Tamanji moved with steady rhythm as she gazed down into Tsuzuku's 
passion knit face and wished he'd open those beautiful green eyes. She 
always liked watching her lover's eyes but he was lost in his pleasure 
and she had no desire to disturb the careful balance of illusion and 
reality she had created. She had already ridden out her climax, why 
hadn't he reached his? She knew Jasmine's scent on the scarf was the 
key. She had thought that just having it wrapped around her waist 
would be enough to unlock his climax. Obviously not. The scarf was 
cold against her skin as she unwound it with a tug. She tucked one 
edge under her knee then let middle puddle against his chest as she 
ran the free end gently back and forth across his face.

	"Come on, lover. Give me what I want." She purred as he gasped and 
arched against her.

	Tsuzuku moaned as his release finally thundered over him, had the 
strangest vision of a pair of slit-pupiled golden eyes gazing 
mournfully down at him as he rode the wave of his passion. Golden 
eyes? His own emerald ones snapped open and he locked them onto the 
ebony colored irises of the woman who straddled him. *What the hell?* 
He was revolted to the core of his being as he realized this was 
Tamanji and what she had just made him do.

	"Get off of me!" He snarled, tried to twist and throw her off.

	"Not yet!" She laughed as she drew back and stuck open handed. His 
head snapped back and hit the hard floor with a solid thunk. He lay 
still under her, dazed or unconscious. She grinned. Silly thing, he 
forgot she was a Dragon and as strong as he was. Now, how to go about 
the next part? She made a pretty pout, then shrugged. Vampires always 
went for the neck. It would be appropriate. She took both his wrists, 
crossed them over his head and pinned them there with her left hand, 
just in case he decided to wiggle, then leaned down and nuzzled his 
neck just below the collar.

	*What?* Tsuzuku tried to focus through the darkness and pinwheels of 
light that danced in front of his vision, his awareness muddled and 
tangled by the sharp pain that stabbed through the back of his skull. 
Had he fallen out of the big maple in the backyard again? Father would 
be furious that he had climbed it again, but it just begged for him to 
try for it's highest branches. He tried to sit up, met resistance.

	*What?* The pain hit him, searing and at the same time frigid, 
radiated from the left side of his throat to encompass all of his 
body. He screamed and writhed, trying to get away from it as a calm 
part of his mind informed him that this was the same sensation that 
had occurred when the Old Man had tried to take his power through his 
blood.

	He was restrained, felt the bones in his wrists grind together as his 
power flowed out of him. In one brilliant sharp edged moment, 
everything cleared. The woman on top of him was Tamanji. The soft 
suction at the base of his throat was her lips leeching the power from 
him.

	He closed his eyes. *Change. I've got to Change.* He reached for the 
Dragon that was waiting, stretching out his great neck, trying to 
touch him with his muzzle, reached but couldn't quite touch it. 
*Please...*

	*Please...* The dragon echoed in a mournful wail. The barrier that 
had been separating them sent him reeling back with a mind numbing 
jolt.

	*I'm going to die.* There was no hope of rescue this time, no little 
brother to come and kill his tormentor. *I'm sorry.* He whispered it 
to his brothers, to the Dragon that screamed in frenzied anguish, to 
the golden eyed woman he would never get to know. Defeated and 
violated in body and spirit, he let himself fall into the peaceful 
darkness that beckoned.

	Tamanji couldn't absorb any more. She pushed herself up, threw back 
her head and a sweet delicate laugh escaped her as his power merged 
into her own. She glowed white like the heart of a flame, every cell 
of her body on fire. She loved it! And she would control it. Her eyes 
narrowed as she concentrated, damped it down with the force of her 
will into something containable. 

	The glow that danced around her body flickered out of existence. 
Piece of cake. She reached down and touched Tsuzuku's pale cheek with 
her fingertips, then ran them to the sluggishly bleeding gash on his 
throat. Such a shame. He would probably bleed to death before Jasmine 
got here to find his emptied husk. Either way, it would torment her 
sister for the few minutes of life she would have left. Tamanji liked 
the irony of it. She'd kill Jasmine with her own males power then bare 
the child that should have been her sisters. She giggled. Yes, she 
liked that a lot.

	She rose, swayed like she was drunk and giggled again as she bunched 
the scarf into a ball in her hand and hurriedly dressed. Travis. 
Travis was going to be furious. Oh well. Let him. She'd burn him into 
a crispy critter if he tried anything stupid. She had her hand on the 
big wheel that was the locking mechanism and pull for the six inch 
lead filled steel door when another thought came to her. She bounced 
back to Tsuzuku's still form. Yes, this would be the perfect touch. 
She took the scarf out of her pocket and shook it out so that it 
draped lengthwise over his body, the left corner darkening as it 
touched the small pool of blood that was forming next to his head. 
What a fitting shroud. She didn't see the scarf begin to glow as she 
stepped over the raised threshold and pulled the door shut behind her.


***********

	The scarf absorbed the blood of the Dragon who's heart had just 
stopped beating. It flowed down the threads in a rush, surrounding the 
golden image in a sea of red.  A light as bright as the noon day sun 
shone from the image, leapt like solar flares to touch the blue-black 
collar. There was the faint sharp smell of burning circuitry and a 
soft click. 

	The Red Dragon fell in a slow drift, limp in the cold, still 
darkness, his lambent fire so faint it barely showed his outline. He 
was cut off from the Other and so tired. He had struggled, fought to 
get to that other half of himself but the weakness had finally 
overtaken him and now he fell into the starless Void once again. The 
nothingness swallowed the ringing moan that he cried out, calling to 
his brethren. The Darkness would Awaken and there would be only three 
Dragons to rise to meet it. Only three. He cried out again. They must 
answer him or The Darkness they had sworn to keep at bay would take 
the Earth. Yet still no answer came.

	Then his downward drift was halted. A warmth wrapped itself around 
and against the coldness of his length. He opened one cat-like eye, 
the pupil contracting into a fine line from the sunlight glow of the 
great triangular head next to his own. One of the Old Ones? One of the 
Old Ones had heard his cry? But that was not possible. All of the Old 
Ones had gone.

	*Blossom of the Sun. Mother's-sister.* He remembered. 
Mother's-sister, who had woven herself into a piece of silk to watch 
over the females who carried their seed. Her warmth slowly seeped into 
his body as she struggled to lift them both towards the light. They 
broke the surface, rested entwined and rocked gently on the waves. 
Even warmed by Mother-sister's body, the Red Dragon could not move, 
could not rise to the slowly narrowing beam of light that beckoned 
from the sky.

	Mother's-sister pushed at him, urging him towards the light. He 
rumbled in despair. He had no power left to go. Mother's-sister hummed 
a single soaring note as she angled her head, carefully closed her 
great jaws over the end of his muzzle, then breathed her power into 
him. Once, twice, again. He quivered against her, his flickering aura 
steadying, then exploding into a nimbus of elemental power.

	She released him, pushed him again towards the light which had shrunk 
to a thin ray. This time he rose. He hovered above Mother's-sister, 
stretched his muzzle down to touch the downy softness of her own.

	"Go." One soft word in a lilting human voice.

	Go. He had to go!

	A pillar of fire engulfed Tsuzuku's body, a pillar that made the air 
around it shimmer with irresistible outward pressure as it leapt for 
the sky, burned it's way through the eighty meters of rock that kept 
it from the freedom of the sky like a hot knife through butter. The 
Dragon scarf rode the top of that column, the fire burning away all 
traces of blood. It danced around the head of the Red Dragon as he 
shaped himself out of fire and power, pushed this way and that by the 
waves of heat that flowed from him, then stretched out on the cooler 
wind and drifted towards the north and the Dragon it belonged to.

*****************

	*I'm sorry.* Tsuzuku's voice whispered softly in Hajime's mind.

	"Tsuzuku!" Amaru gasped beside him.

	"Amaru. Take your collar off then take deep breaths. Stay by my side. 
When I tell you, hold it." Hajime commanded as he followed his own 
advise, raised his hands and pulled the collar open with a wrench, let 
out a mental sigh of relief as the headache vanished. Amaru held his 
collar between his hands, gazed at it, then threw it across the room. 
Hajime crushed his own between his hands as he rose and strode for the 
door. 

	Lee snorted as Travis's evacuation warning rang through the Lab. A 
situation? Give me a break. An alarm shrieked from the control board. 
He hit the button under it with a grin. *Stupid, Ryudo.*

	Hajime heard the hiss as he forced his fingertips into the fine crack 
that separated the inner doors. "Hold your breath now, Amaru." He said 
calmly as he took one of his own. The doors slowly separated as the 
gray stuff flowed down over them, stung his eyes. He shoved Amaru 
through the narrow gap into the small area that separated the two sets 
of doors, squeezed through himself, turned and forced the doors closed 
behind him. It had taken longer to get through than he expected and 
some of the gas had followed them in, creating a swirling cloud knee 
high. And it was seeping through the crack of the inner doors

	Amaru blinked the tears created by the stinging gas out of his eyes 
then let out his held breath with a whoosh.

	"Breath easy, Amaru-kun. When the gas gets up to here," he touched 
the center of his little brother's chest, "you hold it again, O.K."

	"Hai. Do you think Tsuzuku's O.K.?"

	"I hope so, Amaru-kun." *Hold on, Tsuzuku...we're coming!* He 
promised as he turned his attention to the doors.

	Lee rested his chin on one hand as he watched the two brothers with 
cold amusement. There was no way Hajime would get through the outer 
doors. Both he and Jonah had tried together to force them open when 
they had tested them for strength and couldn't do it.

	He looked sideways as the elevator doors slid open and Jonah lumbered 
out.

	"They gonna' make it out?" He asked, gesturing with his head at the 
cell as he headed for the dart guns hung on the peg board by the 
control board.

	"Not a chance in hell." Lee answered, looking back to the cell as 
Jonah chose the one with the red handle, checked the magazine. The gas 
was chest high on Hajime, Amaru a fog enshrouded shape at his side.

	Hajime was getting desperate. He couldn't get these doors to budge. 
Amaru tugged frantically on his pants. He picked him up by his waist, 
held him up so he could take a few breaths of the still clear air near 
the ceiling.

	"Make this one last, Amaru-kun." Hajime told him with an encouraging 
smile.

	"O.K." Amaru answered as bravely as he could, then sucked in a long 
deep breath, Hajime lowering him when he felt his sides stop 
expanding.

	He took one last deep breath himself, then went back to work on the 
doors.

	"You gonna' help me, or what?" Jonah cocked the gun, chambering the 
first dart.

	"You gonna' shoot me, or what?" Lee asked back, seeing the calm 
resolve on his friends face. Jonah was stupidly loyal to Travis. He 
just might have orders to do so.

	"Depends on how you answer, Bud." Jonah answered with no trace of 
emotion on his rugged face.

	"It was open the doors or get tranked. Tammi's an irresistible force 
when she has her mind set on something. You know that. Besides, a 
little roll in the hay isn't going to do that Ryudo any harm. I don't 
know why Travis is raising such a fuss." He answered with a shrug.