There's Always Something Stronger

Dust kicked into the air, blinding, as Yssa dashed at the dragon. Each step she took covered at least ten feet and my ruffled hair had yet to settle from the blast of air she left behind her by the time she threw her first punch. The blow landed cleanly on the dragon’s jaw, but to my surprise, the beast didn’t even flinch from the attack. Both the agitated dragon and Yssa looked at once another, confused, until Yssa could no longer hold back her devious grin. The golden aura that shrouded her flared and her fist shone so brilliantly that I had to shield my eyes with my arm.

Normally when a person’s bones break, people associate it with snapped branches or stalks of vegetables. So what noise does a creature with bones as hard and thick as stone walls sound like?

It was a question that I never got an answer to because between the ear popping boom of the blow and the trees toppling in the wake of the dragon’s rag-dolled body, it was impossible to tell.

More in awe than afraid, I ran towards the forest behind the school Yssa had hit the dragon through. Dozens of trees had fallen, some with trunks as thick as the dragon’s neck. Dirt cloaked the dragon, though it settled quickly revealing a sight that made me regurgitate what little was in my stomach. The menacing maw of the monster was gone, its lower jaw hanging by a strap of scaled skin. Blood soaked the tree trunks and ground beneath it. When it tried to let out a roar of agony, only a blood-soaked gurgle that sounded like water bursting from a dam came out.

“Time to end this.” The confident grin on Yssa’s face faded to a grimace as she raised her hand into the air. Golden magical circles conjured in the air surrounding the injured dragon. Poking from each circle were human-sized barbed spear tips that fired out when Yssa dropped her hand. The spear tips pierced through the dragon’s scales like they were paper, pinning its movements down until all it could do was thrash weakly in its restraints.

“If she was going to end it, why did she just pin it down? Yssa’s naturally confident, but she’s never been arrogant. She’s responsible enough to know that hesitating could cause more collateral damage, so why?”

“How long are you going to keep fooling around?”

I turned to Yssa, assuming she was addressing me, but her eyes were narrowed at the dragon. From my perspective, the dragon was doing anything BUT fooling around. Bleeding to death with a missing jaw tends to do that. So then—

Crimson blood sprayed into the air as the dragon’s chest burst open in a visceral explosion. The trees around it shook as its head fell to the ground, flames flickering from its exposed throat before the dragon’s eyes glazed over, lifeless.

It was over. My paranoia that Yssa’s transformation had changed her faded, replaced with a sense of awe and admiration. Just like the retired hero who had trained her from childhood, she had saved us from a seemingly insurmountable threat.

“You killed it!” I finally cried out after regaining my senses. “You had me worried after you stopped attacking.”

Yssa shrugged, giving me a warm smile that gave me suspicions that she was hiding something. What was she talking about? I looked at the fallen dragon hoping to find some sort of context clue. But there was nothing. Just the gaping chest of the dragon. If only Remmi had seen Yssa. Would she have been jealous? Proud?

With the excitement of the kill dissipating, tears welled in my eyes. We had won. But my amateur mistake had cost us my best friend. I stared at the dragon longer, a faint hope in my heart that Remmi would emerge with an apathetic look on her face like nothing had happened. I always liked that about her. It had been rare for her to outwardly express her emotions and it had given her a mystique that amplified the presence her raw power already gave her.

“It’s my fault,” I muttered to myself. “If I hadn’t been so reckless, you’d still be here.”

“Be where?”

The familiar monotone voice behind me made me jump in place.

“Remmi?” I asked, turning around in a dumbfounded stupor.

“Always,” she laughed, wiping the tears from my left eye with her finger. Like Yssa, she was completely unharmed, though her robes were still soaked in blood that dripped onto the grass at her feet.

“H-how?”

“I was lucky?”

My gaze sharpened and I swatted Remmi’s hand away, my sense of guilt and loss transforming into the same irritation I felt whenever Remmi toyed with me. “Don’t give me that! I watched you get eaten! People don’t get swallowed by a dragon and then just show back up like nothing happened!”

“Would I lie to you?”

I shrugged, turning from Remmi with a huff. I refused to let her see the tears of relief streaking down my cheeks. How dare she have the audacity to make it seem like I was overreacting?

“Just explain it to her already,” Yssa chided. “I’m rather curious myself. I sensed you in there when my fist connected with the dragon and thought I’d be fishing you from the beast’s stomach by now. Instead you delivered the final blow and showed up unharmed.”

“The short explanation is that in its haste, the dragon forgot to chew its food.”

“I want the long explanation, MiMi.”

Remmi’s shoulders sagged as she gave a heavy sigh and raised her hand in front of her. Her face tensed, her eyes locked in focus before small black beads welled up in droplets on her palm. She winced the more that she produced until the beads finally coalesced into three egg-sized orbs that hovered at her fingertips.

“The long explanation is that I got the Aethik slime.”

“You mean you ate it while you were being eaten?!”

“Not quite. A more accurate answer would be that it is bound to me through my wand fragments.”

I wracked my brain, trying to understand. To say a catalyst “binds” to a compatible caster was a layman’s explanation of the complex relationship between a magic user’s Aethik channels and a catalyst.

“It was when it absorbed your wand!”

Remmi nodded, juggling the goo orbs in the air around her fingers. “The slime is still itself, more or less. It just transforms based on how I focus my magical energy.” As if to prove a point, Remmi flung her hand down to her side. The orbs followed, merging together before forming a matte-black sword in her hand. “I will admit, I had lost consciousness after I was swallowed, but the sensation of flying through the air and being tossed around the dragon’s insides when it crashed into the forest stirred me. When I came to, I used what I thought was my wand to cast a wind spell.”

“And the pressure caused the dragon’s chest to burst outward. Then you made a portal inside the dragon’s corpse just to mess with Alva.”

“Do you know how traumatized I was after watching you get eaten?! How could you think of messing with me at a time like that!”

“You seemed fine to me,” Remmi muttered under her breath, looking away from me. “For someone who was so sad, you were all smiles and praise at Yssa.”

“That’s not—“

The sky darkened overhead as ominous grey storm clouds pulled together above us, even though there was no wind. Thunder rumbled loud enough to shake the ground beneath us, forcing us to grab one another for support. We’d been careless. There were worse things out there than the dragon and we’d let our guard down to celebrate our victory-reunion.

“You should have stayed in the dragon, Remmi.”