Alice was seized by instinctive fear, and just like that, her earlier confidence collapsed.

She needed to find shelter and hide. She was nobody, the lowest of the low, with her only duty being to stay out of the way of the higher-classers. It was their job to take care of things. Who did she think she was?

Wanting nothing to do with what was about to hit the city, Alice turned and ran towards the road leading away from the harbor. Unfortunately, the winds had other plans.

The separate monsters above seemed to have another plan and started combining into one giant emerging beast, made of lightning in the sky. The convergence whipped up the winds so fiercely that the moment she stepped away from the solid brick building, she found that the narrow street had become a wind tunnel.

The screaming winds sucked her towards the water one second, pushed her forward and away the next, while side winds beat her from side to side. Losing her footing, she fell to the ground.

Her dragons screamed something above her — Prim yelled in her mind, but Alice couldn't hear them. With palms scraped raw, she crawled back toward a mercantile shop. It was a solid building made of brick and might provide some shelter.

However, roof shingles, leaves, bits of trash, and other debris clattered down the road. She couldn't stand, couldn't roll to get out of the way. Something struck her shoulder, and she looked up to see the roof of the next building ripping up and come rolling right toward her.

"Alice, look out," Prim screamed in her mind.

But Alice was frozen. If she had some of her old General Laborer skills and strengths, she might have been able to endure what was about to happen. It had made her solid and able to withstand impacts. But this would surely crush her.

Iggy somehow managed to swim through the air as if the wind did not affect him. He put himself between the oncoming debris and Alice.

Alice cried out, reaching toward him, but he was more than an arm's length away. She watched in horror as a large section of the flown-off rooftop tiles struck him… And most cracked around him and fell away.

"Iggy?" She couldn't hear her own voice. It was ripped away by the wind.

The little red dragon was knocked to the side but still remained in the air, beating his wings and undulating his body fiercely to stay in place.

A half tile struck Alice's side. The pain was sharp, but it meant nothing to her. She again reached out for the dragon, but in the next moment, Iggy whirled around and was pushing her back towards the building, his wings spread to protect her against other flying objects.

Prim latched onto her shoulder, claws digging in to catch her shirt, and helped out, too. Numi scuttled around behind Alice and pushed.

Though the three dragons altogether did not weigh more than a quarter of Alice's weight, their intent was clear, and she was able to crawl her way free.

The wind was still screaming, but she was at least able to stand as she made her way back to the side of a building.

Numi scuttled up ahead and made her way to the door, sticking one claw in the lock. By the time Alice made it over, the door slammed open on another gust of wind. As Alice staggered inside, she caught a glimpse of Numi's smug expression. She'd unlocked it in record time.

It took all of them to shut the heavy door against the wind and lock it. Then they were stuck in the middle of the closed mercantile. It was an eerie place with racks of clothing, fishing gear, boating equipment, and other items. It was dark and empty, but for the moment, she was safe. Outside, the wind screamed and beat at the walls like an animal that was trying to break in.

At least until the roof rips off like it did with that other building, she thought, but that was not her main concern at the moment.

She turned to Iggy and gasped out, "Are you okay?"

The red dragon undulated in the air near her and shot her an exasperated look. "Yes, my Ultimate Armor protected me."

She knew that, logically, but seeing him take a hit that would have seriously injured her was something different altogether. Her eyes raked over the dragon, but there was no sign of him being hurt, not a cut or even a bent scale. Her little defender had done his duty once again.

A crackling sound caught her attention. Alice went to the window, ignoring Prim's concern about whether the glass should break. From there, she still had a clear view of the sky. The monster made of lightning had started to pull itself into a more definitive shape. To her horror, the flickering outline looked much like a dragon bearing down on them.

No, not on them. It was bearing down on the entire city.

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This is why people fear dragons, she thought in despair. They are always the tools of dark forces.

A moment later, she felt Prim's weight on her shoulder. The rose gold dragon nuzzled her ear. "Alice? What do you need?"

Alice's mouth was dry. "I need a defender," she said, though what she really needed was something to defeat that thing in the sky. But that was impossible.

"You have a defender," Prim said. Alice shot a guilty look at Iggy, who puffed himself up in pride.

"Iggy, you've done such a good job, but that thing..." Alice looked up again at the sky, at the forming dragon. "You're going to need help."

As if on cue, bits of lightning spun off the main monster overhead.

They looked like electric worms as they headed in all directions. One of the electric worms headed straight for the harbor. With claws made of crackling energy, it raked one of the ships anchored at sea. The thick mast, which supported the sail, exploded as if any moisture inside had vaporized instantly. The once elegant sails caught fire as they fell. The electric worm dived down, eagerly spending the rest of its energy on the hull. The once magnificent ship cracked in two. It burned as it sank into the sea, and Alice could only watch, horrified, glad despite herself that she was too far away to see if anybody had been aboard.

"Let me fight it," Iggy begged, surging forward toward the window, practically plastering himself against it. "Give me the means to defeat that creature. I will gain so many levels."

"Alice," Prim said again.

Alice shook her head and turned to gaze at the Mercantile. "It's unfair – I can't ask this of you. And Prim, dear, this is no place to lay an egg – you need a nest –"

But she knew she was just making excuses. After all, Prim had created Numi in much darker conditions.

"Tell me what you need, and I will take care of everything else," Prim said, endlessly patient and understanding. "I am the mother of all."

But in her patient and understanding tone, Alice caught a bit of reproach from her first dragon.

Alice needed to trust her.

I do trust her, but I wanted to keep her safe. I wanted to keep them all safe, she thought, but the truth was that the only way to keep them safe was for her to grow in power. As always, that meant more dragons.

She looked down at the first aspect of her own class and firmed up her will. "Prim, give Iggy an assistant to help him defend me and the city."

Now that she was paying strict attention, she felt the moment her aspect tokens went from one to zero, along with a bit of power that drained straight to Prim.

The little rose gold dragon's eyes seemed to glow. She turned to Numi and Iggy. "Shield me."

Numi snapped to attention immediately and followed Prim as she settled herself right on the stack of thick woolly blankets. She stood nearby, waiting in attendance.

Iggy gave Alice an agonized glare as if he was loath to leave her side. But Alice simply nodded. This is what she wanted.

As an extra precaution, she finally stepped away from the window in case the screaming wind burst it in.

She would be safe enough if she stayed inside… Assuming the entire building didn't come down on her. If it did, well, there would be nothing anyone could do.

Prim settled down. Numi stood in front of her, spreading her green wings out to either side as if to shield the other dragon from view. Iggy flew down to them both, half coiling around and giving a fearsome glare to the shadows within the Mercantile.

Even standing away from the window, Alice had a good view of the streets. There was nobody visible, though debris continued to rain down and the lightning creature above was taking on even more sinister detail. Now she could see individual scales made of flickering electricity, and claws sharp, curved, and wicked enough to cut glass. It looked like it was big enough to eat an entire building in one gulp. She just hoped it wouldn't start with the harbor first.

Abruptly, Prim rose to stand. A blue egg, half as big as one of the normal dragon eggs, lay under her. Its size reminded Alice of those from the fancy bantam chickens back at the estate, the kind the noblewomen ate for breakfast, not for the taste but just because it was unusual.

Alice scooped it up.

The egg was stormy gray-blue with traces of lighter gray scuttling across its surface. It looked like a storm cloud.

As she thought that, the shell cracked. The little creature that emerged had the same basic shape as Iggy – the same long flowing body, fearsome expression, and oversized claws.

The difference was its blue-gray color, and of course, it was smaller, barely half as long as her hand, excluding its tail. It was pretty adorable. Inside, she despaired because this was a baby, and she should have been protecting it. But this was a creature she had just created to protect her.

Also, Alice felt oddly disconnected from it, lacking that same instant regard she felt with the other dragons.

"Hurry up," Iggy snapped at the new hatchling. "You have a job to do."

"That's not fair," Alice protested, "I haven't even assigned a skill to him—" She stopped as she looked at the sheet. The new dragon was listed under Iggy.

Aspect 3

“Igcendiorum”

Level: 4

Skills: 3/3

Fire Breath (Permanent skill: Locked.) : Level 3

Burning Claws: Level 4

Ultimate Armor: Level 4

Sub-aspect(s): 1/1

Name: Unassigned

Element: Unassigned

There was no skill. It was only asking for an element.

She looked down at the little dragon who gazed back at her with slightly dull eyes. The normal elements were, of course, earth, water, fire, and wind.

But even looking at the dragon, she knew without words that there was something different to this one.

She had created this little creature to fight off a being made of electricity.

"Lightning," she said, and made it so. And even though her new aspect had not requested a name nor spoken at all, she knew she needed to give him a name. “His name is Spark.”

Spark bobbed his head. White joined the blue and gray, accenting his scales in the same way that fiery gold accented Iggy's.

With that, Spark crawled the rest of the way out of his egg, and then flew up in the air with the same undulating long movement to join Iggy.

And just in time, because at that moment a gust of wind more powerful than the rest shook the building. One of the windows on the other side of the building exploded inward and the roof above them finally gave way.