So, Candace had managed to talk her way into leading the lot of them into the complex. No one had been set to watch the door, so sure Avery and his gang were of their superior technical security system. Candace set her nose to the air, sniffing for the location of everyone inside. They were all in the main lab. How handy. "This way." Candace waved them towards the lab and they had no choice but to follow her. She knew her way around and they didn't. There seemed to be no internal security either. There were only a very few in the Pentagon who knew the warehouse existed. Candace waltzed through with intimate knowledge. It was still extremely hot within. The only air conditioning was in the computer room. They waded through a maze of file cabinets and other methods of storage. It wasn't long before Candace's keen hearing picked up Avery's voice. She picked up the pace and the others did likewise so as not to loose her in the massive maze. Soon, they came up on the closed door where the lab was located. Mulder and Scully had their weapons out as they cased the area. Now it was Mulder who shooed them all from the door. He pointed to Scully and she put herself in a helpful firing position for when Mulder opened the door. He looked at Scully who nodded her readiness and checked the Lone Gunmen to make sure they'd be out of harms way and to see if Candace was behaving herself. One more heartbeat and Mulder snaked his hand over the doorknob with his back to the wall beside the door, gun poised and ready. The door opened and Mulder shouted, "F.B.I! Put your weapons down!" Chaos rained down upon them. There was shouting from inside the room and loud crashing as heavy lab equipment was unceremoniously dropped at their entrance. Suddenly, they were being pelted by glass objects, beakers, test tubes, and such. The shrapnel from these objects sprayed out as they shattered into a million deadly pieces. The agents ducked and raised their arms over their heads as protection. The glinting shards gave way to heavier lab equipment. Mulder and Scully were now in the room, Mulder well into the heart of it by now as Avery and his crew now were hunkered down beside the freezer and as Candace peeked inside, she saw that Avery himself had a hold of one of the vials that had her D.N.A. inside. She entered the room and the bombardment of objects ceased. "Skymouth." Avery said as he saw her, nervous and fretting. "You can't stop us. There's no need too. We managed to complete the project testing that the General was too squeamish to finish. All we need now is a human volunteer." Scully was skirting around the main testing table in the center of the room gun drawn and pointed at Avery and company who were concentrating on Mulder and Candace. Candace herself was slowly but steadily approaching the group and the Lone Gunmen gamely peered around the door, keeping them safely under cover. Frohike had his eyes on Scully's movements and Byers and Langly had their attention on Mulder and Candace. "You will not. I will flame this entire complex with you in it, destroying what you have stolen." Candace felt her anger rise at this human's arrogance. Her eyes flashed and Avery flinched. Candace and Mulder were so intent on Avery that they hadn't noticed that one of Avery's people break away from his hiding place behind one of the cabinets that was behind Scully. But Frohike had been watching Scully and so he was the first one to notice Scully had become a target. He snuck into the room despite being grabbed at by Byers. Frohike studied the build of the goon against his own and estimated his chances. Well, at least he'd go down fighting. He also saw that he was holding something in his hand. A weapon? That was it. Scully was pregnant and he wasn't going to let some ugly mug harm her. He grabbed onto the larger man from behind and latched onto him in a bear hug. This startled the man who called out to his fellows. All attention was now suddenly on Frohike and the goon. Scully had spun around, pointing her gun at them, trying to keep it on the bad guy and not on Frohike. But the big man was struggling and leaned forward, lifting Frohike up off the ground. He swung around and Frohike hung on with all he had, pinning the man's arms to his side. "Scully!" Mulder called, but kept his gun on Avery, though his attention drifted to the struggle on the other side of the room. "Don't let go of him!" Langly called out from the safety of the door. Byers clenched his teeth and watched with widening eyes. Candace glanced over once at Frohike and contemplated on the possibility of transforming right there. Then she saw that the man had a syringe in his grip. He continued to whip Frohike about. Frohike felt his grip loosen and he suddenly lost it and was flung to the floor and landed with a thud on his rump. "Frohike!" Scully called out. The man, ignoring Scully's gun, gripped the syringe in his hand and leapt upon the prone Frohike. He plunged the point into Frohike's neck and Frohike cried out in pain. "NO!" Candace screamed and jumped up and over the table in an incredible leap. But she was too late. The man released the fluid into Frohike in one squeeze. Scully had come up from behind and yanked him off of a now writhing Frohike. "What was in that vial?" Scully demanded of the grinning man. "Her D.N.A." Was all he said. "Frohike!" Candace was now kneeling over the Lone Gunman. Fear was in her voice. What was happening to him? Frohike had never known pain such as this. He felt like his every vein was on fire, like his blood was now molten. His body jerked in uncontrollable spasms as his pain receivers went into overload. He flopped about like a fish out of water and he started to glow. "My God." Candace murmured and backed away when she realized what was now going to happen to Frohike. "Everyone, stand back, as far away from him as you can get!" "What's going on?" Mulder cried out as he inched backwards until his back hit the far wall. Everyone else plastered themselves next to their nearest wall. Frohike was now enveloped in a ball of light that was all too familiar to Candace. He was changing… changing into the Perfect Being thanks to her D.N.A. He was going to have a rough time of it, she knew as she watched his slow and painful transformation as his humanity was being forcibly merged with that of dragon. Now the light filled the room and blinded everyone. Even Candace had to cover her eyes. When the light vanished, no one could keep from gawking at what became of Frohike. Where Frohike once stood, now was an almond shaped, armored and shimmering silver being. The light glinted off what looked like wings that were furled up into a sort of mandala that hid the rest of him under the leathern membrane. The wings shivered slightly, a platinum glint shown brilliantly across the mottled surface. "Frohike. A platinum! What does this mean?" Candace breathed with awe and slowly walked up to the several stories tall computer geek who cowered in the corner. He almost filled up the huge room. Bravely, she stooped under one of his pinions and disappeared into the dark recesses. Everyone could hear the soft mutterings coming from under the cover of wings from her quietly talking to Frohike. Slowly, almost with visible reluctance, the wings partially unfurled and Candace walked out first while she had a hold of a fistful of a silver, scraggly length of beard and attached to the beard was a metallic platinum muzzle. She led him out. With the air of someone who's seen it all, she calmly walked up to the rest of the group who stood gaping as this towering creature that was now Frohike came closer to them. "A dragon!" Mulder spoke first, his excitement at seeing such a thing at odds with the concern he felt for his transformed friend. Scully gawked in disbelief at a terrified Frohike, "That's impossible!" "Improbable, but not impossible." Candace corrected, "As I'm sure Frohike could tell you." Frohike ducked his head fearfully. Unaware of his newfound titan- like strength, he dragged Candace backwards across the floor for she still had a hold of his beard. She lost her footing and found herself dangling in the air when he slightly raised his tri-horned head. "Watch yourselves!" She warned everyone and let go of the beard, dropping to the ground. "You have to be aware of your strength and your size, Frohike. You could accidentally kill someone." She admonished the newborn dragon beside her. Frohike moaned, a deep, bass sound that sounded like the lowing of a thousand cattle in a cave. Candace patted his platinum nose in sympathy. Mulder cautiously came up to them, Avery and his gang no longer of any interest. Langly, Byers, and Scully approached them with the same amount of reluctance mixed with concern. "What happened? How could this be?" Scully wanted answers for throughout her time with Mulder, she thought she had a pretty good grasp on the strange. But this was something new and untoward. "I want answers!" Candace was silent, like she was listening hard. "Well?" Scully asked. "Helicopters." Candace said grimly and placed a hand on Frohike's metallic nose, "You stay here, Melvin the Terrible." Mulder asked, "What's going on?" Candace looked the agent in the eye, "We have company." End Part II: Part III pending. Comments welcome!