G'athoong the water dragon raced through the air in a dash and slammed her gaping jaws into the open maw of the ultra bone dragon. With their jaws interlocked and slamming against one another again and again, the dragons spun in the air, writhing and thrashing forth in a swirling jumble that was leaving Kahli feeling incredibly disoriented.

Kahli found the whole display sickening, not only because she was feeling quite weak, but because the way dragons fought eachother seemed dangerously close to making out with one another. Now, certainly, this was not what the case was here - indeed, they were gnashing into one another's mouths withfangs bared and crushing into bone and skin, respectively. It sounded dreadful, and they were grunting and growling with tones full of hate. Howevever, it still managed to look a little gross, and Kahli was really hating the fact that she was riding G'athoong at this moment.

"Ugh. How long is this going to be?" she asked with a groan.

"Who knows," said Sahdi. "They did it for, like, twenty minutes while you and Unit 5a23 were in meditation together. So I'd say we've got a while. That said, even though it's disgusting and I'm feeling a little motion sickness, I should be able to heal some of your puncture wounds from the dragon's bite attack."

"Great," said Kahli with a smile. Then, she felt a little nervous. Despite her history in gymnastics and generally adventurous spirit, she'd never gotten wounded like this, and had no idea how water elementals could heal such damage. "Uh, mind if I ask what you're going to do?"

"It's pretty simple, actually," said Sahdi. She raised her left hand and conjured up a large orb of crystal clear water. "I'm going to fill your wounds with this, and then lower the temperature until it becomes ice. Yes, that's right - healing puncture wounds requires me to dip a little into ice elementality. We water elementals are lucky that water and ice are so close together on the elementality spectrum in this regard, and while I'll have less control over it once it freezes, this will still work well to heal you. See, once it freezes, it'll expand outwards, and then I'll leave it be. As the ice slowly melts, your flesh will take its place, and when it has fully melted, you'll be good to go. Just be sure not to overstress it, or to get bitten by any more ultra bone dragons, until it heals up - it's going to be weaker than a normal leg until then."

Kahli shuddered a little bit. She didn't like the idea of her wounds expanding, but it didn't sound like she had much of a choice at this point. She did, however, have another question.

"Is it going to- OWWWWWW OWWW OWWW BY THE PINCERS OF THESEOSUS OW!" Kahli felt tears stream down her face as the water filled her wounds and quickly expanded and froze into ice, stretching her ligaments and tearing into her. Then, it felt cold, so cold, and soon after that it began to numb, until her leg felt... almost normal, though it still felt numb and cold.

"Yes, sorry, it's a very painful process, but as you undoubtedly know now, the pain is short lived," said Sahdi matter-of-factly. "Now, as for care - once again, just be sure you don't get bitten again, and don't run, until all the ice melts. It shouldn't be more than a day's time, if that."

Normally, Kahli wouldn't have minded a turnaround as quick as a day for healing of what had been a seriously nasty wound, however, if the last few days were any indication of what was to come it was going to be seriously difficult for her to keep from agitating it during the healing process. Kahli felt like the apocalypse just kept knocking at her door from every angle, and with that, she had no idea why. Sure, there was the whole bit where Omar had activated that prophetic scroll by burning it foretelling the coming of the Harbinger of Doom, but Froufrou was the Harbinger of Doom! Didn't that mean that, as long as Froufrou wasn't causing the end of the world, it wouldn't be coming? Or was Froufrou, and by extension Kahli, some sort of an apocalypse magnet? Even that giant, malicious jellyfish that had been haunting Kahli's [checkpoints] in time had been planning his own doomsday. Was Kahli doomed to just... continuously prevent the end of the world from coming to pass? Had that been her fate due to bringining the scroll to its eventual activation? Was this all her fault somehow?

Regardless, Kahli was nervous about the idea of the ice taking a full day to melt. She needed use of her leg. Didn't she? Kahli asked Sahdi about this.

"Well, I'm not so sure about that, Kahli. Barring anything else crazy-" Sahdi was interrupted by an exceptionally strong thrashing the two dragons were going through as they ate into one another's faces. Once things stabilized a bit, she tussled her hair, cleared her throat and continued. "Um, well, barring anything other than this dragon fight, we're still about a day and a half's flight out from Clathalia. So, no, I'd say you're quite alright, honestly."

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"Oh," said Kahli with a nod. "I guess that's alright, then."

"Should any of us be helping G'athoong?" asked Unit 5a23. "I, of course, am only offering to help in this fight because the ultra bone dragon would surely eviscerate my circuitry if it were not to perish. Otherwise, I would stand idly by, as in, I would literally set myslef on idle and have no feelings whatsoever whilst the dragon ripped you all to bits, limb from limb, tearing out and feasting upon your feeble tauman entrails. I don't mean this in a negative or cruel way - instead, I am only trying to be honest. I live and die by pacifism, and saving you all is not always tantamount to my survival. Do not expect me to offer to jump in and help all the time, when I think many conflicts would be better fought with words and ideas than attacks through a system. Yes, powerful I may be, with many [skills] as well, but I feel that I would be doing a net negative for the world of Nomachiato if I interfered on all accounts whenever people wanted me to. There is no higher morality than the morality of one's own principles, and mine are that I shall only fight if I must, to protect myself. So, with that, I ask yet again - does G'athoong need any assistance in dispatching our rabid foe? I am personally having difficulties assessing the probability of things going south for us, and am asking you all to give me your best judgement. If you are unsure, I will err on the side of pacisifism and choose not to act. However, in the event that things become clearly dangerous, I am happy to use my power to protect myself, and by consequence also the rest of you."

Kahli rolled her eyes. Here Unit 5a23 was, always trying to make it clear how much of a pacifist he was. More like an ass-ifist. Had anybody ever told her before that pacifists were so obnoxious? Kahli sure didn't think so, and she trusted her memory. "No, Unit 5a23, I don't think you need to jump in and help, even though you're clearly dying to for whatever reason. I think G'athoong has a good handle on this."

And not much long after Kahli said this, G'athoong took such a nasty bite into the side of the ultra bone dragon's mouth that the bottom half of its jaw fell right off, shattering to pieces.

"Oh, this thing is toast!" Kahli smiled, glad that soon enough she wouldn't have to worry about getting jerked around by the dragon's scuffle.

G'athoong quickly zoomed around, diverting her attention from the ultra bone dragon's head and instead opting to start gnawing on its bony tail. Soon, with each chomp, the ultra bone dragon got shorter and shorter as G'athoong munched down its spine, until soon enough all that was left was its awful skull, which split in two as the water dragon's mighty jaws snapped into it.

"Wow," said Kahli.

"That was... Odd," said Unit 5a23. "Why did G'athoong destroy the ultra bone dragon in such a way?"

"It's how dragons slay on another," explained Kahli. This all followed a normal dragon fight cycle. First, they would charge one another and lock jaws, working to stress the other's mandibles and such, and then the winner would - assuming the loser didn't quickly fly away somehow - catch the losing dragon by the tail and then gnaw it to bits, vertebrae by vertebrae.

"I'm glad I'm not a dragon," said Unit 5a23. "That doesn't sound very peaceful."

"Well, it's not, but generally dragons don't fight one another - at least from what I've read," Kahli clarified. "The only thing is, well, nothing is general or normal about what's going on here in Nomachiato right now. That's the honest truth of the matter. What's happening these days is... the craziest series of events I've ever experienced. And it all happened when Omar burnt that scroll. You know, I wonder where we'd all be right now if he hadn't. I wonder if I'd still be waxing the floors in his office. I know I wouldn't have a system, though, that much is for sure. Is everything always this crazy for people who have systems?"

Sahdi and Unit 5a23 looked at each other and shrugged. "Beats us," they said in unison.

"I'll take that as a no," said Kahli with a sigh.

The rest of the day was spent bickering, and talking about nothing, or possibly not even really talking. Soon enough, the sun was setting through the clouds over to the far horizon, where not much of anything other that trees and mountainsides and the occasional derelict ruin could be seen.

Kahli liked to look at the ruins and imagine up stories for each one. Sure, there were definitely real stories behind each ruin - but how was she to know what any of them could've been? And when would she ever know the truth? All that considered, she enjoyed the thought exercise of running with her imagination and seeing what she could think up. Maybe some ruins were built by a long lost ruler. Maybe - and this may have even been closer to the truth - maybe they were relics of Quantimidas' stay on Nomachiato, before his endless slumber.

Hadn't the big jellyfish told her, before she defeated it, that it planned to consume Quantimidas? That would mean Quantimidas was real, right?

Kahli laid beside Sahdi and Unit 5a23, who was still meditating and was putting off an impressive amount of heat what with all of his toasting to avoid overheating, and she stared up at the sky. There were so many more stars up there than she'd been able to see from the ground, it seemed. And, indeed, it was quite beautiful, regardless of perceived star count.

That was how Kahli fell asleep, and her sleep was deep, and dreamless.

However, all that seemed to slip away when she was awoken by a cold, brutish pecking on her forehead that felt not unlike a miniature jackhammer.