of the time trudging in silence. When they were almost there, Kraz looked over at him. “Arro?”

Arro focused only on the frosty air puffing from his mouth with each breath. “What.”

Kraz watched him awkwardly for another few steps until he looked away again. “I’m sorry.”

Another few quiet steps. Arro put his paws in his pockets.

“I haven’t said it yet. But. I’m sorry I called you fat and lazy.”

“I am fat,” Arro grumbled under his breath. “You shouldn’t assume people are lazy just because they’re fat.”

Kraz’s ears flattened. “I know. I’m sorry.” After a few more steps, he added, “I didn’t think you were lazy because you’re fat, I thought you were fat because you’re lazy.”

“Wow, thanks for clarifying.”

“Wait, no¬—I’m sorry,” Kraz stammered.

Arro was relieved to see Zark’s house finally come into view. Well, Kraz’s house. Maybe they could put an end to this conversation. “I work hard. But I’m fat because I eat a lot.”

“I know.” Kraz paused. “Wait, I mean—Augh! Stop fucking up my apology!”

Despite himself, Arro smirked a bit.

The much fatter of the two stood back while Kraz unlocked the door. He took his sweet time, used to the climate here. Meanwhile, Arro was still quite literally freezing his ass off. It took all his restraint not to bowl the other dragon over when he rushed inside behind him. As it was, when he pounded up the steps, his entire body bounced and strained against the fabric of his too-tight coat, slowing his progress. But he could only focus on getting warm.

In the center of the room, at the table, was Zark, chewing on a pencil. He still had it in his mouth when glanced up at their sudden entry. He looked annoyed. “What are you doing here?”

“Uhh I live here,” Kraz retorted.

Arro suddenly regretted coming. He didn’t want to be in the middle of a couple’s argument. Fortunately, though, nobody said anything else as Kraz took a seat at the table across from the chubby black dragon. “I kept messaging you. You didn’t answer.”

Zark scowled. “I know. I didn’t want to.” He turned his attention to Arro. “What are you doing here?” He looked back and forth between them for a second. “So what, you’re like, friends now?”

It was Arro who answered. “Well… ‘friends’ isn’t exactly the word…” He didn’t look at Kraz, but saw him flatten his ears out the corner of his eye. “We were mostly waiting for Rangavar to get out of work to ask if he found out anything, but… well, we wanted to find you, too,” he admitted. “When you stormed out, you didn’t—”

“Yeah, I don’t have time for Darkals.” Zark leaned back in his chair.

“What does that even mean?” Kraz watched him while beginning to unzip his coat. Arro decided to leave his own coat on for now; the last thing he needed was Kraz watching him fighting with the zipper for a few minutes when it was time to pull it back up over the bulging fat of his torso.

The other fat Faerian that was squeezed into the chair across from Kraz rolled his eyes. “On Karraden, you’ve been conditioned to see Darkals as equals. You wouldn’t get it.”

“Why wouldn’t you think they are?” Kraz frowned.

“You mean aside from being barely dragons at all?” Zark snorted. “They’re less intelligent than us. They don’t have thoughts like we do. They don’t have feelings. They only walk among us because they have extremely powerful magic, and so we have to let them. And they’ve already abused that power in the past.”

“All this stuff just sounds like the ancient ‘Darkals have no souls’ rhetoric from thousands of years ago,” Arro snorted. He’d never really excelled at school, but he remembered sleeping—er, sitting—through classes about it.

Zark crossed his arms. “Well at least I’ve opened a history book. Apparently, they only teach history in Edaca.”

Kraz scowled. “What, did they skip the part where Faerians hunting, capturing, and killing Darkals started a war?” The longer the conversation went on, the more visibly distraught Kraz was getting. As he stared at his companion across the table, his expression looked… betrayed.

Arro was starting to have a pretty similar feeling. He couldn’t imagine why this had never come up before.

Zark just studied Kraz across the table as he digested the buff Faerian’s words. He looked a little uncertain for a moment, but then his arrogance returned. “Why are you defending them so hard? What are you, like, a Darkal-fucker or something?” he scoffed. “You do know that stereotypes come from truth, right?”

Kraz and Arro glanced at each other. Finally, it was actually Kraz who broke the silence. “Is that seriously an insult they still use on Miynfell?”

Zark wrinkled his snout. “What, they don’t use that insult here anymore?” He glanced from one of them to the other and back, like he couldn’t believe the news. The irate Faerian finally threw up his paws. “Why are you both staring at me like you have no idea what I’m talking about?”

“If you’re going to call anyone a ‘Darkal-fucker’, say it to me,” Arro blurted, scowling.

Zark turned to look at him with a blank expression, leaning back in his chair.

The ancient insult had never been meant to be taken literally, but Arro couldn’t stop himself. The irony was too great. “You hate Darkals so much?” He clenched his fists at his sides. “You wouldn’t want to associate with me. Rangavar’s companion?”

It took a second for Zark’s eyes to widen.

It suddenly came to Arro’s attention that he needed to leave now, right this second; he could feel tears coming. So he turned away. “I think I’m done here. Sorry, Kraz, guess you have to figure out what’s going on alone.”

He had already turned and had his paw on the doorknob when he suddenly heard the legs of a chair scraping the floor. He automatically glanced back for a second, watching Zark quickly scoot back from the table. He had to do a little wriggle to get his chunky sides out from between the armrests of his chair. “Wait!”

Despite himself, Arro paused.

Zark’s expression was no longer arrogant or annoyed. He stumbled forward a few steps when the chair released its hold, his paunch jiggling for a moment, his eyes wide. “Rangavar is your companion?”

Arro stared at him for a moment like he was stupid. He couldn’t help it. “Yes.” He turned back to the door and returned his paw to the knob.

“Wait!”

He rolled his eyes as he twisted and pulled it open. A gust of cold air washed in.

“No, wait! I need to say something that isn’t about Darkals! This is about the research facility!”

Arro paused again. He couldn’t help that, either. Vaugh dammit. He pulled the door shut and turned around slowly. He at least tried to dredge up the most annoyed look possible. Maybe it would also hide his other hurt emotions. “What.”
Kraz was staring at the other Faerian too, from his own chair. He still looked a bit shellshocked. Zark didn’t look at him, his eyes instead desperately searching Arro’s face. “It isn’t safe. Rangavar is the Glitarian Darkal who threatened me.”

Arro stared back blankly for a second. “Huh?”

“What I saw the other day—” Zark paused. Kraz still didn’t know about that. Zark just shook his head, clearly deciding it was a story for later. He pressed on. “When I was told not to tell? It was Rangavar. He’s the one who told me not to tell. He’s one of them.”

Arro didn’t really know what to make of that. “I’m sorry, Zark, but he definitely doesn’t have feathers.”

He noticed out the corner of his eye Kraz’s own expression gradually descending further and further into blatant confusion as he eyed his companion.

Zark’s face flushed a duller shade of black under the attention. “I… I don’t understand that part,” he admitted. “I don’t know if it’s a magic power, or an illusion, or what. But even if that Darkal is your… companion,” Zark wrinkled his snout slightly, but continued, “he’s obviously deceiving you. You can’t trust him.”

Arro waved a dismissive paw. “He wouldn’t lie to me.” He couldn’t believe he was even still standing here entertaining the words of someone who clearly hated Darkals, trying to convince him to even consider that Rangavar might not be honest. He’d always been incredibly honest and open. Well, it was true he didn’t talk much about his rather extensive history, but he never lied about anything Arro asked.

“I swear,” Zark promised, his expression earnest.

“Zark.” Arro looked at him tiredly. “I just asked him about the monster-dragon stuff this morning, like I promised, and—” He paused. It suddenly occurred to him that he hadn’t exactly gotten an answer after all. He shook his head slightly; Rangavar hadn’t made up anything, he’d only promised that it would have to wait until later.

“Hey, um, not to drag out this trainwreck of a conversation,” Kraz suddenly spoke up. He’d been quiet for a while. For a moment, Arro had almost forgotten he was there. He looked uncomfortable beneath their stares as both other dragons turned their attention to him. “Can someone, uh.” He glanced helplessly between the two of them. “Where did ‘feathered monster-dragons’ come into this? I think I’m missing a few facts.”

Arro waited patiently while Zark filled in the other Faerian. Kraz didn’t seem any more impressed than Arro. “Alright…” he stared at his companion uncertainly. “Let me get this straight. Glitarian Darkals are all secretly monsters, and Rangavar is one of the monsters, and he threatened you not to tell?”

Zark just looked exasperated, his hears flat. “That’s a really stupid summary, but technically: Yes.”

Kraz shared a look with Arro. Before today, if someone told Arro that him and Kraz of all people, would have to be the voice of reason, he would have just laughed.

Finally, the fat Faerian let out a sigh. The pale-red fat Faerian, not the other one. “I have some doubts. I’ve never had a reason not to trust Rangavar.”

“Other than him being a Darkal?”

Arro angrily turned away, grabbing the knob again.

“No, wait! Wait, I’m sorry. Never mind that. Forget I said that. Please. That was dumb.”

Arro paused again. He was becoming too close of acquaintances with this doorknob. The back and forth tension would have the closest of lovers envious.

Zark was starting to look frantic as he stared after him, still trying to convince him that his wild claims were true. “They can use mind control too,” he pointed out.

“So?”

“So how do you know he’s not mind controlling you?”

“You realize how you sound right now, right? You realize you’re sounding more ridiculous every time you open your mouth?” Arro let out an annoyed sigh. “I think if there were mind controlling Darkals at the research facility, all of us would know about it.”

He paused. As he spoke the words, it occurred to him that last year, he had been approached by another Darkal at the research facility. She was the only other Darkal he’d seen on Karraden, but since they were so rare as a species, he hadn’t ever really considered that odd.

He recalled she approached him several times around the same time he and Rangavar had been snooping around. He knew that she was involved in erasing his memories, but he hadn’t wanted to know more about her at the time—probably something else she did to his mind, admittedly.

Now that it came to mind, he actually tried to remember her; anything about her. Anything at all. All he could really remember, though, was how vague and clouded his thoughts felt around her. She didn’t manipulate him like a type Five dragon, and yet…

The Darkal had somehow, definitely manipulated him.

Arro’s brain worked to wrap around the implications. Not that he automatically believed Zark, of course.

…But…

“What?” Kraz suddenly interrupted his line of thought.

Arro realized that he’d been staring into the room with the expression of someone a thousand miles away. “Sorry.” He shook his head again, but more to himself. “I just thought of a few things.”

“You believe in monster Darkals?” asked Kraz skeptically.

Arro scowled. “That’s not what I said.” He stopped to think for a moment about his next move. It was only a moment before he came to a decision. “I’m going to confront Rangavar and ask him directly if it’s true, and if he says it’s not, then I’m going to ask him for the actual truth.”

“Isn’t that what you did this morning?” Zark gave him a blunt stare.

He had a point, but Arro took a deep breath as he made up his mind. “Technically, yes. But I was being vague to protect your identity. Not that it, uh, worked, I guess,” he blushed. Zark didn’t seem amused. Arro went on, “But with my mate home now too, she’ll be able to hear him tell the truth. She’s a Gemian,” he added at Zark’s puzzled glance. He’d mentioned her existence to Zark before, but hadn’t mentioned yet that she was on Karraden. Come to think of it, he hadn’t mentioned she was a Gemian, either, and he supposed the other dragon would just have to deal with it.
Arro had his paw on the doorknob again before he heard another “Wait!”

He almost didn’t want to take his paw off the doorknob out of sheer spite.

“Arro, listen to me. Please don’t trust him.” Zark sounded increasingly distraught. Or maybe desperate. Maybe both. “Hey, I know everyone’s mad at me right now, but I genuinely don’t want you to get hurt.”

Arro’s sigh was more of a growl this time.

“Zark,” Kraz used a bit of a more gentle tone. “If all this stuff is true… can you just show us?”

Both other dragons looked at Kraz curiously.

He leaned forward on the table, his brow furrowed, and went on, “If we encountered these dragons, your, uh… ‘powers’ are immune to mind control, right?”

He carefully cast a glance Arro out the corner of his eye, but Zark immediately spoke up, “It’s okay, I told Arro I’m a type Five.”

Kraz almost looked a bit miffed, like Zark probably shouldn’t have shared his secret, but went on, “Well, anyway, what if we all went over to the research facility together. Could you… could you use your powers to protect us, too?”

Zark put a chubby paw on his chin, his other paw stuffed in the pocket of his open coat, appearing to genuinely ponder the question for a moment. “If I could, you’d probably have to be really close to me. Like, really, really close. Paw-holding close, even. My powers aren’t limitless, and their powers seemed… really strong.” He absently studied the two of them, as if calculating the likelihood in his head. “Even if I could, though, I only ever saw the Darkals the one time, the other day, in the entirety of the time I’ve been working there. I mean, if Rangavar is any example, they obviously don’t look like that all the time. There’s no guarantee that there’d be anything to find.”

“What about downstairs?” Kraz piped. At Zark’s confused glance, he added, “I’ve heard there’s a downstairs. It’s apparently a huge secret, so I think if the research facility were hiding something, it would be down there.”

Arro wondered how Kraz had heard about it. He really did seem to know everything. Arro wasn’t inclined to argue the idea, though; on the contrary, it actually seemed like a reasonable to place to look. If there were ever a reasonable place to look for feathered Darkals, that is. “I know a way down there, but I don’t know how to open the door.”

He blushed beneath their stares. “What? I’m sure I’m not the only dragon who’s been exploring before.”

He and Zark both suddenly jumped at the sound of Kraz assertively bringing his palms down on the table. “Alright. It’s starting to sound like we have a plan.”

Arro and Zark shared another tentative glance. It was looking like Kraz was right.

The pale gray Faerian pushed himself up from the table to walk towards the door, although he paused before passing by Zark. “We need to have a talk later,” he said softly into the other Faerian’s ear. Kraz probably still didn’t know that Arro had heightened hearing.

Arro just saw Zark nod, and then the two continued toward him. Finally, it looked like him and the doorknob might get some action. He twisted it and pushed the door open this time. Cold air immediately gushed inside, making him shiver despite the blubber wrapping his body.

“If we balance correctly, do you think I can sit on the back of your hovercycle?” Kraz asked the black Faerian. Although he was noticeably tubby, Zark wasn’t monstrously huge enough to take up the space of two people on the seat or anything, not even considering his tall, muscular companion.

“You two go on ahead,” Arro told them. At their questioning glances, he explained, “I’m going to go ask Rangavar a few questions anyway, and then I’ll meet up with you after.”

“Didn’t we just get through discussing why that’s a bad idea?” Zark gave him an annoyed scowl.

“Don’t worry.” Arro swung one heavy leg over the back of the seat, his thigh fat swishing across the surface as he moved the ponderous limb. “I think… I just want to see what he says about the whole thing.”

“That could be dangerous,” Zark insisted, looking exasperated to be rehashing everything he’d just finally convinced them to do. He had already planted his own chubby ass on the seat, and Kraz was wriggling up behind him for a tighter grip on the smaller Faerian’s doughy shoulders. “Look, we can agree or disagree on what Darkals are like as people, but can you at least listen to my warning about the Glitarian ones?”

Arro looked away. He started up his hovercycle. “It’s alright, Zark,” he said, gritting his teeth against the way the cold metal machine pressed up against the underside of his exposed gut. He carefully worded what he wanted to say. “I… I think…” He took a deep breath. He trusted Rangavar. Right? But still, at Zark’s warning… “If any of that is true, I need to hear it from him. And if he won’t tell me… I also need to make sure he can’t try and stop us.”