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"Oi, Cog!" Baram called across the locker room as the black-scaled dragon pushed through the door.

Cogaran glanced up as he finished his text, stuffing his phone into the pocket of his slacks. A crooked grin crossed his face as he saw the blue tyrannosaur who had greeted him. He made his way through the rows of tan metal lockers and plain wooden benches that were arrayed throughout the room towards his friend.

"Just got off, Barry?" he asked, clapping the T-rex across his broad shoulders.

Baram nodded as he did the final button on his polo, reaching up to flip the collar. Cogaran fought the urge to roll his eyes; his pal's prep-douche aesthetic had always irked him for some reason he couldn't quite put his finger on. All the same, the rex certainly filled out the shirt quite well. Cogaran, meanwhile, tried to keep it professional, opting for clean-cut suits that cut close to his relatively lean and yet powerful figure.

"So, how'd your shift go?" Cogaran asked as he shrugged off his blazer and reached up to loosen the knot of his tie.

Baram threw up a hand in a gesture of apathy as he draped a sweater over his shoulders. Ready for the country club, Cog snorted inwardly.

"Eh, nothing too remarkable. Got a decent haul," Baram shrugged. "Didn't get off early, which is too bad. Tam's gonna be pissed,"

Cogaran smiled thinly as he hung his shirt on the hanger he'd produced from his locker. Tamron kept her husband on an extraordinarily short leash, much as he tried to make it seem otherwise.

"I just can't believe they got you to do the late shift. Isn't that usually a rookie shift? I mean, talk about fucking up your sleep cycles and all that shit," Baram shook his head.

"Me and Goji, yeah," Cogaran replied. "Think he's always gone through. Over-achiever. But we both knew they were going to be pulling in extras. Synchronicities are rare enough as it is, much less to get a _Harvest_Synch. Gotta make the most of it, right? And they weren't about to schedule a greenhorn for such a big Synch. We don't want another Gamma Event, do we?"

Air escaped through Baram's thin lips and he shook his head slowly, a knowing smile forming at the corners of his mouth. "Lemme tell you, that was not fun to clean up. Fucking greenhorns. You'd think they'd have some basic common sense,"

"But then, you can't apply the rules of logic to rookies, can you?"

"You can say that again," Baram chuckled. His brow arched as he glanced over at Cogaran, who was closing his locker. "Hey, you've been working out. Good on ya, guy! Looking good,"

Cog's cheeks colored briefly as he glanced nonchalantly down at his ebony form before looking back at Baram, who was trying to conceal his jealousy.

"I mean, for a skinny guy like you," Baram amended hastily. "No homo,"

Cog didn't bother hiding his eye-roll that time. "Barry, I'm sure two individuals who are totally secure in their sexualities can remark on one another's physiques without worrying about some sort of tension or something," he snorted. "But thanks. I added a couple more reps and a bit more cardio. Nothing much,"

Cogaran was stretching the truth, well, more than a little. He'd known the Harvest Synch would be coming up for a little while and didn't waste a moment. His job required a certain baseline level of physical fitness, but the drake had zealously chipped and chiseled his lithe frame into a work of art. Cog was gunning for a promotion, and besides, he didn't want to go around looking like some sort of slob. He had standards.

"Well, anyway, looking good," Baram nodded, smacking his friend on the back. "Don't let me hold you up,"

"First round's on you when I get back, Barry," Cog called over his shoulder as he made his way out the door into the work floor.

"Yeah, whatever," Barry retorted.

Cogaran padded down the short, dark hallway linking the locker room to the series of rooms comprising the work floor. He skimmed the folder that had been waiting for him on the clipboard on the wall next to the hall door. Damn. Hadn't Jok known not to assign him Gate C? That six-armed motherfucker knew that things weren't amicable with Yara after the breakup.

"Hello, Yara," Cogaran muttered as he pushed through the door leading to Gate C.

The sleek golden dragoness didn't offer much more than a noncommittal grunt in response. She grabbed the folder from Cogaran's hand and glanced briefly at it before punching a few buttons on the glowing console beside her.

Bored, Cogaran glanced around the small, darkened room. A circular platform dominated much of the small space. Glowing wires of various thicknesses radiated outwards from its center, some connecting to Yara's console and others linking into the walls and ceiling.

"Alright, it's double quota today," Yara stated flatly, yanking his jaw down and shining a light in, examining his gaping maw and gleaming teeth before smacking him on the cheek, indicating he could close his mouth again. "Same regs and protocols as usual,"

"I know. This isn't exactly my first rodeo," the dragon grunted in reply as Yara gestured for him to stretch his arms over his head. "Is the physical really necessary? We don't need to do this,"

"Standard procedures. You should know that," Yara arched a brow at him, jotting a few scribbles into a notebook she'd produced from the pocket of her lab coat before entering some more information into the console. "I thought this wasn't your first rodeo,"

Cogaran snorted, crossing huffily over to the circular platform in the center of the small room as Yara typed furiously at the console. The dragon smirked to himself; Lunar Technicians liked to pretend their jobs were so much more challenging than they really were. Sure, there were a lot of high-level calculations and calibrations that went into predicting Lunar Synchronicities and then pinpointing Weak-Field Points. But that was all up to the highest-level Arithmeticians, and all that was left to the Lunar Techs to do, really, was hit 'GO'. That didn't stop the Techs from being fiercely territorial.

"You done there?" Cog tapped his foot. "It ain't exactly rocket science,"

"No, it isn't. It's transdimensional arithmetics," Yara corrected. "And I don't need to hear any critiques from you. Your job consists entirely of taking your clothes off and stomping around,"

"Hey! It takes more skill than that!" Cog protested. "You should know. I took you on my shift once,"

The thinnest of smiles crept briefly at the corners of Yara's mouth and Cog stiffened slightly at the thought. Those had been the good days, before their relationship had fallen by the wayside.

"Hey, I could take you along again if you'd like," the drake offered almost hopefully.

Yara's brow arched. "And get me in trouble like last time? I think not. You aren't getting back with me that easily," she snorted.

"Your loss. Maybe next time,"

Yara flashed him a look that was as close as Cog supposed he'd ever get to a 'maybe yes'. Perhaps the breakup wouldn't be so final, after all. He coughed softly, drawing a venomous glance from the dragoness.

"Cover you mouth when you cough. We aren't fucking savages," she spat.

"Jeez, sorry," Cog threw his hands up dramatically.

"Got a cold?"

"Eh, just something sorta twinging the back of my throat,"

"Good,"

"Beg pardon?"

"You won't have to work to get a good, husky roar,"

"I guess so," How pragmatic. Bitch.

"All right, I'm all set. You know your target on Terra?"

"Yes. Saddits? Saydoot? Seeatl? How the fuck do you even pronounce that? Not like it even matters," Cog shook his head.

"Whatever. I'm powering it up now. Five, four, three, two..."

Cog closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, preparing for the jerk and swirl.

*****

Halloween, as a holiday, could just cease to exist and I would be perfectly fine with it. If Mother's Day was just an elaborate ploy by card companies to make more money, then Halloween was nothing more then an excuse for people to dress like fools and get wasted.

Unfortunately, Reynard was not of the same mind as I.

"You still haven't gotten changed?" my boyfriend asked, craning his neck around the door.

"Working on it," I replied, glancing over at the costume still sitting next to me on the bed. I glanced back at Reynard, but he'd already returned to the living area, doubtlessly to start pacing or something like that.

"Hurry up, Rodge," he called to me. "The party's already started. I don't want to miss too much,"

"I'm coming, I'm coming," I replied, pulling on the overcoat and fiddling with the cane. Seriously, why did I have to be the Watson in our pairing? I hated couples costumes to begin with, and besides. I was totally the Sherlock to Reynard's Watson, not the other way around. "We'll be... fashionably late, or whatever,"

"Or whatever,"

"We could just stay home, you know. Watch some scary movies and have popcorn. Sounds good. So much better than some stupid party,"

"Aw, come on! Get in the spirit of things. There's a nip in the air, a bit of fog, people in costumes everywhere, the Harvest Moon is out..."

"Harvest Moon?" I snorted.

"Isn't that what they call it? Big full and and orange and shit? Pretty sure that's what they call it this time of year,"

"Thanks for the lesson. Learn new things every day," I replied, pulling on the world's stupidest bowler hat. Seriously, what had he been thinking? Nope, definitely wasn't going to wear that. It went back to its rightful place on the bedside table.

Reynard was standing in front of our window when I walked out into the living area. Coming up behind him, I patted him on the shoulder.

"Alright, let's get going," I said, tugging at the collar of his long coat. The arctic fox didn't budge. "What's up?"

Reynard's eyes were wide when I stepped next to him, trying to figure out what was going on.

"D-dragon!" he managed to stammer out, standing stock-still.

My eyes narrowed. "Bullshit," I replied, peering out into the dark of the night and trying to figure out what in the fuck Reynard was going on about.

"There," Reynard breathed, pointing insistently.

My eyes followed where his finger was indicating. Somehow, we'd managed to find an apartment with a nice view of the Saaduuts waterfront without blowing a high-powered shotgun blast through our budget. Reynard was either bullshitting me, or he really didn't know what a cargo tanker looked like.

Except he was right.

Standing a ways out in Saaduuts Bay was a living, breathing dragon. His black-scaled body was lacking any wings, but it was undeniable what this draconic giant was. Despite the fact that he was standing a fair distance from shore, the water only lapped at the level of his navel. A few whispered curses escaped my lips.

"This isn't real," I tried and failed to convince myself. "Can't be. Dragons don't exist. Don't be stupid,"

"That would be one hell of a Halloween costume, don't you think?"

"Well, shit. Guess I gotta see to this then, right? I mean, I'm a MACRO agent. And that fellow seems pretty large to me,"

Reynard frowned. "But we have the party! Isn't there someone else on duty to deal with the situation?"

"Our other agent Bianca is going to a party up in Bonneville and Cameron's got a bad stomach flu," I shrugged. Then it dawned on me. This was my golden, er, black-scaled ticket out of the party. Silver lining. Turning to the slack-jawed Reynard, I tried to make my best fake grimace of regret. "Damn. Duty calls. Guess I gotta take care of this first. Sorry, honey. Say, you just head over there now and I'll catch up if I can make it later on,"

*****

A chill suddenly permeated Cog to his core. His eyes snapped open and he saw that he was standing waist-deep in frigid water. Of course. Yara must have calibrated it to dump him half a klick or so away from his intended drop site. Fucking bitch.

Looking up, the ebony drake's eyes landed on the glittering skyline of Saaduuts. Correction: soon-to-be-smouldering skyline, Cogaran smirked to himself. It had been far too long since the last Synch and he was itching for a good rampage.

Throwing his head back, the gigantic dragon let out an earth-shaking bellow, beating his chest with a fist. Psyched up, Cogaran surged forward, powering through the water with long strides.

Waves churned up by the giant inundated the docks before Cogaran even reached the shore. He leapt out of the shallow water, landing squarely and heavily on solid ground with a slight tremor. His clawed feet carved craters into the earth, pulverizing pavement and crushing a warehouse to matchwood.

The docklands that comprised much of the Saaduuts waterfront were of little concern to Cogaran, with a low population density and few structures managed to reach even his shins. No, the bustling movement and formidable buildings of downtown drew the giant's eye. Without a doubt, there would be much more potential energy to harvest there than the small-potatoes waterfront district.

Striding casually through the docklands, Cogaran made his way towards the heart of town. A flick of the tail smashed a loading crane as the drake passed, each step bringing him closer to his goal.

He tried to exude an air of cool indifference, but knew he was pressed for time. The Weak-Field Point could be compromised at any moment, yanking him unceremoniously back to his home dimension. Cogaran had to unbind as much potential energy locked up in the structures of the area, and do it quickly. Who knew when their next chance to tap Terra's rich and unique energy would be? Synchs had become fewer and farther between, and admin was getting stricter and stricter on meeting quotas.

All the same, the black-scaled dragon didn't see any problem with mixing work and pleasure. He had a lot of steam to vent after the breakup with Yara and this was the perfect opportunity to do so.

The streets of Saaduuts were barely wide enough to accommodate the drake. Not that he was concerned about collateral damage. Glass cracked and steel twisted at the slightest touch of his hips as he brushed past and his tail brought casual destruction with each swing.

Stooping low mid-stride, Cogaran scooped up a screaming fistful of fleeing shrimps, tossing them into his mouth like candy. They could run, but there was no escape. Cogaran knew the drill by this point. Fools would try and escape and in doing so only make things that much worse for themselves, creating jams and snarls, just waiting to be crushed and devoured. He almost would've felt sorry for the poor little shits if they didn't taste so damn good.

A nondescript tower with a green dome top had the ambiguous honor of being the first casualty of Cogaran's harvest, crumbling to its foundations with just a few well-placed swipes and jabs. The dragon allowed a deep chuckle to percolate out of his chest. He would never understand why these shrimps chose to make themselves those flimsy little spires in which to live and work. So unstable, and pretty stupid looking to boot.

The gigantic drake leered as his eyes fell on a metro bus caught in the snarl of traffic. Metal dented like tinfoil as Cogaran plucked up the hapless public transit vehicle. Tearing open the rear end of the bus, Cog upended its screaming contents into his mouth. Some stubborn stragglers clung desperately to their seats, as if that would save their sorry hides. The dragon's tongue quickly dispatched them, snaking into the metal structure and gathering his harvest into his mouth.

Smirking again, Cogaran wheeled about so he was facing a skyscraper roughly equal to himself in size. Aligning his hips with the building, the drake brushed the tips of his quickly-burgeoning erection against the façade. He slipped the bus snugly over his length. One or two minor accidents in the past had taught him it was better to be safe than sorry in such situations. Even the worker's comp wasn't worth the discomfort and embarrassment of cutting your dick on something.

The dragon growled as he rocked his hips back before thrusting forward, piercing the side of the building with his dragonhood. With ever-increasing pace, Cogaran penetrated the skyscraper, grunting as he felt his balls slapping against the shattering glass and his member brushing past crumbling metal and concrete.

The dragon let out a guttural roar as he climaxed, releasing into the skyscraper. His tail lashed to the side, slicing clean through the building behind him.

Cleanup on floor fifteen, the giant dragon smirked inwardly.

Withdrawing his still-throbbing cock from the building, Cogaran stepped away from the skyscraper. It collapsed in on itself, its structural integrity compromised by the draconic onslaught. Cogaran wiped grit and rubble off his palms on his thigh, dropping his bus-condom to the ground as he turned to resume his trip through downtown.

A shrill whistle interrupted the drake's train of thought, prompting him to snap his head around in an effort to find the annoying sound's source.

As it turned out, the disturbance had come from a small and rather determined-seeming fox standing on the helipad of a chest-high building Cogaran hadn't gotten around to smashing up yet.

What the fuck? Cogaran almost slipped and spoke his confusion aloud but managed to catch himself in time.

He turned to face the structure, leaning over slightly so the top of the building was at eye level. This was certainly new.

*****

With the massive drake's piercing blood-red eyes focused down on me, it was go time. Except, for perhaps the first time in my career, I was at a loss for words. What was I supposed to say? _Excuse me, Mr. Dragon, I have no idea where you came from or even how it's even possible you're in existence, but I'd greatly appreciate it if you stopped stomping around my city? _ Yeah, that would really go over well. And that was going with the baseline assumption that he even spoke the same language.

"My name is Roger Smith and I'm with MACRO," I blurted, pulling out my firearm for Some Fucking Reason. "Cease and desist. Now!"

For a few moments, the dragon was silent, staring me in with a quizzical expression on his face. Then a deep, rumbling laugh began to bubble out of his chest, echoing across the cityscape. I cursed inwardly.

A massive black fist raised into the air over me. Shit. Shitshitshit. If I didn't think quickly, it would be curtains for me, and a rather undignified exit at that. Almost unbidden, an idea jumped into my mind. A completely insane idea, but an idea nonetheless.

"Wait, stop!" I shouted, waving an arm in the air as I fished for something in my coat pocket.

The fist hesitated before dropping down by the gigantic dragon's side. Taking the opportunity, I pulled the pocket projector out of my pocket, hoping I had the right zip drive with me.

For some gods-unknown reason, Karl had purchased five pocket-sized projectors for general use. Guess he had some money in the budget to burn or something. When a zip drive was plugged into it, the device could project an image onto basically any flat surface. Why exactly we needed those instead of regular projectors for presentations and the like still escaped me, but then again the rationale behind most of Karl's decisions mystified me. All the same, they were handy for movie nights and the like, so I had stashed one away for more personal use.

The dragon eyed me suspiciously as I fumbled with the projector. I inserted the drive into the dock and flipped the mini=projector on.

The device flickered and sputtered to life, displaying a slightly distorted image of a rather buxom skyscraper-sized squirreless clutching a tanker truck in each fist onto the façade of the building opposite the one I was standing on.

"I completely forgot my manners. How rude," I commented, adopting an overly chipper tone of voice. "As an official MACRO liaison, it's my job to ensure that our city's, ah, resident giants are happy.

"I hope you'll pardon my surprise; I hadn't been notified of your arrival. Anyway, I'm supposed to orient you to our other, ah, oversized residents. Just a couple words to the wise, then you can be on your merry way,"

Another one of Karl's more questionable decisions of late had been the institution of monthly "Worst-Case Scenario" meetings. The second Thursday of every month, the guy hauled us all into a conference room, showed us a terribly-photoshopped image of some theoretical gigantic person or other, and demanded we brainstorm solutions to the scenario. These situations were hilarious at best and useless at worst, but I hung onto the images for comedy's sake.

"This is Tiff," I gestured at the image. "She's got a few hundred feet on you, but she likes guys your height--'perfect height so long as he's got a good tongue', she always says," I winked, tasting bile as I fought the urge to vomit. Brought it on myself.

Wood crumbled as the massive dragon sat on the building next to me like a stool, crushing the rooftop water tank underneath his bulk. At least I had his attention. Capitalizing on that, I flipped to the next image.

"Oh. This is, er, Chuck," I bullshitted wildly with a knowing chuckle. "He... well, just avoid him. Probably the best thing for a pipsqueak like you,"

I glanced sidelong at the enormous drake just as he swallowed nervously. Yeah, it had to be a nervous swallow. Only thing possible. Heh. Time for my pièce de résistance.

The black-scaled drake gasped audibly as an image of a two-mile-tall chestnut stallion flickered onto the wall. He stood astride a city in flames, a cruel grin playing on his monumental lips.

"Oh, and this guy. He's just called The Destroyer," I mentioned almost as an aside. "Hasn't been around town in a little while, but when he turns back up... Well. I wouldn't blame you if you skipped town. Not the most agreeable fellow,"

As it turned out, the dragon decided he'd rather just cut to the chase and skip town right then and there. He slunk down the street, wading back out into the waters of Saaduuts Bay from whence he came and disappearing in a brilliant flash of light.

Heh. That's one way to deal with a situation. Pocketing the projector, I made my way towards the fire escape. The self-satisfied grin faded from my lips as I heard my phone ring. It was Reynard.

"Where the hell are you? I can't be alone at this party forever!"

*****

Cogaran was spluttering and soaking wet when he reappeared on the Synchronization platform. Yara hustled over, tossing a towel over his shoulders as he dropped to his knees, panting slightly.

"What's wrong?" she asked, unable to hide the hint of concern in her voice.

"It's Saaduuts," Cog grunted in reply. "Seems like we've got competition,"