Red Savina

FADE IN:

An art deco mansion, set in the rich, expensive hills a couple miles from, and above, downtown. On the terrace behind the house, overlooking the hills, a high-toned party is in progress. Nearly all the men sport black dinner jackets. Most smoke. Everyone, men and women alike, has a drink in hand. Small groups gather across the patio, from the mansion to the fire pit at the far edge.

Two partygoers and the hosts stand by the fire pit. MIRASOL DRAKE, a beautiful coyote in her mid-20s, watches the fire. Shoulder-length red hair, golden eyes, slacks rather than skirt. By her side stands HARRY JENKINS, a slim, rakish fox.

DARBY UNDERWOOD stands across from her. The fox is in his 50s, big, fit, in tuxedo and vest. GABRIELLE UNDERWOOD stands near her husband: the perfect vixen hostess in a stunning black cocktail dress, emerald eyes framed by long blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail. She’s half a foot shorter and at least fifteen years younger than Darby.

She flings both hands over her head. The fire flares up into a bright orange fireball. The crowd gasps. Mirasol’s eyes lock onto the flames as they fade.

Harry laughs, clapping delightedly.

Mirasol’s eyes narrow.

Darby steps away from the group toward the house.

He hurries after the older fox. Gabrielle turns toward the fire, murmuring.

Gabrielle looks back in the direction Harry and her husband have gone, still not right at Mirasol.

Now the vixen turns to her, tilting her head inquiringly.

She catches herself and clears her throat.

Gabrielle’s smile grows stiff.

The vixen heads toward the main house. Mirasol looks after her, sighing.

Gabrielle makes her way through huge sliding glass doors that open onto--

--the grand ballroom. The space is high, open, ornate. Tables stacked with hors d’oeuvre trays line the hall’s sides. Under the din of conversation, a radio plays tinny, jaunty music.

Gabrielle sweeps through like a movie star navigating a crowd of adoring fans--smiling, waving, acknowledging everyone.

She seems fully in her element as she makes her way toward the other side of the room.

Mirasol steps through the same sliding glass doors, hesitant, skulking toward one of the side tables. She picks up a glass of water rather than wine, then stays put, studiously avoiding engaging with the crowd.

Not all of the crowd returns the favor. A handsome young tuxedoed mouse approaches the coyote.

Mirasol hands him the glass of water and heads off, leaving him looking bewildered.

Gabrielle, meanwhile, doesn’t notice Mirasol or even break stride--until a well-dressed but inebriated cat puts his hand on her shoulder, stopping her passage.

She gently removes his hand from her shoulder and steps past.

He sweeps both arms grandly around to indicate the whole tableau.

Gabrielle freezes, smile faltering. Smiling awkwardly, she hurries on, disappearing through an interior archway.

Dark wood paneling, a painting of a military scene, a rifle over the fireplace. Heavy wooden chairs that look more expensive than comfortable surround a matching table.

Sitting around it: Darby; Harry; TANEY, a badger; NEWCOMB, a stoat; CHAPMAN, a raccoon. Taney wears a dress service uniform with colonel’s insignia. Newcomb sports a blue blazer and matching bowtie. Chapman’s in a pinstripe suit. The table overflows with ashtrays, bottles of wine, glasses of scotch. Harry looks nervous but animated. Darby’s leaning back in his chair, watching with lidded eyes.

Colonel Taney stabs his lit cigar accusingly toward Harry, close enough to make the fox flinch backward.

All the men turn as the coyote walks toward the table. Harry’s ears fold down. Darby leers.

Gabrielle searches through bottles of wine in a wooden rack behind an open glass door, picking out each one, looking at the label, and putting it back. A matronly bespectacled squirrel hovers behind her: MRS. WATERS, her housekeeper.

The squirrel frowns disapprovingly.

Gabrielle pulls out a bottle and straightens up, holding it, then purses her lips, barely hiding her anger.

Locking the cabinet, she gives Mrs. Waters an affectionate, tired smile. The squirrel’s frown deepens as the vixen walks away with the bottle.

Mirasol stands by Darby. Harry has a nervous, fixed grin.

A knock on the door sounds, and Gabrielle steps in without waiting for a response. Darby waves her over, hooking an arm around Mirasol’s waist. The coyote’s ears lower.

Mirasol’s eyes widen; this is clearly news to her. Gabrielle goes still for a moment before setting the wine bottle down in front of her husband.

Darby leans forward, taking the wine and reaching for a corkscrew. Then he scowls.

Gabrielle’s ears lower and her tail curls down.

He leaps up, grabbing her arm and twisting it hard as he yanks her forward, the kind of twist that can snap bones. She squeals in pain.

Mirasol clenches her fists by her sides, and speaks in a threateningly low tone.

Gabrielle’s breath comes in sharp, pained gasps. Darby gives the coyote a glare. Mirasol meets it without a flinch.

The rest of the room looks uncomfortable, especially Harry, who seems like he’s on the verge of saying something. But he doesn’t.

After another second Darby releases Gabrielle, and opens the bottle of wine as if nothing had happened. Gabrielle swallows, cradling her arm, and heads for the door, ears flat. Mirasol steps after her.

Gabrielle goes still for a second, not meeting the coyote’s eyes, then hurries away.

Harry and Mirasol are setting up a laboratory in a converted garden shed: rustic, lots of natural light, but now spotless.

Mirasol glares at him. Harry clears his throat.

Harry looks away, sighing.

She crosses her arms, staring up at the ceiling.

Darby and Gabrielle sit on the balcony beside a small table. A glass of white wine sits by her. He has a glass of scotch in hand and a mostly empty bottle by him, and looks as drunk as that implies.

He grunts, and waves his hand around.

Darby scowls and tops off his glass.

She shakes her head.

On the other side of the house, Mirasol knocks on the front door, waits, rings the doorbell, waits some more. Then her huge radar ears swivel: she’s hearing the argument. She bites her lip, then hurries around the house’s side. Just after she leaves, Mrs. Waters opens the door, looks around, and frowns.

The vixen gives him an incredulous, angry stare.

Darby snorts, and knocks back the last of his scotch.

She clenches her fists. He smirks, shrugging.

The same patio we saw in the first scene. Mirasol rounds the side of the house toward it, still far from the balcony.

Gabrielle abruptly stands.

Darby stands up, roaring:

Gabrielle quivers, then steels her jaw, spinning on a heel and striding away. She only gets a few steps before he’s on her.

Mirasol’s view of the balcony, nearly two stories overhead, isn’t good, but she hears Gabrielle’s scream, sees Darby lifting the vixen up by her neck. He’s choking her.

The coyote breaks into a run, starting to yell. But she stumbles, doubles over, falls to all fours. Her yell becomes an anguished choke, then deepens into a monstrous growl.

Darby’s hands are wrapped around the vixen’s throat, and he’s lifted her off the floor, backing her toward the house. She’s flailing frantically, unable to breathe.

A shadow falls over them. A big shadow. Gabrielle can see whatever’s casting it. Her eyes get wide and she tries to point, but Darby is focused only on her.

The ROAR behind him shakes the whole balcony, the bottles on the table clattering, Gabrielle’s wine glass falling and shattering. He drops his wife, spins, stares up at...

RED SAVINA. A monster, bipedal, so tall the balcony just meets her hips. A dragon woman? A canine giantess? Both: a coyote’s coloration and shape, a curvy mammalian build, but a draconic tail, scutes along her front, swirling golden eyes. Beautiful, but terrifying.

Gabrielle crumples, staring up dumbly, gasping for breath. Darby makes a mad dash inside, abandoning his wife.

Red Savina’s fist SMASHES into the house, on the sliding glass door...on Darby. He doesn’t even manage a full scream.

Gabrielle lets out a weak, hoarse yelp, scrambling back on the damaged balcony. Lifting her fist, Red Savina leans forward, golden eyes focused on the vixen.

The dragon-coyote opens her fist, reaching toward Gabrielle with one talon out. The vixen faints.

Uniformed policemen of various species swarm the remains of the balcony and the ruined room behind it. One stands by Darby’s body, grimacing, while a photographer takes pictures of the scene with a huge flash bulb camera.

Another policeman, a cat, sits with Gabrielle. The vixen looks bedraggled, numb. In the background we see an officer questioning Mrs. Waters.

The officer sighs, scribbling in his notebook.

Gabrielle maintains a patient, tired tone.

The policeman grunts and makes a pointedly sarcastic correction in his notebook.

The officers leave the scene. Mrs. Waters sits down by Gabrielle.

Gabrielle’s eyes widen, gaze snapping to the squirrel.

The back yard of a well-to-do home: not a mansion, but by no means small and cheap. In the back of the huge yard is a garden shed: the laboratory we saw Harry and Mirasol working on.

With a solid, ground-shaking thump, Red Savina lands between the two buildings, folding her wings and dropping to all fours. As she lands, a light goes on in the house, then by the back door. Harry rushes out, then just stares, ears going flat.

Savina focuses her swirling eyes on him, and gives a sharp, urgent command in a voice that’s still feminine but resonates through a listener’s bones.

Harry opens his muzzle, but decides not to question. He races past her for the shed, scrambling in. Rummaging noises come from inside; a few moments later he returns, carrying three big glass jars in his arms. He awkwardly starts to open one.

Savina’s tongue shoots out of her mouth, canine in form but serpentine in length--and prehensile. It pulls the whole bottle out of his hand and takes it into her mouth. She grabs the other two bottles together in the same fashion, then tilts her head back and swallows them whole. She shudders, back arching, front talons digging into the ground--then shifts, rapidly shrinking, wings folding into her back, scutes shifting back to fur, tail returning to normal.

In short order, Mirasol lies on her side in the grass, panting, naked. Harry hurries toward her, throwing his coat around her and guiding her back to the house.

A large, under-furnished living room: big, bright, 1930s modern. Garish abstract paintings hang on the walls; objet d’art litters end tables and austere metal shelves. Think of a model room thrown together by a real estate agent. Harry guides the coyote to the couch.

He hurries to the kitchen.

Harry returns with a blue glass bottle and a spoon. Mirasol ignores the spoon and takes a swig straight from the bottle, grimacing.

Mirasol whimpers, closing her eyes.

She starts to cry.

Even though she’s still sniffling, she looks steely now.

For a moment Mirasol looks like she wants to keep arguing. Then she deflates, nodding meekly.

He gives her a perfunctory hug, then hurries out. Mirasol leans forward, holding her head in her hands.

It’s a beautiful, bright day. It makes a vivid contrast to the somber crowd of mourners slowly dispersing.

Gabrielle, wearing black, stands gazing down at a new grave, twisting the end of her long ponytail in her fingers. Harry’s standing near the vixen, looking awkward.

In the background, a wolf in Catholic priest vestments walks away from HOWARD LEIGHTON, an elderly mouse. Leighton is portly, bearded, vest-wearing: classic professor type. He’s giving Harry’s back a disapproving frown.

He clasps her hand; she doesn’t look at him, even as he leaves.

Leighton approaches.

She smiles wanly.

Gabrielle furrows her brow, then shakes her head, looking lost.

He sighs and puts a hand on her shoulder.

She nods wearily.

A tastefully-appointed, less formal sitting room with a feminine touch. A few chairs, a sofa, a small table for two by a window.

Gabrielle’s on the sofa. She still wears black, although it’s less funereal now. Harry’s with her. In the background, Mrs. Waters does some light dusting.

Harry’s ears flag. He grimaces, looking more agitated.

Gabrielle sighs, crossing her arms. She’s still clearly reticent to agree.

She sighs, looking up at the ceiling.

Harry perks up, ears lifting, and he claps his hands with a grin. Mrs. Waters shakes her head in the background.

The room Darby had been killed in has been cleaned of debris, but it’s still open to the elements, furniture covered with canvas tarps. Gabrielle stands close enough that the wind ruffles her blonde hair, still pulled back in its ponytail by a clasp. She watches workers measuring holes, building scaffolding outside. Mirasol approaches her from behind, eyes wide.

Gabrielle turns away and walks back into the house down the stairs. Mirasol follows a few steps behind, ears back.

Gabrielle turns to look directly at her, surprised.

The vixen blinks slowly.

She sits down on a sofa, and presses a button on the wall behind the end table. Mirasol sits in a nearby chair, giving the button a puzzled glance.

Mrs. Waters approaches from the hallway, bushy tail twitching.

The housekeeper turns toward the coyote.

The squirrel disappears. Gabrielle gives Mirasol an inquiring look.

Mrs. Waters returns with two glasses, handing a tumbler to Gabrielle and a pint glass to Mirasol.

She takes the glass and Mrs. Waters leaves. They fall into awkward silence a few beats, Gabrielle looking into the distance. Then she speaks abruptly:

Mirasol looks away.

Mirasol visibly jumps. Gabrielle narrows her eyes.

Mirasol looks down at the floor.

Mirasol smiles awkwardly. Gabrielle takes a long sip of the gin and tonic, looking out the window.

Gabrielle and Mirasol sit at opposite ends of a rectangular dining room table that could easily fit ten. Each has a bowl of bisque and a plate of perfectly composed Cobb salad in front of them, on real china, real silverware. The vixen eats as she reads a magazine; the coyote studies her food bemusedly, poking the various bits of salad with her fork like an archeologist studying indecipherable hieroglyphics. Finally Gabrielle looks up and lifts a brow.

The vixen lowers the magazine.

She laughs, shaking her head.

Gabrielle frowns, then folds her arms, looking across the table.

Gabrielle sighs heavily, going back to her soup.

Gabrielle narrows her eyes.

The vixen gives the coyote an incredulous stare and laugh.

Mirasol’s ears go flat, and she gets up from the table.

The coyote stalks off. Gabrielle frowns thoughtfully, drumming her fingers on the magazine.

Gabrielle stands in Harry’s living room with her arms crossed. Harry’s stepping away from a wet bar by the kitchen, a martini glass in each hand.

Harry holds out one glass to the vixen. She takes it, but gives him a reproachful look as she sits down.

Gabrielle swirls the martini as if it were wine before taking another sip.

He holds up a hand.

Harry’s ears splay.

Harry sighs, sitting down by her.

Harry laughs.

Harry splutters.

A phone rings. Harry stands up, hurrying toward it.

He picks up the phone.

Harry looks over at Gabrielle.

Gabrielle’s eyes widen. She hurries to her feet, setting down her drink.

As Gabrielle rushes out, Harry hangs up, then puts his hands on his hips, looking dour.

Ears lowering, he hurries out the back.

As Harry enters, we see the lab’s now fully set up with equipment, multiple wooden lab tables, two old wooden desks--one almost empty, one stacked with papers. Harry strides in, then slows down, examining several oak barrels along one wall and frowning.

He heads to the cluttered desk and rifles through the papers on top, pulling out a lab notebook, then starts flipping through it, page after page of neat script and dense formulas.

After flipping another few seconds, he sighs, setting the book back down. Then he frowns, rifling through loose pages on the desk. He comes to a page with more dense scribbling on it, and narrows his eyes, lifting it up.

He sets that page down on the lab table, then goes to the other desk--his--and pulls out his own lab notebook. He starts copying Mirasol’s notes, muttering as he writes.

As banging and thumping comes from the second floor, out of sight, Mrs. Waters opens the door for Gabrielle. The vixen hurries in toward the grand staircase to be stopped by a uniformed police officer, a grumpy-looking boar. Mirasol stands off to the side, arms crossed, furious.

A loud CRASH, something fragile breaking, comes from upstairs. Gabrielle looks horrified.

She tries to go upstairs again. Again, the boar blocks her.

Another crash sounds from upstairs. Gabrielle visibly flinches.

Mirasol bares her teeth. The cop locks eyes with her, resting a hand on his gun.

The commissioner comes down the staircase, followed by another cop, a burly bear, carrying a small evidence box. The stoat looks like he did at the party: dark blue suit, loud tie, smarmy smile. Now he’s got a badge pinned to the jacket.

She waves angrily upstairs.

The stoat smiles, letting silence hang for a second.

Newcomb turns toward the coyote.

He snaps his fingers.

He motions, and the officers both head out of the house. He starts to follow, then turns around, as if just remembering something.

He glances at Gabrielle. Mirasol’s ears fold back, and she gives him an angry, fearful glare.

He tips his hat and leaves.

The vixen looks at the staircase, takes a deep breath, then starts up. She pauses at the halfway point.

Mirasol’s tail curls down between her legs. Gabrielle continues walking resolutely up out of sight.

Gabrielle and Mirasol are back at the formal dining room table, but now they’re facing one another across the short side of one end. The breakfast is casual: just sausage, eggs, and toast.

Mirasol furrows her brow at that, then laughs. Gabrielle flashes a small smile, then tilts her head.

Gabrielle bites her lip, looking uncomfortable, but doesn’t challenge Mirasol on that.

She studiously goes back to her food. Mirasol looks surprised, then sheepish. She eats silently a few moments, then looks up.

Mirasol rolls her eyes.

A street in a working class district east of downtown. Shops line the sidewalks: diners, coffee shops, tobacconists, grocers, laundries. Apartments and row houses rise over the shops. It’s all worn, lived-in, a little grimy.

Gabrielle and Mirasol walk down the sidewalk, past other pedestrians: the coyote in denim jeans and a button-down blouse, the vixen in a short-sleeved day dress.

The coyote points at a business ahead: a neon bar sign reading HOTSY TOTSY, complete with a colorful outlined martini glass.

The vixen looks around the neighborhood pointedly.

Gabrielle sighs theatrically, but follows the coyote in.

A canonical dive bar: dim lighting, dark stained wooden bar, dingy booths, a couple pool tables, regulars who look like they might be affixed to their bar stools.

Mirasol beelines for the bar; Gabrielle follows warily. A wolf missing part of one ear stands behind the bar, pouring a beer for someone. He looks over at them silently.

He nods and goes about his work.

Shortly the wolf sets a pint of ale in front of the coyote and a martini glass in front of the vixen. Mirasol takes a big swig; Gabrielle sips gingerly and grimaces. The coyote smirks.

The coyote rolls her eyes again and waves her free hand.

Gabrielle nods, smiling a little. Mirasol smiles back, then looks over to the pool table.

Gabrielle nods and stands up, then pauses, self-conscious: she looks...stuffy. After a moment, she unfastens her barrette, shaking out her long blonde hair. All at once she looks much less severe. As the coyote watches, her expression clearly flashes to oh no, she’s pretty.

The vixen smiles, downs most of the rest of her awful martini, and leads Mirasol to the pool table.

Gabrielle is leading Mirasol out of the Hotsy Totsy. They’re relaxed, both wagging their tails. Mirasol is looking amused but incredulous. Gabrielle, hair still down, is actually grinning.

The vixen puts a hand to her chest, exaggeratedly feigning offense.

Mirasol literally bounces with joy as she walks.

Gabrielle laughs, shaking her head. She frowns as they walk on, though, looking across the street. The two cops who’d been at her house stand in a butcher shop’s doorway, looming over a small nervous cat. He hands both of them envelopes.

The two hurry on, Mira scowling, Gabrielle nonplussed.

Gabrielle and Mirasol enter after their day out, Mrs. Waters holding the door for both of them. Both of them still look happy. The squirrel’s brows lift as she sees the vixen with her hair unbound.

Gabrielle pauses, then smiles bashfully, as if no one had ever asked her the name she preferred before.

Gabrielle puts a hand on the coyote’s shoulder and leans forward to kiss her cheek. Mirasol starts to turn her muzzle, surprised, and their noses touch. Both freeze, until Gabrielle recovers and finishes the light cheek-kiss. Mrs. Waters’ eyes grow wider as she watches.

The vixen heads upstairs, looking happy-confused. Mirasol watches, then hurries down a hallway, biting her lip. The squirrel looks back and forth after both of them.

The fox’s kitchen is filled with mad chemistry, beakers and flasks, his lab notebook open to the work he copied from Mirasol. He’s on the phone, handset to one ear.

He winces at whatever the caller’s saying, then holds up a flask to the light, looking at the pale blue liquid in it.

He listens and looks more cross, setting the flask down, stalking about and getting tangled in the long phone cord.

He sets the flask down, and walks toward the end of the kitchen counter as he listens, untangling himself from the cord.

The fox has found what he’s looking for: a blue bottle, the kind that contains Mirasol’s nerve tonic. Looking triumphant, he dumps what’s in it down the sink and carefully pours liquid from the flask into the bottle.

A stereotypically cluttered humanities professor’s office: barely the size of a small bedroom, nearly all of the space taken up by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, an imposing oak desk, papers and bric-a-brac everywhere. Gabrielle, hair still unbound, sits in front of the desk, Leighton behind it.

The mouse lights his pipe.

The mouse shrugs.

She shakes her head.

Leighton raises his brows.

Gabrielle hesitates, then nods. He grunts.

He frowns and sets down his pipe.

She looks incredulous.

He lifts his brows, giving a slight nod.

A cracked, overgrown asphalt field in front of a row of rusting Nissen huts, half-cylinder corrugated steel barracks.

A flashy sports car drives toward the huts, slows, comes to a stop. Harry and Mirasol get out. He watches her intently. She looks oddly hesitant, lost.

He nods, smiling a small, devious smile.

He splutters.

She smiles, a bit dreamily.

Harry looks apoplectic.

He rubs his face.

Mirasol stops talking and reaches into the trunk, picking up a small vial next to three large clear bottles, just like the ones of antidote we’d seen earlier.

Mirasol removes her clothes, mechanically.

She does as ordered. After she drinks, she takes a deep, shuddering breath and doubles over into a feral stance. Her eyes swirl into luminous gold.

Then she changes.

It’s fast, but not all at once. The growth isn’t even. A leg lengthens. Then an arm. Her tail constricts and lengthens. Muscles become more defined. Teeth get longer. One wing sprouts out of her back, then the other. Taloned hands dig into the ground, clawed feet rake ditches. It’s a series of jerks, spasms, bends, snaps.

And with each change, she gets bigger. And BIGGER. The coyote’s screams become roars. Harry scrambles back out of the way as she easily eclipses the size she’d been when she spontaneously transformed at the Underwoods--and keeps going.

The dragon-coyote, breathing hard, looks down at him, eyes swirling faster. She drops to all fours, snaps her wings open. She’s got to be a hundred feet head to toe.

Savina does so, slowly, all the way up to her full towering height. One of her huge digitigrade paws is bigger than Harry’s car, let alone Harry. The fox swallows, but points.

She tilts her head to one side, regarding him, then does as commanded. Each step shakes the ground. Harry smiles tentatively, and raises his voice.

Red Savina lifts a paw and brings it down on one of the Nissen huts. It collapses as if it were tinfoil rather than steel.

Harry jumps in place, arms over his head.

Savina stomps another hut.

Savina looks over at Harry to make it clear she heard him, then, eyes locked on him, stomps a third hut. His ears lower.

She walks toward him, crouches down, and breathes a short puff of flame. It doesn’t come close to Harry, but the fox shrieks, hiding behind his car reflexively.

Savina flashes him a contemptuous look, then spreads her wings, crouches and leaps into the air. The fox barely manages to scramble away from the car as it gets blown back by gale force winds. He holds his head, moaning.

The same street Mirasol and Gabrielle visited earlier. A shadow--Red Savina--passes over it, and the people on the street start running, screaming.

Among the crowd are Officers Boar and Bear. They gape up.

They both run toward their patrol car--and stop as Savina swoops low, strafing the ground with a jet of fire. Several parked cars--including theirs--burst into flames. Pedestrians, including the two corrupt officers, get blown along with debris as roofs lift off buildings.

The cops stagger to their feet to see the aircraft-sized giantess wheeling around for a second pass. As she lands in the street, they run--only to be cut off by her tail smashing down in front of them, demolishing the street and one low building.

As she lowers herself into a crouch, they stare up, backing toward her tail. There’s nowhere else to go. They start firing their guns at her head as it gets closer and closer, but they might as well be shooting soap bubbles.

She lets them both run out of bullets. Then her jaws part, tongue flicking out and flipping the two between her teeth. She straightens up and swallows in the same motion, then leaps back into flight. While the cars she torched are smoldering slag, no buildings are aflame.

Mirasol and Gabrielle (hair still loose) sit on the couch together, cups of coffee and plates of toast and fruit on the low table in front of them. Mrs. Waters is refilling both coffee cups. She hands a newspaper to Gabrielle, who beams. Mrs. Waters smiles back, although she has a definite the missus is worrisomely happy look about her as she heads off. Mirasol looks distracted.

Gabrielle pats the coyote’s knee. Mirasol smiles sheepishly, but looks more relaxed.

The vixen opens the paper, taking a sip of coffee, then frowns as she reads. She holds the paper out to the coyote.

We see the headline: FOUR-ALARM FIRE KILLS THREE, MORE MISSING, with a companion article reading TWO POLICE OFFICERS PRESUMED DEAD, with photos of Officers Boar and Bear.

Gabrielle reaches forward and taps a lower headline right at the fold: EXOTIC AEROPLANE MISTAKEN FOR DRAGON.

Mirasol reads the article, muttering under her breath:

Mirasol thinks better of her words and shakes her head, pushing the paper away. Gabrielle looks momentarily taken aback, then fiercely determined.

Gabrielle lowers her voice.

The coyote’s ears fold down.

Mirasol suddenly looks panicked, stuttering as she responds.

Mirasol takes Gabrielle’s hands, almost crying.

She hurries out of the room, leaving Gabrielle staring after her, expression confused and hurt.

Harry paces back and forth, Mirasol’s lab notebook in hand. He flips through it frantically, forwards, backwards, then flings it across the room.

He stalks to shelves of ingredients on the side of the room, examining bottles of liquid, jars of powders, tincture in vials. He picks each one up, sets it down, looking angrier and angrier. Then he picks up a jar of desiccated bat wings, holds it up, and furrows his brow.

He puts it back, then pauses, picking up a jar of gray powder he’d held a moment before.

He steps over to Mirasol’s desk, rifles through papers on the top, opens a drawer, pulls out more papers, rifles through them, then stops, holding one up.

It’s a telegram, to Mirasol, from a Professor H. W. Jones:

T REX BONE AUTHENTICATED STOP PAYMENT RECEIVED AND SHIPMENT IS EN ROUTE

He sets it down, rubbing his chin, then his ears prick forward.

He picks up the jar of powdered dinosaur bone again.

An imposing, classic multi-level library, mahogany and oak everywhere, bookshelves taller than the customers. A central rotunda with a round information desk opens to all three floors.

Gabrielle, dressed to the nines, approaches the info desk. A dour librarian mouse woman looks up at her.

The mouse pulls out a large planner book, opens it, and picks up a fountain pen, waiting expectantly.

The mouse pauses as she writes and looks up. Gabrielle smiles brightly.

This room looks rougher, darker, more like a wine cellar--small, stone walls and floors, a few low bookshelves along the sides holding ancient-looking tomes. A wooden study table and two chairs take up the room’s center.

The mouse and Gabrielle step inside from a hallway; the librarian’s carrying a record book under one arm.

The mouse sighs thinly and flips through the record book.

Gabrielle frowns, then bites her lip.

The librarian pages through partway, then stops.

The mouse heads to a shelf, searches, returns with two decaying hardbacks and one thin folio of parchment, bound with leather ties. She sets them down on the table.

The vixen looks at the first hardback. The cover reads “FOUR TREATISES by THEOPHRASTUS VON HOHENHEIM, known as PARACELSUS.” The second one has no author, but its title is “PRINCIPIIS DRACONES.”

She moves to the folio. It’s handwritten, a journal. The first page has a name and a date: Henry Jenkins - 1886 v.2. The second page plunges into dense text, mathematical formula, diagrams that look more astrological than scientific. She shakes her head, flips more, then pauses on a page with a circled Latin phrase in block print. She reads it aloud:

She traces a claw tip down the page to a list of initials and numbers: F.T. 23, 152, 154; P.D. 45, 73. She picks up the “Principiis Dracones” and flips to page 45. Dense archaic text, with a phrase underlined by hand, which she reads aloud:

A flip to page 73 reveals a cryptic formula: proportions of ingredients, all in Latin. Drawings of bat wings and bones. The facing page is a drawing of a dragon--bipedal, with mammalian features--and numbered arrows pointing to anatomical parts. It’s not Red Savina...but it’s very close.

Gabrielle studies this, horror growing in her eyes, then realization. She chokes back a soft sob.

A magnificent art deco skyscraper in the downtown skyline--not the tallest building in the city but, at twenty stories, not far off.

The parlor group--Colonel Taney, Commissioner Newcomb, Chapman the banking executive--sit at one end of a mahogany conference table surrounded by plush leather chairs. Everything in the room screams “no expense spared.” Harry paces at the other end.

Harry looks exasperated.

The seated men look at one another. Harry plunges ahead:

Taney shifts uncomfortably.

The three look at one another again, wary but intrigued.

The stoat looks at Harry levelly, not a trace of a smile.

Gabrielle sits on the sofa, hands in her lap, eyes unfocused. Her hair is back in its traditional ponytail. Mirasol enters the room a moment later, looking cheerful.

She stops, ears folding down, and tilts her head.

Gabrielle doesn’t look at her yet. She speaks softly.

Mirasol looks lost.

The coyote’s ears flat.

The vixen trembles with anger, voice rising.

Gabrielle stares at her silently, breathing hard.

She runs a hand through her hair, and wipes away tears.

The vixen closes her eyes, clenching her fists.

Mirasol nods miserably. Gabrielle’s tone gets even more bitter.

The vixen looks away, speaking in a dull, formal tone.

Mirasol is moving past crying to sobbing.

Gabrielle walks out of the room, ears flat.

The small room Mirasol’s been staying in. Tastefully appointed, frillier than one suspects the coyote would choose for herself.

Mrs. Waters stands behind the sniffling Mirasol in the doorway, watching with a sad expression as the coyote locks the trunk and shoulders her backpack.

Mirasol hefts the trunk, taking a ragged breath.

Mirasol pauses a moment, looking back at the squirrel, then shakes her head and heads out toward the foyer. Mrs. Waters follows.

Mrs. Waters enters from the foyer. Gabrielle is standing, looking through the window.

The squirrel sighs, folding her hands in front of her.

The doorbell rings, and Mrs. Waters heads to answer it.

Mrs. Waters opens the door to let Harry in. The fox looks agitated, striding past her to give Mirasol a perfunctory hug--the coyote doesn’t get up from where she’s sitting. He pulls one of the blue tonic bottles out of his coat pocket.

She sighs and takes the bottle, downing a capful. As Harry strides to the sitting room, Gabrielle comes forward to meet him at the foyer’s edge.

Harry’s ears lower, and he gives her a searching look.

The coyote stands, walking to Harry’s side. She has a slightly dazed look, blinking like she’s trying to focus.

Harry blinks at the nickname, and gives Gabrielle another searching look before he walks out. The coyote follows silently, walking right past her trunk.

Mirasol looks momentarily bewildered until Harry sighs and points. She picks up the trunk and follows him out.

Mrs. Waters closes the door behind them, and immediately spins around, hands on her hips.

Gabrielle frowns thoughtfully, giving a slow nod.

Harry and Mirasol stand in front of the seated parlor group: Newcomb, Taney, and Chapman. Harry looks hopped up and agitated. Mirasol has a disturbingly drugged look.

The coyote’s ears fold down, but she obediently does as ordered. Harry gestures with both hands, as if to say, “See?”

Mirasol leaves the room.

The raccoon looks taken aback at that. The stoat, though, just strokes his chin.

He points at Harry.

Harry pulls his car up in front of the library and gets out with Mirasol. It’s past midnight. The campus is deserted, the library building dark. Harry looks nervous. Mirasol looks positively despondent.

He runs a hand through his hair, then takes a deep breath.

Mirasol’s eyes get distant. She smiles a little.

Mirasol shakes her head. He holds out a little potion vial to her.

She nods, taking the vial, and walks toward the library, turning around at the steps and then drinking. Then she drops the vial...and changes. It’s just as it was before: the uneven, painful growth, wings bursting out of her body, although this time it starts with her clothes ripping apart from the change. Harry winces.

Red Savina’s growth itself damages the library, as her tail whips into the foyer. But she stays “merely” a hundred feet tall, as she had been before. Harry lets out a sigh of relief that, then swallows and calls to her.

In the darkness, her eyes glow with their own light. The dragon-coyote bares her teeth at him.

The fox immediately cowers, raising his hands, half-expecting to be immolated. Savina’s swirling draconic eyes literally flash, but she falls silent. Harry drops his arms and breathes again, starting to slowly back away.

The dragon-coyote slowly straightens up, looking down at Harry.

She turns away from him, then slams a huge paw down on the library’s rotunda. It collapses in a visible shock wave, along with most of the rest of the structure.

The fox sprints for his car, and Savina crouches in the rubble, digging with both taloned hands. Harry leaps into his car and floors it, speeding away as she rips up stone and brickwork.

Dragon claws rip through the roof, bricks and dust raining down on the contents. Only Savina’s muzzle is “small” enough to stick through, but that’s enough for her to let out a jet of flame, engulfing the room.

An expensive car is slowing down and stopping on the road to the library. Two well-dressed but tipsily disheveled students get out, gawking at the destruction. One has a camera, and starts taking photos.

Red Savina lifts her horned head, ears swiveling back and forth in very canine fashion, and she turns toward them. The cameraman takes another picture.

She abruptly LEAPS toward them, closing a football field’s worth of distance in seconds. Her impact, hands far to either side of the car, shakes the ground like a brief earthquake. Both students fall. She lowers her head toward them.

Her jaws part and her tongue shoots out, wrapping around the photographer’s waist and pulling him--and his camera--up into her mouth. As she swallows, the other student gets to his feet and runs away screaming. He doesn’t make it far enough to avoid her tongue wrapping around a leg; he’s reeled between her teeth like a fish. Gulp. Gone.

She licks her lips, then spreads her wings, tenses, and leaps into the air.

A quiet, middle class proto-suburban neighborhood. The lawns are expansive, the streets dark; a small, Morris Minor-style sedan is parked beside a stereotypical garden cottage, complete with neatly trimmed hedges and window flower beds.

Professor Leighton lies in bed, snoring. He starts awake at a house-rattling thump outside. He has just enough time to sit up in bed before a giant, taloned canine paw SMASHES through the roof and the side of the house. Plaster rains down on the bed, but the paw just misses crushing it and its occupant.

The mouse makes a startled, strangled cry, tumbling out of bed away from the paw and scrambling through the bedroom door. He races through the neat, tidy living room, dashing out the side door just as another paw smashes down right behind him.

Leighton manages to dive into the car and start it. As he jams it into gear, it lurches forward--and stops like it’s hit a wall. The view through the windshield has become just the pebbled paw pads of toes curling in front of the vehicle.

He gasps and reaches for the door, but his luck has run out. Savina’s step effortlessly pancakes the car.

The giantess looks down, glowing dragon-eyes whirling faster. Her expression is something we haven’t seen before: dismay, even fear. She’s upset with what she’s done, unsure why she’s done it. Then she bares her fangs and clenches her fists.

She closes her eyes, takes a deep, slow breath. Then she crouches, wings spreading, and leaps into the air.

An echo of the previous scene: Gabrielle asleep in a queen-sized bed, with an expensive headboard and footboard. Matching her style, the room’s furnishings are beautiful but not overly ostentatious.

She’s woken by a window-rattling slam outside. Sitting up, she gets out of bed, pulls on a nightgown, opens the window shade.

Red Savina crouches in the back yard, leaning over the terrazzo patio, eyes very close to the vixen’s bedroom window.

Gabrielle screams, backing away.

Running noises come from outside the bedroom, and Mrs. Waters, also in a nightgown, flings herself in.

She stops, sees what Gabrielle is staring at, and gasps, crossing herself.

Gabrielle takes slow, hesitant steps toward the window. Biting her lip, she opens it. The dragon speaks, very softly:

Gabrielle’s ears lower. Then she bares her teeth.

Gabrielle runs a hand through her hair.

Gabrielle turns away, wincing. Mrs. Waters crosses herself again.

The vixen’s eyes widen. She turns back to the window.

The dragon-coyote’s eyes swirl faster.

Gabrielle swallows. Red Savina leans close again.

Mrs. Waters and Gabrielle look at one another, the squirrel wide-eyed behind her glasses, the vixen a mass of visibly conflicted emotions. It takes her long seconds to finally turn back to the dragon-coyote. She takes a deep breath.

A sleek, open-top touring coupe racing along a twisting residential road. Gabrielle is behind the wheel, distraught but grimly determined. Mrs. Waters sits beside her, hanging onto her hat and looking carsick from her employer’s driving.

The car pulls sharply into a driveway, coming to a stop in front of--

The two get out. Gabrielle pats her jacket pocket, as if checking for something inside, then looks at Mrs. Waters, tilting her head inquiringly. The squirrel bites her lip, then nods, straightening up and readjusting her glasses. They both start to walk purposefully toward the house.

Harry sits on a barrel about halfway between his house and the laboratory shed, looking at his watch, clearly waiting. He’s dressed haphazardly, in pajamas and slippers but wearing a smoking jacket with handkerchief. Gabrielle approaches--quietly, but she’s not sneaking up. When he sees her, he starts, jumping to his feet.

She points at the barrel. Harry looks taken aback, then coldly angry.

Harry sucks in his breath, then abruptly gets up in the vixen’s face, screaming.

She barely flinches.

Behind him, Mrs. Waters, who’s come around the house from the other direction, slowly, silently approaches.

Mrs. Waters hauls back, smacks the fox in the side of the head with her hands laced together. He staggers, looking dazed, then crumples. Both women hold him, getting his arms behind his back; Gabrielle ties his hands with a rope piece she pulls out of her pocket.

Mrs. Waters nods. Both of them pick up the barrel Harry had been sitting on, staggering with it toward the sports car.

The sky is still mostly dark, but the glow of impending sunrise lines the view of far hills. Red Savina sits in the grass just past the terrazzo, cross-legged, eyes closed. As Gabrielle and Mrs. Waters roll the barrel up, those glowing eyes snap open. Gabrielle’s ears fold back but she remains resolute; Mrs. Waters quails visibly as she looks up.

She shrieks as Savina leans over, snapping up the whole barrel as if it were a pill. There’s a crunch and a swallow. Then the giantess shudders and topples onto her side, convulsing with a roar. She quickly shrinks, scales disappearing, tail shortening, eyes returning to normal. In short order, Mirasol lies in the grass, nude, dry heaving. She sits up, gasps for breath, then bursts into tears.

Both Gabrielle and Mrs. Waters hurry toward her, the vixen taking off her own coat to wrap it around Mira as they guide her to her paws. The coyote, wracked with sobs, all but has to be dragged along as they head back into the house.

Mirasol’s room has been returned to pristine condition; the coyote, now in a nightgown, sits on the bed, no longer sobbing but slumped with fatigue and stress. Gabrielle, still fully dressed, sits beside her.

The coyote lifts her head, but doesn’t face the vixen.

She puts a hand on Mirasol’s shoulder.

The coyote’s ears fold down.

Gabrielle nods. Mirasol closes her eyes, and a tear runs down her muzzle.

The vixen looks away, silent several seconds before answering.

Mirasol swallows, looking down at the floor.

Mirasol looks up into Gabrielle’s eyes.

Gabrielle gently takes Mirasol’s hand in hers. This time, when their noses touch, it becomes a lingering muzzle-to-muzzle kiss. Then Gabrielle lightly pulls Mira against her, and they cuddle, both pairs of eyes closing.

Harry has the phone handset to one ear, holding a pack of ice to his head with his other hand. A newspaper is in front of him, with a headline about the fire that destroyed most of the university library. There’s no mention of monsters.

The fox rolls his eyes, readjusting the ice pack.

The fox’s ears fold down.

He winces as he listens to Newcomb losing it on the other end of the phone.

The fox listens, sighs and nods.

Gabrielle, dressed in the “high casual” fashion she’d worn for her day out shooting pool and hair unbound, sits at the table in the sitting room, finishing writing something and sealing it in an envelope. We see her start to write the address on the envelope in a neat hand: LAW OFFICES OF UTTERSON & ENFIELD, ATTN: J. UTTERSON. When she finishes writing, she walks over and rings the bell that summons Mrs. Waters.

The squirrel enters the room shortly, Mirasol trailing behind her.

The squirrel takes the envelope, wide-eyed.

The squirrel looks worried. The vixen takes Mrs. Waters’s free hand in both of hers.

That earns a slight blush from the housekeeper.

Mrs. Waters bites her lip and nods.

The squirrel leaves the room with the envelope.

The coyote laughs, shaking her head.

The kitchen is large and well-appointed, modern for the time. Four wine bottles are lined up on the tiled counter, each full of amber liquid with a rag stuffed into the top. There’s also two empty (but clearly used) wine glasses.

Mirasol leans over to look at one of the bottles.

The vixen looks out the window.

The coyote moves up close to her.

Gabrielle turns to face her, and puts her hands on the slightly shorter woman’s shoulders.

Mirasol puts her arms around Gabrielle’s waist, her tail wagging.

Gabrielle slides her hands down the coyote’s back. Her tail wags, too, and their noses touch.

They start to kiss. A few seconds in, though, Mirasol pulls away, ears perking up as if listening. She turns toward the front of the house.

She stops, ears perking up. She hears it, too. Sirens, getting closer. Rumbling of heavier vehicles.

Both pairs of ears flatten. Gabrielle strides toward the foyer, the coyote hurrying behind.

Police cars and at least one personnel carrier are coming up the long driveway. So is Harry’s car.

The two run into the kitchen--

The vixen moves to grab two of the bottles; Mirasol goes for the other two.

Sounds in the background of sirens stopping, cars pulling up in the driveway.

They hurry.

As they run past, someone rings the door bell, then raps on it.

The coyote pivots, setting down the bottles and walking toward the door.

The vixen sets her bottles down quickly and sprints after the coyote, getting between her and the door.

The vixen grabs her shoulders.

The coyote stops, looking confused.

Mirasol whines audibly, trying to lurch forward. She and Gabrielle struggle. Newcomb can be heard, more muffled:

The coyote whimpers.

The door bursts open, knocked in by a burly ram in a police uniform. Cops flood into the room, at least a half dozen, moving to grab both Gabrielle and Mirasol.

The vixen struggles fruitlessly. Commissioner Newcomb steps into the house, with Harry close behind.

Newcomb looks down at the fire bottles.

The ram handcuffs Gabrielle’s wrists behind her back. Harry hurries to the coyote, a bottle of tonic in his hand.

But the coyote’s stopped fighting, and the police let her reach for the bottle. She takes a swig, looking miserable.

Harry turns to Gabrielle, looking smug.

The fox’s ears lower. Newcomb shakes his head, sighing, and waves toward the door.

There’s four police cars, all with lights flashing, along with two military personnel carriers. The police file out of the house with Gabrielle and Mirasol, past more officers and several armed soldiers, two of whom have rifle grenade launchers. Newcomb follows a few seconds later, carrying two of the four bottle bombs. He hands them to a wolf officer.

The police let go of Mirasol, and she goes with Harry to his car as Gabrielle stares after them. Then there’s a deep WHOOSH noise from inside the house, and Officer Ram runs out, just ahead of a burst of visible flames.

Gabrielle stiffens, gasping aloud. Before she speaks, the police force her into the back of a squad car. Newcomb stops at that car, looking back at the house.

He stays outside and closes the door, giving the officer in the front seat a curt “get a move on” wave. The mansion’s beginning to catch on fire, starting with the foyer. Gabrielle stares, stricken, out the back window as they drive away.

The ostentatious Important Government Building look: stone steps leading up to a big, imposing entrance, only a single story but a high roofline. A few police cars are parked in front and along a side street, along with both personnel carriers we saw in the previous scene.

The archetypal image of the room: bare stone walls and floor, two wooden chairs facing each other across a wooden table, a simple hanging light fixture (not a bare bulb), one doorway.

Gabrielle sits in one chair. She’s haggard, blonde tresses in disarray. OFFICER WOLF, tall, scowling, sits in a smart suit facing her.

The wolf’s eyes widen and he grabs his notebook.

Gabrielle sighs and rubs her face.

The door opens and Commissioner Newcomb steps in. The stoat motions at the wolf.

The wolf gets up and heads to the door. Newcomb closes it.

Newcomb shrugs, taking a seat and folding his hands.

The stoat laughs after a moment, shaking his head and leaning back.

The stoat gives her an incredulous look.

She just looks at him silently across the table. His cool slips a little.

He narrows his eyes.

Gabrielle goes stiff. The stoat gets up and spreads his hands.

Her ears go back. Newcomb walks to the door, opens it, and lets two uniformed officers in, the ram and a tiger. Gabrielle stands up and walks to them without looking at Newcomb; they take her out of the room.

The art deco skyscraper we’ve seen before, with the...

Taney, Newcomb, Chapman, Harry, and four unnamed SUITS sit along the long conference table. Mirasol stands, swaying unsteadily from the drugs.

Harry sighs, running a hand through his hair, and finally gives a curt nod of assent.

The stoat looks toward Mirasol. The coyote’s ears fold back. So do Harry’s.

Harry gets up quickly and goes to her, putting an arm around her shoulders.

Mirasol gives him a wary look, but doesn’t draw away. Harry looks pleased, and turns to the others as if to say “look how in control I am.” But Taney and Newcomb give him flinty, commanding looks in return. Chapman and a couple of the suits look uncomfortable, but they’re not protesting.

Harry closes his eyes.

Opening his eyes again, Harry takes a deep breath, and gestures to one of the windows overlooking the street.

Newcomb gets up and opens the window. The wind whistles in.

Harry guides her forward, hands on her shoulders.

She walks to the window, breathing hard.

Even as she protests, she sticks her head out, half-climbing out the window, then stops, whining. She’s hyperventilating. Harry looks at Newcomb, hissing:

Mirasol is half out the window. She shakes her head violently.

Harry’s ears are back. He looks anguished--but he’s made his choice. He screams, hoarsely:

She whimpers again, teetering, then pushes herself farther out--and tumbles over the sill.

Newcomb spreads his hands.

Harry looks down at the floor, whimpering.

There’s a strange, deep noise outside, like tide rushing out of a cave--then an EARTHQUAKE, an impact like a meteor. The room shakes. Harry’s head snaps up as windows shatter and car horns BLARE. A series of crashes come from street level, and his whimper becomes a terrified whine.

Plumes of smoke rise outside. One of the other suits hurries to the window, sticking his head out, looking down at--

--Red Savina.

She’s on all fours on the ground, obscuring the street. She’s wider than the street. The buildings across the street are partially demolished, still crumbling: when Mirasol changed, she grew into where they’d been. From head to toe, she’d take up a football field now, with little room to spare.

Savina looks dazed, unsteady, shaking herself out. Then she turns her head up, looking at the bank building, and her glowing, swirling eyes narrow.

Newcomb, Taney, and Chapman are all looking out windows, too. Harry, though, isn’t. He’s by the boardroom exit.

The badger turns to protest, but Harry’s taking his own advice, racing out of the boardroom. Taney scrambles to follow. Chapman and Newcomb back away from the windows they were at. The suits start to follow, one stopping to tug at the guy still staring outside--but he stops, too, staring out.

Savina slowly stands. Not all the way: she moves so her head is level with the boardroom. Her arms swing up. From her view, we can see tiny figures through the broken windows.

Then she grabs the side of the building and thrusts her muzzle right into it.

The building shakes again, this time as if bombs had gone off all around the board room, simultaneously with the view through the window becoming the inside of Savina’s mouth. The walls crack. Giant teeth smash through the ceiling--and the floor. Her jaws close with all four of the suits still inside. Newcomb and Taney barely miss being in her mouth, tumbling off her lip and sliding along the crumbling floor away from where the board room had been.

Red Savina pulls her muzzle back out of the building, leaving a gaping hole. One end of the long conference table protrudes from the side of her mouth; it falls as she bites down, swallowing. Still crouched, she glares inside the building.

Beyond the board room is a typical mid-century office reception area: hallways leading to rooms behind frosted-glass doors. The reception area’s fixtures and furnishings are classically art deco, just like the building. The desk is a big semi-circular affair backed against one wall; the board room--at least, where it had been--is to one side, facing across the reception area to the elevators.

Dozens of employees run in screaming panic, scrambling for stairway exits and elevators, hiding behind desks and walls. The reception desk has already been abandoned; there’s a crowd waiting to get onto the elevators.

Taney catches sight of Harry heading down a staircase. He heads after him.

Chapman gets to his feet and looks around frantically. He’s missed Harry and Taney, and Newcomb is nowhere to be seen.

As if in answer, a bone-rattling growl comes from behind. Savina’s seen him. He screams and dashes around the empty reception desk, diving instinctually just as Savina breathes a jet of fire. The desk bursts into flame.

An ELEVATOR opens, and Chapman scrambles for it, shoving people out of the way.

He manages to get onto the elevator just as the doors close, squeezed on with a dozen other executives.

The elevator’s very modern for the era, with push-button controls, although the interior front doors are visibly the “cage” style.

The elevator starts to go down. Chapman breathes a sigh of relief.

Then it shudders. There’s a huge BANG above, the sound of tearing.

Red Savina has straightened to her full height: she’s head and shoulders over the twenty-story bank building. And she’s reached onto the roof to grab the housing that contains the elevator mechanism, twisting it--then pulling straight up.

Everyone screams as the car speeds up rather than down, the view of the elevator shaft through the cage door a brief blur as metal screeches in protest.

Then the view through the cage becomes Savina and the panorama of the city, far below.

Savina’s holding the elevator mechanism over her head, arm fully extended, the car dangling perilously by its cables.

She opens her mouth. Wide.

The elevator starts “descending” again, its view changing as it passes by the dragon-coyote’s lips and teeth, becoming just a view of her huge, long mouth and the darkness of her throat. Everyone in the car is screaming, except Chapman. He’s gripping the cage bars, staring out with a defeated expression.

As Savina closes her mouth, the cage is enveloped in darkness.

Savina bites through the remaining cables, and swallows the elevator whole, a lump in her throat visible briefly. Then she tosses the mechanism away, backs up, and drops into a crouch over the growing panicked crowd fleeing every which way along the street and sidewalks.

She scans the crowd, sweeping her head back and forth, stalking on all fours along the building’s side. She simply doesn’t care where her paws fall, or what damage her tail does. The collateral damage mounts as she hunts--fruitlessly--for Harry, Newcomb, and Taney.

Harry races through a crowd, literally dragging Colonel Taney along. Savina is inadvertently herding the crowd in their direction as she lumbers around the skyscraper. She hasn’t spotted them. Yet. He pauses, looking around frantically.

The fox leaps down a staircase heading underground. Taney follows.

The crowd here is in just as much of a frenzy. Instead of heading for a train, the fox leads him down another hall.

Sirens blare from all directions at this point: police, fire, ambulance.

Savina looks at the subway station entrance, then brings her head down to it, scattering more of the crowd. She growls, digging her talons into the pavement and ripping it up. Pieces of sidewalk, asphalt, light poles, mailboxes get tossed aside as she breaks into the subway station.

Her hand closes around a train, lifting it right off the tracks, using both hands to keep the cars from falling as she lifts it up to her muzzle, sniffing, searching.

The dragon-coyote snarls.

For a moment it looks like she might be about to eat the train. Instead, she sets it down on the street--rough, but survivable.

Police have arrived on the scene, dozens, opening fire with rifles. Savina whirls toward them, one hand coming down through a small building, the other raised reflexively to protect her from the bullets--not that they have any material effect.

The dragon rises up to her full towering height. Her whirling eyes narrow as the force falls back but keeps firing.

She kicks one bigger-than-a-bus paw through the police, sending officers and cars flying.

Another survey of the crowd and a soft snarl: she still can’t find her quarry. She smashes a hand into the side of the bank building in frustration.

Then something in the distance catches her eye.

She starts striding in that direction--a straight line, not even looking down at the street. Behind her there’s a trail of damage, clouds of rising dust and debris. We hear more sirens, see more police and emergency vehicles, but if there’s resistance she’s literally stepping over it--if not on it.

As buildings and vehicles flatten under her paws, the path of destruction she’s carving is a straight line toward the police station.

There’s a distant view of Savina’s destruction in the background, a panicked crowd in the foreground. the streets are panicked here, too, but less jammed than by the remains of the bank building.

Harry’s on the side of the street with General Taney and a SOLDIER LYNX by a small 4x4 military truck, a Jeep predecessor. The soldier and Harry are securing an infantry-style mortar in the back.

The lynx looks at Taney, who grunts and nods. The soldier hops into the driver’s seat.

He turns to the driver and points ahead.

The lynx nods once and takes off down the street, zigzagging around pedestrians as they head out of the downtown area.

It’s still afternoon, but the sky behind Red Savina is muted, grey from the smoke, the sun shimmering blood red.

A crowd of officers scramble to set up a line of defense. It’s awkward and confused; weapons to take on criminal gangs--or take them over--aren’t suited for taking on monsters. They’re watching an angry goddess marching purposefully toward them.

Officer Wolf is in the crowd, being accosted by a TIGER with SERGEANT bars:

The wolf races into the building. The tiger swallows, looking up at the approaching dragon, and joins a line of several dozen riflemen.

They can hear--feel--her footsteps now, hear the softer roar of debris in her wake. Thump.

We stay tight on them as they open fire. This close, Red Savina’s hips are almost out of sight in the smoke.

Thump!

About a third of the officers lose their nerve and start running for it. The tiger doesn’t. He joins the rest of them, tilting back.

If Savina has any soft targets, though, either they’re not hitting them or she doesn’t care. She raises a paw high...and slams her next step down right on top of them.

THUMP.

Red crouches over the station. More policeman stream out, either firing up at her or running away. She bares her teeth and blasts flame at the ones firing. Then she brings a fist down on the front of the station.

A utilitarian staff room, with large desks in neat lines--and a hole just opened by a giantess’s fist in the front of the room. The staff had already been fleeing, and most don’t stick around to watch the dragon-coyote at work: she starts ripping off the roof, exposing more of it to the sky and her hands.

A TOUGH RAT COP takes pistol shots, both hands wrapped around his weapon, pointed straight up. He’s acting like he’s straight out of “Dirty Harry,” a few decades ahead of schedule.

Savina brings her head down toward him, genuinely quizzical.

The rat empties his remaining shots as fast as he can at her face, continuing to click the trigger on empty chambers as he keeps yelling his battle cry.

She sighs audibly, giving him a finger flick that sends him flying at high speed, then continues ripping up the roof.

A bare holding cell, stone walls and iron bars. Gabrielle sits on a bench attached to one wall, the only piece of furniture--other than a light fixture she’s staring up at, as if grimly envisioning herself swinging from it.

A female RABBIT cop stands on the other side of the bars, facing away, arms crossed.

There’s a dull thump. Then a louder, sharper one. Gabrielle sits up straight, eyes widening. Alarms go off in other parts of the station. We can hear gunfire.

Another BANG, much closer. Screams from somewhere.

Gabrielle stands, backing into a corner. Other police officers run past. The police woman looks panicked.

With a tremendous CRASH, the roof over the jail gets ripped off. Debris rains down. Gabrielle shrieks, covering her head. Officer Rabbit pulls out her gun, backing away quickly.

A hand comes down, talons nearly as long as the vixen, sweeping away the bars and the debris, missing the cop by sheer luck. Then it rests in the open space, palm up.

Gabrielle stares...then walks between the fingers and climbs onto the broad palm pad, eyes still wide.

The rabbit gapes as Red Savina leans down. She draws her gun, pointing it not at the dragon but at the vixen.

The dragon’s tongue flicks out and, given the size difference now, doesn’t curl around the rabbit as much as just scoop her up. She barely starts a shriek before she’s gone.

Gabrielle gasps, but has no more time to react before Savina straightens--and rises to her full height.

The vixen clings to a finger, watching the city come into view as if she were on a fast moving elevator. Her ears fold into her hair; she looks petrified.

She looks down at the police station and its defenders far below. From her vantage point, the world is sized like O-scale model trains. The crowds have thinned out, but there are flashing lights, sirens, the rumbles of heavier vehicles.

Savina lifts her horned head high, speaking in a tight, more emotional voice than usual.

Gabrielle’s ears fold back and she looks up at Savina’s face.

The dragon-coyote tilts her head, voice getting softer.

Her voice hitches, becoming a broken, lost whisper.

Gabrielle swallows, and strokes a hand along one of Savina’s fingers--a finger bigger than her whole body. She’s crying, but keeps her voice level.

The giantess takes a deep breath.

Savina looks at the “little” vixen, seeming to gather her resolve.

Gabrielle manages a small smile, wiping away a tear.

Suddenly there’s the muffled sound of an explosion, followed by Savina jerking back and roaring. Her hand jerks, too, and Gabrielle shrieks as she tumbles along the paw pad, falling--

--and landing in Savina’s other hand, which the dragon’s brought up quickly. She sprawls on her back, panting.

Savina looks down: multiple tanks have gotten close enough to her to open fire. She closes her hand loosely but protectively around her vixen, and roars again, this time in challenge.

The littles get to prove she isn’t invincible; the shells leave scorch marks where they hit, bigger ones leaving welts and gashes. But even tanks aren’t a serious match for the dragon-coyote once she’s focused on them.

She slams a giant paw down on two of them at once, leaving their remains in a crater. Her next step is another stomp, getting another tank and several smaller military vehicles as she crouches down. Then she returns fire.

A torrent of flame jets at the remaining tanks. She’s no longer wasting her time with direct attacks on rifle-toting infantry. They score hits on her, too; as Gabrielle noted, she’s literally a huge target. But they’re not slowing her down, and the wound on her shoulder has already closed.

In short order, she’s stomping past the “front line,” delivering blasts at other tanks without even pausing. She straightens, striding faster as she leaves the main downtown, cutting across a residential area.

She follows the street this time, but parked cars disappear under her paws, along with the occasional porch or streetlight. She’s not stepping on any moving cars, although it’s hard to be sure from ground level if this is purposeful or just dumb luck.

She lifts her still-curled hand toward her face, and uncurls it slightly to look at the panting vixen.

The vixen looks around, then risks looking down. She swallows.

There’s a crunch from below, and Gabrielle looks down.

Gabrielle stares up at her. The dragon-coyote smiles very slightly, and the vixen lets out a weak laugh.

Savina pauses in her stride, focusing on the comparatively tiny vixen, then lowers her muzzle to her hand, lips coming very close to Gabrielle. The vixen’s breath catches.

The giantess pauses again, then slowly touches her lower lip to Bree, as gently as she can, even though the force is still enough to push the vixen back in her hand.

Gabrielle’s ears fold back. The teeth right behind those lips--just ahead of and even over her--are bigger than she is. But her ears come forward again after a moment, and she returns the “kiss” with one of her own to the dragon-coyote’s lower lip.

They hold a moment, and then Savina draws away, eyes swirling faster.

Savina nods, and resumes striding forward toward the hills.

Another building audibly crunches. The vixen doesn’t look down, she just gives the dragon-coyote a reproachful look.

Harry and the lynx soldier driver speed along a road out of town. The neighborhood is becoming residential; ahead of them, the road climbs up into the hills. Harry’s scribbling numbers on a pocket-sized notebook.

Harry twists around, looking behind them at downtown, at the billowing plumes of dust and smoke.

Savina emerges from the other side of downtown, heading in the same direction they’re going. Harry’s ears fold down.

The soldier looks back at Savina, back at the road, back at Savina, and his eyes widen.

They swerve around a slower-moving vehicle.

Savina’s paw comes down right behind a car starting to back out of a mansion’s driveway. She doesn’t even notice as the driver stares up after her.

The road behind her is dotted with spots of mini-disaster: crushed cars, the occasional broken house, flashing lights of emergency vehicles, loose crowds gaping after her.

Harry’s house is visible a half-mile or so up the curving road.

Savina’s eyes narrow and she growls. Gabrielle follows the dragon-coyote’s gaze and sees the military truck, with Harry and the soldier, coming up the road from the other direction.

The giantess thunders into a run.

Her paws utterly destroy anything under them, clouds of gravel, grass, mailboxes, even cars and small trees flying through the air behind her.

The lynx brakes reflexively.

The lynx’s ears pin back, but he obeys.

RED SAVINA and the TRUCK barrel toward one another on the narrow road, the driveway to Harry’s house between them. They reach the intersection almost at the same time.

Savina bares her teeth, raises a paw, and SMASHES it down...just missing the truck. The force of her stomp makes the lynx lose control for a moment, tires screeching as he fights to stay on the road. Savina roars in frustration, then crouches down, quickly lowering the hand with Gabrielle to the side of the now-ruined driveway.

Gabrielle opens her mouth to protest, but Savina straightens up and pounds after her prey.

The truck keeps going onto the grass, bumping to the back of the house and lurching to a halt by the lab. The soldier and Harry scramble out to unload the mortar and shells.

Red Savina keeps coming for them, making a point to furiously stomp through Harry’s house rather than around it.

The two dash for the shed, making it inside just before Savina gets there. She growls, crouching.

The lynx looks out.

He hurries to a lab table, then looks dismayed.

Gabrielle makes her way over the rubble of the driveway outside, staying close to the property’s edge, out of the way of Savina’s huge lashing tail.

Harry and Soldier Lynx appear in the doorway. Harry holds the shell; the soldier quickly steadies the mortar.

Savina LUNGES her head down just as Harry drops the shell into the mortar’s muzzle.

Harry dives backward into the shed in terror. The weapon goes off just as Savina’s open jaws close around the soldier. The lynx shrieks piteously as he gets swallowed...along with the shell. There’s a muffled explosion in her mouth.

Harry looks up, wide-eyed, as Savina makes a choking noise. She takes a deep breath, then narrows her eyes, looking down at him, lunges again--

The giantess stops. Her eyes widen and her huge ears go back.

Harry lets out a breath, getting back to his feet, grinning maniacally as he shuffles out of the shed.

Gabrielle approaches from the side, mouth open, ears back, then raises her voice. Harry’s ears fold back and he desperately shouts over her.

Savina bares her teeth, growling deeply, and raises a hand over Harry, fingers curling into a fist.

Savina growls again, lowers her hand. Harry gets to his feet, walking toward Gabrielle smugly.

He points at Gabrielle.

Red Savina growls again, ears going back. Her fist moves toward Gabrielle.

The vixen dashes past Harry into the laboratory. Savina’s fist moves to follow.

He runs after Gabrielle.

Gabrielle has backed away from the entrance, searching the lab for the counteragent. She spies a barrel against one wall, hurries to it--

She looks up to see her nephew walking slowly in, not toward her, but toward his desk.

Harry grabs something off the desk, whirls, and starts to stalk toward her angrily.

He points outside--not with his finger, but with a long, sharp letter opener he’s carrying.

Gabrielle stays near one of the lab tables, with test tubes, notes, flasks, and vials on it. She tries to keep the table between her and Harry.

He laughs incredulously, waving the letter opener. She circles faster. So does he.

Abruptly he dashes around the table toward her. She grabs a flask and flings it at him, hitting him in the shoulder. He yelps--then charges, growling, slamming into her.

Gabrielle’s eyes widen abruptly and she lets out a pained gasp. Harry steps back, sucking in his breath. The letter opener is jammed--deep--into the vixen’s side.

She staggers, steadying herself on the lab table. Harry backs away.

He turns away, clenching his fists.

Harry hurries out of the lab shed.

Gabrielle tries to focus on the vials on the table. As she slides to the floor behind him, her hand encircles several. They clatter to the floor with her.

The fox comes out, looking up at Red Savina nervously. She looks down with burning hatred.

His ears fold back.

A deep, tortured scream comes from inside the shed. Both Savina and Harry look over in alarm. Savina bares her huge teeth.

The laboratory EXPLODES, glass and furniture flying everywhere. The building can’t contain what’s bursting out of it. Long claws. Giant paws. Enormous wings. A dragon tail.

And, high above, rapidly getting higher, a vixen’s head, swirling green draconic eyes, horns sprouting, scales rapidly forming down her front. She’s panting, still screaming. It’s just as painful-looking as Mirasol’s transformation.

Harry runs backward, falling into the rubble of his own house. Savina backs up, too. Even she’s gaping.

The growth stops. Dragon-Gabrielle pants, sobbing, still on all fours, then staggers to her paws. She’s as tall as Savina. She still has a gash in her side where she’d been stabbed, but it’s not bleeding anymore. It’s already healing.

She looks down at the toy-like neighborhood stretching around her, down the side of the hill toward downtown. She opens her mouth as if to speak, and a flash of flame spurts out; she covers her mouth with both hands, eyes wide.

Harry scrambles to his feet, looking between the two titans in apoplectic shock. Savina remains almost stock still.

Gabrielle’s attention is caught by the little fox. She looks down, then slowly smiles, showing off huge, perfect fangs.

Harry’s ears flat. He backpedals, screaming at a hoarse, high pitch:

Red Savina moves toward Gabrielle, and the dragon-vixen steps away, hands in the air. The dragon-coyote pauses, uncertain.

Gabrielle drops to a crouch, breathing fire onto the remains of the lab. The notebooks and scattered papers go up instantly. Harry screams.

He looks at Red Savina accusingly, and points at Gabrielle.

With a roar, Savina launches herself at Gabrielle. The dragon-vixen barely manages a startled BARK! before she’s bowled over. The giantesses roll down the hillside in a tangle of wings, horns and claws. Their passing flattens a ragged avenue, steamrollering trees and nouveau riche homes.

Harry starts to runs after them, just a few yards, wails, then dashes back for the truck.

Red Savina brings the two giantesses to a stop by slamming her hand down through a townhouse. It’s on the intact side of a street; the other side has Gabrielle lying on top of it, wheezing. Crowds are fleeing the area.

The dragon-coyote gets a hand around Gabrielle’s throat and starts choking her. Gabrielle gasps, flames sputtering around her jaws. One of her hands scrabbles as if for a rock, and comes up with a delivery truck. She smacks it into the side of Red Savina’s head. She flinches just enough to lose her grip, and Gabrielle pushes her off.

They roll through what had been the intact side of the street. Red Savina roars angrily, wings extending, taking out more buildings as they do so.

The coyote brings her arms up and Gabrielle tries to force them back down to her sides. As she does so, she looks around at the destruction they’ve just caused, ears going back. She catches sight of a mouse woman on a balcony a block away, gaping at them.

Savina takes advantage of the other giantess’s distraction to throw her off, tossing her to the side. Gabrielle slides through another row of buildings, groaning.

We see the two giantesses fighting: Red Savina throwing Gabrielle off her and to the side, then staggering to her feet before dropping back down onto the dragon-vixen knee-first.

Colonel Taney lowers the binoculars. He has a megaphone in his other hand. The badger stands with a few other soldiers on a street corner, tanks behind them. Commissioner Newcomb stands by him, looking haggard.

Newcomb shrugs helplessly.

Dragon-Gabrielle gets to her paws again in the distance, moving backward--toward downtown. Savina advances on her.

Closer to the scene, a military truck careens down the road, honking frantically, slamming on its brakes dangerously to avoid soldiers.

He stops, narrowing his eyes at the truck as it lurches to a stop. Newcomb turns, too, as Harry runs up, winded as if he’d run all the way.

The fox puts his hands on his hips, looking apoplectic.

Gabrielle crouches in the middle of rubble, not even a block from taller buildings in downtown. She’s looking scuffed, dirty, weary, tears staining her muzzle.

The dragon-coyote pauses, eyes whirling.

Red Savina furrows her brow, looking sad, then determined. She clenches her fists, seeming to strain against invisible bonds. Gabrielle’s huge ears perk, her expression hopeful...

Then Savina ROARS and charges the dragon-vixen.

Gabrielle pivots this time, even though it puts a huge paw through a “small” five-story building. Savina smashes through a building twice that size--still not up to her hips--as she comes to a stop, turning back to the dragon-vixen with a snarl.

As they face off, tanks roll along the streets between the giants and Taney, Newcomb, and Harry. Other than those three, no one but uniformed soldiers and police officers remain visible on the street.

Savina and Gabrielle circle, moving closer to the tanks. The coyote swipes; the vixen dodges. Parked cars, streetlights, even small buildings disappear under huge brown- and black-furred paws.

Gabrielle steps back over a small building, moving to place a taller skyscraper between herself and Savina...

...and the tanks OPEN FIRE on her.

The dragon-vixen whirls in surprise. Shells explode against her front, leaving scorch marks, but others cause visible damage: little bloody explosions in her fur, tiny holes ripped in her wings. Even if they’re less bullet than BB to her, they add up.

Before she can take defensive action, Savina SMASHES into the building between them, bringing it down on the vixen. It’s not as tall as she is, but she still staggers, wings extending for balance. The tank line falls into disarray, but some keep firing--mostly still at Gabrielle.

Gabrielle starts to turn, but she’s still off-balance, and Savina moves to grab her--and lifts her up, back arching as she manages to get the dragon-vixen over her head. Gabrielle kicks frantically.

Red Savina SLAMS Gabrielle down all hundred-yards-plus to the ground on her back. The dragon-vixen takes out several tanks and smaller buildings as she lands, but she doesn’t notice. Her eyes are wide with abrupt, shocked pain.

Then Savina steps forward and STOMPS on her. Gabrielle bucks in place and roars, her wings and tail taking out some of the buildings that the rest of her hadn’t.

The dragon-coyote is visibly shaken, but she STOMPS again. Gabrielle can’t get the breath to scream this time.

Red Savina closes her eyes, steeling herself, and STOMPS a third time. The sound this time is ugly. Cracking. Wet.

Gabrielle chokes, then goes limp.

The firing from the tanks trails off.

Savina opens her eyes again, staring down, breathing harder. She begins shaking violently.

Taney growls, but hands Harry the megaphone. The fox hurries forward, waving his free hand at Savina and shouting through the megaphone.

She ignores him, still looking at Gabrielle. The dragon-vixen’s small wounds from the tanks have healed, but after the stomping, she’s motionless.

The dragon-coyote lifts her head and lets out a low, keening howl, rising in pitch. Windows in skyscrapers around the city SHATTER, a cascading, discordant chorus.

As the howl draws to a close, Harry screams desperately:

The giantess slowly turns her head, focusing on him, voice a hoarse whisper, heavy, rage sublimated into sadness.

Newcomb and Taney glance at each other.

Harry, walking back toward them, takes a deep breath and raises the megaphone again.

The dragon-coyote whispers.

Harry swallows, ears skewing. Then Newcomb nods, and Taney nods in return, signaling to one of the soldiers: Go.

Gabrielle continues to lie still as tanks roll past her form. Red Savina watches the tanks impassively as their turrets swivel.

They open fire.

Savina barely reacts, but the shells do damage, just like they had to Gabrielle. Holes in her wings. Spots of blood across her fur. Scorch marks on the scales.

The tanks fire again. From ground level, the noise is furious, a thundering, repeating barrage. The dragon-coyote winces, but continues to stand and take it.

One of Gabrielle’s ears twitches slightly.

Harry, Taney, and Newcomb watch the fusillade against the dragon-coyote. Taney’s arms are crossed, his expression grimly satisfied; Newcomb looks wary, watching the “show” wide-eyed. Harry watches with a brooding expression.

Explosions continue to blossom around Savina’s body. Her stoic expression has become a grimace. She’s breathing harder, rocking, staggering.

She falls to her knees with a BOOM.

Gabrielle cracks open an eye, then takes a shallow, rattling breath. She rolls onto her side, gasping in pain, one hand coming down in the ruins of a building to steady herself.

Gabrielle’s movement catches the attention of Newcomb, who points, drawing Harry and Taney’s attention to the dragon-vixen.

Taney strides toward a group of soldiers to give new orders.

Gabrielle pushes herself up into a kneeling position and closes her eyes, wincing, breathing very shallowly. Shell explosions start to blossom along her front and arms and wings just like they had with Red Savina.

Behind her, the dragon-coyote looks severely damaged now. She’s spotted with ash, sporting bloody gashes and holes and rips in her wings. One of her horns is broken.

Red Savina’s gaze snaps down to the dragon-vixen, and she trembles. She reaches out and rests a hand on Gabrielle’s shoulder. Gabrielle opens her eyes.

The three principals, along with their soldier entourage, are backing. Harry’s looking around as if trying to find safer ground.

Gabrielle turns, looking up at Savina. She uses a wing to shield herself from the tank shelling; this starts ripping up that wing, but reduces the hits on her body.

Red Savina’s voice is raspy, labored from pain:

Red Savina smiles. Gabrielle smiles, too.

Then Savina topples forward. It’s less like a tree falling than a mountain collapsing. Gabrielle gasps, shuffling toward the dragon-coyote on her knees, rolling her onto her back.

Red Savina looks up blankly, shuddering.

The shelling continues, and a hit on her shoulder earns a loud hiss from Gabrielle. The vixen turns toward the line of tanks and ROARS.

Another shell hits Savina’s side, and the dragon-coyote makes a small, sad moan, eyes flickering. Gabrielle looks at her in alarm, whirls back to the army with a venomous, feral glare...

...then LEAPS OVER the tanks, stomping on two as she gets behind the line. Their biggest threat is suddenly behind them.

Gabrielle sweeps a hand through the line to her left, the “rake” of her taloned fingers upending tanks like toys, while breathing fire to her right. Her prehensile tail smashes down amidst troops and police officers, sweeping them away like ants.

That tail comes close enough to earn a shrill scream from both Harry and Newcomb, and a duck from Taney.

In the background, Gabrielle sweeps her talons through the remaining tanks, ducking her head down to pick one up in her jaws and biting through it like it was papier-mâché.

Gabrielle rears up, still in a crouch, and extends her wings fully. They’re ragged and torn from the shelling, but when she sweeps them powerfully forward, it’s still enough for a burst of gale force wind. Soldiers and even lighter vehicles tumble along the roads--

--as do Harry and Taney. Newcomb drops flat to the sidewalk, staying more or less in place. Harry manages to grip a light pole, but Taney tumbles out of sight.

In the background, Gabrielle rises up to her full, incredible height. Then steps forward.

Newcomb sits up, panting, checking himself for wounds rapidly. He’s okay. He takes a ragged breath, then stares up. His ears fold back.

Gabrielle looks down at him, long enough for their eyes to meet. Her expression is beyond angry. Then her paw fills his field of vision.

Harry sees her paw cover Newcomb, go flat to the ground. He cries out.

The dragon-vixen pauses for just a moment, then crouches, growling, as she reaches a hand toward Harry.

He makes a break for it, which works as well as you’d expect. She picks the “little” fox up between thumb and forefinger, lifting him toward her muzzle as she straightens back up to her full height.

Harry whimpers.

She snarls, huge teeth bared, and he shrieks, clinging more tightly to one finger.

Gabrielle throws Harry straight up in the air, tilting her head back. He screams, pinwheeling his arms, and starts to fall back toward her.

And she breathes fire.

It’s a short blast, but it sets Harry ablaze. We follow his still screaming, burning form as it falls down into her mouth, disappearing with a swallow.

Gabrielle closes her eyes a moment, then scrambles back to Savina’s side.

What’s left of the army is in disarray. There are still some troops on the ground, but a few tanks nearby. Gabrielle glares down at them, and they travel in the opposite direction as fast as they can.

Savina’s eyes are open, but she’s very still, breathing shallowly. Gabrielle looks back and forth over the dragon-coyote’s body: she’s still bleeding from wounds, holes are still in her wings. Her broken horn remains broken.

Gabrielle leans over her, looking panicked.

Savina’s swirling eyes focus on her and she smiles, speaking in a hoarse whisper.

Gabrielle smiles down, but her voice trembles.

The vixen leans down to kiss the coyote lightly, then draws back. Savina smiles...and the swirling light in her eyes fades.

Gabrielle’s eyes widen. She shakes Red Savina’s shoulders, getting no response. Unable to fight back a sob, she collapses over Savina’s chest.

No building for two blocks in any direction is intact; ones that weren’t damaged by the giants have taken damage from stray shells. Dozens of buildings lie under Savina, either her body or her wings, stretched out over the ground. Other than Gabrielle’s sobbing, the landscape is, at least for this moment, as quiet as the desert.

Gabrielle lifts her head, swirling eyes growing wide as she recalls the words she found in the arcane library, the ones that revealed Mirasol’s secret to her. In a hoarse whisper:

She looks down at Savina’s motionless form and swallows.

She hesitates, presses her lips to Savina’s...

...then breathes fire into her mouth.

She pulls back. Nothing. She does it again, tilting her head and locking muzzles firmly, making it a deep kiss. Flames visibly lick out around their lips. Gabrielle doesn’t stop, holding it, filling Savina’s lungs.

Red Savina’s body bucks, sending a quake through the city.

Gabrielle jerks back, eyes wide, mouth open.

The dragon-coyote takes a shallow, ragged breath, and the golden color in her eyes swirls back to brightness. She stares up at Gabrielle, then pulls the dragon-vixen down against her in an embrace. Gabrielle sobs again, this time with incredulous relief, wrapping her arms around Red Savina.

When the kiss ends, Gabrielle sits up, and helps Savina to sit up as well. In the air there’s a faint drone, approaching propeller planes.

Gabrielle stands up, holding out a hand.

Savina smiles, taking her hand, and stands, too. The vixen touches the coyote’s broken horn; it’s visibly healing.

The sound of the planes grows louder. The two dragons tilt their heads up toward the sky. Dozens of planes, mostly biplanes, approach from two different directions.

The dragon-coyote nods somberly.

They both grin, huge fangs showing. Moving almost as one, they crouch, extending their huge wings, and leap into the air.

As the two giants soar upward, we see the land underneath them: what’s intact, what isn’t, what’s on fire, where giant fox and coyote paw prints are.

The planes break formation and engage, sparrows attacking condors. The two dragons engage, too, strafing with fire. We follow a plane making a run at Red Savina--who twists around and flies straight for it, jaws opening wide to engulf the biplane and the whole of the screen in a rush.