Summary: They've taken over your home. But you can fight back, because you're not the person you thought you were...you're a dragon. Written as a request for  alephgon

Author's notes: This is the first part of an at-least-two-parter story! As such, some concepts may not be fully explored at the moment, but they will get one later on. :3

Legal info: Story copyrighted CC-by-SA. Francisco belongs to Aleph and may not be used without his permission. Would you like to become your fursona? Then inquire within at https://www.becomeyourfursona.com!

***

It was quite a nice day for a festival, especially a moment as auspicious as Unification Day. The street vendors had already set up, music was blaring from every which way, and the Federation of Light soldiers had already made their first appearances, intermingling among the human police.

The police were just figureheads by this point, Francisco was sure of that much. It presented a darkly amusing contrast, seeing their primitive shotguns and kevlar next to the full-body, face-covering armor of the aliens.

He wished they would just go away. There seemed to be a feeling of mutual discomfort between him and the aliens. Most of the normal people would stare in awe at the Federation soldiers, even if just for a few seconds, as if it were an instinctual reaction. Something about them drew the gaze of every human around them.

Except for him, it seemed. He'd tried to fake that reaction, of course. But there was just something missing, a level of respect or fear he simply didn't have. And they noticed, he was sure of it. He could feel their stares beneath their helmets as he passed by.

And that was all the more reason to go straight home. A break from his classes was much welcomed, and he didn't want to waste a moment of it.

He passed through a street filled with performance artists. Wincing at the cacophony of noise, he picked up his pace, weaving through the crowd of dancers, singers, musicians, and observers.

He was nearly in the clear when something caught the corner of his eye. Maybe it was because he hadn't gotten enough sleep last night, maybe it was just a trick of the light. But he was sure he saw some sort of bird-human thing, sitting upon a blanket and playing a guitar.

He did a double-take. His eyes must have been fooling him, because there was just a normal person sitting there. The musician, noting the sudden attention, glanced up expectantly at him, his eyes briefly flicking down to a hat set out in front of him. It was empty, barring a few coins.

Francisco fished out a few bills and dropped them in his hat. And when he looked up again, he was staring at a pitch-black bird. "Thanks, man." Somehow Francisco got the impression he was grinning at him, despite the fact he had a beak.

He blinked. And there was a human once again. "Y-yeah. No problem."

The tips of claws plucked away at guitar strings, the strings somehow keeping intact. "Enjoying the festival?"

He smiled nervously. "Not really." He heard the familiar soft clinking of Federation-issued armor. "I mean, not that I don't like it, I was just heading home."

The guitarist shrugged. "You don't have to sound guilty. I'm just here to play. Gotta eat somehow." A passerby tossed a coin into his hat without even a sidelong glance. "Doing pretty well so far. I've already got enough for dinner tonight."

Francisco stared at his tail, which was fading in and out of view. "That's good."

"Anyway," the musician waved his hand at him, "don't let me keep you. I'll be taking a break soon."

"Yeah." He felt a strange sense of familiarity looking at him, the same he got from meeting a distant relative he hadn't seen in years.

The musician arched an eyebrow. "You alright?"

Francisco broke his gaze as a dull pain struck at the back of his head. "I'm fine. Just a headache. I, uh..." He tried to concoct a way of asking 'do you ever look half-human, half-animal?' without sounding as if he had lost his mind. He failed. "Um, bye."

He rushed away before the crow-man could give any kind of farewell, wanting to take the incident out of his mind altogether.

***

He was nearly home when he heard the crackle of a voice synthesizer coming to life. He slowly turned around to face a trio of Federation soldiers, mere feet away from him.

"This area is off limits." The one in the center said in a robotic voice.

The street ahead was oddly empty, come to think of it. Only a few soldiers walking around, but no humans. And they looked even more armed than usual.

The soldiers exchanged glances with each other. "Leave now. This area is off-limits." It repeated.

"You could take them." A tiny and probably insane voice in the back of his head said. But the dull whir of their energy weapons charging up quickly disabused him of that notion. "But my apartment is that way."

He felt a strange presence in his mind, one which evoked the same kind of feeling he got whenever somebody was staring over his shoulder at his computer monitor while he was in the middle of an IM conversation. And then, without any warning, it was simply gone.

Even if their faces weren't visible, he could tell the aliens were becoming agitated. One of them started tapping frantically at a device on its wrist.

He started feeling a very strong compulsion to run away, for he was certain nothing good could come of this. And before he could make himself consider what an incredibly bad idea running was, he did. He was not an especially athletic person, and a broken nose that had never quite healed properly made it difficult for him to breathe, but he was beyond caring about that for he was sure that it would be far worse on him to stay. And he didn't dare look behind them, but he could hear their synthesized voices commanding him to stop. And perhaps it was the work of an overactive imagination, but he thought he heard them firing off a warning shot. That just made him run faster despite the burning in his lungs, and to take more turns through the streets in a desperate attempt to lose them, hoping all the way he wouldn't end up trapping himself in some dead-end alleyway.

***

He ran blindly until he couldn't see them anymore, or hear their demands for him to stop. When he finally did come to a halt, it was just outside a plaza, filled with market stalls and people milling about.


"Perfect." He breathed a sigh of relief and tried to catch his breath. "Maybe hiding in plain sight will work." His stomach growled. "And it's not like I'll be able to go home anytime soon..." Then the reality of his situation sunk in. "I can't go home. I don't know when I'll be able to go home again. The Federation probably thinks I did some kind of horrible crime and if they catch me they'll probably lock me away forever in a spaceship or something and I'll never be able to escape and it's not like I could prove them wrong even if I wanted to because I can't afford a lawyer and my life is over." He would have sunk to his knees if it wouldn't have been so conspicuous.

"Calm down." The insane side of him said. "Your life obviously isn't over if you're still standing here. But it will be if you don't get something to eat." And the smell of food was very tantalizing.

He went for the very first stall he saw without much of a line. "Wait. I can't let anyone get a good look at my face." He pulled the hood of his jacket further over his head, grabbed a candy bar, half-threw a few bills at the cashier, told him to keep the change, and found a tree to sit under.

***

The midday sun had been painfully bright, and so the shade was a welcome break. The candy bar was even more welcome, and probably had enough sugar to keep him going for another two hours. And with his blood sugar up, he was feeling better-- though that wasn't saying much.

He reclined back against the tree, looked up towards the sky, and daydreamed about flying away. He'd never liked mundane life as far back as he could remember, not that he'd let anyone know. But the nagging feeling that there was so much more to it than trudging through a school and going through the motions of social activity with people he had nearly nothing in common with was always there, and it had been getting worse lately. And it was accompanied by half-remembered dreams of somewhere far away, so painfully beautiful it made him want to cry, but these dreams eluded his grasp despite his best efforts to recall them in detail.

He knew what his family would say, that he needed to get his head out of the clouds and face reality. But it couldn't hurt to dream just a little, could it? If he couldn't get joy out of living in the real world, finding it in a dream world was better than nothing. And though he'd always dreamed of adventure and being a hero, this mess wasn't quite the adventure he'd been hoping for.

His thoughts were interrupted, as that same peculiar feeling of being invaded he'd had earlier that day struck him again. He jerked his head up, and started walking if only because it seemed like the sensible thing to do. He couldn't afford to stay still for too long, after all-- the more he moved around, the less likely he was to be found.

"Citizen Francisco Gonzales."

His blood froze in his veins, but he forced himself to keep going. He tilted his head just enough to see a squad of Federation soldiers, and found himself walking faster. It was a common enough name, after all. All he had to do was blend in, and everything would be alright. They'd never even know.

"Citizen, you are ordered to come with us."

But now the crowd he was in wasn't moving anymore. They were completely frozen in place, like human statues. And he had little choice but to freeze with them.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see them circling around their human flock. He felt the gaze of one of the soldiers on him. Unable to take the pressure, he ran, trying and failing not to shove the people in his way. The people he did push simply fell over like ragdolls.

He thought he was making good time until pain lanced through his shoulder. He crumpled to the ground, and try as he might to force himself to move, he couldn't.

The aliens seemed incredibly tall up close, and even more intimidating. One of them effortlessly picked him up, and he got a very good view of the group of humans. Their blank stares were fixed on him.

His heart hammered in his chest "Why won't they do something? Why won't anyone help me?" He drew in a ragged breath, wanting nothing more than to make something move under his own power. "Why can't I do anything?"

In that moment of desperation, he felt something growing inside of him, like a tiny spark becoming a flame.

Or maybe even a dragon spreading its wings.

Whatever it was, it caused him to surge back against his captor, kicking it away. And whatever part of him that was not reeling from shock realized that, somehow, he was flying now, and furthermore for the first time since he was a child, he was able to breathe clearly. That part of him then had to go from that to figuring out that it wasn't in his best interests to question his fortune and that flying away would be a capital idea. Therefore, it took him a couple seconds and at least one energy blast before he finally tried.

The fourth realization was that flying was difficult, especially when you were being shot at. The energy blasts might not have been paralyzing anymore, but they still stung, even though he was covered in some kind of blue, chitinous plating. He flailed around in mid-air, panicked even more when he lost altitude, and dropped like a rock.

On the bright side, he at least landed on a soldier. Even if it wasn't the most graceful of landings, it did break his fall and he had the comfort of taking one of his pursuers with him. But through the stars dancing in his eyes, he saw the others advancing on him. He stumbled to his feet, and backed up. His tail thudded straight into a wall, and if he hadn't had more pressing concerns he'd have wondered when he'd gotten a tail. The soldiers were closing in on him, and the one he'd fallen on was now getting up. He got the impression from the way they moved they weren't afraid of him in the slightest. Amused, perhaps, but certainly not afraid.

His eyes darted about, searching for an escape, but they had formed a half-circle around him. "Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide." That left fighting back as his only option, and he had nothing to use against them.

The tallest soldier in the group leveled his gun at Francisco. He bared his fangs, for what little good it would do him. But he'd made up his mind to go down fighting. He lunged at the alien, his claws scraping uselessly against the armor. The squad immediately opened fire on him, but he dove to the ground, taking the soldier with him, and the energy bolts skimmed over him. He grappled with the soldier, knocking its gun out of its hands. He felt the tiniest surge of hope until something stabbed into him. The very tip of a blade was poking through his arm, dark blue smoke seeping out of the wound instead of blood.

He reflexively jerked back, though he wasn't in that much pain. Somehow, he'd figured getting stabbed would hurt a lot more than that. He couldn't help but stare at the hole clean through his arm with the same morbid fascination one might experience from looking at a car crash. And while he was distracted, the alien, now with a blade protruding from its wrist, kicked him in the chest, knocking the breath out of him. He staggered back, and clenched his fists.

It felt as if he was holding something. He stole a quick glance at his hand, and saw a sword, the same blue color as his armor-like skin. "Come on," he urged himself, "use it!" He pointed the sword at the nearest alien's throat. "B-back off!" Now the soldiers seemed more hesitant. Encouraged, he continued on. "Or I'll..."

They opened fire on him. He dove to the ground in a desperate attempt to avoid the first volley, and it mostly worked. A few shots clipped through his shoulder, but he could still count himself among the living for now. There was a low whining sound as the guns recharged. With that tiny interval of opportunity, he scrambled to his feet, gashed through one of the aliens with the sword-- peculiarly, it left no sign of injury, even though he was sure it'd gone right through the armor-- and trampled over it as it fell to the street.

He jumped up, trying to fly again, only to find he couldn't. And for the umpteenth time that day, he ran for his life, smoke trailing behind him. He could hear thunderous noises behind him. As his mind was clouded with terror, it took him a moment to work out what they were. Gunshots, the kind that used bullets and not energy bolts. And since when had anyone used those? Weren't they illegal or something?

On top of that, he could hear shouting now. And howling, and roars. "That can't be the aliens." He could hear shuffling footsteps, though they were headed in the opposite direction of him. Something whooshed past him-- he could have sworn it had spots. Or that could just be the dots swimming around in his field of vision. He'd been hit pretty hard, after all.

"Can't stop now." He was so close to the outskirts of the city, and didn't hear any armor clinking behind him, maybe they'd finally decided to leave him alone. Meanwhile, there were other things rushing past him now-- things that walked like humans, but had tails, fur and claws. And they were carrying guns.

The few humans left in the part of the city he was in were breaking out of the trance that the Federation aliens usually put them in. In fact, they were downright panicked, and an outright riot of animal-people, humans, and aliens was forming. One of the aliens took aim at the crowd mobbing him, but the instant it was about to fire, a tawny-furred feline creature bludgeoned it over the head with her gun. The soldier staggered back, and the cat-person tackled him, tearing at his armor with her claws in search for a weak point.

Most of the crowd scattered, revealing another scuffle going on-- a much more one-sided one. Another soldier had a human by the throat in one hand, and a blade in the other.

Francisco didn't dare hesitate-- there wasn't enough time for that. He charged at the soldier, shouting "Hey!" as loudly as he could. The alien had just enough time to see who was attacking it before his sword cut through its helmeted head. The soldier crumpled to the ground. Peculiarly, it still was breathing after what should have been a fatal blow, though he was still too giddy with his own successes to think too much on the properties of his new weapon.

"What did you just do?" The human he saved asked, a shrill edge to his voice.

It took a few moments for Francisco to recognize who he'd just saved-- the guitarist. "I remember you!" He threw open his arms for a hug, but the guitarist jerked back.

Francisco blinked and tilted his head. It wasn't quite the heroic welcome he'd been hoping for. But a cursory glance at his outstretched arms explained why.

"Sorry." He sheepishly withdrew his sword-bearing hand. "I forgot I had this." He unclenched his hand, but the sword remained levitating just above his palm. "Um." He shook his hand around, but the sword refused to budge. "Aaaah, how do I make it go away?" He flailed around wildly while the guitarist gave him a look of utter disbelief. He ceased moving. "Don't you remem-- oh." He tapped his rock-solid skin with his free hand. "Um, I know I don't look like it, but you know me. Sort of. I mean, we met earlier today. I was just different then. I gave you some change..."

Francisco thought he saw a brief flash of familiarity in the man's eyes, but then it was gone. "No." The guitarist said under his breath. "No way."

"Look, I know this seems crazy, but it's true!"

"Crazy, that's it. I'm going crazy."

"No, that's not it either, it's just..." Francisco trailed off. On second thought, insanity did seem like a likely explanation for all this, especially since he didn't have another one. But insanity didn't explain his wounds. "Well, I'm not sure."

"You're not sure?" His volume rose with each syllable until he was shouting at the very end. "Doesn't anyone have a clue about what's going on here?"

"I know as much as you do!" Francisco grabbed his hand and dragged him along behind him. "But the Federation is after us! Now let's go!"

Though he wanted to get both of them as far away as he could from the Federation soldiers, his injuries were finally starting to catch up with him, adrenaline was draining from his body, and he was getting incredibly tired. His steps grew gradually slower and slower, then he couldn't move at all despite his best efforts to the contrary, and the world around him grew dark.

***

The next sensation Francisco was aware of was pain, and the next thought he had was "OWOWOWOW oh hey I'm alive?" He opened his eyes-- he was well away from the city, in a small forest of some kind. And his sword was finally gone.

"Welcome back to the world of the living." It was the guitarist's voice. "Not that I'm sure I want to be right now."

He turned his head to face his companion with what he hoped looked like a smile. The bird's image seemed to be stable now, instead of flickering from human to crow. "You..."

"Yes, me." He said. "And I have a name, you know. Though I guess we weren't ever properly introduced. I'm Gabriel."

"Francisco." He paused. "Have you noticed that...well..."

"This?" Gabriel pointed to his beak. "Yeah, it's kind of hard to miss. You were out when it happened. But you're not looking quite right yourself."

Francisco stared at his claw-tipped feet. "How bad is it?"

"Just..." Gabriel pulled a compact mirror out of his pocket.. "See for yourself."

For a moment, he didn't recognize himself in the mirror. But it had to be him, the thing in the mirror was making all the same movements he did. He looked reptilian now, with deep blue scales that covered his body in plates like the shell of a beetle, though it was pockmarked with holes where he'd been shot. And the longer he looked at his new self, the less unusual it seemed, like this had been what he was all along and he just hadn't known up until now. He flexed his muscles and grinned. There was something oddly handsome about his new self too, in an otherworldly sort of way.

"You're not taking this seriously!" The guitarist hissed. "I mean...what are you? What am I?"

"I'm not really sure." He dropped his arms to his side. "And I don't really think it matters. Whatever we are, we can help people now."

"Please don't tell me you're about to say we can overthrow the Federation." He sighed.

Francisco deflated a bit. "Well, maybe we can find other people to help us? I mean, it can't be just us. I saw others back in the city, I'm sure of it!"

"I did too, but there weren't that many of them." He ran his hand through his feathers. "And the Federation outnumbers humankind, and if they outnumber humans they probably outnumber...whatever we are."

"But we're able to resist them." He protested. "There are no coincidences. We must be like this for a reason, and we can't let what we have go to waste."

"That doesn't mean we should go charging off blindly, though."

"Exactly!" Francisco nodded. For a moment, Gabriel looked relieved. And then Francisco continued. "We need to find the people who were fighting them back in the city."

"The crazy ones doing all the howling and screaming and waving guns around?"

"They were probably just trying to look scary. I don't think they're bad people."

"How can you even tell?"

"I saw one of them saving a group of people from the Federation," he said quietly. "She attacked a soldier when they were about to get shot."

He fell quiet for a few moments. "You're probably right. This is..." Gabriel sighed again. "I just can't believe everything that's happened. Weird doesn't even cover it."

"Maybe they know what's going on. Look," he pointed back to the city, which now had a few spaceships hovering over it, "it's not like we can go back now. It's worth a try, isn't it?"

He was silent for a painfully long time. And then... "Fine. I just want answers, though."

"Great!" Francisco sat straight up, and immediately regretted it. "Owww..."

"You've still got holes in you, you know." He deadpanned in the way that only someone who'd seen considerably stranger things in a very short period of time could say. "We should be staying the night, at least."

Francisco shook his head. "We shouldn't. What if the Federation finds us?"

"Okay, point taken. But you're still hurt."

He examined his skin-- there was no longer blue smoke coming out of him. "I'm not bleeding." He ventured. "I think. And I can still move."

"But we don't even know how to find these other...people, or whatever they are!"

"Oh, that won't be a problem." Francisco said cheerfully. "They stand out."

"Fine." He threw up his hands. "If you're crazy enough to do this, let's go. But if you faint again, we're stopping."

"I'll be fine!" He hopped off the tree root he'd been resting against. "Let's go! There's not a moment to lose!"

This had been more of the adventure Francisco had been hoping for-- even if the odds were impossible, he had a purpose now, and at last he was no longer alone.

To be continued...