The Nyx incursions calmed down over the next few days and everybody assumed Neo Aurora was in for another lull.
Yazi was going over his "photography & lens-based media" notes with Baxley in the shade of a gold-clad pagoda and tropical trees at Fern Gardens when his ring seemed to explode with pink light.
He jolted and earned a confused glance from his friend. Right, normal people couldn't see this light. But it did mean somebody had activated the emergency beacon on the Crystallius. All hands on deck.
"Uh, can we cut it short?" Yazi asked. "I have a..." He looked at his phone. "Nyx alert."
"Not for the area, though," Baxley said.
"We should make our way to the station, though. Come on."
"Sure. Novena wants bubble tea anyway."
Yazi texted on the way. Carabelle responded. General Akira had found stray zombies with no nearby defiler vines. Some kind of highly mobile chameleon Nyx was thought responsible.
"Hey Yazi," said a familiar voice. "Good to see you, fucker."
A blond jock and a black hunk in tank tops approached them. They had rings aglow with yellow and red light only a muscle dragon could see.
"Oh, Baxley, these are Sunny and Chao from... gym. How about you go get your girl that tea. If I don't catch up with you I'll be hanging with these guys."
=====xxx=====
"We were going to grab you after your lecture to hang," Sunny said, "but you weren't there."
"Yeah, we always skip that one. But then how did you find me?"
"The rings," the leader said with a grin. "Muscle dragon fuckery. Anyway, we have a situation. Come on." They strolled into a side alley, behind an apartment complex. "And the rings also tell us if we're being observed or not. See how the shine changes?"
"Not... really."
"You'll learn that shit with practice. Get naked."
The trio stripped and stowed their clothes haphazardly into Chao's bag from where the hunk drew three belts.
Sunny raised his hand and the others joined. "Massive muscle dragon power!"
Lighting raced over them and Yazi grew into Rose Wolf. He turned away as his two friends did and rubbed his nipples on his massive pecs while his power worked down his abs and forward from his ass.
The others were still a bit faster to transform and grunted as they finished, two cumshots into a flowerbed making leaves rustle. Sunny's muscle dragon body bumped into Yazi as the force of orgasm made the leader stumble back.
Yazi flex-jolted from his own cumshot, pushing his ass into Sunny's with a shiver.
They established their draconic heads and briefs, Yazi pushing his dick horizontal to the left.
"We're flying straight to Indigo Village," Amber Lion said, stuffing his phone into Scarlet Phoenix's bag who hid it in a corner. "Six minutes as opposed to seven via the nearest rift. Someone's going to bring our shit home from here. Go."
Three ribbons of plasma took off, amber, scarlet and rose colored. They snapped on their spare belts in flight. Amber Lion jiggled his bulge into a forward position. Their uniforms painted themselves over their skin.
A minute before they reached the Indigo Village neighborhood, they saw the smoke plume. A house sized Umbrath of thick gray skin was gliding between condos like a fat slug. It dripped white-hot sludge from various orifices that was hot enough to set anything flammable on fire.
Silver Tiger was already present and stuck metal into the creature, bending it into clogs with his elemental power.
Scarlet Phoenix took control of the fires and extinguished them, going into building interiors to free trapped people.
There were smaller Umbraths - black, gooey octopuses on boney stilt-legs. Rose Wolf came in with a void already ahead of him and tore through their legs. Nyx bones splintered in the void-grinder and the beasts dropped.
Amber Lion was engaging defiled humans. Men, women, children with gray veins and glassy eyes. But those zombie acted with coordination. Amber Lion used non-lethal plasma orb blasts to corral them but they weren't mindless, they dispersed.
"Nemecite alert!" Amber Lion shouted. "I have to tell Akira. Hold positon."
The leader flew off to find the Defense Force's mobile base in the area.
The big lava-slug got mad and pressed hot sludge from its unstuffed holes at Scarlet Phoenix who took it to the bird-dragon face. The black hero burst out of the stream flexing, the front of his uniform melted away.
Azure Catfish arrived with a flood in tow, moving along the road. Rose Wolf zoomed toward the slug, plasma beam ripping the creature open. He flew over the wound with his void ahead of him. Glowing liquid splattered as it was dragged through the nothingness and about half of it vanished.
The slug lava sprinkled across Rose Wolf and burned holes into his uniform.
Azure Catfish arrived and his deluge dug into the Umbrath like a huge power washer, turning lava to stone and steam.
As the area was drenched in vapor and the slug froze, Amber Lion descended on them. "Akira got eyes on a Nemecite. This way."
Jade Turtle had arrived and started to encircle the defiled humans with earth but these smart zombies climbed and helped each other. Jade Turtle had to keep the earth moving, concrete chunks turning and churning to contain the involuntary Nyx recruits.
Silver Tiger had flown ahead and engaged the enemy.
A Nemecite was a highly intelligent Nyx. Humanoid in appearance but the number of limbs was rather arbitrary, symmetry was rare and the way they moved always gave Yazi the creeps.
The gray, textured figure was surround by pig-like Umbrath with thick tentacle-trunks for a face. It wielded a sword of jagged bones.
Defiled humans wandered from their houses.
Amber Lion went in, lightning blazing from his forehead and plasma from his hands. The enemy batted at him with the sword. The weapon shattered but it broke Amber Lion's advance.
The bone sword reformed in the Nemecite's hand and it slammed Amber Lion down into the road. The trunk pigs started snorting goo all over the leader.
Scarlet Phoenix engaged the enemy next, burning the mutant pigs before they got too close to him. He evaded the sword, which shifted in length to reach him, and sent blasts at the intelligent Nyx.
Amber Lion's plasma burned through the ooze like a candle through thick cardboard. It wasn't going fast but he'd make it out.
Rose Wolf and Silver Tiger collected zombies. They dragged two or three people in one go to the cages the Defense Force had set up, then dipped into the houses to rip apart the defiler vines that had made it in through drains, air vents and outlets.
Rose Wolf was mopping up a bundle of vine when a puppy-sized Umbrath emerged from under a chair and raced at him. He blasted it to bits but the dog turned to goo in mid jump and splattered all over the muscle dragon.
More goo dogs emerged and attacked. Whether he shot them down or not didn't matter, he was getting caked.
It limited his movements and kept him stuck to the ground. His vacuum roamed his body and got rid of half the slime on each run, taking the uniform with it.
Fully nude and still a bit gooey, Rose Wolf set out to find his friends.
Amber Lion had managed to drag himself out of the trap, leaving his uniform behind. He and Scarlet Phoenix were engaging the Nemecite whose sword was in pieces and no longer reforming.
