The dragon hovered above my mansion. The trees and bushes below rustled, buffeted by the wind from his wings. Jing was teaching her sister how to play chopsticks in the garden below. They both looked up. “You two are already friends!” said Jing. “Come down, let’s pla-”

“I know where they are. Come with me.”

Hui Ming stood up and Jing turned serious. “I’ll get Esha. Sis, you stay here.”

Hui Ming stared. “Why?”

I clapped my hands to get their attention. “We’ll meet at my shop. And Hui Ming, stay in the underground garden here. If you’re attacked, break the pineapple light and use one of those boxes I gave you.”

“Yes master...” her hands dropped, fingers hanging like rags left out to dry. She straightened, trying to hide her disappointment, and headed into the house.

Jing dashed away, and Hui Ming headed underground. I stroked the scales I sat on, “To the shop.”

It was a short flight, two minutes at most. He dropped me off at the shop and turned back into a snake. Jing and Esha appeared at my side seconds later. I gave the map to Jing, “they’re a district away. We’ll get there in less than a minute.”

Jing glanced at me and immediately looked away. Not looking me in the eye, she asked, “Did you get this from Mark?”

I nodded, “Yes.”

“Did he…”

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“Yes, he tried to convince me to kill you,” I said. She shrunk. “You know I don’t want the world destroyed. It doesn’t matter if I die, or if you want to do it for revenge. Don’t do it, you understand?”

“Yes father. I won’t.”

“Then it’s fine. Let’s get moving. You guys to surround the building. Kill as many as you can if they try to escape.” Jing and Esha disappeared. I wished I could call for more manpower from the school, but I didn’t know how many spies the king had. I could only get help from people I could trust.

I tapped the ground with my foot and counted to thirty, waiting for them to reach the building marked on the map. The earth rumbled and cracks appeared in the dirt. A wooden disk thrust out in an explosion of soil.

Giant clumps of vines hung every side of the disk, making it look like a thick hide of green wool. Blades stuck out from the wool. The blades’ size alone would make people have second thoughts. The thirty story tall ugly mass towered above me. The vines touched the ground and pushed, inching it forward. They kept pushing and the disk picked up speed, its slow movement turning into a steady roll.

The rolling became an unstoppable spin. We dashed alongside it. The disk carved a path through the suburbs. I tried to have it take a path with nothing in its way, but it still crushed a few mansions.

My wheel neared its target, which was another mansion. Nobody tried to escape. A wall of ice appeared in front of my wheel. My wheel crushed it, along with everything else. Esha spotted the woman who made the ice. The woman fainted and Esha put a knife in her stomach.

More people tied to block my wheel, but they couldn’t. My disk smashed into the side of their mansion. Vines tore everything else apart. Esha jumped around, picking off the king’s men like a shark in a sardine swarm.

I and I stood on top of the ocean of vines. We controlled the bladed vines, slicing through them.

“Stop!,” a familiar voice shouted, “Jin, if being from the same world means anything, please stop this!”

I looked down and saw Er Yi holding onto another person’s arm. The other person wore two eyepatches, one on each eye so he couldn’t see anything. He stood tall, even when being restrained by Er Yi. That voice, that face, that confident posture. I have seen and heard them thousands of times.

How dare they.

“Brian!” I yelled.

“Vince?”

Absolutely unforgivable. How dare they capture my best friend, blind him, and hold him hostage. Attacking the school didn’t matter anymore. It couldn’t compare to the crime of doing this to Brian.

Esha glanced at Er Yi. Er Yi got a blank look on his face and he dropped to the floor.

All the vines I controlled shot towards them. A few went to kill Er Yi, most went to grab Brian.

“Stop!” Jing shouted, “Esha, you too!” Another group of vines wrapped around the base of mine, trying to pull them back.

“What in hell are you doing?”

“Your friend- your friend’s the king!”