It was night, but there were no stars. The Storm that took up the entire sky swirled, an ever-shifting mess of dots that always seemed just shy of forming a pattern you could recognize. It gave me a headache, and the raw magic in the air made me feel slightly ill. Aside from Tola and Janice, nobody else seemed to feel it. Even Roffil, a mage who’d spent years practicing, seemed immune to it. We were deep in the “office” of “TerraTalk Landscaping”, semi-jokingly known as the Terra Embassy by those in the know.

Master had his hand on the frame of the mirror, focusing intently, but the clouded surface refused to clear. Korrigan’s voice on the other side was strained. “It’s just not working! It’s as though… I’m trying to grab hold of a fish swimming in a river, having it slip through my hands!”

Janice was scowling. “Ssssshit. If you two can’t do it, we really are cut off, aren’t we?”

Taking a deep breath, Master sighed heavily. “Looks like it. Whatever we do, we’re gonna have to do it ourselves. No running away, no evacuation. Things are not looking good.”

“That’s an understatement.” The others looked at me as I spoke, but everyone here already knew about me, so there was no point in keeping quiet. “Roffil, about your Stormshield. What can you do with what we have?”

The younger mage scowled. “I have already made the main device, but I can’t make all the ‘echo’ ones. I have… two of the gems needed.”

“Mage Tola.” Korrigan’s voice came from the gray glass. “What if we tried a smaller mirror? Something like that would take less energy, perhaps we could at least get items to you, if nothing else.”

“That’s brilliant! Anything at all would be a huge help, Master Korrigan!” It was always a little weird hearing anyone, especially my owner, refer to someone else as “Master”, but the man did earn that title. I suppose. “Roffil, get started on those echoing things. Do what you can with what we have, get them ready to finish once you get the materials. The less time we have to wait before deploying, the better.”

“Hmph. This Storm is likely to either disperse, or collapse, I worry.” Roffil was being especially sour.

Tola glared at him. “All the more reason to Get. To. Work. Unless you fancy your chances with the Storm. You want to get broken down into raw energy and nothingness, having your soul ripped to shreds, your entire being erased from existence? Along with all two thousand people of this town? Or are you going to save them, be the hero they need?”

The antagonistic little brat almost seemed to be debating it. Or maybe he was hoping to come up with some clever comeback, but didn’t. “…I’ll get started.”

Korrigan spoke again. “And we’ll get started on transferring this gem to another mirror. Keep yours where it is, I’m hoping I can hit a moving target if it’s big enough.” I pictured trying to overlap the mirrors in order to create the passageway, and realized what he meant. Granted, “moving” was likely a metaphor, the best word he could think of to describe the mental sensations, since things like position and movement didn’t really apply once you left the bounds of reality and involved the Chaos Void.

“I’ll be here to assist however I can.” Tola sighed and shook his head. “Let me know when you’re ready to attempt the transfer.”

Near the east edge of town, just past the city marker in the shape of a castle tower, Alice’s car stopped. The intern got out and opened the passenger door for me, letting me step out onto the dry grass. Just past that, the Storm raged in a swirling mass of Nothing.

“Mr. Tola said you can… sense magic? Was that true?” She regarded the “dog” with a bit of skepticism.

I was caught for a moment, staring into that wall. It was so thick, and it seemed to almost seethe with malevolence. It was like a cloud of hate itself made manifest, somehow. Were all storms like that, or was there something special about this one? Or was it simply my imagination? I shook my head to snap myself out of my thoughts. “Yes, it’s true. Part of being a magical creature, I suppose.”

There was simply too much perimeter to have under constant surveillance at all times, but the threat of more creatures like the ogres somehow managing to cross onto Earth here was too much to ignore. I was along because it gave both Alice and me something to do, and perhaps there would be something my senses could detect.

She was staring at it as well, though almost more in awe than dread. “That’s right, you said you were a dragon, didn’t you?”

I nodded. “I should dispel the illusion. It’s like having a white noise generator next to you while you’re trying to listen for footsteps. Are you going to be all right when I do?”

“Um, is there a danger to it?” She took a small step sideways, unsure what she was preparing for.

“No, I just meant, don’t freak out.” I didn’t even close my eyes or move this time, I just willed my energy to stop flowing through the collar. It was like relaxing your jaw instead of keeping your mouth closed, by this point. Hardly even noticeable, let alone the strain it once was, months ago. Once the energy stopped, the tiny motes of light that formed my disguise drifted up like embers from a campfire, sparkling and winking out of existence, leaving behind my blue-scaled beauty. …Hey, I considered myself pretty, anyway.

The soft gasp from my side told me it hadn’t gone unnoticed. “You’re blue!” When I turned my head and gave her an incredulous look for pointing out the obvious, she blushed. “Sorry, I was picturing you as a green dragon, I guess? And more… dog-like. Like a bulldog, or a pit bull, all thick and muscled and stuff. I-I’m sorry if that’s rude? I don’t mean it as an insult, y-you’re very muscled, probably! Right?”

I smirked, not that my face showed expressions well. I gave the end of my tail a light sway to show my good mood. “It’s not an insult at all. I like to think I look more cat-like, personally. Like a mountain lion or something, graceful yet powerful.” Arching my back, I spread my wings out wide and yawned. “And it feels so good to stretch out, without worrying about showing through the illusion and causing a panic.”

The sight of fangs bared and claws digging into the dirt seemed to have a less relaxing effect on Alice, however. Color drained a little from her face, a perfectly human reaction when seeing an apex predator display herself like that, I suppose. Wow, I really did think of humans as different from myself, didn’t I? At least Master didn’t act like he expected me to behave like a wild animal. He understood me, we were partners. I found myself thinking of him with a tail again, but there was no harm in letting the idle fantasy remain a little longer, right?

The intern clearing her throat brought me back to the present moment. “What do you… think it is? The Unmaker Storms? What are we even looking at, when we look at one?”

I didn’t need to have paid attention to the talks between Master and Roffil to be able to answer this one, I’d lived it first-hand. “We’re looking at the edge of the universe, right now.”

“I always kinda pictured the ‘edge of the universe’ to look like black void. What even makes it the edge? Is there even an edge? I thought it was infinite. I mean, I guess it is kind of ‘the great unknown’, in a way, but–”

“I’m not being philosophical, I’m being literal. The Storms are a tear in the fabric of the universe. If you step into one, you’re stepping outside of the universe, outside of existence. You enter into the Chaos Void Between Dimensions, raw energy without form.” My voice was low and even the entire time I spoke. I was only barely aware of speaking, my attention fixated on it, on the waves of sheer Wrongness that washed over me from it. It was taking everything I had to not run away in terror, and talking helped slightly.

Alice was silent, looking at me briefly before looking again at the Storm. Finally, she let out a soft “Oh.”

“I’ve been pondering it a lot for the last couple years. You know the Big Bang? How a singularity of energy exploded outward, energy collapsing into matter and creating the universe? This is where that energy came from, I think. We’re a tiny bubble floating within this mess, and when the universe pops or collapses in some trillions of years, that’s what we return to. And from what we know, the energy for magic comes from there too, channeled through the soul. Beyond that, we really don’t understand much at all.”

“Wow. Must say, that’s… Surprisingly philosophical. Gotta say, I did not expect to be pondering the nature of reality with a talking dragon when I took this job.” She kept looking away from the storm itself, looking at the ground or at objects nearby. “Do you… think it would hurt?”

I remembered walking into a storm, what felt like a lifetime ago. I suppose it was a lifetime ago, it was before my life as a human ended and my life as Princess began. “Extremely. It felt like being plunged into boiling battery acid, like having my skin dissolved and salt rubbed all over. Only it didn’t stop when there was nothing left, it was… Every sense was overwhelmed, all at once. Blindingly bright darkness, deafeningly loud silence, notes of every melody and lack thereof all playing overlapping at the same time, every sound that could and could not be, every sight, smell, sensation.” I shook my head and shuddered. “I had blocked it for so long, but it would creep into my dreams, the memories slowly coming back little by little…”

Alice was staring at me in horror. “It felt? You… You’ve been in there? And lived?”

Ah, right, she didn’t know that yet. Welp. “Oh. Yeah, it… It’s not great. It’s possible, if you’re really lucky, or strong-willed, or something. We don’t know how it works, but if you can make it, it’s possible to sorta ‘fall through’ one of these tears the way you ‘fell in’ and make it back to reality. You might not come out where and when you went in, though. Have you heard the others mention the word ‘Stormtouched’?”

She nodded, glancing back at the Storm wall for a moment. “I was beginning to think it was some kind of Terra euphemism for crazy. You mean it’s… that? I think I heard Mr. Roffil say that about Mr. Tola.”

“It’s that, yeah. Master is from Earth originally, he was caught in a Storm and managed to make it out on Terra. That’s where we found each other. Once we discovered we have a lot in common, well, it only made even more sense to stick together.” My tail swayed a little, thinking of Master. He was so kind, so caring. I’d originally walked into the Storm because I wanted to be erased, I couldn’t bear the loneliness and confusion about myself. But I was so glad I survived, and was able to meet Tola. I didn’t want to say it made the pain worth it, or that it made doing what I did a good decision, but… I’d go through that pain all over again in a heartbeat for him. Even if he didn’t have a tail, or horns, or scales… Why was I thinking these thoughts again? It’d been a long time since I’d had fantasies like that, of Master as a dragon and being more than just “partners”. I shook my head, trying to clear them out and focus on the world around me.

Alice had been talking, I realized. When I looked up at her, she repeated herself. “I said, do you sense anything, um, Princess?”

I did. It was subtle, but staring at the ground where the Storm met the ground confirmed it. My voice shook slightly. “See that flower, right next to the Wall? Keep your eye on it.” I nodded my head towards a yellow daffodil swaying slightly, tugged by air being pulled into the vacuum of Chaos before bobbing in an unseen current, pushed by whatever energy emanated from the void.

She squinted, pointing an outstretched finger. “That one? Okay, what am I looking at? Wait, is the dirt floating there? Ugh, it’s hard to look at that thing, makes my eyes water.”

Tiny specks of dirt were indeed lifting up into the air, the rules of reality breaking down at the edge like that, gravity no longer quite holding as universally true as it would elsewhere. But the flower… As I watched, the dirt around it eroded, and the flower tipped back, the petals shifting through a rainbow kaleidoscope of impossible colors that smeared and swirled, like dye mixing with paint. The afterimage of the disintegrated plant became lost in the seething, roiling chaos. The sight made me sick to my stomach.

“Wait, where’d it go? I blinked to rub my eyes and I can’t find it again.” Now her voice was betraying a rising fear.

“It’s gone. The Storm, it’s… it’s closing in. Slowly, but it is.”

Alice shifted her weight nervously, the scent of her panic-sweat getting stronger in the air. “What… What do we do?”

I swallowed hard, trying to get my body and mind to thaw itself, drawing my tail out from between my hind legs. I hadn’t even noticed it curling underneath me. “We go back and report this. To Janice, to Tola, and to nobody else until told otherwise. We can’t risk a panic. But now we know we have a time limit. We don’t know what it is, how fast this will move, when or if it will speed up… But I don’t think this is going away on its own. There’s an energy to it, something is keeping it here, pushing it in on us.” Seeing her rooted to the spot, I reached out with a wing to tap her side. To be fair, it felt like a feat of strength to pull my own paws from the dirt. “C’mon, we gotta get moving. I just hope this whole StormShield thing actually works, it just got a lot more vital that it does.”

The ride back to TerraTalk was in silence, neither one of us could find our voice. I only barely remembered to reapply my illusion on the way.

Back in the War Room, as it had been nicknamed, Janice paced in front of the TV that normally had a map of events. Cut off as we were, there was no way to update it, and there was little point in using electricity to display events we already knew about and couldn’t address anyway. The moment Roffil entered the room, she turned on her heel and held out both hands like she wanted to grab his shoulders and shake. “For the love of God and all that is holy, PLEASE tell me you have some kind of progress before we all are crushed to death?”

She was taking the news well.

Roffil was caught by surprise. “Crushed, Miss Hearthbloom?”

“The Storm! The Storm! It’s closing in! It’s slow, yeah, but what if it suddenly collapses? We could die at any moment! The entire town, eaten by that damn… What was it you called it? Chaos Void? Maybe you hadn’t noticed, but I’m not keen on the idea!”

The young mage’s eyes went wide. “It’s moving? We have confirmation of that? But that’s… That goes in defiance of what we know of these Storms! Then again, so has our entire situation so far already. I will have so much to update in my research once we get through this.”

Janice curled her fingers, imagining them digging into those shoulders, and spoke through clenched teeth. “It’s the ‘get through this’ part that I want some kind of assurance about! In case you forgot, the lives of over two thousand human beings are on the line here, including our own! Shield now, research later!”

He blanched, looking over towards Tola. Tola took that as a cue to speak up. “Master Korrigan was able to transfer two crystals before the connection collapsed. The interference from the Storm seems to be too great. The longer we keep a connection going, the harder it gets to maintain, as if it’s being actively ripped apart.”

“Hmph. You speak as if there is some sort of intelligence behind this. ‘Actively’, really.”

Tola glanced over at Janice. “You’ve felt it too, haven’t you? A sort of anger in the air, an intentional threat.”

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

Janice shuddered a little, taking a breath to gather herself. “I’m not sure what I’ve felt. I’m not the expert on magic in the room, that’s what you two are here for. …But I admit it does have me on edge. Sandpaper in the back of my mind. I can’t stop thinking of… of that day.”

Neither Master nor I needed to ask what day she meant. Apparently it was something Stormtouched felt, but others didn’t. By now, Roffil didn’t even bother asking. “Yes, well, I’ll have those devices assembled soon. We’ll have to simply make do, I suppose. We should make plans to evacuate as much of the city as we can to the central area, just in case.”

Once Roffil left, Janice looked over at Master. “What do you think? Can we pull this off?”

“I’ve seen his designs, and the theory certainly seems sound. And, as much as I hate to admit it, the Storm is good for one thing. The sheer amount of power in the air means we should have no problem with that aspect of things.” He was still looking up, as if he could see through the plaster tile and concrete ceiling.

“The energy?” Janice paused for a moment. “I thought it was just the emergency, but I’ve felt restless ever since this started. Like I could go for days without sleeping, like I’ve got an IV of coffee hooked into my veins. It’s not just nerves?”

Master shook his head, looking over at me and Alice, as if for confirmation. “No, I think it’s a Stormtouched thing. We’re being force-fed energy, with it permeating the air like this. I take it you haven’t been feeling it, Alice?”

The intern grimaced a little at the word Stormtouched, after our conversation earlier, and almost missed being addressed directly. “Oh, no sir. Honestly, trying to keep up with everything has been utterly exhausting, and I’m not even the one on the phones most of the time. I’ve been wondering how you two have been able to keep up with all this.”

Leaning back in his chair, Master sighed. “Now you know. I don’t recommend trying to bathe in a Storm, though.”

“Yeah, I think I’ll steer clear of that, thank you.” Alice let her gaze drift to the floor as she mulled over something, perhaps my words earlier. Then her expression changed to one of being puzzled. “What if… we tried to go under? Could we tunnel under the Storm and evacuate that way? If we went deep enough?”

I shook my head. “No, I’m… I’m pretty sure it’s a full bubble. We’re cut off from everything, underground cables and pipes are cut. I can feel the Chaos underneath the ground, it’s everywhere, in every direction.”

She gave me an even more uneasy look, somehow. “Shouldn’t we be, I dunno, falling in or something, if that’s the case? It dissolves everything, doesn’t it?”

Master shrugged. “We’re dealing with something that exists outside of reality. We don’t really know the rules, or even if rules even exist. I wasn’t sure if I was feeling it, but Princess is a lot more sensitive to these things than humans. If she says it’s there, then… Yeah.”

Janice crossed her arms. “It’s not like we have the machinery in town to be able to do that kind of excavation anyway. Not at the scale we’d need for a full evacuation.”

Nodding, Master looked towards the doorway Roffil left through. “As much as I am loath to say it, that boy is our best hope.”

“Ugh, depending on Roffil. Now that’s a grim thought.” The comment earned me a hand between my horns, petting me softly.

That evening, Janice had made an announcement that they would be deploying “Project StormShield” the next day, and laid out the shelter plans. The Courthouse couldn’t house everyone, of course, but every building for several blocks would be filled. On the fateful day, many were waiting in the streets with folding chairs. Some were holding impromptu concerts, either with live instruments or portable speakers, some had portable grills, and there were coolers with water bottles being provided for free by Janice. Several of the groups were playing “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)”, because of course they were.

It was almost a party, an attempt to shield themselves from the gloom of the sky above, but the strain was clear if you looked past the surface. Still, it was an impressive display of people banding together in the face of adversity.

People had been told to stay clear of the center of town, where we were all meeting, but there were often people who were sneaking in to try to get a closer look. Not that I could blame them. This was a once-in-a-lifetime sight, or even never-before-seen.

I was still wearing the illusion of a dog. The townsfolk might have been exposed to magic, but there was still no telling how they’d react to a dragon among them.

Roffil was examining the large central column. A wooden column, banded with silver and gold and carved with intricate runes, and having a wide base for stability. On the top sat a large crystal. Like many spell-imbued objects, the runes that were visible were only a small fraction of what actually comprised the spell, meaning the sheer scale of the effort was mind blowing to me. He was studying it closely, peering through a ruby quartz monocle, his tool of choice for examining magic. It would allow him to see beyond the surface and make sure there were no mistakes in the runic matrix of the spell.

Satisfied, he nodded, and looked to the four smaller columns that sat nearby. Each one had a similar crystal on top, but their runework was less ornate. These were the “echo devices”, each one would act like a signal repeater that received the energy of the main device, and recast the spell to expand the protected area. When they passed his inspection, he placed one hand on the main pillar and one hand on an echo device, concentrating for a moment to link them together. Once the process was repeated for each of the four echo devices, he nodded once again. “That should do it, I suppose.”

Master nudged him lightly with an elbow. “You gotta have more confidence. Everyone is counting on you for this.”

The former Initiate sighed. “That’s precisely why I am so nervous.”

“It’s fine to be nervous, but you have to SHOW confidence. Everyone is nervous, but their faith in you is one of the only things keeping them from rioting right now. They’re scared, they’re facing the Apocalypse, and you’re standing between them and certain death. You wanted to be the hero, right? Well, that means you have to put on a brave face.” Roffil shot Master a disgusted look at that, but he continued unperturbed. “Look, the design is good, right? You’ve got the technical aspect of the Storms down pretty well, and my intuition doesn’t see anything strange about it, so it’s our best shot. You can do this.”

The pudgy man shot his eyes to the sides, seeing people trying to overhear the hushed conversation. The people were desperate for anything that would tell them what was going on. They’d only recently gotten the revelation of magic’s existence, and it was shattering their worldview pretty badly. They were pouring their faith into something that a week ago would’ve been considered insanity at best. The weight was immense, and Roffil’s head was bowed under it, staring at the base of the device. “Having only four echoes… This might not work. Master Korrigan could channel this much power, but me? We don’t have anyone on the level required for this. At best, we might buy time, or we’ll fail utterly. With all six, it would have been just barely manageable. I’ve been ransacking my mind to come up with something, but I’ve only come up empty. So, got any advice for the ‘hero’ to overcome reality?”

Master’s face darkened, and he looked at the crystal atop the pillar. Then, he looked up at the sky. “Overcoming reality is what magic is all about, isn’t it? All right. You need power? Guess that’s where I come in.”

“You?” The kid scoffed. Well, young adult, probably in his mid twenties, but he still acted like a kid. “I have been training for years! You’re… some… nobody! Who came in, somehow made friends with the Headmaster, and have been given special treatment because of being… from this world! And even with all that, you only have a silver badge, this is still an incredible drain!” He was actually shaking slightly in barely contained anger. Had he been hiding this all along, or had I just not been paying attention?

He was met with a stern glare. “You haven’t been inside that mess up there. You haven’t had it rip you apart into pure energy and rebuilt yourself through sheer force of will. You haven’t had your soul torn open. You haven’t been so filled with raw Chaos that you can feel the Storm tugging at you.” I thought for a moment that they were about to come to blows, and almost spoke up in spite of the civilians watching, but luckily Master breathed a heavy sigh at the last moment. “Look, I’m not trying to steal your thunder, I’m just trying to make sure this works. It’s still your design, right? I’m just… the power source, that’s all. It’s Roffil’s StormShield that saves everyone, but if you need someone with a freaky amount of energy at hand, that’s me.”

“I’m not–! It’s not the ‘glory’, it’s… This is delicate! One mistake, one failure to adapt to a fluctuation in the flow of magic, and everything could come toppling down!”

Maybe I could get away with talking. The watchers were too far away to tell exactly who was saying what, right? “Then that’s my job. I can feel magic, I can tell if the flow changes.”

Roffil nearly jumped when I spoke. Glaring down at me, he huffed. “You too? Figures. Fine, but if you fail, you’re dooming yourselves as well as all of us.”

Master shrugged. “Maybe, but I’m the best chance we have, unfortunately. And we’re about out of time to argue. We have to get things into position. Can’t leave the audience waiting, after all. I’m sure one of Janice’s employees will let you watch over video call or something.”

He stormed off in a huff, but he carried one of the echo devices as he climbed into a car, being driven off to the south. The others would go to the north, west, and east, all in separate cars. Each one was carried by someone capable of channeling energy. Not a lot would be needed, most would come from the central spell and the crystals, the central pillar absorbing power from the Storm once it was set in place and active. It was getting it active that was the hard part.

Alice stood nearby, on a conference call with each of the other stations, in order to coordinate everything. Janice was at the north device, so she couldn’t take charge here. Ro was handling the west device, with Mandy at her side. To the east, we had Jared, the young man having been released from the hospital, though his arm was still in a sling. Cheryl stood nervously as she watched, having expected to go with us to the south.

The silence was thick in the air. Finally, we were given the all clear. Everyone was in position. Master brought his hands next to the pillar, held a foot away from the wooden surface, and closed his eyes. Glowing Start and End runes appeared in the air, and he guided his hands to overlap them. Muttering under his breath, he commented on their positions. “Huh, Roffil’s a right-hander. Figures. No big deal.”

My tail curled around my legs, wings rustling slightly, still hidden by the illusion. Slowly, I felt the energy start to build, Master starting to channel it through the device. I was reminded of watching an ant farm, constant trickles of activity that branched off and rejoined, all to some grand design that I could only see a fraction of at a time. Eventually the energy reached the End rune and began to flow in a loop, and the trickle turned to a flood.

Above us, the Storm swirled, as if in direct response. In anger at being rebuked, perhaps. It probably wasn’t healthy to assign emotion to something that was an unnatural natural disaster, but I just couldn’t shake the feeling of malice. Wind whipped through the roads, flinging bits of trash around as it tugged at hair and clothes. Thankfully, I had neither, but I still felt it. If there was still any conversation among the crowds, surely it was silenced. Even they could feel the sheer Wrongness in the air, right?

Master continued to push more energy through the device. I could feel a bubble only by the absence of the pervading presence of the Storm, and it was expanding. It was like pushing back a wall of haze that had been so subtle I hadn’t noticed it before. I wanted to cheer, but the look of strain on Master’s face stole my mirth. We weren’t out of the woods yet, after all. “Are you doing okay, Master?”

“Nnh. Yeah. Just… gotta keep at it. Feels like that time I used blood magic, almost.” His voice was strained, his words clipped. It wasn’t instilling confidence. The column nearly glowed and thrummed to my senses, sending a shiver down my spine. It’d been a while since I’d felt him channel this much power, and he was still not even close to being done.

Cheryl knelt down next to me, a hand on my shoulder. She was trying to be quiet, but to talk over the wind, it came out more like a stage whisper. “Is… is this good? Is it working?”

I nodded. “I think so. I’m worried, but if he says he’s okay…”

The tension was cut by Master letting out a pained gasp. From the phone, voices were calling out. “Our crystal just lit up!” “Ours too!”

Roffil’s voice rang out, irritated and snippy. “They’re supposed to do that! It means the energy is reaching the echo devices. Well, Mage Tola, it’s time for the big push. We’re counting on you.” At least he tried to get some of the shortness out of his voice at that last part, but it still had a hint of a sneer.

Master was grimacing, his breathing pained and ragged. “It’s… Nngh… I don’t… I can’t… No…!” He wasn’t giving up, but he was hitting a wall when it came to his abilities, and it was clearly painful to keep going.

But the Storm clearly wasn’t going to let us have a second chance. The sky was dark and turning blood red, swirling with streaks of black. Over the call, there was a scream. “The border! It’s… It’s closing in! You can SEE it, it’s… eating the ground, it’s coming!”

“Tola! Like, what do we do? We need this up and running!” Ro was panicking, and I couldn’t blame her.

“Mister Tola, sir! Please! I… I don’t know what to do, a-am I helping?” Jared was losing composure too. The plan was threatening to fall apart.

“Everyone, keep at it! Keep your devices active, they need to be able to receive the spell!” Roffil was the one to cut through, finding his spine. Maybe that talk earlier about showing confidence whether you had it or not had left an impression.

But they couldn’t see the way Master was straining. His heaving breaths were leaving saliva flecking his lips. “Princess… We’re gonna have to do something stupid.”

I rushed to his side. “What? What do you mean?”

“I can’t… do this on my own. But I can’t stop. I need… We need to work together on this.” His fingers were curling in the air, clenching and unclenching as he panted heavily.

Work together? “I don’t understand, what do you mean?”

Pulling his left hand away just an inch, he left behind the glowing End rune, connected by a strand of energy. “Put… put a paw there, put the other in my hand. We have to combine our energy. We need both of us. And drop your illusion, it’ll get in the way.”

“But… The wavelength thing? Draconic energy and human spells don’t mix?” In spite of my arguing, I wasn’t going to fight him on this. The motes of light were blown away by the wind once I dismissed the spell, sitting up and doing as I was told. I heard some gasps and shouts from behind me, but I didn’t have the luxury of acknowledging them right now.

I felt a tingle, running through my body. The illusion had been so faint that I could barely feel it, but this was like the difference between licking a nine volt battery and touching a damaged power cord. Master’s teeth were gritted as his fingers clenched at my scaly paw. “Yeah, that’s… It’s not ideal, but… I made the part of your collar, I can… filter your power, use it… Huh, it’s… actually easier than I thought. With how close we are, I guess our souls… Whatever, magic now, theory later!”

It slammed into me, making me cry out in an animal screech. It felt like part of me was being drawn out and replaced with acid, but the shock of it eased up after a moment. Now it was my turn to pant and groan, but I wouldn’t pull away. Master and the town were depending on me!

I was only barely aware of the world around me. Roffil’s voice came through the phone, which sounded like it was at the other end of a long hallway. “Whatever you’re doing, it’s working! Keep– Is that the dragon? Kingdoms of Old, are you really–? How!?”

Ro’s voice called out. “Hurgh! Mine just… Ow…! This is, like, really…! This is what it’s like for you, Tola?”

The smugness had been knocked out of Roffil’s voice, leaving only awe. “We’re only handling a portion of it. He’s… I had no idea…!”

I knew there was more talking, people moving around, but I couldn’t take my attention off the power. Off the moment. My world consisted of myself, Master, and this device. Nothing else existed. Not even the Storm that crashed against the barrier, sending searing pain through both of us, and cries from the phone.

Master hissed, shouting through clenched teeth. “Big push! Princess! Ready?”

Gasping, mewling, I curled my paw in his hand. “Ready!”

My body burned. Not just my muscles, but my very soul. It felt like there was sand in my veins, blasting through my insides. My head screamed at me. The pillar felt like it was a white-hot blaze. Above, unseen by me, the Storm crackled against the shield projected by the device. We had to beat it back, we had to stop it, and we had to get it back enough that we could lock it in place.

Was it Minutes? Hours? Had a year passed? Had it only been seconds? It reminded me of being in the Storm itself, like I was dissolving once again. Buried memories, half-surfaced, were being torn from my mind and flung in my face. I didn’t just hear the pain in Master’s voice, I felt it. I felt his emotions, I felt the strain, in the energy that flowed through us both. And I felt his determination, which I couldn’t help but match.

Suddenly, the spell was complete, a blast sending us clear and sprawled across the pavement. The extreme load had disappeared all at once, the force we were braced against gone. I reeled to even comprehend what happened, struggling to my feet, my legs feeling like gelatin. Cheryl and Alice were standing unharmed, watching us in shock. The crystal atop the StormShield pulsed. The sky was the same gray swirl as before, but with a clear border instead of the indistinct haze.

Catching my breath, I started to breathe in relief. I heard cheering from the phone in Alice’s hands. Roffil’s voice especially announced that the spell was stable and functioning. The Storm would be held at bay. Alice repeated the announcement, causing cheers to ripple across the gathered people.

I started to wag my tail, looking over for Master. Seeing him still laying on the ground, I went over and nudged him with my snout, licking his face. “Master, we did it! …Master?”

He groaned, starting to stir. “Holy crap, it hurts, though. Worse than the blood magic did.” Moving to a sitting position, he pressed a hand to the side of his head.

I was so excited to see him okay that I almost missed Cheryl watching with an odd expression. Before I could ask, though, Master stood up.

And behind him, a thick white-scaled tail had torn through the back of his pants, swaying from the base of his spine, with gold-looking ridges along the top and a broad spade at the end.