"I've been told your true form is particularly impressive," Violet explained to me as we made our way back to the area where most of the people had gathered. "I want you to use it."

I didn't bother with explaining that I was already in the closest thing to my 'true form.' I knew what she was talking about. "Now?" I asked.

Violet stopped momentarily to consider it. "That depends on how big it is."

I looked at the grand hallway we were in. Taller than it was wide—and it was fairly wide—I judged that while I likely could fit, it wouldn't be comfortable. It would certainly be impossible to turn around and go the other direction without damaging the walls.

"I think I should wait until we reach our final destination," I informed her. "So why do you want me transformed like that? Are you expecting a fight?"

I doubted it but asked anyway. Some of the other people she had present were far more threatening, and against an enemy strong enough that they would consider fighting even a single Tier 6, I would mostly just get in the way.

"It's possible, but not likely," Violet replied. "What's more important is projecting the right appearance. We have reason to believe your presence will have a profound impact."

Well of course it will, I thought to myself, I'm clearly the most cool and special. What I actually said was simpler and less self aggrandizing, though. "Why?"

"Well first, you need to understand who we're meeting with," she answered after a moment. "They're not from our world—they're inhabitants of this one. From what we've gathered, this world has a population orders of magnitude smaller than our own, with technological and social development to match."

"So basically, we're in a pre-industrial world where spirits and esoteric abilities are likely commonplace," I surmised. "So is that why this place looks so churchy? They tried to summon heroes and instead got a magical crime syndicate? Holy shit." I took a deep breath. "I've been fucking isekaied!"

Violet's stride faltered and she slowed down. "I have no idea what you just said. Never say it again."

We resumed walking at her usual pace as she continued. "Though you're not entirely wrong about us being summoned. There were people on this side who were clearly already expecting something, though it doesn't seem like it was supposed to be us. We simply happened to exploit whatever it was they were already doing."

"You make it sound like they're no longer available for questions," I mused.

I caught a cruel, almost bitter smile that Violet wiped from her face the moment it appeared. "Indeed."

"Back to your previous question," she continued after a moment, "it seems that from their perspective, we are a group of powerful—it's hard to say. Sorcerers, perhaps? Of unknown origin and obvious wealth. In that light, it would do well to have them draw their own most appropriate conclusions while overestimating us."

I nodded along. There was sometimes the question of whether it was better to be under or overestimated—both had their own benefits and risks. The answer, as with many things, tended to be determined by the circumstances. These people we're meeting with already think we're rich, powerful, and mysterious—why not play it up?

"And you think having a giant metal dragon sitting around in the background will help with that? I think I can see it now."

"Dragon?" She asked. "I thought you were a—damn, what was it? Something obscure and a bit silly sounding—oh, right!" She snapped her fingers. "A chamelium, that's what it was. That's a pun on chameleon and the periodic table, right?"

My eye twitched. "Well, technically, yes," I admitted, "But think about it. What would you call an enormous, winged, lizard-like creature that's made out of solid metal and has a strong affinity for fire and is known for both its cunning and its ability to speak?"

Violet thought about it. "Well," she hedged, "going by the official Anathema database, I suppose I would call it a chamelium."

My claws curled and I felt my jaw clench.

You know what? I feel like rule number zero of dealing with dragons should be to not argue that the obvious dragon is not, in fact, a dragon.

It became clear when we reached our destination that Violet intended to use the space as an imposing throne room. Workers were setting up plinths with those same hot-rock braziers that Dr. Jason had in his private office above Club Purple.

Guess that answers that. I'd wondered where he'd gotten something like that at the time.

The smouldering pillars were hardly the only new decor. Both sides of the central walkway were in the process of being lined with colorful hanging banners adorned with traditional heraldry. I wondered if they'd just stolen those designs from real historical banners.

It wouldn't surprise me. What was going to happen, God would come slap them with an interdimensional trademark violation?

There was just one thing that was incongruent—much of the work was on setting up a great deal of AV equipment—all those expensive looking motorized lights that were a common sight on Broadway stages. There was even a guy starting up a fog machine.

"It will look different to someone not from our world," Cassandra said, nodding at all the stuff while approaching me and Violet. "It also doesn't matter if they see the equipment. We're not trying to be Oz. Simply having devices that can do this stuff for decoration should be equally impressive."

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

Huh. I nodded. "Makes sense."

From that point, they discussed where to put me. Mr. Bones was working on building an incredibly evil throne out of—you guessed it—bones, and the consensus was that it would be best to place me in the relative darkness behind it to silently loom over the proceedings.

There was plenty of room back there, and the ceiling was high enough that I probably wouldn't feel completely claustrophobic. A small crowd began to gather a few seconds after I began to transform.

What had once been a minute and a half long affair had shrunk to take only ten to twenty seconds. It also wasn't particularly graphic—the very first step was to cover myself in exoskeletal, metallic 'armor,' so there was never any visible flesh malformation.

Which was honestly a shame, because I would have rather liked to scare people off or at least make them uneasy with my full transformation sequence. But no—it was much closer to a giant robot mech putting itself together in an action movie. At least it probably looks cool as hell. That's better than nothing, right?

The end of my transition into a several hundred metric ton titan of Adamantite and steel was met with a round of applause. I blinked. "Why are you clapping?" I asked, only remembering to adjust my voice to a low, gritty rumble at the last moment.

With my inherent ability to make my voice whatever I wanted it to be, I had to consciously choose how to sound in my different forms. While maintaining my usual, high and delicate voice while in this form would be a bit funny, that wasn't what I wanted.

I instead chose a sound more fitting for my enlarged form.

The applause died down and was followed by an uncomfortable silence. Someone coughed. "Because you're awesome!" Cassandra shouted, making me cringe inside. God, mom, why would you embarrass me like that?

People started to disperse, and I settled myself into a comfortable resting position. Unfortunately, in doing so I realized that the stone flooring wasn't nearly as solid as I thought.

It wasn't an exaggeration to claim a weight of several hundred thousand kilograms. I didn't know my exact weight—I hadn't weighed myself specifically—but I did make some educated guesses and calculations.

The method was simple. I compared the typical density of animals to that of steel to get an approximate scaling factor. Then, I looked up estimates of the weight of various dinosaurs.

There was no living animal on earth—technically, no land animal—that was anywhere close to my current size. That meant by definition that I was officially a 'titan.' I would admit to feeling a strange sense of pride at that fact.

However, plenty of extinct animals were far larger than anything that currently existed outside of the oceans. It was easy enough to look up the larger known dinosaurs and eyeball those infographics with their silhouette next to that of an adult human and get a sense of where I landed.

And I landed at the top, right up with the apatosaurs and similar long as fuck vegetarian big boys. Honestly, I might even be a bit bigger—but that difference was offset by the fact that I was a remarkably lithe and slender creature for my immense size and those dinosaurs were depicted as fairly thick and bulky.

Then I simply took estimates of an apatosaurus's weight and multiplied it by the factor I got from comparing the typical density of terrestrial vertebrates to that of steel.

The result? 400 metric tons nearly on the dot. Obviously, that was a pretty rough estimate, but it was enough to be confident I was somewhere in the hundred-plus ton range.

Pretty heavy.

I wasn't unaccustomed at this point to the practical downsides and inconveniences of extreme weight, but my evolution into Tier 4 was almost as significant a difference as the difference between my armored form and my original, Tier 3 full Anathema form.

As I shifted into a comfortable position, the massive stone tiles underneath wobbled and sank. I was pretty sure I felt something crack at some point and did my best to ignore it and appear unfazed. A surreptitious glance underneath my spot revealed that several tiles had in fact depressed deeper to varying degrees. There were also some nasty scratches.

And these weren't dinky little tiles either. It might be more accurate to call them stone slabs. Well, shit. I supposed it would be fine if no one noticed. Also, one of the bosses wanted to put me here. It's not my fault.

If you were going to have a dedicated dragon spot behind your evil bone throne, I felt like you should either prepare appropriately or be willing to accept the consequences.

As I sat there, with nothing to do other than wait until it was time to look menacing, I began to ponder the eventual direction I needed to take.

There was a moment, earlier, where I came up with the ambition to eventually take over the organization as its new leader. That might still be on the table, but there was an infinitely larger question I first needed to consider.

Should I even go back?

I didn't know much about this other world yet, that was true—hell, I hadn't at any point left the building. I didn't have any idea of what the basic landscape or even the sky might look like.

But there was something more important, more fundamental, than that. This was a world where I wasn't constantly hungry. I didn't know yet whether it would also be a world more tolerant of my general existence—but I struggled to imagine people worldwide would automatically be so ruthless in hunting me down.

Hell, there was even a moment where I realized I was close to being in a cliche isekai story—why not simply make it so? Help! I became a spirit dragon princess in another world, now the crown prince of the holy kingdom wants to marry me?!

There was a growing temptation to take the first opportunity I could to fuck out of this place and begin accumulating wealth and power in this place.

There were a few specific things that stopped me. Three, in fact.

The first was that I'd decided to take a more measured and reasonable approach to things from now on. Running off into the wilderness of an unknown planet in another reality was exactly the kind of thing I would have freely done just weeks ago—but I was trying to be better than that.

Maybe I would do so eventually, but right now? With no planning, preparation, or concrete knowledge of what I'd be getting into? It seemed like a poor idea.

Then there was the matter of running off in the first place. I might be the biggest person in the room, but I certainly wasn't the strongest. I couldn't just make a break for it without a Tier 5 or 6 Guardian immediately chasing me down. That was a big problem—even if I decided to use this initial chance to abandon Earth entirely, I would need a solid plan for how to accomplish the running away part.

Finally, I had direct, concrete proof that people on Earth now possessed the means for this kind of interdimensional travel. That was a big deal—it meant that this was far from my only potential chance, and it wasn't unlikely I would eventually get opportunities to be more discerning about where I ended up.

Aside from the vague hearsay that the original inhabitants of this building were trying to 'summon something,' there wasn't solid evidence that anyone here could help me travel across worlds.

That was how I decided to bide my time.

Fortunately, I didn't have to bide my time in this one moment for too much longer—because just a minute or two after everything and everyone was in position, Cassandra—now garbed in a decidedly old fashioned uniform-suit thing—informed the whole assembly that our guests had arrived.

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