Smoke in the Mountains

One

I stare down at the empty quarter mile tack from the top of the bleachers. It's been a while since I came into town, so since there was a race tonight, I decided I should go see it. I shouldn't stay for too much longer, though. The Survey Corps is always after me, and now that I've showed my face in public again, they'll be on my tail pretty quickly.

Tonight was fun, but the excitement is only beginning. The sound of a helicopter overhead supports my claim. It has the "Wings of Freedom" on it. Freedom my ass, all they want to do is capture me and lock me up in a cage. That doesn't sound like freedom to me. They've already found me, and I've only been out in the open for about seven hours tops.

The helicopter — which I notice is a Black hawk — touches down in the grass at the center of the track and six people file out, and since they've been chasing me since I was thirteen, I'm able to recognize most of their names and faces. Erwin Smith, Hanji Zoe, Farlan Church, Isabel Magnolia, and Petra Ral are the faces I recognize.

The six person is a short man just taller than Petra with steel grey eyes and raven hair styled in an undercut. His face shows virtually no emotion as he starts walking towards the bleachers, ignoring the inaudible from this distance protests from Isabel, Petra, and Erwin. He has an air of confidence about him that makes me believe that either his skill level is far above that of the others or he's just plain stupid.

I stand and stare at the agents, knowing that they would have me cornered if I didn't have the very reason they were after me. Luckily, the imbeciles don't know the full extent of my powers because I've been able to evade being captured by them without using my enhanced abilities until now. I can already feel delicate leathery wings trying to form on my back and scales trying to sprout from underneath my skin. My body knows that it's going to have to morph soon, and it knows exactly which creature it's going to have to morph into in order for me to have the greatest chance of escaping my enemy's grasp.

They spread out a bit as they come towards me, triumph visible in their eyes. They honestly think they have me cornered. Laughing on the inside, I make fear and defeat as visible on my face as I can, hoping that they don't see through my acting. I know exactly what I have to do to escape, but I want them to be as surprised as possible when I do.

The confidence in Erwin's eyes grows as he sees my face. He aims his tranquilizer at me as he and his team continue to climb the bleachers. I know that he won't shoot at me until he gets closer, though, and even when he does, I have the reflexes of a vampire - I could swat the dart away before anyone even had the chance to blink.

"Be careful, Big Bro." Isabel says to the raven haired man who I don't recognize. "She's more dangerous than you think."

Yeah, no kidding. I could turn into a massive freaking dragon right now and roast your butts to ashes if I felt like it. I think to myself, seriously fighting the urge to laugh out loud.

"Big Bro" seemingly ignores Isabel's words of warning as the team continues to advance towards me. 

They stop about fifteen feet from me and Erwin says in a serious tone, "Surrender now and nobody gets hurt."

This is when I lose control.

It starts with my face of false terror turning mischievous, and I find myself producing a sound halfway between a growl and a low laugh. My body knows exactly what it's doing as my standing in a fearful stance turns into a powerful back-flip landing on top of the corner of the chain-link fence behind me.

"If this turns ugly, the only person to come out of it unscathed would be me. But luckily for you, I don't feel like fighting with normal human beings today." And with that, I fling myself off of the fence, morphing into a barn owl as soon as I'm out of their sight.

I fly silently to the other end of the bleachers before escaping into the night. It was a close call tonight, but at least they didn't see how fast I'm able to change my shape. When I first discovered I can shapeshift back when I was in eighth grade and thirteen years old, it took me about ten seconds to fully transform but after all these years of training and running from people who want to lock me up in some lab somewhere, I've found that I can transform almost instantly now.

I hear someone - probably Erwin - cursing as they discover that they have no idea where I went, so I decide to have a little bit of fun with them for once. I morph into my favorite species of dragon - the sand wraith. It's a dragon from the How to Train Your Dragon video game I played when I was still thought to be a normal person. The game was called School of Dragons, and I have no idea if it even still exists. Disney shut down one of my old favorite games because they needed more staff for a new one that had just come out, so I'm not sure if SoD is still up and running.

I roar down at them as I fly over their heads and they start running towards the chopper as soon as they get over the initial shock of seeing me above them in the form of a dragon.