MALL CRAWLERS
Added Bonus Feature, act now and you can get a full sports and music Arena constructed at your local mall!
Even though this post-apocalyptic setting might call an Arena 'that place where people get captured and have to fight their way free', this is not in fact one of those types of venues. Thankfully! With the addition of plentiful dragons, and the presence of offworld influences, the Mall has finally gotten a bit of a makeover. With Cabbie and Gusher and several others with some amount of civil engineering in their heads to guide them, a team of builders and construction workers descended upon the Mall. Making sure that the area had full safe drinking water and sewer lines (though where those ran off ... well, just don't go poking around downstream right?) a secure roof space for the smaller of the dragons to regularly roost, and a much wider and stronger wall surrounding the massive parking lot that the Mall had.
While the scientific outpost nearby had all but given up on watching the place once the dragons started coming by to ruin their day, others with interest in seeing them - capturing them, or just asking questions - began arriving. The outpost was taken over by the Mall in a swift and secure way, and it was... less than encouraging to see what had really been going on in there. Yes, the Creepies had been abandoned children - captured and experimented upon, altered, with items grafted to their bodies, or electronics stuffed into their skulls. Their own Creepie, the dragon rider, collected those who he deemed 'safe' or 'healthy enough', and took them to a more remote section of the outer parking lot, where they would rehabilitate eventually. The outpost though, now emptied of vile mad science, was good for more healthy research and actual hospital care for those who needed it. Far from the tiny first-aid nook tucked away behind the information kiosk at the entry to the Mall, this was a place that had surgical rooms, research labs, supplies that would last for years.
It was where quite a few of the newer generation of Mall inhabitants were born; it was such a change from its original intent.
As some of those younger Mall Crawlers were born, and the dragons expanded their territory, it was decided to open the Mall 'for business' once more. Textiles could be made, goods traded, directions given, asylum granted. But with the influx of other people and trade routes, also came the need to entertain them. Sure, they had a small theater, but what they wanted was bigger, live programs, sports, things that the old world made out to be the amazing fun center of attention for decades.
Cabbie's group drew up plans based on old fliers and watching sports videos: they wouldn't need a very big place, enough for a running track and indoor soccer perhaps. That would be big enough for baseball and football as well, if there was enough interest. There was also need for head room for dragons to fly around, so a domed oblong venue was planned out. It had large openings that could be manually sealed up during bad weather, ones which dragons could easily pop through (some of them openly flying with wings at full span) at the sides of the roof, while there were also large arched entrances on the other walls for humans and grounded dragons. It was all fitted with its own power supply - no more reliance on the enemy for power or water, that was going to become too dangerous.
They had to fend off two airborn attacks in the time it took to fully construct the Arena, two decisive victories on their part. While the jets could fly fast, and had dangerous weapons, they had to rely on dropping bombs - which the dragons literally flew up to intercept. In some cases, telekinetically throwing right back at them. Some of the dragons did get hit by bullets, but were tended and made full recoveries. The inhabitants of the Mall had become a fierce community.
When Call visited them - long after her first trip, yet she didn't look a year older - her own fight had worn on her but proven fruitful. All across the world there were such communities. And she reasoned as long as they still existed, there was still hope. What was life without fun and entertainment? It wasn't all fighting, it wasn't all dreary. She'd been able to focus the Fighter's attention on herself, rather than others, which was letting those old wounds that the society at large had start to heal. It would still be quite some time before the Fighter fell, but he would, surely.
And in the mean time, this Mall with its new Arena was home to new dragons, new riders, and plenty of attention.
**
The dragons seemed to almost materialize with the opening of the Arena. And they were so appropriate: black and white, glittering and glowing. Commencement would make the best announcer, being more outgoing but also able to keep track of who knows how many weird things at once (including her brother). Sagalath took up the role of 'stage ninja' though he's also quite outgoing to the other dragons and their bonded humans he hesitates around big groups of unbonded anyone. He likes his arrangement with his sister just fine. They're a team! He tends to remain nearer the central ground area, while Coms has a roost and series of catwalks (imagine the engineering? this 'cat' is twelve feet tall!) leading to a hub directly above the action. She can keep track of the various sports events during a big meet, do stage checks for any dangers, and sends Saga in to make sure that anything in the way is cleared.
Dragon Information
Name: Commencement Auradance "Coms"
Gender: Female
Size/Shoulder/Length: medium 12' shoulder, 130' long, 70' and 55' ws (which by all rights should be enough to fly with but the sails are small)
Colors: base fur white, accent color (wingsails, mane base) black, glittery rainbow opal stripes and mane coloration; gold eyes and claws
Features: Prismbeast Hydra, as shown, with plenty of floof, flightless wings, split tail, and multiple heads; two pairs of wings one much smaller than the other, four legs with three clawed digits and yes that's a very, very long tail
Powers: (in order of strength) 6 Telepathy, a broad and strong mind that has a built-in echo very similar to that which you'd get at an open air stadium with multiple speakers; she can sense and speak with any mind within about 2 miles, preferring to not pry and instead merely offer announcements and commentary if spoken to
Convert Sound to Light, any little thing might cause a distraction, so her concentrated efforts are able to keep those distractions to a minimum, having learned from her brother that 'black light is still light'. While she can easily take an assortment of sounds and cause a brilliant display of fireworks (which she does at the end of most shows) mostly she keeps noises muffled by turning them to a violet-indigo wavelength that only a few humans can detect
Invisibility, you know, sometimes humans and even other dragons are a bit put off by her multiple heads. You can't fear what you can't see, right? (... Um. Coms, no that's not how that works); she is very, very talented at this however, and can be in bold daylight in front of troops and they will not see her with their eyes, nor any of their heat-detection equipment, she's that good at it combined with her other powers
4 Light Manipulation, see above. She's an expert on all things in wavelengths that both can and cannot be detected and is careful to make sure that sensitive eyes like those of the Creepies aren't damaged by bright lights when they're making a rare appearance anywhere
3 Illusion Magic, works poorly on this world but still is present close range, and with it she can certainly create the sense of having only one head, or that the Arena has an open skylight to see outside, those sparkling stars are just her power
2 Create Auras, she doesn't concentrate much on this, because reasons. That reason is her brother! She can definitely cause her brilliant markings to sparkle and glimmer even without being directly under lights to reflect
1 Teleport, Shapeshift though present, neither of these powers are things she relies upon; she can teleport short distances only, under 1 mile, and only where she can see
Parentage: Tandem and Sinoro Auradance
Origin: DerivativeWorks drawn by Phe
Other Info: Though not formally bonded she is sure that Saga will do just fine without a 'rider', and at least one of her heads at any given time can claim to be giving him any of the attention normally dedicated by such a rider. Cannot fly, and doesn't bother with the weaksauce shifting she has - she'd also then have to learn how to flap? Nah!
Name: Sagalath Auradance
Gender: Male
Size/Shoulder/Length: medium-large 14' s, 70' l, 90' ws
Colors: body black as night, with glitz oil stripes, reversed wingsails with solid stripes on glitz oil, glitz oil fur, grey pawpads, grey claws, yellow-green eyes
Features: Iulerbrilan Prismbeast mutt, largely bipedal with shorter front legs, and though wings are smaller than typical can still fly unlike sire; floof on spine, over shoulders, and behind legs, with large tail tuft; external puffed ears, paw pads, aura
Powers: 6 Light Manipulation, virtually any wavelength of light is Saga's to control, and he uses them with an adept eye in the Arena for spotlights, mood, and the like; the size of the Arena is about the same volume as he can fully extend this power, though at the edges (and therefore up in the nosebleed seats) (they don't really have nosebleed height seats but the far sides of the oval shaped dome) it does seem quite a bit weaker than nearby
5 Telepathy, very good with mental speech and connects easily with any other telepath, mostly the dragons; he is faintly leery of connecting to humans nearby, he isn't sure whether one of them might suddenly up and bond with him, and though he's not necessarily afraid to do so, he leaves most of the talking to Coms
Convert Sound to Light, more accurately turn noises into shadow, as any stage ninja needs to be quiet and unseen! He doesn't take center stage except if there's a mic check involved, and even if he's quite the large boy people go along with the illusion that the stage is empty and those props are moving all by themselves
Color Affinity, everything he does is tinged with a darkness, but not a moody-broody emo darkness. It's more the sudden lack of light when the stage show is about to start, that moment of anticipation as the theater dims and everyone settles in; also he glitters so there's always a slight amount of oil-reflective static around things he does
4 Aura Creation, if he needs to grab something from the stage even while others are performing, or clear an area of thrown or strewn junk before the racers come running past, he can douse that item in a darkness that only he can really see properly, almost like highlighting an item in a video game, on his particularly dark wavelength
2 Telekinetics, able to move smaller items (well, '50 gallon drum' sized items are 'small' to him) without touching them, he can't do this for lengthy lifting or very heavy items, but it definitely helps if he needs to fly or move a lot of smaller things out of the way quickly with a burst of energy rather than a race around the stage
Genrehop this dragon knows where he is, in relation to other worlds - those other dragons, their locations of birth are all so disparate! He can reach one or more of them but only with some help and with a lot of exhaustion afterwards
Winged Flight, though he can fly for short periods, he tends to reserve it for crossing the Arena and picking up things manually rather than any extended flying. Like his sire he has wings that are somehow stunted and don't have as much lift as typical for even their width, but he can at least lift off with flapping, maneuver around, and get from point a to point b without hitting things
1 Unassisted Firebreath, he is part of the siblings that can produce flame without needing any chemical catalyst, but the extent of his is a strange darkly tinted and quite cool flame that doesn't extend more than 10 or 15 feet from his mouth. Enough to catch things that can burn at very low temperatures, but not really more than that; he can however light the actual outdoors fireworks if needed...
Teleport, though he becomes exhausted with more than two jaunts, he can move up to 10 miles confidently and can carry quite a lot on his strong back or in his arms on the way back, often doing this for stranded travelers needing to gas up or not quite making it to the Mall on the roads nearby
Parentage: Amaryllisith and Sinoro Auradance
Origin: Rainbow Glitz 2023 by Shard hatched technically at Spectral Wilds
Other Info: Though taking after a bonding-type thanks to Amaryllisith's line, Sagalath has chosen to come home with his half-sister Coms and not take a humanoid partner