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With a tremor that knocked all of us off our feet, the volcano exploded. A huge column of lava and rock was hurled into the sky like it had come from a howitzer, and rivers of lava ran thick and fast down the lower side of the volcano. Hinori was about thirty metres inside his own side, and Runo the same.Sunrise was in the middle. He spoke.

"The lava does not flow on Hinori's side, but there is debris and ash. You had better get out of the way."

"Not a chance." I replied, loading a shell into my rocket launcher, and taking off my kit bag. Everything hadn't time to fall yet. There was words to the same theme from my companions, and Sunrise shrugged.

"We could use a hand. We're protecting the house, Hinori will stop any avalanches, Runo the molten streams of lava."

I ran over towards Runo.

"I'm going to carve a path for the lava to flow, can you give me something to aim at from the air?"

"Will do." he said, and started grabbing rocks, which he started placing,"Hit the rock on the far side from the house." I started running down hill, and went into a flying dive, changing into my Raptor form and firing up all four engines. I soared into the sky, seeing the debris and ash falling back to earth. I banked hard, and saw the hastily made curving line Runo had made, and was now running away from, he didn't want to be within range of whatever I was going to throw.

Multi-tasking quickly, I assigned a missile for each part of the curve, calculated the trajectory, made all six live, boosted by my rocket shells, and launched them all. The six normal missiles streamed from my craft, and dived on strategic points on the curve, about two yards away from the wall. The rocks were beginning to fall, and I realised flying into the ash of a volcanic eruption would be stupid.Banking hard, losing any chance of getting another run before the lava got down there.

I slowed down dramatically and as I passed over Runo at about ten feet, changed into my Tripod form. He wasn't surprised at this, and I observed the canal I had made. It was shallow, but certainly would do the job if we only got a small amount of lava coming this way.

Karma, people. There was a whole wave of it surging down the mountain. I three legged walked past the small rock formation Runo had caused, and began carving out a wider and deeper path with my Heat Ray. Salbar was chanting, holding his swords in a special way.

Simba looked at the oncoming lava, and pulled out a grenade.

"Shields up." he said, and everyone but Salbar and me pulled out one of Abigail's prototype shields. Draco also pulled out a grenade, and the pair lobbed the explosives far and high, landing in the lava as it slowly surged towards us. There was a pair of explosions, and lava was thrown everywhere, in little blobs, The tripod form hastily stepped away from some larger parts of molten lava, and Sunrise looked at Simba.

"What's that supposed to do?"

Simba grabbed another grenade." Firstly, it breaks the lava up, these little bits cool faster by themselves. Secondly, the explosions redirect the lava flow."

I remembered reading that from a chemical textbook. I changed into my bionic form, and loaded my rocket launcher.

"Javid, I might need some more shells after this." I shouted, before the shell ignited with a whumph. There was a huge explosion, and blobs of lava rained everywhere.

"That's the idea!" Simba shouted, lobbing his grenade.

It was dangerous, hell yes, but it looked like it was working. As a rivulet ran towards Salbar he gave a chant, brought his swords together, and a ice cold whirlwind erupted from his swords and threw itself at the lava. There was a burst of steam and smoke, but Salbar kept the flow going, and the lava was halted, hardening into obsidian.

Sunrise was watching the systematic explosions with almost disbelief. He had cast a magic shield to protect himself from flying lava, but he wasn't actually doing anything. Hinori was awaiting an avalanche, Runo was reserving himself for when we ran out of explosive. My third shell spoke, and the dragon spoke to me.

"I hope you've got some heat protection." he commented.

"This is a special metallic alloy, that's the best I've got. And you can't fire an RPG one handed." I said as I reloaded, aimed and fired again.

"You're going to run out of rounds." Runo commented.

"I know that, Runo, but a ten minute trip to Covington's would mean I could have enough to do this for several hours."

"I must say I'm impressed, you've turned most of the lava away."

He was right,for to our right, lava was running unchecked down the hill, safely away from the house, and most of the lava that was behind the stuff we were slowing down was breaking rank and following the quicker moving lot.

I expended my last shells, and the members of the non magical force stepped back, job half done. Runo stepped forwards as the endless supply of lava now rolled slowly forwards. He began chanting.

"You might want to step back a bit further." he said to me, and I immediately dashed back to Sunrise. Runo watched calmly as the wall of lava hit our canal, and more of it was swept away following the course of the dip. But more came, and Runo charged forwards, diving into the lava.

"That's not something I would ever consider doing." I said, looking at the Runo free space.

"It's a hot pool to him, nothing really special." Sunrise replied, as the entire front of the floe began to darken and harden. Runo was causing it to solidify!

"Being a lava dragon, he can take heat from outside, and store it in himself, or vent it as a hyper flame, and vice versa, giving it out."

There was a white flame arched from the centre of the lava floe, and then it blackened and hardened some more.

"That is such a handy talent, I don't suppose you'd considered working on Central."

Sunrise began casting Lightning bolts into the sky, the dragon was pulverizing falling rocks with deadly accuracy.

"Sounds interesting enough." he said, stepping the smoking remains of half a boulder.

"Avalanche!" Hinori shouted.

"Ah, good.Good timing." Sunrise began walking towards the cooling floe.

"Runo, get out of there, we've got a heat exchange coming."

Runo dived out of the lava, steam rising from his scales. He blew off several jets of flame.

"Right, Sunrise." he stepped back, and nodded at me."This is Sunrise's party trick."

"I'm watching, how does it work?"

"You are aware of the balance of heat, sending it magically from one to another?"

"I've heard of the theory." I nodded, and Sunrise stood in the centre between the lava and the incoming avalanche path. It was still distant, but we could feel the rumblings through the ground.

"Then you might want to watch it in practice." Runo said, casting spells at the lava.It shifted, moving directly towards Sunrise. Hinori began casting spells, and the avalanche began to move slowly off it's course, now we were the target.

Fire and ice, converging on Sunrise. The black dragon chanted, and his shield erupted into life, and then he immediately chanting another spell. He had one hand pointed directly at the avalanche and one at the floe of lava.

Then just before the avalanche struck us, It began to vaporise. The lava hissed and cooled by itself, and black tendrils of cooling erupting all over the lava. It wasn't just short range either, some of these tendrils were extending some way up the hill. The ice kept coming, and never neared more than five metres before vanishing. The lava cooled down more, Runo was standing with a smile, next to us six, who were all looking impressed.

"Very handy if you know how it works."

Hinori was standing there, casting spells on the avalanche, directing it, and Sunrise was doing the heat exchange. Runo occasionally casted a spell to keep the lava flowing in the right ways.

"You have no idea how easy you made my job." he commented," What with your explosions and directing it all away."

The lava was pretty cool, and very sluggish, directly in front of Sunrise it was stone cold. Hinori shouted.

"There's no more coming down!"

"It's enough." Runo shouted back, as Sunrise was still concentrating too hard on the exchange.

The snow stopped, and Sunrise stopped the spell, looking at the results. Most of the lava here had frozen solid, and no more was coming this way.The volcano appeared to have stopped it's explosion, it was trickling lava like it was before the blast. Sunrise staggered back, exhausted, and Runo had to steady him. Hinori walked across the snow back towards us.

"I think we will have no problem with that for another couple of months." the ice dragon said, as he stepped out of the snow and stood on the rock hard ground.

"Agreed." Runo replied, as Sunrise regained his strength. He waved us all back to the house, and while he held onto Runo, he looked surprisingly sure footed. We got inside, Hinori giving Runo a wide berth, he was still cooling, and Sunrise changed, slumping into his chair, the human looking surprisingly tired.

"Thank you for that." he directed at us. We said it was nothing. I decided to go for some aerial reconnaissance, and see if I can't find the city Runo was talking about.

I actually stood on the snow and tobogganed down in my Raptor form, before I gained enough speed to surge into the air. I flew low and fast, keeping out of the smoke from the volcano. I noticed a unarmed transport helicopter, and as I flew towards it, found three dragons in it, with recording equipment, they were filing the volcano post eruption. With casual friendliness, I banked around and slowed down dramatically to fly at the helicopter's pace, about two hundred kilometres.

The dragons must have wondered what the roaring noise was, and finally one dragon filming the eruption looked behind the tail, and spotted me. He looked amazed, and turned to film me.

I casually banked around the other side of the chopper, and gently pulled alongside, speaking into my headset.

"You missed all the fun." I said, and there was a draconic voice in my set instantly.

"Who are you, and what did we miss?"

"You missed Sunrise, Hinori and Runo casting the most breath taking magic I've ever seen,oh, and us."

"So that's where they've been, but who are you?" the dragon insisted.

"Me? My name is Alduin,what do you mean that's where they've been?"

"Huh, they were exiled, damn quack was spouting that his Lava dragon friend deserved the same rights as normal dragons."

"We're not going to get on well." I replied, and boosted my engines, banking sharply across the helicopter's nose.

"Damn it, what stunt are you trying to pull?" the dragon blazed in my ear, as I banked around, screaming past at short range.

"I have heard that so many times as an explorer, I am so tired of hearing it."

"But it's true."

"Do you want me to shoot you out of the sky? I have enough armament to blast that flimsy piece of engineering into it's molecular components."

"It's a RV-376, it is not flimsy." the dragon replied.

"One missile, it's a flying gas explosion." I retorted, screeching down the length of the chopper and hearing the whine of my own engines played back through his microphone.

"Are you trying to kill all of us?" the dragon roared.

"I could do it a lot easier than this. See that tree down there next to the road?"

"Yes."

"I hope you're filming."

I had pulled alongside, and executed a coin flip, diving upside down on the tree. I released a missile, flipped right way up, and then dropped a bomb. I pulled up sharply, missing my results, and circled the chopper.

"If I wanted to hit that chopper, I could just do that."

"So what is your purpose?" the dragon asked, still looking at the results.

"Where's the city?"

"About twenty minutes flight the opposite way. Follow the road."

I blasted past them, and followed the road, and after only a couple a minutes came to a huge metropolis. The sky hummed with flying devices, the road were filled methods of land travel. The skyscrapers were almost two hundred metres tall, some of them. I flew at this height, and I occasionally had to avoid aerial traffic.

"There should be traffic lights installed up here!" I shouted, diving and rotating underneath a moving crane. I changed to vertical hover, and hummed to a halt on top of a sky scraper. It had a helipad.

"Mine not to reason why, but thanks anyway." I smiled, as I slowed to stationary, and descended gently onto the helipad. I cut my engines, and changed into my bionic form. Taking sour note of a helicopter heading towards me, I walked firmly towards a door, and when I found it was coded, removed code and lock with a blast from my C.E.O blaster.

Shutting the door behind me, I looked at a deserted corridor. Two cameras looked at the corridor, but that didn't make any difference. Wandering casually, I went down the corridor. Instantly klaxons went off, and Draco spoke in my ear.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm going to find the guys in charge and tell them what I think of their policies."

"Alduin, could we sort of not annoy everyone?"

"It's what I'm good at, it's what I'm doing.If I want Sunrise here, I'll ask, he's doubtless got the political mind for it."

There was a bang, and a human carrying a standard pistol came out of a door, aiming it at me. I kept coming at him, and he fired without warning. The bullet zinged off my chest, and I stepped around him as I walked past. Javid burst out laughing, they were watching my live feed.

"Could someone ask Sunrise the best way to get to the mayor or whatever they call it?"

"You're doing a perfectly good job of it, let yourself get arrested and brought to him." Simba replied, and I heard Sunrise.

"Actually, one better.You landed on the building the council is in, hence the guards."

"Thank you for that."I said, finding a stair case, and using it. A dragon came charging up the other way, and spotted me. He blasted a jet of flame, which I deflected with my arm and then pulse blasted him without breaking stride.

"You are going to annoy a lot of people." Simba said conversationally in my ear.

"Excellent, the more angry they are, the more mistakes they make." I said, sliding professionally down the bannister and landing in front of the door to the top floor. I pulled out a potion from my bag, and drunk it all in one go, putting the empty bottle back in my bag.

"What does that do?" Draco asked. I knew exactly what it did, but continued to Sunrise.

"Which floor?"

"Six floors down." Sunrise replied, as three creatures of various species and race came charging from a door wearing the same security uniform. They ran towards me, and then straight past.

There was a howl of laughter from Javid, and surprise from everyone else.

"I should have guessed, that was the potion of invisibility." Javid said, between chuckles of mirth.

I walked completely invisible down six floors, making sure to step aside when guards went the other way. Casually getting out of the stairwell on the right floor, I saw about fifteen security guards in this corridor. The klaxons were still going, and they were all heavily armed. Three by themselves were around the door to the office Sunrise told me was the council chambers. I promptly headed through the open door nearest on the floor.

It appeared to be a office, and I noticed an air vent up in the ceiling. I stood on the desk, removed the grate, and with difficulty climbed into it.

"I got bad news and good news." I said to Draco quietly, smiling.

"What's the bad news?" he asked.

"The bad news I think there's anthrax in the air ducts."

"What's the good news?"

"I think the asbestos will get rid of it."

"Are you serious?" Simba looked alarmed.

"No, it's a joke on my planet, because asbestos is quite possibly worse. But they've got an Alduin in their air ducts, and that's very bad."

"Oh, I agree entirely, they can't be flushed out, definitely fatal depending on the Alduin's mood, and there's no known way to decontaminate a building with one in." Draco laughed. I grinned, crawling quietly along the air vent.

"This guy is incorrigible." Sunrise looked at my progress, impressed. I found the chambers. There were eight creatures, a couple of dragons in those eight, sitting around a table, looking very nervous.There were flashing red lights, but the klazons had been switched off for this room. I removed the grate, and dropped gently onto the lush carpet.The table was full of drinking mats and papers, and there was a bank of windows overlooking the city. The chairs looked very gilt as well.I nabbed a polished ornate drinking mat as I went past it, vanishing into my pocket. The carpet was thick enough that my feet made very little sound, and I drew my octo bonder as I walked towards the door. A couple had heard the sound I had made when I landed, but they looked around in confusion.

They heard the octo bonder clearly though. It made a buzzing sound, like a loud bee, and if they were looking at the door they would see the crack in the door vanish, but while they looked around in confusion, they didn't see the door sealing itself up. Sunrise was laughing.

"You just broke into the council chambers without breaking a sweat, and you've stopped them getting guards in. I wish I knew it was that easy."

I finished the door, and then stepped away. The absence of sound now made them even more worried, and one dragon finally spotted the grille. He looked up, and fired a powerful burst into the duct. There was a pause, and then he spoke.

"Someone tell the guards he's using the vents." one got to his feet before I spoke.

"I shouldn't bother."

Everyone looked around in fright. I hadn't spoken long enough for triangulation.

"What are you, and where?"

"Someone." I replied, as the creature who was heading to the door continued, grabbing at the door knob and pulling, with complete lack of success.

"The door's, stuck." he said, pulling on it.

"The door's gone."I replied shortly, dropping a scanner behind the main chair the dragon was in. It was visible, but I wasn't.

"What do you want?"

"I hear the rules of equality don't apply to certain races."

"Not all races are created equal."

"That's possible, but you can't deprive races of being able to do things because of that."

"I can't think of a better reason."he said,as I drew Veronica's dagger. Standing next to the table, I hurled it point first into the wood. The sharp metal penetrated the wood, and the dagger quivered back and forth, fully visible, and humming. Everyone stared at it.

"That's not good enough!" I shouted, as the vibrating dagger stopped rocking. It disappeared as I wormed it back out.

"Is that you Sunrise?" the dragon scowled.

"No. This is a psychopathic human."

"He was pretty psychopathic anyway." the dragon replied, as Draco and Sunrise teleported, and arrived directly behind the dragon.

"That's not a nice thing to say." Sunrise smiled widely at the dragon in his black dragon form. Everyone jumped away, and one fox crashed into me. I gave him a full slap across the top of his head for being clumsy, and he looked around for the phantom he had crashed into.

Draco stepped backwards as Sunrise came to the fore, and my invisibility faded. Everyone leapt away from me, the heavily armed human, whoops, no longer, as I changed into my tripod form, and walked around towards the bank of windows on one side.

"Now you've got them scared." Draco said in Centralite.

"I try."I replied. Sunrise immediately began where he had left off, heaping scorn upon scorn at the council, and I realised he was a very eloquent speaker.

They were still reacting from our appearance, but soon they began the same argument they had taken up before. The remainder of our party, Runo and Hinori, arrived, and this caused further consternation, one hammered on the door, and there was an answering call.

"Quiet over there, there's a meeting taking place."I barked angrily, as the guards began to break down the door.This didn't deter them, and the conversation stopped as everyone but me headed to the far end of the chamber. Abigail's shields developed and formed a wall in front of everyone in the party, and Runo and Sunrise whispered at one another as claws broke down the door. They cast shields, and walked over to the non magical council.

The guards smashed down the door, and gunfire surged at me. Hundreds of round of bullets came flying at me with unfailing accuracy, only to rebound off my carapace and fly every direction. The table was reduced to splinters from ricochets, the ceiling likewise, and Runo and Sunrise had about twenty rounds ping off their magical shields. I fired my heat ray at the roof above, trying a cave in, and then there was a terrific explosion.

The building was heated with gas heaters, and a ricochet cause a spark in a line of gas. It exploded all across the floor and roof, and the fireball extended across the room in two lines following the pipes. One of headed directly towards Runo, Sunrise and the council and the other directly towards the middle window.

Runo used his Lava dragon trick to capture the fire and heat from the blast, while Hinori used his ice spell, but while they stopped it hitting the council, they didn't stop the explosion that took out the windows. The glass burst every direction, showering the entire room with splinters of glass. There were thousands of pings of glass raining against my armour, and the floor was covered with them. More shards bounced off the shields, Runo's was still up even though he was blocking the fire from the pipe underneath him.

Then the dragon in charge shouted.

"Stop firing, you'll kill the lot of us!"

I brought my heat ray around, slashing through the guards in the door, and they sunk the floor unconscious. There was a long, heavy silence. Runo exhaled a long flame.

"Surprisingly amount of heat in that blast, Alduin, is that your fault?"

"It was a bullet ricochet, not my ray."

"You saved my life, Runo?" the leading dragon councillor looked astonished.

"Well, if you died, how was the law going to get changed?" Sunrise replied, as Runo stepped forwards, observing the two carved lines in the floor where the pipes had been.

Saving the council's life has a tendency to change their opinions about you. The Lava dragon was observing the melted metal with interest, he realised the best thing he could do was to not say anything, and allow Sunrise to speak.

I decided to change my form before someone else took a shot at me. Suddenly the Raptor was on the floor, it's sleek panelling a very sharp black. Abigail's tortoise broke up, and Draco came over to me.

"O.K., Alduin?"

"Somewhat bruised," I replied, my engines idle. My wheels retracted slightly, until the body of my craft was on the floor, I was deciding to have a rest. I closed my eyes.

I don't know how long I slept for, but I woke when someone was pushing one wing down with a lot of force.

"Oi, hands off the bodywork." I rocked backwards as the weight was withdrawn.

"We're leaving." Draco said, and I looked out the side to see him crouched down, looking amused.

"Are we?"

"Sunrise got things sorted, we're taking him, Runo and Hinori back to Central." the dragon replied.

I teleported to Central on those words.

"Don't you run off... and you're gone again." the glower sighed as I ignited my engines and vanished around the corner, flying relatively slowly.

I landed and taxied outside the food store, changing and walking into the food store. Quite a few people weren't there, only a few tables were occupied, but I found Silverine and Kodey, and pulled a seat next to them. Kodey was playing a card game with the Lupogriff, and was winning.

"Afternoon all."

"Afternoon, Alduin, you finished already?"

"Yes, and three excellent scouts coming too."

"Three?" Silverine looked up in surprise.

"Yes, two dragons, and a human who can change into a dragon."

Silverine went back to the card game. "Let's have a look at them, I know you've got a record of them."

I showed Silverine what I saw from the volcanic eruption, and he watched in silence.

"More magicians." he said after it had finished."What's wrong with doing things with your hands nowadays?" he took a glass of alcohol and drained it, going back to the game.

"Not entirely impressed then?" I asked.

"I am resistant to magic, resistant to pain, and a hulking monster, Alduin, it takes a lot to impress me." Silverine played a three card hand on Kodey. The reindeer played one back, but Silverine won the hand, reducing Kodey's lead.

Hmm, our Lupogriff sounds bored.

"Of course,Alduin, I'm eagerly awaiting for plans for next week."

"Next week?"

"Your birthday, and Central New Year." Silverine said, looking at his cards.

I grinned, and Kodey, sitting beside me, shuffled his seat a yard to his right. Silverine smiled without appearing to take his eyes off the game.

I had forgotten about New Year, but immediately I had plans. Costumes, targets, sneaky ideas, I could go on. My modified blaster was in my basement at home, but I didn't want to use that costume again I was going to try something else, completely different from the Stargate Goa'auld from last time. Then my mind flashed to the musical I had been in, and Mister Mistoffelees. There was an idea. I immediately pulled out a piece of paper, and began sketch drawing the suit I had in mind. Now on stage, all his magic was careful pyrotechnics, and the same would apply here, but this suit was going to be cool.

I immediately went to Abby after wards, and she started working on the cool stuff, while I started making long distance calls to a tailor on Earth. If we were working on human prices, I would bankrupt the man, but it was actually relayed through my scanner under the house, and then ringing out from there,which meant I couldn't use the phone on Earth if someone was ringing through, but meant I could call someone from Central.

"Yes, I've got the design here, I was wondering if we could arrange a measuring so you see what I've come up with, say, tomorrow. Yeah, cheers for that, bye."

I hung up. Next week, Central was in for a shock, and I teleported back to Earth with a giddy exhilaration. I placed my mat I had borrowed from the council meeting in the drawer, and sat down at the computer to prepare for Central. It was Saturday evening, Ryan hadn't got back from his first planet fall with Doran, Felicia and Orion, and I internet searched with music in the background.

"Don't wanna see your face, you'd better disappear."

Nice, Michael Jackson, the Hunted should be taking advice from him.

"You better run, better do what you can!" the CD played, as I worked.

Sunrise teleported in with Draco.

"Alduin, you left kind of hurriedly, any reason why?"

"I'm preparing for next week, Draco, and I intend to have half a dozen tricks up my, eh hem, sleeves."

"Sunrise, my suggestion? Panic." Draco clapped the human on the shoulder, as I smiled at him. He did not look comforted.

"What happens next week?"

"Draco will explain that." I said, swinging around on my computer chair to face the computer. In the reflection off the monitor, I saw Sunrise looking uncertain. I typed in a command, and then spoke into the microphone.

"Computer, open up the file.This is Alduin Raptormaster."

The computer turned black, and as I got off the chair and headed towards the panel to the attic, it flashed a red message.

"You're in trouble." as the speakers let out hideous evil laughter. I clapped twice, and the ladder came down, as Sunrise got the translation, and Draco laughed.

"O.K., I'm scared now." Sunrise protested," What's Alduin got planned for next week?"

"For me to know and you to wish you knew." I replied, climbing the ladder. Draco joined in the game.

"Come on, Alduin, you're not using one of those on him next week?"

"Quite possibly. Don't forget to fit him a translator and ABM."

"I had better not forget." Draco said,"The thought of you doing that..."

"Draco, I don't want to know, get me out of here." Sunrise said as I climbed up into the attic.

"Are you sure?"

"I don't want to know what he's getting."

"O.K. then." Draco teleported, and as I looked down, they had gone.Laughing loudly, I slid back down and clapped the ladder back in place. I deactivated the screen saver, and continued work. It was mean, but everyone was allowed a couple of mean pranks, god know they had tried on me enough times.