It didn't surprise anyone that the hatchlings at this clutch were rather picky about their friendships. One of them stood for a long long time looking at Max, her pale fur marked with the hint of red on the legs, and with big floppy segmented ears keeping her mop of mane out of her blue eyes.

Finally, as some of her companions were choosing the folks who would become their caretakers, she stood up and flexed open her wings. They were a pale color too, Max had hardly seen them against her white body. She shook her tail, it had a mess of fur on the end too.

Think we can be friends? She asked, almost as though it was a challenge.

"Of course we can, what's your name?" Asked Max with a confident smile. "Oh your ears are so cute," she said, just now noticing they had little curleyques at the ends. The dragoness grumbled, lowering her head and presenting the little golden horn nubs that would some day grow into longer and more dangerous weapons. For now, though, she was much more like an angry billygoat ready to headbut Max.

My name is Pearla-tiki, don't wear it out. I will go with you but you must promise not to make fun of me any more.

"I wasn't making fun of you!" Max said, laughing, "just noticing details is all. It's all good, Pearla, I know a place you'll want to check out, it's this gorgeous beach..."

Far from 'walking out', Pearla-tiki and Max simply vanished, moving from one reality level to another in an instant...

Life for Max and Pearla was a parade of fun. They'd even managed to find Pearla a mate or two, and the best part was: now her favorite law man, Dems deFachs, had one of her offspring to watch his every move! Well, they didn't really get much information from her, and it was highly likely that she'd never betray her friend now, but Max and Pearla knew that if they ever needed to get away, they could count on her distracting him long enough to do so.

And grandchildren... They'd been prancing around the multiverse for a decade before they realized time traveled very differently indeed once upon a dragonback.

Bored, Pearla said. And a bit ... hungry for something. I don't know what. Not hungry, I just...

"You want something more, you want to fly again? You make pretty babies, love." Max chuckled. Pearla shook her head, but thought for a bit.

No, but I would like to see about getting us another partner in crime. I know you can keep track of more than one thing at a time.

"You know it," Max laughed. Max skipped out on the bill at the restaurant she'd been dining at, while Pearla waited lounging in the warm sands of a nearby elementary school's playground. They used her typical method of reaching a place:

Open a door, another one closes. She'd had so many doors over the years, portals in her mind mostly, they fluctuated constantly. They probably stayed open because she was just that much of an incarnation of chaos...

But this one opened to a place where they'd been before: Star City? Well, the Abstract Destiny anyway. A place designed for both humanoid and draconic lifestyles. Max loved places like that, they gave her the freedom to stand around talking to Pearla without having to stuff themselves into a little den or nook somewhere.

We'll find someone here, Pearla was confident.

She waited for a moment while a couple of locals passed by out of earshot. "If we need to swipe one, even..."

***

"They're awesome," Max whispered to Pearla, "aren't they?"

Pearla-tiki smugly smiled, and nodded. "I know it was a good idea to come here for this." The first of the hatchlings had already been out and about for quite some time, it looked like, and he was a total busybody. But there finally came another dark-bodied hatchling that both Pearla and Max noted well.

She strode up, not quite graceful but not bumbling and silly like some might be at that stage in their lives. Plus, she spoke clearly, easily, fluidly.

"You have the look of someone with lots of masks," the hatchling said to Max. "They all look like you, but they do their job."

Pearla glanced at her companion, a question on her mind, but realized what the little hatchling meant.

"That's very observant," Max nodded with a wide, knowing grin. "I reality shift, from place to place. I can fit in, that way."

"That makes it harder for people to spot you?" The hatchling asked, though it was far more of a statement of truth, than a query. She obviously knew what the pair did, how they did it, and that they'd have plenty of fun doing so.

"It sure does, would you like to see?" Max said, excited.

"I definitely would. My name is Diana. I look forward to all the fun we'll have."

It was sort of difficult to determine her expression, what with that beak on her face, but the warmth in her voice was something both dragon and human were attracted to. It didn't take long, then, for Max to decide that they could start by opening a tiny portal right where they stood, to the food table nearby.

"I remember doing this at a banquet I wasn't supposed to be attending," Max laughed, "they kept wondering where the little ham and cheese crackers went, they even blamed some other guy." She popped a small bowl down closer to Diana's level, and watched her appraise her first meal.

***

"She does far more magic than I do," Max admitted, "but what I do can't be reproduced by many people." Diana had wondered what it was about Max's relationship with Mayhem that kept them from being enemies. "And she's a nice person. She lets me hang out, or hide out, or whatever, when I need to. After all," Max said with a snort, "my real mom and dad abandoned me. Mayhem's like... more like my crazy fun aunt that doesn't have to deal with me later - only she did deal with me."

Max taught Diana what she could - it was a different kind of magic, more like her own innate abilities to reality-shift, and therefore was something that Max could help demonstrate rather than try and teach from a book. Not that Diana couldn't read - she could, she was a little prodigy after all, just like her sponsoring friends.

The most intriguing bits, Diana felt, was when they would go somewhere and Max would be different in some way. Those masks she mentioned at her hatching, Max herself changed in subtle ways. Sometimes, she had the longer pointed ears of an elf; others she grew fur and a tail, to match the native cat-folk; it just depended upon where they were. Max was quite adept at this, but more - she could also change her dragons.

Pearla allowed it because she knew that Max could be trusted to make her go back to normal. Diana loved it, because it meant she could practice changing her forms back and forth. As she grew she discovered that she liked being on two feet - like Max, only dark skinned, and with the subtlety of expression that her voice alone gave her in draconic form.

Plus, it was easier to pursuade some people, thinking that here were a pair of young ladies (Diana looked to be in her early teens, as a humanoid by now) were lost or in need... Oh it was so easy. People were just suckers. It didn't hurt that Diana knew just what to say. Whether that was an effect of her magical abilities or just her keen observation, didn't seem to matter much. So Diana got a lot of practice getting into and out of nearly anything you could imagine.

They hired themselves out as distractions, sometimes. That was the most fun, Diana thought - and it looked as though Max and Pearla did too. They didn't have the responsibility of stealing something or causing other more permanent damage, but they did have the tremendous glee of being the center of attention while those dirty deeds got done elsewhere.

The Men Without Fear just loved her too. Dave and Chris were almost apt to swipe the dragoness out from Max, borrowing her for more of the same kind of distraction jobs, because they knew they didn't have the patience to smoothly sweet-talk their way through things. It was more their style to blow a hole in something, than to ask nicely.

Unfortunately for her though, and the only thing Pearla seemed to regret, was that she had very little ability to control fire. Pearla knew that there should be more control in her family line, but it just wasn't there. She concentrated heavily on that shapeshifting and vision and pretty quickly producing portals... But that just meant that Pearla's fire-manipulation was even more important because she was the only one able to do it!

Life... was good.

Name: Diana Malin

Sponsored by: Max

Gender: Female

Species: Crossbreed Dragonhome Dragon (Phoenix / Shadow)

Hatchling Height: 2'4" at shoulder

Adult Height: 7'2" at shoulder

Color: Black

Personality: Getting into trouble is all well and good, but what do you do when getting back out of it isn't just a matter of darting away when no one is looking? Why, you turn to Diana, of course. She loves getting into trouble just as much as her new companions do, and even better, she has the silver tongue and charisma to talk their way back to freedom if ever they're caught by someone who's not easily avoided. Whether she's playing the innocent and batting those big blue eyes of hers, or chattering away with such guile that a snake-oil salesman would fall for his own lines, Diana is a pro at manipulation.

Abilities: Dimensional Door. Dragon Spirit. Fire Magic. Shapeshifting (Hatchling, Human). True Sight. Verbal Speech.

Hatchling Token: Minor

Adult Token: Minor