Dry brush snapped underfoot as Kaiser, Hikaru, and I trekked along the trails of Mount Coot-Tha. These days it’s a lookout about five kilometres west of Brisbane City, but years before European settlers arrived its name meant ‘place of honey’. The local aboriginal peoples of the Turrbal tribe used to come here to harvest honey from stingless native bees.

Two months had passed since the events of Romania, where we had stopped an ancient interdimensional dragon from escaping his cosmic prison and consuming the universe. And what a couple of months they were! They say the older you get, the fewer adventures you have, but I’ve found the opposite to be true.

I took my kids and Kaiser to Japan for a week while Hikaru stayed with her father. Back in the Romanian mountains, we didn’t really talk much about the lives we had outside the microcosm of the EDGE Force mission. Suffice to say, Hikaru had many responsibilities that weighed down on her.

Her father, Satoshi Hayashi, was head of a Japanese robotics giant called Hayashi. His health had recently taken a turn for the worse, which left her brother Kenshi to take over the mantle Satoshi had worn for half a century. Kenshi had been bumped up from Vice President to President, and had taken over the day to day operations of the business. That left Hikaru and her mother, Akari, to tend to Satoshi and keep him in good spirits.

I was absolutely shit scared of meeting Hikaru’s parents, but it was important. My family, the Rideouts, are pretty laid back. Japanese culture was a lot more formal than anything I was used to, but Hikaru helped me try to navigate it.

Luckily for me, Satoshi warmed to me reasonably quickly. My nerves jangled when he asked Hikaru and Akari to give us some time alone, but my kids were stoked at being let loose without their dad around. Hikaru had promised to show them a ramen place she loved. Both Seth and Lorelei had watched Naruto growing up and wanted to experience authentic Japanese ramen. Seth said he was going to eat six bowls, and I didn’t want to say anything to dampen his spirits. Hikaru also said she knew about a huge collectables store with all the latest Gundam models and Japanese-exclusive Transformers, so Seth was out of the room and ready to go before anyone else.

That left Satoshi and me alone. Unfortunately, Kaiser couldn’t come to the hospital, but he was well taken care of at Hikaru’s penthouse in Shibuya. He had complete control of the television and could watch whatever he wanted. He was in smart-puppy heaven, and still totally addicted to Rick & Morty.

Satoshi propped himself up on his hospital bed and beckoned me over. “So, Hikaru has chosen you, has she?”

I smiled and chuckled nervously. “I guess so.”

He shook his head. “No, Hikaru does not guess. When she is ready to make a choice, her mind is set. She is my little girl, even though she is grown. Tell me, what is it that you love in this life?”

I felt like this was a test, but the answer came so quickly and decisively that I found myself saying the words before giving it much thought. “My family first, and my work second. I love what I do.”

“Hikaru tells me you are a writer?”

I nodded. Sometimes, when people ask you if you’re a writer, inevitable questions come. “Have you written anything I would have read? You should make your books into movies! I’ve got such a great idea for a story, do you think you could write it for me? Is that your real job? Like, do you actually make money from it?” Every single time those questions came with a tone that you brace yourself for. You can hear it coming from a mile away.

When those questions come, your eyes glaze over, and you smile and nod through them because people don’t like it when you tell them they’re being incredibly rude and demeaning.

Satoshi’s comment didn’t come with the normally expected tone, so I answered him honestly.

“Yeah, I am.”

“That is a noble pursuit. Do your books make the world a better place?”

I shrugged. “I hope that they do. There are enough monsters out there in the real world as it is, but sometimes you need that hope that only comes from seeing the good guys win over evil. I’ve made enough money to keep a roof over my family’s heads and keep food on the table, so I count that as a success.”

He nodded. “Yes. Hope is important. Very few achieve their ikigai. I have always wanted to write a book, but never found the time. My company was always the focus. A legacy to pass onto my children.”

“What’s ikigai? I don’t recognise that word.”

“Ah, it is a Japanese term. Your ikigai is the thing that brings meaning to your life, makes the world a better place, and that you can make a living from. It is your reason for being.”

“Yeah, I guess writing is my reason for being.”

“A man who has found and follows his ikigai is worthy of my daughter.”

He offered me his hand, and I took it. At that moment, I saw what was wrong with Satoshi. Thanks to the blessing I’d received in the Romanian mountains I could feel now sense sickness in a person if I made contact with them, skin-to-skin. Age and stress had taken their toll on him over his half-decade in the workforce. He was seventy-five years old and had only just stepped down as President of Hayashi. As we shook hands, I imparted a bolstering wave of healing anima. It wouldn’t reverse the ravages of time, but it would help make his remaining days more pleasant.

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By the time Hikaru, Akari, and the kids returned, Satoshi and I talked like old friends. His spirits had rallied, and he spoke more animatedly than ever. He regaled us with tales about starting out from nothing and building a robotics company in a time when that technology was purely the arena of science fiction.

The longer we talked, the more I realised that while writing might be my reason for being, I now had a new mission that was even more important.

I was a Balaran Knight, charged with healing and protecting the world. The cosmic dragon we locked away in a prison beneath the ancient city in the mountains was only one of what appeared to be many different powerful interdimensional entities that have leaked into our reality.

Another of these powers was a dragon named Balaur, who sought to heal and protect. His power is where mine comes from, and his mission – to stop the event known as the reality crash – is my mission.

That is the entire reason why we were on Mount Coot-Tha on that sunny morning in May. It was my favourite time of year, when the weather turned from Autumn to Winter, and the mornings were delightfully brisk. It was the best time to go hiking.

I carried a Balaur seed in my backpack, which we would plant somewhere in the bush. This would allow Balaur to create an anima absorption field over the coming months. We were approximately ten months away from an event known as the reality crash, where our entire timeline came to an abrupt and decisive end.

EDGE Force had mobilised its forces shortly after our mission in Romania. They established a direct line of contact with Balaur, and all their plans and contingencies shifted in an instant. EDGE Force pivoted from a strategy of sacrificing 90% of the population of Earth to circumvent the reality crash, to transporting Balaur seeds across the planet to absorb the cosmic energy wave that was in our future. This wave of cosmic energy seemingly triggered some kind of a shutdown on the simulation we called our reality, and maybe Balaur’s spreading influence could help us stop it.

The seed I held in my backpack would grow and spread over the coming ten months, protecting the people of South East Queensland: the place I was born and raised.

Other EDGEs were sent on missions across the planet, planting other seeds in large population centres. The plan was for Balaur to have enough nodes around the world that most people would be spared if the reality crash should come to pass.

I was still at a loss as to what the reality crash actually was. EDGE Command was sparse on the details, but they believe that the shutdown of our entire reality begins on Earth and expands outward from our planet, causing a universe-ending cascade. Something that happens here is the catalyst for the event, and if we could absorb the energy wave that begins this process, maybe we can stop it from happening.

That’s the theory, at least. We had ten months to prepare.

“I think this is the spot,” I said as we approached a fork in the trails.

One path led up towards the mountaintop, but the other led down onto the side of the mountain. Many years ago, when I was in my early twenties, a bunch of buddies and I had gone on a hike in the middle of the night here. Well, a drunken stumble might be a more apt description, but you get the picture. While we ambled through the bush, caterwauling as only drunk young men can do, we came across a cave complex off the beaten track.

That cave would be the perfect place for Balaur’s seed to grow in seclusion and spread its protective net around this place that I call home.

We followed the downward path until Hikaru suddenly stopped in her tracks. A window panel opened in my view a second later, and the message within terrified me.

URGENT BROADCAST TO ALL EDGES, PAST AND PRESENT

YOU ARE BEING HUNTED

Kaiser whined, then turned back to look at me.

“Do you smell anything?” I asked.

Kaiser lowered his nose to the ground and sniffed, then whirled right towards me. His eyes focused on something just behind me as he barked a savage warning.

I turned just in time to see something I didn’t initially understand. An orb floated on the path behind us, entirely spherical, spinning on its forward axis. It didn’t look real. I could only determine the spin direction because of the runes emblazoned on its outside walls. The runes glowed blue, which was a colour I associated with the anima of Mnemnhion, one of the interdimensional entities I was aware of.

But why would Mnemnhion be hunting us?

I immediately activated my Balaran Knight armour, which erupted from my skin and formed a protective barrier over my body. The green light created a metallic casing like a suit of armour, complete with draconic wing motifs on the breastplate and claws on the gauntlets and greaves. Most of the armour formed as a black colour, but green anima glowed from the places the plates met.

Kaiser stayed behind me. He was brilliant for a dog, but any power he gained on our last mission was stripped away by EDGE Force upon our return. Now he was just a regular old German Shepherd, albeit one that could understand spoken English.

Hikaru was blessed by Balaur, just like me, which gave her the ability to see sources of anima in our world that would otherwise go undetected. She had not yet earned her set of armour. She was supposed to be going through Balaran Knight training in Romania in the coming months.

“This construct is more powerful than us,” Hikaru said.

“Any weak spots?” I asked.

“Not that I can see.”

“Fight or run?”

“We don’t stand a chance. We have to run.”

I turned just in time to see another runed orb descend from the sky behind Naginata. It was already spinning so fast that the runes were a blur.

“Hikaru, watch out-” I began, but the orb fired a wave of energy right at her.

The wave slammed into Hikaru without any immediate effect, but a devastating change began as the seconds ticked by.

Pieces of Hikaru’s skin flaked off, floated in the air, and crumbled into ash. Her hair, clothes, and gear disappeared as she was slowly broken down and destroyed by that wave of energy.

Rage boiled up inside me. I dashed past Hikaru as she rapidly disintegrated into dust. A look of terror was stuck on her face as it turned grey and crumbled. I lashed out at the orb that had killed her with my clawed gauntlets, but the damned thing zipped out of the way. It moved like it wasn’t bound by the laws of gravity.

Then a blasting wave of force rocked through me from behind.

The other orb had done the same thing.

I turned back just in time to see Kaiser’s coat and eyes turn grey, and then he began to crumble.

The change began as a fluttering in my chest, and I knew this was the end. All the power that I’d attained so far was nothing when faced with this new threat. I lifted my hands in front of my face and watched in horror as my flesh turned grey and flaked away. I took a step forward and reached out towards Kaiser.

I tried to say I’m sorry buddy, but my tongue refused to work. My throat felt like it was full of sand, and I couldn’t catch my breath. Puffs of dust obscured my vision as things started to fade. The fingers on my hands were gone by the time Kaiser collapsed into a pile of dust.

Then, everything faded to black.