How wrong the 'wise men' were about that. When Summoner reached into the aether and grasped a soul, she knew it would be the beginning of an addiction she would never want to break. The sense of power, dominance over another creature - even a very powerful physical one - was something that she treasured, and still does. One of the first things she learned was to locate the weak points of a person or being, and exploit them.

But these are not the only things that Summoner knows how to do. Manipulating energies around her, she can resist the damage brought on by fire, heat, energy or light attacks - handy when dealing with demons who spit fire or are made of light. Absorbing that energy, she can use it later for her own purposes.

Now, that's not saying that Summoner has the world in her hand. She's got some problems too. You think? Yes.

***

Spell work. Spell, WORK. Damn!! Summoner's thoughts were clear in the air, as her body slumped to the ground once again. Her spirit looked over the scene, and she knew that right about now would be a good time to get out of Dodge. There were three mages, good spell casters, not like ones from her world, coming across the field and straight to her. They could see her shadow form, doubtless. So now, yes, would be about the time to just escape.

The body would be there, to be burnt. She couldn't prevent that, now. She'd find another. But where? She vanished into the dead-world, watching the static filled area with distrust. She'd been here several times before, when her body had been killed. Every now and again there would be bits and pieces of something coherent in the static, like the fender of a car, a lamp post, or even another person. This time there were no people, but there was an oddly bright glow nearby.

Summoner headed to it, and let herself into the body unannounced.

Causing Scintilla to briefly lose control over it too. A bit of a scuffle - terror ran through Summoner. What was this body in the middle of doing?!

Apparently it was having sex with a little balding man - one who was so oblivious to his woman's needs that he had his eyes closed and was making those stupid sounds. Summoner's first instinct was to lash out - the last time she'd had a man on top of her was --

Stop that! You'll kill him and you will have to deal with me next! Scintilla announced, and they briefly wrestled for control of the body which Snowbird originally owned. It didn't take long for Summoner to understand this dilemma - so she retreated quickly into a dark area of the body which even Snowbird didn't know about yet.

***

Much later, when things were back under control, she was introduced to the pair properly. Explained the situation of their home life, and Summoner was less than pleased. So you just sit there, letting him do-

"You are completely missing the point," Scintilla said, flipping channels on the huge screen tv. "He's our bread and butter until I know our passwords and account numbers. And I'd care to remind you that you are the only one frightened of being intimate with men. Sarah and I find it rather fun. Don't we darling?"

What? Yeah, I guess, but she's been raped before, and you probably haven't. Summoner took in a mental gasp - she hadn't told Snowbird that! No one knew that! You're the one doing the dirty work, Scintilla. What you do to them is the same thing they've done to her. Only you use your powers to do it.

Scintilla paused a bit, and vaguely came to that conclusion. But instead of being reviled by it, she turned a small grin onto her lips, and continued looking at the television.

She's fiercely disgusting, Summoner said. Snowbird shrugged, but agreed.

Over time, as the others began to filter in, Summoner began her work on the outside world. The second bedroom (of five, this single man had a five bedroom mansion to himself? What an ego...) served nicely as a summoning place, filled with candles and sand and the things she needed to draw spirits and energy across space and time.

The first thing she summoned was a smallish butterfly-winged imp. "Go follow the little man who lives here, invisibly, don't make contact. Then come to me and inform me of his status among his business partners." The little imp fluttered away, as the car drove down the winding street to the main city strips. Soon enouch, he came back with the information that Summoner needed.

Three days later, when Scarlett arrived, Summoner was rather put off that she now had to share this time even further - "you people did realize that casting summoning spells takes time, right? I can't just whip my hand around and have a servant appear..."

But Scarlett was disturbed by the idea that Summoner was about to grab something that would kill their little man - she had something against it.

"It's a practical matter," Summoner said, "ask Scintilla to tell you about it. We're already half way there." Indeed, the last few tiny demons were being summoned to check the web of information surrounding the man. Joseph would be well remembered - IF his family resisted the demons' spells. His friends shortly forgot his birthday, the bank teller neglected to know him. But these things were nothing.

As Serpentine and Splash entered the scene, Summoner had almost finished the cancellation of Joseph's life. He was no one. Nothing. He still had all the confidence and supposed suavity of a man in his position, but Summoner was ruining his web a piece at a time, and by the time he was dead he would be completely forgotten.

So when Sabre arrived, Summoner and she had a good long talk about it. "Him? He will be easy to kill. Look at him. He is soft around all his edges. He has no weapons. How could he survive me?" She commented as she watched him drive away.

It was only the next morning, when Summoner insisted the job be done. Summoner had completed the last of the demonic castings - letting all of the information that Scintilla had gathered on the computer turn to a new name. A new face (or actually, set of faces) on an identification card. Police records were gone. Bank tellers knew nothing. Friends? If he had them, they were the weakest of all. His family was distant - also rich, but very distant in mind and body. They were easy too. It was far harder to erase the old old tinge of Joseph from his nanny than from his mother, and Summoner thought that itself was rather sad.

But it left no one - not one person - to remember him. Newspapers would not be contacted. No disappearance would be reported.

And then the damn dragons came. Well, they were interesting, they were very cool. They searched Sabre and Snowbird, first - making Summoner wonder about their home eggs...

***

Summoner watched from the inside as the girls played alternately with their dragons. They needed exersize and comfort, food and pleasure, just like everyone.

Eventually Summoner wished for her own dragon. While she was in the body she did a little research and finally asked Snowbird and Kenzepten to take her somewhere. The dragons, Summoner said, needed to get out a little and head off somewhere they hadn't been before.

"To Lantessama," Summoner said, with a private grin. "They have an interesting clutch there, of Shadow dragons." She felt Saber perk up, and Scarlet cringe.

But they went anyway - what appeared to be one girl, a frail thing with tie-dyed clothing upon a silvery dragon from Azon, and four dragons (not easily taken, since one was aquatic!) - and arrived soon enough at the beautiful lush isle. Summoner applied her wiles to the locals, and got onto the sands. It wasn't all that hard, anyway. She did have to explain that no, in fact she didn't need to know about how to care for dragons, she'd been watching and sensing how it was done all this time with vastly different dragons already.

"But these are.... a little harder to manage," she was told by the local man. He did seem to know what he was talking about - but they couldn't really tell her not to allow the others out to help their own dragons in the meantime.

Summoner put herself to work studying up on the behaviors and ways of Shadow dragons, and discovered they came in three different types. She hoped dearly that the one she'd get was a powerful earth-bound type. They didn't have one of those, she reasoned. They had an aquatic one, and a semi-aquatic hydra. Summoner didn't really feel like flying on the back of a dragon, much - it was more impressive she thought to arrive on something huge and heavy instead...

So she hoped, and she worked, and waited...

The wait wasn't so long that Summoner worried about the others. The dragons entertained themselves with the local population, while Summoner's mind remained dominant in the body. She gave them each an hour a day, that safely prevented the attitude of 'we don't get to see our dragons at all!' from being a problem.

They all knew that once she bonded, she'd have to be in the body longer. A growing dragonet, freshly hatched, would pose a bigger effort than their adult ones. They got their fun in while they could, even Scintilla. The hydragon she paired with was going to be a hassle, but perhaps Summoner could work something out.

Especially after the eggs began to hatch! Summoner led the group into the hatching grounds. The small group of candidates - most of them with S-names themselves (like Shadow and the like) - watched as egg after egg broke up. One half-insubstantial candidate bonded the first winged Shadow dragon, and then a puff of black smoke signified the bonding to another of the candidates from that second egg.

The third paired up with that one's sibling, and they too vanished. Then there were three eggs, smunched together energetically until their contents spilled out. A twine of black dragonets argued and fought, until one pulled away. That one was weak, small, not worthy of the huge queenly one's space. He fled into the arms of his own bond. The queenly Land dragonet strode up to the two remaining candidates. It was clear that she wanted to take her time and decide between Summoner and the vampire beside her. But in the end, it was to Summoner that the biggest of the clutch came.

"I shall be known as Fahz'ien." The queen said, and proudly fluffed herself up. She would be large, indeed, and Summoner knew that she intended to help keep this body for her own bond...

"Almost done," Summoner muttered, as the voices in the back of her mind competed for their turn. Fahz'ien snarled openly at them - though she could not see them of course, she felt everything quite clearly.

"You may take your turn when my One is done with hers," Fahz'ien reminded the rest.

We've been waiting!

That's what you said last time!

It doesn't matter, said Snowbird with an odd tone, sometime soon I'll have to come back to it, I can feel it.

"Feel what?" Summoner said, angry. "That it's time for most of you to simply die off?" It wasn't like her, at least, not to say things like that to them. But she had, it slipped from her lips easily. But there was something wrong - and she could feel it just as much as Snowbird could.

The body would take her back, sublimate her mind again, and allow its original owner to control it for a while. She had to be there every once in a while to 'reset' it, apparently.

None of them were happy about that, least of all Summoner. She was so close to discovering a way out of this wretched situation, something that would allow her to gain permanent control...

It's okay, I think there's a way to get around it, Snowbird announced. Let me out, and I'll work on it some. It's not the same way as you think we should take, girls. It's all right. I won't have you all killed.

"Faugh," Summoner said, but she did eventually return the body to its owner. Feeling the shifting changes, making the body smaller and skinnier, less muscular as well as less busty... It was horrible. But it was hers to begin with, this drug-addled girl's. Summoner and the others would wait... they had to.

"I do not like you," said Fahz'ien to the newly reborn woman standing before her.

"Well Kenzepten doesn't much care for you either, so we're mostly even. Come on, all of you," she said to the host of dragons that were now collected by the group of personalities. "We're going to Vella Crean. There's a guy we need to talk to."