by Jada Fisher
People called out things I didn’t understand. Some sounded happy, and some appalled. Was this… Was this like a sport to some of them? Bron’s life was on the line and they were spectating like this was entertaining?! How disgusting! And he was willing to sacrifice himself for these people?
“Bron!” I cried, reaching forward. Mallory caught me, but just barely. The world almost seemed to go in slow motion as they both shifted back to human form, Baelfyre on top of Bron and pummeling the life out of him.
Somehow, the white-haired prince managed to kick Baelfyre off and they both scrambled to their feet. While the lesser royal was certainly scuffed up and bleeding, Bron was in much, much worse condition.
Bron lashed out, his claws scoring a hit down his opponent’s chest, but the dark-haired man managed to swing and land a hard hit on my friend’s jaw. Bron tumbled to the ground, and Baelfyre leaned over him.
“Give up yet?” he taunted.
“Why would I do that?” Bron countered before rising and tackling his cousin around the waist.
They went to the ground again and Bron certainly got his hits in, but Baelfyre was ruthless. Even as Bron landed several punches to the side of his face, Baelfyre slammed his still-dragon-like claws into the high prince’s sides and dragged upwards.
I could smell the blood from where I was, and a strangled scream escaped my mouth. Dropping my bag to the ground, I rooted around for what I had brought to stop everything that I dreaded from happening.
From the time it took me to do that and then stand, Baelfyre had made it on top of Bron again. He had the prince pinned, and his jaw was stretching out to reveal rows and rows of teeth.
I knew exactly what he was going to do. I could practically already see him closing his mouth around the prince’s unprotected throat and shaking and shaking until my friend was no more.
I couldn’t allow that.
I pushed my way to the front, Mallory and I barreling through people with no amount of undue force. When we reached it, I took the frisbee in my hand and flung it as hard as I could at Baelfyre.
I missed, the first neon disk slapping into Bron’s leg, but I was already tossing another. Perhaps it was a bit ridiculous to save a friend with little spinning discs of plastic, but that was all I had so I was gonna use it.
The second one hit true, slamming into Baelfyre’s overly-long jaw. Naturally, it didn’t hurt him, but it did distract him enough to have his head whip in my direction.
But that was just enough.
Bron surged forward again, and the two went tumbling head over heels until they finally crashed with the white-haired prince on top.
Something seemed to change, and I could feel the tide of battle shift. Before I could celebrate, my mind was zooming somewhere else again.
Bron bellowed again, his voice shaking the ground itself, and some of the drakes fell back. It was the attack in the garden all over again, but why was I seeing this?
The attackers fell back, sandwiching themselves between the guards and the prince, with even more staff pouring out of the building to help. Just like it had happened the first time, their assault was obviously failing, leading me to wonder yet again why they had concocted a plan that was so obviously going to fail.
The vision continued and that was when I saw something else shoot out of the van. Something small, barely dog-sized. I watched the blur as it rushed inside, past the guards who were long since distracted.
I pointed and tried to call out, but as I raised my hand, someone grabbed it and pulled me back toward the garden.
Baelfyre.
The scene played itself again, at a tenth of the speed, and I saw that the tiny thing was some sort of dragon-esque reptile and strapped to his back was what I could best describe as a combination of a magical-doohickey and an outright bomb.
Suddenly, I understood. That attack hadn’t been about taking me at all. No, it had just been a way to plant something that would help the other side, and Baelfyre had to have seen me pointing and had quickly distracted me. Which meant Baelfyre wasn’t just a power-hungry princeling.
It meant he was one of them.
“Bron!” I cried, running forward. “It’s a trap!”
Two guards caught me before I could make it to the field and I struggled against them. My eyes darted around wildly.
I couldn’t let this happen. I wouldn’t let this happen! So many lives were at stake, I couldn’t just sit back and let them all be fooled!
My emotions rushed, and I felt myself break out into a cold sweat. I could feel adrenaline combining with frustration as I fought to do something. Anything.
Didn’t they understand that something terrible was going to happen?
I let out a scream and felt something break within me. Suddenly, something great and terrible rushed out of me, engulfing both princes in a blinding light.
The guards let me go and I fell to my knees, empty and exhausted. When the light cleared, Bron was standing there, refreshed and with Baelfyre in a chokehold.
He held it, and held it, and held it. Baelfyre kicked and flailed, but Bron didn’t release. For a moment, I was sure that he was going to kill his cousin, but then he released the dark-haired man and let him fall to the ground, gasping and choking.
“You’ve lost,” Bron said, his voice clear from even where I was standing. “Go home, and never return to these lands again.”
But Baelfyre just spat at him, fighting to get to his feet. There was blood flowing from his eyebrows and lips, as well as score mark across his chest, but he was still so defiant.
“You think this is the end? This is nothing!” He took a breath and abruptly all of the dread that had been floating at the edges of my senses coalesced inside of my soul. “Praemius.”
He hissed the word, hardly louder than a whisper, but it was enough. I felt the rumble in the earth just before a massive explosion sounded behind us, throwing me forward and into the dirt while the shockwaves washed over me.
15
The Long Con
It was chaos all around me. I couldn’t see, I could barely hear, but I could feel the mass of panic and terror.
I rolled onto my back, looking up at the sky with hazy vision. But instead of the normal, blue expanse I expected, a golden sort of light flashed in a dome over us, before rapidly disintegrating toward the ground.
At first, I thought I was just seeing some sort of aftereffect from the blast, but then I heard someone scream about the shield and everything clicked.
The barrier that sealed this haven off from the outside world was down. All of this had been an elaborate plan to break down the one thing that was stopping the Dragon Supremacy faction from bringing the onslaught.
I felt the roars before I heard them, and I fought to get to my feet. Once I was steady enough to move, I ran to Mallory and pulled her up.
“Come on,” I said, my eyes locked on the sky beyond the trees. “We have to go.”
“Huh… What? What happened?”
This time, I could hear the roar of a dragon. Then another, and another. Then, in a horrific picture befitting a terrifying film, dozens and dozens of full-fledged dragons became visible in the skyline.
“…oh,” she whispered.
“Yeah, oh.” I pulled her to her feet and we tried to stumble off, but it seemed like the dragons were bearing down straight for us.
When the first one landed in front of us, I realized I was right. The dragons were actively gunning for me. Was all of this chaos and damage just a grab for a seer?! Were they kidding?!
Another dragon landed beside me, the force of its arrival sending Mallory and I to the ground. I tried to recover, but then another dragon landed just a few feet away.
We were surrounded, great monsters on all sides. I knew that I was relatively safe—they had to take me alive for me to be of any use, of course—but Mallory was not nearly as guaranteed. I needed to get her to safety, but how?
I got shakily to my feet, hands up to show the
m I meant no harm. Except I did mean harm, a whole lot of it, I just hadn’t figure out how to really hurt them yet.
Another bellowing cry shook the ground, this one much more familiar than the others, and suddenly, Bron was barreling through, in his dragon form once more.
But something was different. He was bigger, stronger, his scales more luminescent than before. Had…had that been from what I had done earlier? Was that a seer sort of power? I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything. Aside from that Bron was completely kicking butt. He knocked one dragon to the far side of the field and his jaws closed around another.
The rest of them tried to surge forward, but Bron spun, using his tail to knock them to the side. He managed to clear them for a moment, but more and more were pouring in.
I looked around me, trying to pull Mallory to her feet yet again, but there was an open gash on her leg and what looked like a fairly bad burn on her back. And if anyone knew about burns and how they felt, it was me.
The situation was impossible. There were at least twenty dragons all rushing toward us, light reflecting off their bared teeth and fire spewing from some. While Bron was largely flame-retardant, Mallory and I were not nearly as lucky.
We had to do something.
I had to do something.
I ran toward Bron, dragging Mallory along as fast as I could. When I reached him, I laid my hand on his leg and summoned all the energy I could.
It felt like all of my joints popped at once and someone sucked the soul from my body as I tossed my energy as far as I could around us. I couldn’t breathe, for a moment, couldn’t think, but when I opened my eyes, I saw a shield was around the three of us.
“Holy crap,” Mallory breathed. “This is a lot bigger than last time.”
I wanted to respond, but I was afraid that opening my mouth would make me upchuck like no tomorrow. So, I just grit my teeth and put my everything into holding up the shielding around us.
I barely registered the rushing of displaced air as Bron reverted to his human form. “Davie, are you alright? This is truly massive!” I couldn’t answer him either, but I did feel his comforting hand on my shoulder. “I need you to let me out. You can’t hold back this entire horde by yourself.”
Was he crazy? Letting him out would be certain death! I hadn’t risked my life and thrown neon frisbees at his opponent only to let him die! But I still couldn’t speak, so I just shook my head.
“Davie! You can’t hold them all off. You gave me strength, let me use it!”
He was right, in a way. I had given him strength and I certainly didn’t have the ability to hold all of the dragons off. That point was reiterated as one slammed into my barrier, and I collapsed to my knees for the second time.
“Davie!” Mallory shouted. Why was everyone shouting? Didn’t people understand that I needed to concentrate? “Davie, you need to listen to Bron. We can’t let them get to you, so let him out!”
No! I wouldn’t do it! I wasn’t kidding when I said I wasn’t going to lose anyone anymore. I was done!
Another dragon slammed its tail into the base of my little psychic bubble and I gagged. My head was throbbing, and my heart was going to explode. I wasn’t going to last much longer. I needed to get away, to take us all way. Just whisk us off to someplace safe where we could regroup and figure out how to fix this entire mess.
That was it! We needed to leave!
I reached down into the deepest, darkest parts of me and summoned all the energy I had. Determination and stubbornness rose within me, mixing into an intense cocktail that wouldn’t succumb to the pain surging through the rest of my body.
I held onto it as long as I could, building and building and building, until it all exploded from me and the world went white.
16
Roll Out the Red Carpet
I slammed into something hard, driving the air from my body. I couldn’t move for several seconds, and it wasn’t until a gentle hand pulled me up that I was even sure I was alive.
“Are you alright?” Bron’s voice asked, clearly concerned.
I tried to look to him, but my vision was so hazy. I could somewhat make him out, and the backdrop of cities all behind him.
“No,” I answered slowly before leaning over and losing what little food I had in my stomach.
To his credit, he continued to hold me, stroking my back soothingly as my body paid me back for what I’d done to it. When I finally finished, I actually felt quite a bit better, and I let him tenderly pull me to my feet.
“I did it,” I murmured. “I hopped.”
“Yeah,” Mallory said shakily, her hand sliding into mine. “But where did we hop to?”
“What are you talking about?” I rasped, throat raw. “It’s the heart of downtown.” I squinted at the nearby surroundings which, while they were a bit blurry, were definitely familiar.
“Yeah, but there’s no one here. No cars, no anything.”
“What?” I looked around more closely and sure enough, there wasn’t a single car in sight. Or a bus. The streets were whisper quiet, as if everyone has suddenly fled at once without warning.
A sinking feeling filled my stomach and I drew a deep breath. “So, uh, I think I might have overshot our destination.”
“What do you mean?” Bron asked, obviously trying to hold back a host of emotions.
“I, uh… I think we might have hopped dimensions, and whatever happened here won’t be good for us.”
As if perfectly timed to my statement, an insidious roar sounded above us. Looking up, I saw the mottled, tattered underside of a dragon I knew all too well. Somehow, my rotted friend from the hub was right above us.
In the history of not good things, this was certainly toward the top of the list.
“Run!” I hissed at my friends, not knowing if it was already too late.
Altered Reality
1
The Amazing Human Slingshot
In just about every action movie I’d ever watched, there was some big, dramatic scene where time slowed down impossibly and everything just hovered in frame. I had always thought that trope was overused and that real life wasn’t anything like that, yet that was exactly what was happening to me.
My hair flew around my head from the downbeat of the rotting dragon’s wings, its carrion-like, sickly sweet smell stabbing at my nose and making my eyes water. I could see Bron and Mallory both diving for a large chunk of debris in an alley, hoping to hide from the massive beast over us.
In this strange state of suspended consciousness, I knew they didn’t have enough time. They would never reach the debris, and neither would I. Even with Bron’s strong hand holding mine, I was already too far behind them.
I guessed if I couldn’t hide, I could at least buy them some time.
I yanked my hand free from Bron’s, probably only succeeding because he was distracted and not expecting the motion, then turned to face the beast descending on us.
Time returned to a more normal pace as its feet touched to the earth, sending dust flying out in a roiling wave. It stung my eyes and coated my mouth, but I held my ground.
“Davie!” I heard someone call from behind me. Was it Mallory? Was it Bron? I didn’t know. My whole mind was occupied by the giant beast in front of me.
It stared at me, its massive head as big as the entire bodies of some of the dragons I had seen back in my reality. It could easily open its jaws and swallow me in one gulp, and I was no little snack myself.
Its eyes were such a malevolent shade of toxic green and orange that I was borderline mesmerized by them. They made my knees shake and my skin grow clammy, but I refused to turn and run. I would at least go down buying my friends some time.
They better not try to be heroic and ruin my noble sacrifice. Talk about a waste.
Child.
My heart skipped a beat at that and I looked up to those spiteful, ancient eyes in confusion. It couldn’t be…could it?
You heard my call.
“Y
our call?”
The whispers I have sent to you, on the winds and in your dreams. I have called you and your sister to me, and it has taken you quite a long while to get here.
“You called us? How?”
The means matter not. You are not enough on your own. I need the two of you complete to serve m—
“Look, giant dragon dude, you may not be killing me now when you are clearly capable of doing so, but my sister warned me about you and that is all I need to say no to whatever it is that you want.”
“Davie!”
I heard footsteps running toward me. Gosh dang it, they really were going to try to interrupt my noble last hurrah.
You are mistaken in thinking you have a choice. One of its massive hands reached out, claws almost as large as my upper body. It opened like it was going to grasp me, but I felt both Mallory and Bron grab my arms to haul me away. I will be free, Seer. Whether you are willing or not.
“That’s what you think,” I hissed, calling upon the same energy that had rushed through me just minutes before. “You were put here for a reason, and I guess that you can just keep on rotting.”
I gripped both of my friends beside me and let everything within me arch up and out of my body. Reaching, I tried to latch onto the tiniest sliver of my sister I could still feel within me and yanked with all of my might.
It seemed like the fabric of reality suddenly became static and crumpled around us like a simple sheet of paper. I could see the dragon’s claws connecting with me, but they passed through me as I rocketed through the parchment-like existence around us.
We were completely still, yet at the same time we were moving too fast to comprehend, what was and what could be whipping past us enough to give me windburn on my face and make me close my eyes against the onslaught.
Then, just as suddenly as it had happened, it stopped, and everything was quiet again.