For now, quickly, cast out your senses Reggie, take stock while you’re leaping atop Lil. Focus to see beyond the flashes of lightning, to take in all of the landscape, the forces to our south, the battles raging in land and sky to the east and west. Dive into the non, into a moment between moments. Breathe deep, drink of the absence of time. Focus. Paint the lands in your mindscape. Draw up the images, the thermals, the motions. What did you see? How do you protect them? All of them?

Lady Kinzul wasn’t moving, but she was hovering in the air somehow. Astridus was circling her. I don’t like that. They’re both in their human forms, with their wings out. Astridus spat acid at her mother, but Kinzul didn’t even dodge it, it did nothing to her. She’s so still though. I’m concerned. But she needs me to trust her. She ordered me to act in certain ways, to leave Astridus to her, to help Luni and Lucky. I can’t let Lu get hurt. Not after everything we’ve been through together. I can’t let my son get hurt. Not after everything I’ve missed out on.

Kinzul has to be able to win this, right? Her dragonforce is spread so thin though. What if she’s not strong enough because of it? Did Astridus use dragonfright on Kinzul? Could that even affect her? Friggin’ hell, she wasn’t even responding to any of my mental thought trains about her. I don’t like this, I don’t like it at all. Why hasn’t Astridus actually attacked her mother, with Kinzul unmoving like that? Astridus clearly is moving around. Huff, okay, forget it, move on for now. We don’t have the answers, and interfering might get Kinzul, or me, hurt or killed if she has a plan, and ends up having to rescue us. I can’t protect her.

How’s Teuila doing with the thunderer? He’s swelled up pretty big, and she’s not moving. Crap, she’s dragon feared, and he’s charging up. I’m surprised he’s still charging up, but he’s like some sort of frog with the way his gullet is expanding. His gullet is so big that it’s completely blocking his view in front of him, because of how his eyes are positioned along the sides of his head, aimed slightly forward. That’s going to be a massive friggin’ blast. Can Te handle it? Is Lil going to be able to handle that? Is Lil going to freeze up with the dragonfright going? Crap, probably. Can I protect them both?

I’ll need Lil to fly east towards Teuila in such a way that he won’t crash when the dragonfright hits him. I should be able to isolate the Thunder Dragon dragonfright signal’s wavelength to be able to nullify it with my Void Dragon Honoris Causa empowering my Latent Nothing. Rather, hopefully I can do it more quickly. If I’ve got any sort of trick that might help slow the thunderer’s breath from charging, I should make use of it. What happens if I summon a massive acid-water elemental, give it a sword, and tell it to go nuts flowing in through his nostrils? The burble might buy a split second as Xinthoz would have to exhale to clear his breathing passageways. If I could even get the water elemental to his face. He’s massive, and his face is high in the air, and the water elemental doesn’t exactly fly.

Could I toss in an air elemental in instead? Could it produce an air effect that created silence, nullifying the sound waves? Genre senses saying only about a twenty to thirty percent chance it could figure out how to do something like that on its own, even if it could do such a thing, and about the same chance that it might be able to actually do some useful effect in that nature, so all told, like a quarter of a quarter, or about a six percent chance.

Woah, vision, going, dim. Getting, sleepy. Can’t be tired in mindspace. What’s going on? Shouldn’t have Honoris Causa and paused time. Something wrong. Bad mix of effects. Self struggling to consume time, time that isn’t here. Might have to use retrocognition more sparingly in battles against dragons after this. Keep fighting it though.

Argh, it’s friggin’ hard to concentrate, let alone come up with a way to protect them both. There’s, there’s got to be something to buy us long enough to nullify dragonfright on two different people at entirely different locations due to where Lil will likely crash at the edge of the radius—. I don’t have to. Lil doesn’t need to get in range of, or at least stay in range of, the dragonfright, and I can levitate Teuila out of its range. Then I can go land on Xinthywhatsit and shut the signal off at the source.

I might need to sneak up on him to do it, land on his back as a raven or something. Wait. Do I have nine telekinesises when I’m three ravens? Eh, figure that out later. Four more uses of Number one in the Q C R today, not worth playing around and maybe screwing up, but definitely worth using to get in close enough to sick my Honoris Causa on his expression of his dragonforce, to mess up the outgoing fear signal. I can even get two or three points of reference, if we let Lil get just inside the edge of the dragonfright, and then I shove him back out of it, while taking a quick analysis of the signals within him. Then I can take a snapshot analysis of Teuila’s signals while I’m moving her out of its radius.

Any signals that match incoming signals on both of them when they’re under dragonfright, I’ll shut down at their source after landing as a raven. Then I’ll summon a water elemental to screw with, what’s his name, Xinthoz or whatever, and leave him up to Te and Lil. From there, I think my new T K S L movement is faster than even my T K Surfing, because I can use a lot of separate things to gain and increase speed, unlike the set speed maximum of the T K Surf. It’ll just be a little tiring is all. Regardless, T K S L towards Luni and Lucky, figure things out from there. Protecting them might be the hardest thing yet.

Woah, eyelids drooping. No, come on, where were Lu and Lucky. Crap, they were unmoving, but Lucky’s got his jaws locked on Vanathar’s left scapula, the base of his wing. Wait, Lucky was *still* growing? He’ll be almost as big as Vanathar soon. Or he might have topped out at some point around when the dragonfright hit.

Crap, yawning, keep it together Reggie. Bit of the plan at a time. Get Lil towards Te, keep Lil from being stuck in dragonfright while analyzing it when it hits. Go on from there.

Snap back to reality, call out to Lil, “Lil buddy, I need you to fly us eastward towards Te, just like we planned, but get real low when we’re getting closer, if you can start sensing the dragonfright, let me know. If you crash, I’ll shove you back outside of its range. I’m going to fly in and get Te out of there.”

Taking quick stock of Lil as I leap towards him, his wings are massive and powerful, stretching out to the sides with an intimidating span that seems to fill the space around us, despite his smaller stature than the dragons we’re facing. They still manage to beat with a sound like thunder, sending gusts of wind and debris in every direction.

Lil's jaw is wide and strong, lined with rows of razor-sharp teeth that glint during each spark of lightning. His nostrils are flaring heavily as he breathes, apparently a tiny bit winded from amping up his flames against Olashax.

Lil’s eyes in this form are like orbs of emerald set alight, fixed on our goal with intensity, looking directly towards Teuila, his It’s-A-Secret. Lil can actually see her from here because of his invisible goggles that amplify objects viewed from a distance. I’m glad my buddy can get us going in the correct direction without any extra guidance as he takes off, launching us eastward.

Looking at Lil, his body is thick and muscular, it’s a frame built for power and strength. His tail whips back and forth, much stubbier in this form than some of his other forms. I think the mass from his tail has gone to empower his forearms. When Lil leaps, his claws dig deep into the ground, leaving furrows in the muddy soil.

Sitting atop my best buddy, I can feel the heat emanating from his body, despite his breath weapon having ended, it’s still a palpable force that seems to radiate outwards and envelop me in a cocoon of warmth. For this brief moment atop him, I lean down to hug Lil from between his scapula, his mighty dactyl-leathered wings. I haven’t felt so connected to my best buddy in so long. We’d been apart for far, far, far too long. Between our last months on Can’Z’aas, and then going our separate ways here on Rayileklia, I never want to be so far apart for anywhere near as long, ever again.

Quipping while flying, Lil’s voice is almost chipper across our telepathic bond, “Me neither buddy, me neither. It was mega sucky, mega mega mega sucky when I got my head on straight.”

In all together too short a time, while flying low enough to the ground that Lil’s claws skirt the muddy landscape, they begin to furrow as he freezes up. His wings stop flapping, and are thankfully splayed, so his momentum comes to rest quickly as his weight sinks into his forelimbs. I hold my breath for a quick moment as I flip out ahead of Lil, and then begin breathing again to resume my normal weight. I take a snapshot mentally of everything I can that my Honoris Causa picks up within Lil. I combine three sets of telekinesis with my adamantite body’s strength as I shove him back a dozen feet, huffing the whole while. With Lil freed from the grasp of dragonfright, I have to do the same for Teuila.

Thankfully, Te isn’t too far away, a hundred meters or so. Holding my breath, leaping off of T K S’s while having those same squares pushing forward against my feet offers me a lot of speed, and a degree of fine movement control, and aerial redirectability, even with my difficulty in my motor functions. One leap, ten meters easy, two leaps, another fifteen meters, already in motion, just adding my horizontal velocity, another leap, another fifteen meters, another leap, and I’m over halfway to Teuila. Huff. Whoops, hold my breath. I can’t pant from the exertion, or I lose all that forward momentum when my adamantite weight comes back.

In another three leaps, I’m within range of Teuila for my telekinetic grip, so I fling her in my direction as I continue leaping towards her. Catching Teuila mid-leap, I place a T K Square in front of me, swing my legs out ahead, bunch them up and launch myself rearward, reversing direction instantly mid-air. Sorry Te, I’d really love to set you down gently, but I’m going to toss you on the other side of that hillock where Lil is currently positioned. I know she can take a rough landing if she needs to, but her Latent should probably kick in either automatically, or as soon as she leaves the dragonfright range. She likely will land as gracefully as a butterfly. While I have the opportunity, I let my Honoris Causa seek out all the sources of signals, waves, and energies flowing around My Wings, my beloved Teuila. I commit them to memory.

Flinging Teuila helps me angle myself to begin leaping back towards Xinthoz. Te and Lil reunite, leaving Lil free to catch Teuila up on the plan, if she couldn’t hear during dragonfright. Closer, closer and closer to Xinthoz. Use the hills for cover, move between flashes of lightning. I should be in range now. Q C R Number one, now the Ravenfeather Coat is back on and being engaged. Two uses down for the day.

I am three, three are we. We circle, we wheel, we spread, we converge, we spread again, all closing in. Not safe, not safe. We do it anyway. We like shiny, and love is shiny, and so are pretty scales. More, magnetics, waves, signals, we feel a strong source nearby. It vibrates us, shakes us, tickles. Reggie can override instincts, but lets us be us, be themselves. We are Reggie, Reggie is us. We once again reform as Reggie Shellcracker, low along the dorsal ridge of Xinthoz, an area where he’d have a hard time reaching with any of his limbs, wings, or tail. We instantly place the Ravenfeather Coat back in the Q C R compartment it belongs to, for safekeeping, just in case, as always when we use it.

Phew, that’s a hell of a rush. Well, Xinthoz knows I’m here now, so I might as well be a dick about it. I equip number four from my Q C R while gripping the back of one spike of his dorsal ridge with my thighs. Oh, oh this is even better than I’d hoped. Xinthoz is rearing like a bucking bronco, and the lightning is amping up my signal detection and location. Of course, it hurts like hell, and my adamantite body is wearing off, but at least it lasted about ten minutes. Quickly, quickly find the signal and swap back to number five.

There! Subtly alter it so that this portion of the signal bounces back and forth against itself, erasing its projection beyond his core. He’ll still feel like his dragonfright is active. Whoops, he’s spinning around to see who struck him with lightning, so I’d better vamoose. Back to Q C R number five, Glacial Greaves, and another temporary Q C R number one, the Ravenfeather Coat.

Three uses down for the day, three are we, we are three. We spawn far apart, in different directions, and for once, we don’t wheel, we don’t converge, no, we fly west, north, and east. We are hoping that Xinthoz takes note of the one of us traveling directly north. The one of us traveling west will circle around behind him to the south and back east. He does make note of us, one of us, and lunges. We are small and quick, he is bloated, large, slowed by dragonforce use and by swelling breath weapon. We will let him think he has a chance of catching this one of us, delaying him as long as possible, while our loved ones get their bearings, free of dragonfright.

We are nearing the end of our existence, we cannot continue to be manifested like this much longer. Ah, the north of us is struck down, we must become the east one of us to maintain the ruse. We are once again Reggie Shellcracker, taking a deep breath and holding it, sailing rapidly eastward, preserving momentum from our flight as a raven. Our coat goes back into its compartment.

There’s Lu and Lucky. I want to protect them so badly. Lucky’s legs are wrapped around, and clawing into Vanathar’s right scapula for leverage, while his jaw clings unbreakably to Vanathar’s left. The full weight of him seems to be too much for Vanathar to do much about. If Vanathar tried to roll, he’d snap his own wings off in their current position. His tail can’t do more than flick at Lucky’s armored back, and his forelimbs are too bulky to turn around. Any minute now, he’s going to give up trying to overpower Lucky, and try to breathe flames.

Lucky’s in a good spot, and Lu is hiding in an overlapping plate in Lucky’s armor. My son really chose the best strategy as a stall tactic. Leaping up onto Vanathar’s back, and growing while latched between the wings, pushing them apart, is like keeping an alligator’s mouth held shut. Those wings might have immense power, but that power is mostly meant for lift, for pushing downward, and Lucky has them nearly as fully downward as they can be. Vanathar might have been able to wrap his wings under himself, if they weren’t fully splayed, now stretched flat against the ground for hundreds of feet in either direction. If Lucky weren’t so heavy, Vanathar could rear onto his hind legs, and try to fold his wings under him, possibly only slightly breaking the furthest dactyl points.

I had thought that perhaps Lucky and Lu were caught in dragonfright, but no, it seems more likely that Lucky is simply doing what he felt was the best strategy, which includes not moving, almost at all. Even if he is caught in dragonfright, he’s where he should be to safely stall. I’m so proud of the two of them. I’m almost there you two, hold on, just a bit longer. A few more leaps.

When a voice I want to protect as strongly as any of my inner circle, a voice that belongs to someone on the far end of the battlefield, opposite where I am, Prinrin’s voice, screams a fearful cry across the telepathic wavelength, I nearly break apart. It almost shatters me hearing her yell, “Schism!”