B 3 C 27: CALDERA CALDERA, HER HIPS DON’T LIE

I call out inside our sphere, “Te, can you hit us with zero G for a while? I’ll take us into a glide to try to keep up the speed. I don’t know how much mana I’m going to need when we meet up with Lu.”

Teuila nods, and I can feel the lightness of my muscles. Linti and Teuila feel weightless in my embrace as I resume my draconic form and unfurl my wings as the umbral sphere around us disappears. I continue siphoning heat from ahead of me in the atmosphere as I continue my enhanced-sense rocket thrusting to maintain the highest velocity we safely can.

The volcano is in sight, and I’m taking us into a vertical climb to reach its caldera from outside of its ash cloud. I hope Luni isn’t on the far side, but we’ll be able to canvas the whole caldera in mere moments. The caldera is fairly massive, but no wider than the Miracle Oak that houses the faeries’ community. The Night of All Burn definitely changed the landscape of Fire Biome, as well as the tip of the mountain that used to be its central feature, the volcano is now much wider-lipped, and has a lower total altitude.

Is Luni running a circle around the inner wall of the caldera? She’s loping at at least the speed of a gazelle. But still, is she crazy? Wait, is she dancing? I, huh. I didn’t know she could move like that. It’s mesmerizing to see her on the move. Uh, oh, right, she probably needs us to get in there quick. Gosh, her curves are so, uh, what was I thinking about? I guess there’s the tiniest silver lining in an otherwise heartbreaking thing, since she shut me out mentally she won’t hear that, I’d take the teasing a thousand times over though to reconcile with her. She’d tease the heck out of me for that thought train.

Luni telepathically sends, “A thousand times? Really? I can take care of that later! Heeee, Whenever you feel like helping, whenever you get down here, wherever you’re angling in from, don’t kill it when you see it. We’re not ready for what happens whenever you kill this thing, wherever you are. Just freeze it, and I’ll finish getting the book.”

My heart skips several beats knowing that Luni is talking to me again. I also blush heatedly knowing that she could literally tease me a thousand times in our thinkspace. Also, did Luni’s hips always sway so much whenever she runs? I’d be lying if I said I could recall offhand, I never made note of it in my inner narrative mental logs. Well, I’d prefer not to lie, and the proof is right there, Luni’s hips aren’t lying, they’re swaying hypnotically. Wait, is that something she’s doing to keep herself safe? I need to stop getting distracted and get down there!

Teuila is trying to stifle her laughter at my thought train, I kinda forgot that Lu isn’t the only one that rides around my brainwaves. I’ve been so distraught about how we left things.

I call out, “Te, you got this? Can you land Linti gently? I’m going to divebomb.”

Teuila pouts, “You going to take all the fun things today boogerbutt? But yeah, I got this. I’ll play with the Kittycat, she and I will be just fine up here, enjoying ourselves while you play with Lu.”

I gulp and try to shake the embarrassment out of my head as I chuckle. Does Te really have no idea the implications of her phrasing? Sometimes I think Luni secretly taught the others some phrasing. Err, right, stop getting distracted. Releasing Teuila and Linti, I let them float around at zero gravity while Teuila releases her gravity buff from me. I angle down to soar into a crashdown strike in the middle of the caldera, summoning a massive Flash Freeze Storm as I land.

Luni disappears out of my sight somewhere, and I feel the stone below me shift. Teuila and Linti are floating to the lip of the volcano and about to touch down, Te looks like she’s ready to leap away with Linti, and Linti looks a bit embarrassed to not be leaping around under her own power. The ground quakes slightly stronger, and I swear I just saw a dorsal fin crest through the stone for a moment, as if something were swimming through solid rock without fully displacing it.

Unfortunately, I was right. Something is able to simply pass through the solid rock within the caldera as easily as if it were water. It surfaces beneath me, snapping its maw at my heels as I JT away. I try to encase it in frost with a massive Flash Freeze Storm, but it definitely has infinite thermal resistance, so it’s only slowed down slightly, if at all.

The thing breaching the surface below me is some sort of volcanic dragon. A Voldragon? Hm, maybe Vesuvidragon, since Vesuviform is all about lava. Yeah, we’ll go with that. I wonder where that lava elemental went off to. Wait, did I just see a dark splotch flitting around the sky?

My eyes flood red with anger as I’m fairly certain I just saw Mataalii zooming in. Luni reappeared from somewhere, and she seems to be trying to get my attention, but I’m busy trying to make sure Mataalii doesn’t show up behind her or Lin or Te. If he hurt one of them, I’d, I’d. Okay, breathe Reggie, breathe.

Mataalii purposely drops in from above me to disrupt my senses with our danger wrap clashes. Agh, my brain! If I unequip mine, he’ll have a massive advantage over me. If I can just, just crawl close enough when we land, I can maybe claim his danger wrap to my inventory. We plummet onto the Vesuvidragon. I land partially impaled on its rhino-like horn. Growling in frustration, I keep myself from lashing out to kill the beast below me. Luni said not to.

Lu reaches into my mind, “Quick, quick, get out of there! I forgot about this! Oh Mat you butt, no, oh no.”

I flick my gaze around for Luni, it seems like she’s already meeting up with Linti and Teuila. Good, she’s mostly safe.

Or she would be, if Mat hadn’t moved barely out of danger wrap range to stop scrambling our brains. He's gone and done something drastic. Mat plunged his hand into the creature we’re standing atop. Well, that he’s standing atop, that I’m impaled upon. As his hand plunged deep, he twisted. Vesuvidragon is now bubbling like a pot at a frothing boil, I can guess what comes next.

Vesuvidragon explodes graphically, showering the entire caldera in lava. Don’t panic, it’s all within reach. I Flash Freeze Storm all the lava before it can reach the gals. They’re okay, it’s going to be okay, now where did that jerk go?

He’s gone! Again! Oh wait, Lu said not to kill this thing. Crap. I wasn’t the one that killed it, but I have a feeling that doesn’t matter. Urgh hlrk. I’m vomiting blood again now that the horn is no longer plugging the hole it perforated in my torso. Seriously!? What is it with my right lung getting punctured over and over!?

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I pump my wings as I make sure I’m in the right form for travel, and although I’m positive I’m gaining altitude, I’m not moving closer to the lip of the caldera. That doesn’t make any sense. The only way that would happen is if the volcano itself were getting up out of the ground.

My eyes flash wide with panic as I tumble out of the sky. The four god beasts. One had a volcano on its back. Four elements, the God of Fire isn’t a Phoenix, it’s a dragon that’s miles upon miles in size. A dragon so large that a massive volcano is one of its dorsal ridges.

I, I can’t move. This thing is a threat to all life on the planet. What, what can I do? I feel Luni trying to incite me to move, calling on me to get up.

But, but we’re all dead. This is it. Forget the Night of All Burn, it will be the Millenium of Ever Burning. Is this when I go back in time? Do I try to buy time for a longer timeline? Luni? Is this it?

She replies, “Not yet, hero. We haven’t lost yet. Come on. You got this. Get up, please. We need to get you to the Nagas, then our new home.”

Strugglingly, leaking massive amounts of blood, I stand and try to pump my wings once more. Frustrated at my inability, I propel myself upward with JT movement. Hm, I’m leaking enough blood, I should be able to limit break.

I telepathically call out to Luni and Teuila, “Can you two get out of here safely with Linti? I have an idea to buy us some time.”

They both reply in the affirmative. Okay, let’s do this. I soar as high as I can, then flip into a dive and propel myself into the center of the volcano with as much velocity as I can muster, spinning like a drill as I coat myself in an Umbral Shot duplicate of some clay and stone molded into essentially a hollow drill bit. Down, down, down, more mana poured into rocket thrusting thermokinesis pushing us further down. If I’m right, I’m somewhere around the hips of this creature, if the volcano is a dorsal ridge near its tailbone.

I’m hyperventilating in fear, but I can’t afford to do that. Breathe Reggie, breathe. Every little bit counts. I draw a ragged breath, controlling a frightened sob. This thing could end everything and everyone. Even if it isn’t malicious. Please work, please work. Limit break, I know I shouldn’t call on you so frequently. I know I’m going to pay the price, especially with this hole in my torso. I know I shouldn’t call on the radiance, it’s corrupted. But it’s so much more powerful. Forgive me, world. I let my umbral drill bit shielding dissolve as we’re now in what must be a lava bloodstream as I engage a radiant limit break. I begin siphoning as much heat from this lifestream as I can. I try to overcharge my mana beyond its maximum capacity, hoping that it will help prevent some of the backlash of limit break climaxing. It’s excruciating as it feels like I’m bursting at the seams with corrupted fire. Oh no. Without my anchor. I feel it, I feel it bubbling up. The change. Is it worth the risk? What if I don’t stop this thing, and I become evil?

My breathing becomes hyperventilation again, but I’m already committed, I’m bursting with radiance. My skin is cracking and shining a blinding light from every orifice. My wound is pouring out radiance and closing up. It’s fascinating, my body is destroying itself and rapidly regenerating simultaneously. Oh, oh ow, now it’s in my brain. The light, the light’s trying to take over my brain as it burns it away from within. I have to do this now, I have to finish the limit break climax now. Everything I have, even if it costs that creamy greenness of my soul, just to buy a few more minutes, hours, days of life for my family. I will put this God of Fire back to sleep, even if only for a few moments.

I sense the atomic makeup and structure of every bit of calcitrite, graphite, granite, iron, magnesium, sulfur, phosphorous, every single ion of every molecule from here to the edge of this beast as I pull on them, tugging their spins in the opposite directions, slowing them ever so slightly. I feel a barely perceptible layer of frost flow out from me for miles and miles beneath the crust of our world. That’s it, that’s my entire limit break. That’s all I could manage to do, but I don’t feel the world rumbling anymore for the moment. My skin is no longer pouring forth radiant light between its wounds and cracks. My lung is fully healed. I’m out of air beneath this solidified lava, so I need to tunnel upwards quickly.

When I finally break free and can breathe again, I’m torn. I want to break down, cry, rail against fate. We’re doomed, we’re utterly doomed. I’ve bought us some smidgeon of time, but my family will die when this thing wakes. Everyone will. Even friends like the chameleon elder, Dehlia, the Nagas who fight against the Black Fangs, Elder Tolkenstein. Even Priss doesn’t deserve this. How am I going to break it to her?

“Oh hey Priss, not only did you lose everything, but now because of my brother, the entire world is ending as soon as a layer of frost I conjured wears off.”

Yeah, that’s going to go over well. Okay, okay, okay, Reggie shut up. It was just getting up. Maybe it just wanted to stretch its legs and shift into a different position to sleep? One can hope, right? Ugh. I mean, this thing exists, it existed. It has been here for as long as our world exists, and hasn’t destroyed everything yet, right? Let’s just catch up with the gals.

As I rise out of the volcano to the skies, I scan about for Lin, Lu, and Te, but what I find horrifies me beyond words. Entire miles of the forest disappeared. No fire, no devastation, the jungle to the south just, it just disappeared. I know the creature beneath the Fire Biome hasn’t moved yet, it was only lifting upwards slightly. What caused all of the. Oh no. It was me.

Somehow, somehow it was me. The trees just gave themselves up for me. I don’t, I don’t get it. What? Why?

I let my glide fall forward into a dive and crash down onto my hands and knees somewhere far south of the volcano. As I tumble and roll I shift forms back into cherubic Reggie. I hug my knees to my face and bawl my eyes out, sobbing. Even trying to buy the world just a little more time, I’m killing it myself somehow.

I’m barely cognizant of the feeling of several bodies leaning up against me for some period of time. I can’t stop crying. Our world is going to die. Everyone I love is going to die. Going back in time can’t fix this. It’s, it’s inevi… oh the third trial. It’s inevitable.

Am I lightning right now? I don’t even notice the pain, I’m so lost in these thoughts. Were the trials to prepare me for this? To know that the end was inevitable? Just to make the best choices to give our world as long as possible? To cherish every last second with my loved ones? I need to snap out of it then. Future me was right. Cherish every second. My heart aches so deeply. Oh no, I need to hide my thoughts from. Oh, oh no, too late. Even Linti has ridden around in my head. They all know.

Were there any other lessons I was supposed to pick up from the trials? There was something about trying as long as I could, ending in sacrifice. It feels like I’ve both already done that one, and somehow that that’s also what is always yet to come. The second one was something about illusions, trickery, or fate. Am I fated to become a monstrosity like the ones that attacked me? The third one showed me what it was like to have years with Lil, my beloved dragon buddy. We fell in love and spent thousands of years together. More than that, we railed against an inevitable fate to the bitter end. Lil even sacrificed themselves for one last attempt for even one more fraction of a second for the rest of us. They became radiant energy, a weapon that was wasted as it destroyed some far off distant land. Likely enough power to crater an entire continent.

Oh no, wait, are we approaching the Nagas' settlement? Linti they’ll kill you! No no no no no no no!