Allec Trevar didn't know it yet, but today was going to turn out to be weird. Well, weirder than normal.

'Normal' was what his life had become after waking up one day more than twenty years before as a dragon.

Fortunately for him, there was a stranger nearby who needed rescue. And after saving her life, the two had formed a pact to aid each other. This soon allowed them to amass a small but clandestine empire of fortune by hunting down criminals which the law was unwilling to touch; not that those criminals were 'untouchable', but because the cops often didn't bother dirtying their hands to catch them.

Trevar thought his life had settled into a level of normalcy, even if that 'normal' was a little odd. But a chance encounter with a drug lord's assassin, who could somehow turn into a dragon, reminded him just how weird 'normal' could be when the assassin had succeeded in killing him.

Fortunately for Trevar, dying allowed him to discover that he, too, could change between being dragon and human, as well as a number of other creatures. It took some doing during their initial encounter, but Trevar was finally able to convince the assassin to join him instead of remaining a kingpin's lapdog. Added to that, Trevar also discovered that whatever had changed him and the assassin had also gifted them both with a pair of incredibly advanced and powerful devices that were keyed to each of them.

For a time, things settled down for Trevar and his growing number of allies. Their clandestine empire continued to expand, and the technology that came from the alien devices assured their security. But the drug lords and other criminals, whom they preyed upon, were now aware of their nature and had begun adapting. If the criminals couldn't hurt the dragons that hunted them, they would try to hurt those close to the dragons. That resulted in more weirdness when much to everyone's surprise and amazement they discovered several more people had been altered. Worse yet, all of those events eventually got the attention of other hidden weird entities.

Furthermore, the ensuing mayhem, conflicts and resolutions resulted in several law enforcement agencies finally starting to pay attention to what was happening. A new enemy had been awakened and the hunt was on. But that was just a new 'normal' that Trevar and his allies had learned to deal with.

But just like the vacuum: Nature. Hates. Normal.

And today?

Today, the weirdness was going to ramp up to a whole new level!

The storm was making it tough for Bill Williams to drive the RV on a twisted winding two-lane back road of Colorado. RVs were not the best choice for any sort of bad weather, but this storm wasn't even supposed to exist today. It was the middle of August and the forecast had called for a clear hot sunny day straight through the week. Instead, it was not only thunder snowing, but thunder hailing. Allec Trevar sat in the front passenger seat lost in thought, but for the occasional wind gusts that threatened to push the RV over the cliff. Ghost Rider from Rush played on the RV's CD player, a song better suited for motorcycling than an aluminum box on wheels. As they topped a rise, a particularly strong gust pushed them halfway into the oncoming lane before Williams was able to recover.

Trevar and Williams glanced at each other for a moment and grinned.

"Better you than me, Bill," Trevar muttered.

"Yeah," Williams growled. "If it was you driving, we'd be flying off the mountain already."

"That's because I've already gotten over my fear of dying," Trevar shot back. "You haven't. So you're still careful." Williams laughed in agreement.

"This is true!" Williams replied, still wrestling with the wheel.

"Hey, there a patrol coming up on our tail and one up ahead waiting for us. They're getting ready to pounce!" Pardus spoke up. Panthera and Pardus were Trevar's companions, artificial life forms that had been created by whatever alien force that had altered Trevar, Williams and a couple others with whom Trevar trusted. The two lion-sized black panthers were items of incredible technology, each with copies of Trevar's mind up until the day he had blacked out prior to waking up weeks later in Kentucky as a dragon. In addition to the panthers, the RV also held a couple of pony-sized timber wolves, Canis and Lupus, who were likewise Williams' companions.

Instantly, Trevar and Williams went on the alert. Evidently, the police had called each other on radios, and the artificial life forms had picked up the transmissions.

"In this weather?" Williams exclaimed. The whole reason why they were avoiding the main highways was several high-placed authorities had gotten a good description of Trevar's human form. Setting up patrols in such far flung regional roads was no doubt expending a huge resource for those agencies.

"Shit! How far off are they?" Trevar demanded.

"Half-mile ahead and the one a quarter-mile behind is coming up fast," Canis reported.

"You can shift into a cat or bird or something," Williams said, looking at Trevar.

"Too late," Panthera said. "We're inline-of-sight for both patrols. They'll see the flash. Even with the lightning from the storm, it would look odd coming from inside the van."

"They don't know about you yet, Bill, and we want to keep it that way. I'll have to evade them outside," Trevar muttered. "Plus, we've got all that cash from those meth labs we busted yesterday. Pull over! If they ask what's wrong, just say you heard some strange noises in the undercarriage."

"Canis, Lupus, take the cash!" Bill ordered as he brought the RV to a stop on the narrow shoulder against the cliff wall.

"Pardus, I'll ride you down!" Trevar yelled after he opened the side door to the inclement weather, partially sheltered by the RV and the rock wall. "Panthera, you're on our six!"

Outside, Trevar climbed onto Pardus' back and laid down, gripping with his arms and legs about the big cat's neck and waist. Pardus activated a cloaking force field once Trevar was in position, hiding them both from sight as well as insulating him from the cold. The other artificial life forms followed suit and walked past the front of the van and into the full force of the storm. Unfortunately, the RV's lights, the driving snow and hail revealed their presence as bubbles of avoidance. However, they wouldn't be there in the remaining few moments before the squad car pulled up.

'We'll meet you at the base, Bill!' Trevar telepathically sent just before Pardus made the leap out over the cliff, followed by the two laden timber wolves and finally the other panther.

Williams went to the rear wheels of the RV and bent down as if to inspect the underside. The police cruiser pulled up at that moment. The red and blue strobes immediately began flashing as both front doors burst open with the officers wielding shotguns.

"THIS IS THE POLICE! HANDS UP!" the driver yelled.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING THERE?" the other cop yelled at the same time.

Williams instantly straightened up and raised his arms facing them.

"EASY, OFFICERS!" Williams yelled back. "WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?"

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?" the cop from the passenger side repeated. Williams took a moment to consider how to respond. With his upraised left hand, he bent his wrist and pointed to the van.

"I HEARD SOME NOISES COMING FROM THE UNDERSIDE!" Williams yelled over the wind. "I WAS JUST TAKING A LOOK! WHAT SEEMS TO BE THE PROBLEM?"

"IS ANYONE ELSE IN THE VAN?" the driver demanded.

"NO, SIR!" Williams called back. "I'M ALL ALONE!"

"HANDS ON THE VAN!" the other cop yelled.

"NO PROBLEM, OFFICER!" Williams responded, turning to lay his hands on the rear of the van above his head. "BUT CAN WE SPEED THIS UP? IT'S FUCKING COLD OUT HERE AND I'M OBVIOUSLY NOT WEARING A PARKA!" Obvious, with just his flannel shirt and jeans.

"STAY THERE!" the driver yelled covering Williams with the shotgun as his partner cautiously made his way to the RV's side door. The officer shined his light about the cliff face wall to ensure there was no ambush waiting for them outside before prepping to charge the open door. After a quick inspection, he found no signs of anyone else in the van.

"All clear. No one's here!" he reported on his radio.

Scowling, the officer paused to listen to the music coming from the CD player, trying to identify it before going back outside.

Another false lead, he fumed. The mysterious vigilante only known as "The Dragon", who had a known associate last seen getting in an RV matching the description of this vehicle, continued to elude them.

The object of their search rode in relative comfort on the back of his companion. Despite the buffeting winds, the artificial life forms had no problems flying through the canyons due to their built-in anti-grav systems. Lightning, on the other hand, was hitting their shields more and more frequently, sometimes disrupting the cloaking effect they were maintaining. Fortunately, the storm kept the area in darkness. And the storm seemed to be noticeably intensifying even as they traveled.

"How are you holding up?" Trevar quietly asked the big cat. Another lightning hit and the cloak momentarily flickered out again before resuming.

"Shields are holding. Cloak…not so much," Pardus muttered.

"Maybe we'd better take shelter until this storm dies off," Trevar said.

"There're several mines listed throughout these mountains," Pardus said, providing a holographic heads up display of the terrain for Trevar to inspect. Williams and the RV were already a dozen of miles behind, but their hidden base was still another hundred miles ahead.

A double hit of lightning struck just then and Pardus' cloak fought to reform, but finally failed.

"Are you damaged?" Trevar asked with considerable concern for his friend. Aside from the genuine feelings toward what was essentially a twin brother, albeit recently created in the past couple decades, there was the obvious tactical advantage to all of their companions having cloaking systems this good. It would be a shame to have any of them crippled just because of the weather.

"A little, but it's fixable," Pardus calmly reported, already diving for a nearby mine listed on his map. Trevar looked behind and saw the others had wisely dropped their cloaks and were following. No need for them all to be needlessly damaged. Their shields were made to take punishment like this lightning, but the idea behind the cloaking systems was an enemy should miss what it couldn't see. Lightning, however, didn't care that it couldn't see you in order for it to hit you.

Just before arriving at the bottom of the canyon, the panthers and timber wolves held up as a large convoy of heavy military vehicles followed an olive drab painted snow plow rushing down the road as fast as it was safe to travel.

"Hmf! There's no military base that's supposed to be around here! What gives?" Pardus wondered. Several lightning blasts hit them just then and even a couple of the convoy's duce-and-a-halves, as well, stopping them.

"And what's with the lightning, hitting us all the way the fuck down here?" Trevar exclaimed. "We can't stay here, or they're going to see us!"

They flew on up the road until they rounded the bend and found the entrance to the mine shaft that was listed on the maps Pardus had. Only it was clearly no abandoned mine.

"What the frack?" Pardus exclaimed. Below them, the hardened bunker stood open to the weather, even though the standard military perimeter fence was shut fast.

"No life forms nearby," Panthera reported as they set down. "They must've evacuated in a hurry."

"There's no sign of radiation or anything dangerous that we can detect," Lupus said. "Why would they evacuate a perfectly good base to go out into the middle of a thunder blizzard?"

"Who knows why the military does anything?" Canis shot back. "For instance, why jump out of a perfectly good plane?" Trevar snorted at the irony. Long before they were altered, Williams had been a paratrooper in the Marines.

Just then, several simultaneous lightning strikes hit the cliffs above, starting a massive avalanche.

"O-o-oh, shit!" Trevar hissed, hunkering down on Pardus. "That might be a good reason! RUN!"

They ran for the shelter of the open bunker, and it looked like it was going to be a close race. Their shields protected them from basketball-sized rocks and smaller, but there were some the size of trucks and larger were on their way. A truck-sized rock landed right in front of Pardus, too close to dodge to either side at the speed he was running, so the big cat leapt up and over, followed instantly by Panthera. But Williams' companions were neither flexible enough to pull that stunt, nor fast enough as another house-sized rock smashed down upon the one the panthers had jumped. The wolves managed to avoid getting hit, but the diversion cost them the means to safely follow Trevar and his companions before the entrance was completely buried.

The dust choked Trevar as he took stock of the aftermath. Fortunately, the base held up and the lights remained on.

"Canis! Lupus! You guys alright?" he called, trusting his companions to radio his inquiry to the others.

'We're okay, but I lost my satchel!' Canis responded with disgust as the panthers relayed the reply using their telepathic circuits.

'How about you all?' Lupus inquired.

"We're fine," Trevar reported.

'Well, you'd better hope there's another route out someplace. We don't see any other exit out here,' Lupus continued.

"If we have to, we'll just use our blazers to burn our way out," Panthera spoke out. "Can you guys make it on to the base?"

'We could, however we've informed Bill of the situation. He's made his way past the check points, but the weather's getting shittier by the minute. If it gets much worse, he may have to abandon the RV. We're going to try to rendezvous with him,' Canis replied.

"Roger that," Trevar absently said, looking deeper into the base. "We'll see about finding a way out of here."

"Ah-h-h! That's much better!" Pardus suddenly crooned in pleasure. "Cloak's back online!"

"Excellent!" Trevar said, nodding. "Well, let's go see what's so secret about this place." Panthera took point with Pardus close alongside, the two panthers faded from sight and wrapped their defensive shields around the still visible Trevar, and they cautiously made their way into the labyrinth, communicating only on a silent telepathic level.