Kahli soared up and smashed her flaming fist right into Princess' smug face, sending the fony sailing backwards in the air, wings flapping furiously, with a whinny of frustration.

[Critical hit]

Princess was reeling, and glitter and sparkles were falling off of her like droplets of blood.

"Take that, you, you weird looking fony!" said Kahli with determination as she shook her fist a bit. After all, Princess still had two spires - an odd look for a fony that had grown as large as she had. Froufrou squelched with stress, and Sahdi was silent with shock - but she was clinging in Kahli's arms tighter every moment.

Princess huffed angrily and dashed forth, her jaws open and gnashing.

"Theseosus' pincers! She's got fangs!!" Kahli gasped, looking at Princess' open maw with fear. "Fonies don't have fangs, do they?"

"I don't think that's a fony, Kahli," said Sahdi with a shiver.

"Well then what is it?!" Kahli furrowed her brow, feeling a little bit of living wood scrape together around her eyebrows.

"BEHOLD!! THE HARBINGER OF DOOM!!" shouted Taubitha with a cackle as she shot up from the sky with a mighty gust of wind and a well-timed flap of her wings. Seemingly unintentionally, she actually interrupted Princess' path to Kahli, and smacked right into her face. This took both foes from positions of strength to positions of imbalance that sent them tumbling from the air. "AAAAAAAAAAGH!" she spat with frustration.

"What did she say, again?" said Kahli with confusion. "I mean, it sounds kind of like she's cold and wants someone to bring her a broom, but that's such a bizarre non sequitur that I'm not wholly certain it's what she meant. No, it had to be something else..."

"Did she not say 'Behold, the Harbinger of Doom?'" asked Sahdi as she twirled some hair around her finger, noting that not one of her ends appeared to be split.

"What? No, no, it was definitely nothing like that, Sahdi. Trust me, even though I might be unsure of what I heard from her just now, I definitely would've caught that. Something you'll quickly learn about me is that I have great ears. Probably, the wind was buffeting just enough to make Taubitha hard to understand. Surely that's why you misheard her, Sahdi. Plus, that makes it sound like Princess is the Harbinger of Doom or something, Sahdi! And let's be real, I might not know what exactly that fony-like creature is, but it's no Harbinger of Doom."

"I... guess you're right," said Sahdi, unsure for a moment if Kahli was using a [skill] on her or not. "But, um, maybe she said something like 'You hold the Harbinger of Doom,' as in referring to Froufrou?"

You hold the Harbinger of Doom? Kahli thought to herself. So Taubitha knows that Froufrou is the Harbinger of Doom? "But how would she know that Froufrou is the Harbinger of Doom?"

"Didn't you tell her?" asked Sahdi.

"Ah, that's true," said Kahli. "Sorry, I know it seems like not a lot of time has passed, but I've actually been experiencing time at a dilated rate for a number of reasons, so it feels like forever since we've had a run in with Taubitha. Maybe I'll explain it all if we ever have a minute where we aren't forced into battle."

"Sounds like a plan," said Sahdi. "By the way, it looks like they're coming back for more."

And so it did. Taubitha and Princess were charging up towards Kahli, Sahdi, and Froufrou, and indeed they looked out for blood. However, Kahli had a few new tricks up her sleeve. After all, she was a [Time Manipulator] now, wasn't she?

Kahli looked to Sahdi and smirked. "Wanna see something cool?"

"Something cool?" Sahdi sounded befuddled.

"Oh, yes you do." Kahli smirked again. Then, she called up to G'athoong. "Would you blast some water towards us, please?"

Towards you? Not your enemies? G'athoong, indeed, also sounded befuddled in her mind speech at this moment.

"Yes!" Kahli clarified.

"You're crazy!" said Sahdi. She was shivering with fear as the foes approached, quicker and quicker.

If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

"No," said Kahli. "This is crazy."

With that, Kahli focused her mind and used her [SPEE] for the first time. And indeed, she and Sahdi soon watched as time slowed outside of a small radius around them, so that G'athoong's attack and the charging enemies both seemed as if they were moving in slow motion.

"What the fuck is going on?!" said Sahdi.

"I'm using one of my [class] [attributes]," said Kahli matter of factly. "I can control the speed of time for myself and others around me, to a degree. Thankfully, everyone here juuust falls into my radius of influence. However, I do feel like it'd be a stretch to do anything further than this, at least right now. I'd have to add [attribute] points to my [SPEE] to achieve much more."

"It's still quite a lot..." said Sahdi with shock. Taubitha and Princess had barely made any progress towards them since Kahli had employed the usage of her [attribute]. About the same could be said for G'athoong's water burst.

Froufrou squelched in a stinky manner that denoted opposing feelings. This was because, of course, she felt that if Kahli saw so much utility in the [SPEE] [attribute], she should've poured all of her extra [attribute] points into it when she'd first obtained the [class] of [Time Manipulator], just like Froufrou had done with her [LIN] [attribute]. But that was beside the point. Froufrou knew at this point, after having watched in pain as Kahli leveled up in a balanced manner over and over again, that she'd be hard pressed to ever convince her [paired] companion to change her ways.

"Well, anyways, check this out," said Kahli with a wink. She kicked off her big rock over and over again, moving herself, Sahdi, and Froufrou high up and out and to the left of the space in the air they'd been occupying. And of course, neither G'athoong or Taubitha and Princess reacted - as time was moving indeed so quickly from their perspective that there was no way they could truly notice what action Kahli had presently taken. With that, Kahli then looked at G'athoong and focused her energy on utilizing her [SPEE] to its highest capacity. In a flash, G'athoong's blast of water shot down like a torrent, quickly approaching the space where Kahli would've been in the air had she not quickly dodged it. Then, she looked over to Taubitha and Princess and used her [SPEE] to bring time back to its normal speed for them as well, and then she sped time up for them some more, so in that they had reached the spot where Kahli had originally been as soon as G'athoong's water blast also did the same. In a sudden flash, the effect was that Taubitha and Princess quickly rushed up to greet nothing but a big burst of water that knocked, jostled, and shot them down, down, down to doubtlessly hit the ground of downtown Flungunglia.

"Wow, you really are crazy!" said Sahdi as she hugged Kahli tightly.

Froufrou squelched.

What? asked G'athoong, nearly thought speechless. What the hell just happened?

Kahli just kind of laughed. "G'athoong, can you take us down to the ground? I'm getting tired of fighting in the air, and I don't want to give Taubitha a fighting chance in her element, what with the new wings and all." Then, Kahli had a thought with a shudder. She'd been saying in her element in regards to Taubitha as a turn of phrase, and not something with literal meaning, however she was starting to wonder if within said turn of phrase there was more than a kernel of truth. Was Taubitha still a stone elemental such as herself? Or had Taubitha's elementality at some point taken a turn for the strange? Was it indeed that Taubitha had become a wind elemental of some sorts? Kahli wasn't sure, and she wasn't sure if she wanted to be sure, either.

Either way, G'athoong happily swooped down and collected Kahli, Sahdi, and Froufrou from the air. As they rested on her shimmering scales, the majestic water dragon took a moment to level with everyone - figuratively, that is, not literally.

Look, I want to help all of you, but I'm a little unsure of whether or not it would be prudent for me to go down there all the way. As in, I don't know how people would react if they saw me.

"What do you mean, G'athoong?" asked Kahli.

I mean that, generally, we dragons have been in a deep slumber for the better part of five centuries, give or take a day or two. With that, the only dragons that the world of Nomachiato has rightly seen as of late, best I can tell, are bone dragons that may or may not have been possessed by an ancient evil in order to attack and destroy the world. While I am but a peaceful water dragon, there's no guarantee that everyone in Flungunglia will see me that way, and in fact there is a high chance that I will be quickly painted as a foe before I am lauded as a hero and afforded the same benefit of the doubt you, Sahdi, and indeed even Froufrou are capable of achieving with a relative ease. There is, from what I can feel with my [FEL] - it is a special [attribute] we dragons have, especially water dragons, that has to do with tauman empathy while also having far reaching implications beyond base emotional response and can indeed pervade into collective psyches - a growing prejudice against us across the land that will not be so swiftly averted. Due to the need for what appears to be a tireless diligence to reform the wider world's perception of us dragons, I cannot safely go to the ground - however, I can take you both as low from the sky as is safe for me. You will have to simply bridge the rest of the gap yourself - a water dragon storming over a downtown area is simply not the optics we need right now.

"HEY! IDIOTS!" crackled a sinister yet obnoxious voice from the undulating green hexagons of the mothership high in the clouds. "TAUBITHA MIGHT BE ALL WASHED UP, BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN I AM!!"

Kahli groaned. She recognized the voice all too well. With a sigh, she did her best to maintain her composure. If the past was any indication, the best way to act around Lloyd was to show no fear. "So this is your mothership, Lloyd? It looks... ridiculous."

"YOU WILL RUE THE DAY YOU SAID SUCH VILE THINGS! I WILL DESTROY YOU!!"

Before Kahli could beg for Theseosus' forgiveness, a hexagon popped off the side of the mothership and out flew the angry little alien. He held glowing energy between his hands that seemed to get brighter and brighter every moment.

"I'm going to take you the fuck out, Kahli!" he spat as he grew closer.

Kahli frowned. Did this, too, call for her to use her [SPEE]?