[Sig – 13 years]

"Hey, everybody!" I greet my viewers once my stream begins. "As you can see, I am not in my bedroom for today's stream! Since Xander announced during the baking stream on Tuesday that he wasn't going to be on the SMP today, I decided to not jump on it today! And no, I don't know what he's doing for today's stream. He told me he had something he was trying to arrange and if he didn't get to do it, he was going to do a crafting stream, but he didn't tell me what his main plan was. So either he's doing some crafting or he's doing something I don't know.

"Anyway!" I say. "It made me think about doing a crafting stream! But then I was just like, uh… I don't really have stuff for crafting? I tend to use it up. So I decided to play one of my favorite games instead! But it's on console rather than PC, and my console's in the basement's main room."

There's no need to tell them I don't really have the money to go out and buy a bunch of supplies to do crafting. I've still got two more days until I get paid.

"And with today being Friday the Thirteenth," I add. "It only makes even more sense to play a game where you shoot thousands of zombies! So let's get started! I normally play this with my friends and we're pretty far, but let's start a new save just for the stream!"

I go through the opening cutscene, then get right down to killing zombies. Complete with maniacal laughs as I exceed the difficulty level of the starting zone. This is supposed to be an area players struggle with, but I'm good enough at the game that I can slaughter the zombies and only get hit once.

Upon killing every zombie in the tutorial zone, I receive an achievement and special bonus… because this isn't supposed to be something people can do.

"Hahahahahahahaha!" I laugh as I read chat on my phone. "I can see you guys being confused! You didn't know it was possible to actually survive, did you? Yeah, there are exactly five hundred and nineteen zombies in the initial encounter and killing all of 'em earns you something special!

"So normally," I say. "You'll only actually beat everything here if you've beaten the game once before. Why? Because of the new game-plus bonuses. The bonus you get from beating them all here is a permanent ten percent bonus to all of your stats on the save file! But you can get it if you defeat everything here the first time around, too… except it's twenty percent instead!

"Oh," I add. "But getting it now also increases the game's difficulty a little! It's basically a 'you're too skilled at killing zombies, so the zombie gods have taken notice and are trying to kill you more' sort of thing. And yes, it actually comes up later on! One of the priests you talk with mentions it a few times if you have the achievement and bonus in the first playthrough. Let's get back to zombie killing! Oh, and stop chathopping! There's a bunch of automodded messages for chathopping. I'm not looking at them so I don't know what you're saying, but stop with the chathopping!"

Either something went down on the SMP or Xander went through with whatever his mystery stream plan was. Chat really seems to discuss something from another stream in my chat, which isn't appropriate.

I go through the rest of the opening of the game, then it's time for me to end stream so I can meet up with my friends. I get changed and head upstairs to let Aunt Rachel know I'm going, and she gives me an amused look.

"What?" I ask.

"The fifteenth is Sunday," she tells me. "And pays go on the last business day before a weekend or holiday. You got paid today."

"I did?" I ask.

"You ignored the alert, didn't you?"

"I… might have forgotten I got it?" I ask. "But in my defense, it's extremely vague!"

She laughs a little in response to that, then ruffles my hair a little.

"I know you've got the sleepover tonight," she tells me. "We'll sit down and look at what to do for your budget tomorrow, okay?"

"Alright!"

"You've got a change of clothes for the sleepover?"

The sleepover's at Isaac's tonight. The rotation got screwed up so we're not really following anymore, though the dads said they'll ensure it's still a fair rotation for hosting. It's better to make sure everyone hosts equally than for one person to have a burden of hosting more.

"In my backpack," I pat it. "See you tomorrow!"

"Have fun," she says.

Something in her tone and expression tells me that there's something interesting going on… but I'm sure it's nothing major.

I ride my bike to meet up with my friends and arrive a couple of minutes before Connor and Sam do. When they come into view, they're both looking really amused.

"Dude," Connor says. "Considering your expression, you have zero clue what Xander did for his stream."

"Why?" I ask. "Was it something odd?"

"Let's go to the park," he snickers. "You're going to love this."

[Xander – 13 years] → starts towards the beginning of Sig's PoV.

"I keep seeing people asking why I'm in my backyard," I say. "With comments about the temperature and stuff. It's forty-seven degrees out, it ain't that cold. And it's not my backyard. Rather than the usual Friday stream, I'm doing a special Friday stream.

"As you can see," I say as the orb switches a view to what I can see. "I'm at Dragon Falls Community Park, in one of its bigger fields. Some of the local viewers – I'm assuming are adults since it's barely after noon right now – recognize the rocks beside me. They keep calling it a rock pile… but it's not actually one. It's Cliff. That's the best approximation of his name I can make for shortening it. He's an earth elemental. Elementals are actually genderless, but Cliff said he prefers to be referred to as a male. He even takes a more masculine form when he's not pretending to be a bunch of rocks so that kids have another structure to play on."

My chat seems really confused by that. What was difficult to understand? Cliff is an earth elemental who prefers a more masculine form rather than just being rocks, and he pretends to be a pile of rocks so that kids have another thing to climb on when playing here.

"We're just about fifteen minutes into the stream," I say. "So my guest is showing up. He's coming here rather than to my house so that if anyone else wants to come and meet him, they can. I already spoke with the local law enforcement and military base to let them know so they wouldn't panic. I didn't talk with Grandpa Adrian about it, so he'll probably-hi, Grandpa Adrian."

Just as I expected, he teleported to me. My expectation was that he'd show up after my guest arrived, but I suppose he realized I probably did something I probably should have talked with him about first.

Permission was definitely not needed, though. Grandpa Adrian might control some stuff in the world, but he doesn't control everything. This is one of those things he doesn't control. The guest for my stream told me that and he wasn't lying.

"What did you do?" Grandpa Adrian asks, then looks in the distance in the sky. "How in the… Xander, you did tell him you were streaming, right? And usually have thousands of viewers?"

"Yeah," I answer. "He apparently watches my streams, too."

Grandpa Adrian sighs and a few moments later, my guest arrives.

The guest I invited to show up on my stream is the dragon who resides in a cave behind a waterfall here in Dragon Falls, which was named after his waterfall. He's around seventy feet from shoulder to ass, not including neck, head, and tail. That makes him pretty large, but not as big as a certain wyvern.

Wyverns apparently never stop growing, while dragons eventually stop having any noticeable growth.

This dragon has deep blue scales with a faint green marbling visible when the light hits his scales just right. His eyes are purple in color with small golden spikes around his pupils, though I guess it's only small in relative to the size of his eyes.

His eyes are huge compared to a human's.

"Why did you invite a dragon onto your stream?" Grandpa Adrian asks.

"Because people were calling me a liar about being part-dragon, part-unicorn, part-phoenix, and part-plant," I say. "And they were even saying I was lying about dragons being real. So I asked one of the local dragons if he'd be willing to show up on my stream to let humans know that dragons are, in fact, real. He said yes."

"Why not ask -?" He uses the real name of Mr. Roger. "He's your great-uncle and I'm sure he'd have been fine showing up on the stream in his real form."

"Because he ain't local," I say. "He's lived here for over a decade, sure, but he's more of a nomad. To a dragon, a few decades ain't much. - is the dragon who's lived here the longest, so he's the primary dragon resident, not -. It'd be rude to not ask him first. Also, it's rude to not greet people who show up, and you didn't give me time to."

I turn and face my dragon guest while ignoring chat, which is going really fast. Some people are disbelieving this but there's already a statement from Grandpa Adrian out that this is real. He even posted it from his own account on the site, straight into my chat.

Some people are confused on how he did that while not holding a device, while others are telling them to just accept that Grandpa Adrian can do stuff that makes no sense to them.

This is just an avatar, and he probably used another to comment in chat.

"Hello, -!" I greet the dragon. "Thank you for coming!"

"Hello, Xander," his voice is deep and rumbles through the air. "Thanks for the invitation."

"Is there a name I can use so that my viewers can understand?" I ask. "Even if everything was set up so that your real name could be heard by them, they wouldn't be able to perceive it."

Grandpa Adrian said that there's no point in developing computers and other devices which can play what people are saying when they speak with magic, nor devices which can register and transmit said way of speaking. Ordinary humans can't understand it.

There are plenty of people who can, though, since dragons are people and so are the shrub folk like Grandma Lily and Berry.

"River," the dragon responds.

"Okay," I say. "Is it okay to start the interview? Or should we do small talk? I don't really understand how to do small talk. Oh. And can I call you 'Dragon River' instead? In case people know people named River? It might make it easier for them."

"Go ahead," Dragon River tells me.

"Okay," I say as Grandpa Adrian groans and puts his head in his hands.

"Can we begin now?" I ask.

"We may," Dragon River sits and folds his wings up against the sides of his body, and I pull a chair out of my bracelet and sit on it. "You brought an armchair?"

"It's comfier than a folding chair," I tell him. "And it's a recliner. Look!"

I pull the handle on the side and the bottom of the front flips up as it moves forward a little, creating a leg rest.

I summon Trenton out of my backpack, which I move from where it was sitting on the ground to resting on the ground beside my chair. Trenton gets set beside me and I adjust my position for comfort.

"Okay," I say. "So, Dragon River. How long have you lived around here?"

"Around three thousand years," he answers. "Though I was born a little further north. I left the den once I reached puberty, as we dragons normally do, and moved down here. There were a few other dragons in the area at the time, though they've moved on to other lands or passed away."

"From fighting?"

"Old age, mostly," he answers. "Very little can harm a dragon, after all. Perhaps if they went far enough south, they might encounter beasts even stronger than you."

He's hiding his mana, so I can't tell how powerful he really is. That sounds like I might be more powerful than him, though. It would be rude to say that to a full dragon, though, even if I'm the grandson of a queen dragon.

The dragons up here are going to be weaker than beasts much further south of here, though. They don't need the extra strength to stay at the top of the food chain here.

"What kind of dragon are you?" I ask. "I mean, I already know the general type, but my chatters don't since they thought dragons were mythological, like most humans on Earth."

"I'm a water dragon," he answers. "My specific species prefers freshwater over salt and are commonly referred to as lake dragons by nonhuman people. Do not be mistaken, however. All dragons can breathe dragonfire. It's different from ordinary flames and is imbued with a special mana produced in our lungs."

Really? I can't really see the mana in his lungs that well due to how much other stuff is in the way. The special mana is probably also concealed through whatever he's doing to conceal his mana, too.

"Special mana produced in your lungs?" I ask. "How does that happen? Ain't everyone's mana produced the same way?"

"It's less of an ordinary mana production," he explains. "And more of a byproduct of our lungs processing the air we breathe. A deep breath isn't necessarily enough for us so our lungs produce additional air suited for our bodies."

"Ah," I say. "So all dragons can breathe dragonfire regardless of type, and it's different from regular fire?"

"That is correct."

"Can you show me?"

"Please don't," Grandpa Adrian requests, but Dragon River ignores him and tilts his head up before letting out an immense stream of flames.

"Whoa."

"Xander, please-"

I imitate Dragon River, a stream of flames billowing out from my mouth. This is a lot different from the flamethrower spell. It requires me to actually breathe mana into the spell to do it right, which is just weird.

"Like that?" I ask.

"Mostly," Dragon River says. "You were able to imitate the mana used almost exactly. That's impressive for a first time. Did you grand-uncle teach you?"

"No," I answer. "I'll have to work on that. It seems like the magic bypasses most magical defenses and can even burn through the mana it encounters to fuel itself. That's incredible."

"Please don't use that unless absolutely necessary," Grandpa Adrian says.

"I'll try to remember that."

"It's going in the binder."

"I don't always remember what's in the binder."

Grandpa Adrian conjures a chair for himself and sits on it. It's about time he sat down rather than remaining standing. That was rude, but I didn't want to say anything because kids shouldn't be telling adults what to do.

"Do you interact with humans at all?" I ask Dragon River.

This is a question I already know an answer to, but it's better to let Dragon River decide whether or not to tell people as well as how much to reveal

"I do," Dragon River answers. "Many people who live in this area have even seen the human form I take. Among other activities, I visit local stores and go for walks along the streets to see and interact with humans. It allows me to have a greater understanding of them than simply observing the area as a whole."

"What do you think of the nonhuman people who live in the area?"

"They're nice," he answers. "Much less interested in conflict and hostilities than humans."

"I'm fairly certain the nonhuman people who are interested in that sort of stuff get scared off by the ones who ain't," I tell him.

"Probably," he agrees. "It depends on which species they're originally from. The plant folk are known for being peaceful most of the time."

"Because I wiped out the ones which weren't," Grandpa Adrian says. "This world did not need, in any way, shape, or form, a plant people who could spread poison extremely quickly. Especially not when they would do it for any slight, potentially killing off entire cities."

"I could wipe out entire cities," Dragon River says. "Entire nations, even."

"That's different," Grandpa Adrian says.

"I still don't understand how that's different," I say.

"If a dragon decides to wipe out a city," Grandpa Adrian says. "The city deserved it. They won't do it just because someone told them 'no'."

"That still doesn't make sense to me," I tell him before looking back to Dragon River. "What's your favorite human food?"

"Cheeseburgers."

"Really?"

"Really," he answers. "Make sure all of the ingredients have water magic properties, double the onion, a slice of a fresh tomato, crisp lettuce, onion rings, and barbecue sauce on a sesame seed bun. Six pieces of bacon under the bun for extra crunch and flavor. Curly fries over crinkle, straight, shoestring, or waffle."

Wow! Even dragons can like human foods!

"Thoughts on tater tots?"

[Sig – 13 years]

Xander interviewing a dragon at a park was not on my bingo card for today. The dragon staying after the stream so that kids can climb on him was also not on my bingo card for today. I might add as "Xander causes a new thing to be added to the bingo cards" square to the bingo card, though.

Several members of the military are here, though they don't look like they're actually concerned about the dragon attacking or anything. It wouldn't surprise me if they're here more to keep an eye on the people showing up.

Especially since that's the uniform of the Special Magic Forces. They can't do anything about the dragon but they can do something about people attempting to cause problems with one.

"Hi, guys," Xander joins us as we approach. "Why did y'all want to meet up here instead?"

"To see the dragon!" We all answer.

"Oh," he looks at the dragon, then looks at us. "His name is -, but he said I could call him 'River' for the stream. I was calling him 'Dragon River' in case it got confusing with people who know people named 'River'. He said that was fine."

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"And he's fine with kids climbing on him?" I ask.

Xander looks at Dragon River, then back at me. Then he looks at Dragon River again, then back to me.

He seems genuinely confused by the question. There are more than a dozen kids currently on the dragon.

"Stupid question, yeah," I say. "How strong is he compared to you?"

"Hm…" Xander looks at the dragon, then back to me. "About four-fifths as strong, so he's pretty strong. Did you guys want to meet him before we go to Isaac's?"

"Yeah!" We all answer.

We walk over to the dragon, who really doesn't mind people touching him. His scales are interesting… they feel solid, but also liquid at the same time. It's like if water imitated being solid without freezing and was somehow both states at once. He feels cool to the touch as well, like a forest pond on a spring day.

"I didn't see your stream," I tell Xander after pulling my hand away from the dragon's scales. "Did he say which waterfall he lives behind?"

"It's not accessible to the public," Xander tells me. "Know how the Autumn Realm has an ancient spirit which watches over the area? And how he lives in a sort of area where space and time were wrapped up? It's a log bigger in there than outside.

"Dragon River lives in a similar space," Xander tells me. "He took a section of space and separated it from normal space through a boundary of twisted time and space, then expanded the inside of it to give himself more space. The actual waterfall Dragon Falls is named after is located within that. Just like with the Autumn Realm, you need special permission to enter it."

"Huh," I say. "What does a dragon's den look like?"

"Dragon River doesn't like showing it to people," Xander tells me. "I can ask another dragon if he's willing to show you his domain."

"The… other local one?" I ask. "The one you're related to?"

"No," Xander answers. "The one who lives near where Alkronomak lived. He might be fine with it, so I can ask him."

"Oh," I say. "Wait. No, Xander, you don't need to do that. It's just something I'm curious about. Anyway! If we're all ready, let's head to Isaac's!"

Before Xander actually goes and asks a dragon if he'd be willing to let me look at his place. The fact that he asked a dragon to show up on a stream is already insane enough.

Xander pulls out his hoverboard and we mount our bikes, then make our way to Isaac's. We go around to the back to park our bikes before heading into the basement. If Mr. Michaels was home, we'd go upstairs to let him know we're here, but he's not so we don't.

"Is it okay if I nap?" Xander asks.

"Sure!" We answer.

"Okay."

Xander goes to a corner, changes to wolfkin form and sleepwear, then snuggles Mr. Leviathan as a blanket appears over him and a pillow appears under his head. He's got Trenton snuggled between himself and the plushie.

"He's asleep already, isn't it?" Sam asks.

"He's asleep," I say. "I guess interviewing a dragon for three hours wore him out. Oh! I'll have to let him know after he wakes. Guys – I won't be able to do the sleepover next weekend. I got asked to go hunting with the guys I hunted with from Crater Creek. There's apparently an issue with a hare population getting a little too high and needing culling before they cause more problems for farmers."

"Isn't farming season over?" Connor asks. "It's cold out! And it snowed last week!"

"Not all crops are done yet," I tell him. "Even with the snow. The pumpkin varieties grown around here are apparently all magic and really resilient to frost."

Which I didn't know. It's a low-level type of magic no one advertises in the food as apparently all pumpkins in North America have it. There are apparently a lot of foods in Kenzibri where all varieties have a small amount of magic in them. I found a site which lists all of them, and it's more than I expected.

All onions and potatoes in Kenzibri also have magic, apparently. So do all apples. It's a very low amount, though, and isn't anything special. Mostly, it just makes them more resilient to heat and frost when growing.

"That's why we can still go pumpkin-picking before Halloween," I tell them.

"That's soooooo close," Isaac says. "Just a couple of weeks before the Halloween Dance."

"You going?" I ask.

"Haven't decided yet," he answers. "Probably, though, since it's the last one before high school! Though I guess we gotta decide if we're going to mine or yours."

He looks at Sam for that. They haven't publicized their relationship to others yet, but they do normally go to dances together "as friends". Isaac usually just goes to DFMS's dances with the rest of us but he might want to go to his for the last one in middle school.

"Speaking of ours," Connor says. "You're still allowed to come even though you're not a student, just Sam or I has to buy your ticket. Same with Xander, if he wants to go. I know he probably won't want to, but it doesn't hurt to ask."

"It won't, yeah," I say. "But you're right, he probably won't go. It'd be waaaaay too crowded and noisy for him."

"Yeah," he says. "By the way, what's up with the hare population? I got confused and then you didn't tell us."

"Oh, right!" I say. "So they're a horned hare which uses ice magics. Low-level, but they'll tear up fields and terrorize the animals. It'll be a lot worse in spring and early summer if they're not culled soon as apparently, their mating season is winter. The population is unusually high in some areas right now, so hunters are being asked to help with culling their population. They blend into snow but there isn't any forecast for next weekend, and they conjure icicles to fire at people."

"Your aunt agreed to that?" Sam asks.

"You agreed to that?" Connor asks at the same time, horror on his face.

"I mean…" I trail off. "They're roughly as strong as me, or less. So the danger isn't that high. And I'm not hunting them alone. I'll be in a group. One of the things I'll be practicing Sunday is imbuing my arrows with fire magics, too. The hares are apparently more susceptible to fire magics than plain arrows, like in a video game. Sort of."

Xander gave me a big explanation of how it works when I told him while we were on a video call last night. What it boiled down to was "magic is fucking weird".

Those were his exact words when he decided to summarize it at the end after struggling to apply logic to magic at my request.

Weaker magical beasts might have a magical weakness, while stronger ones will just wonder if you're stupid for thinking they do. It was my bad for attempting to ask for logic with magic, but it makes me happy Xander at least attempted to try to explain it first.

Then realized he couldn't because it's magic.

"That's weird," Connor says.

"It really is."

With this discussion done, the three of them begin working on their homework and I fidget with an elemental magic control sphere. Unless they need help with something, there's nothing else for me to do and I don't want to waste it when I can work on my magic control. This will help me with practicing the spell on Sunday, too.

"Hey, Sig?" Isaac pauses working on his homework.

"Whatcha need help with?"

"Nothing," he answers. "Just wondering, but do you still go to Brooks's place for practicing?"

"Yeah," I answer. "Though he was still being moody and stuff when I was there the other day. Is he still being dumb?"

From what I've seen when at Mr. Jack's farm, Brooks wants to avoid anything to do with the farm's work and with guests. I haven't gotten to talk with him much as a result of that, which is just fine by me. Anyone who insults my friends for no reason isn't someone I want to be around.

Sure, he's grieving, but that's no reason to be rude.

"You have noooo idea," he says. "He's doubled down on everything he's said. Not just about Xander, about others, too. He got written up this week for some of it, too."

"Jeez!" I say. "He's gotta chill!"

I get that he might be grieving, but that doesn't excuse being a jerk.

"We can hope!" Isaac says. "Hopefully, he's not too much of a jerk on Sunday. He was really moody today."

"I can hope!" I say. "Oh! I got it!"

"Got what?" Connor looks up.

"I managed to get four of the circles on the outer shell to bubble up!" I answer. "Aaaand I lost control. Again!"

[Luke – 13 years] → begins towards the start of Sig's first PoV this chapter/Xander's PoV.

"Gatewood!" My Advisory teacher says, and I look up from the study guide I was reviewing. "They want you at the office; you might not be returning for the rest of the day."

That's a little unusual, but not completely. Most of the students at this school are strong mages who might get called to do work for the military during class. It's more common for my classmates to get called in than me but as with the Demon Rift during the summer, there are some things I'm better-suited for than them.

Also some things which will kill them which won't even tickle me.

The fact that I'm being called to the office suddenly like this has my classmates wondering what's going on. They're a little bit worried as well. A few of them were called out for a Rift which formed earlier this week, but this is different.

If a Rift strong enough for me to be asked to help deal with has formed, it could be a danger to the area. No one else in the class being called out is a little odd as there would definitely be some stronger monsters they could handle, but the others being called in might be from elsewhere.

The military does that sometimes, if they already pulled kids from a school in the past couple of weeks. They'll try to pull from another school, if they're pulling more kids who are strong enough to handle what the Magic Special Forces can't.

"Alright," I grab my things and head to the office, stopping by my locker to grab the rest of my things on the way.

"Luke," the secretary at the nearest desk hands me his phone. "For you."

"Luke Gatewood," I say after accepting the phone.

"Luke," the general says. "A high-level Rift just formed, and there aren't many people in the country capable of handling some of its monsters. Would you be willing to head in as the force against its strongest beasts? We're calling in civilians from around the country to handle the stuff outside of our strength limits."

So they are calling in other civilians. The military most has people from regular families or above-average mages, not old families with half a thousand or more mana. That's why they sometimes call in civilians to assist.

A high-level Rift which requires me and a bunch of others is a bit unusual, but also serious. I don't have an issue helping take care of it.

"Alright," I answer. "Where do you need me?"

"I've got someone who can head to the academy immediately," he tells me. "We'll fly you over once you're here, you're the only one coming in from this base."

"I bought the formula for the improved teleport spell from Xander," I tell him. "Practiced it a few times this week, and it's vastly cheaper than the others I was able to find. It'll barely be a droplet for me."

It was something I did on Sunday, on a whim. He wasn't as reluctant to sell it to me as I thought he'd be, though it's $10,000 well-spent. I haven't really used it much outside of practicing it, but it means I can respond faster to stuff like this.

Especially with how much mana I have.

"The base is warded against teleports," the general informs me. "Adrian King set that up a few days ago, as preparation for adding in a teleport pad. You'll need to teleport to the gate."

So they're getting a teleport pad of their own, and most likely the improved version. Or they already have one, but the base nearest where I'm going doesn't have one yet and it's faster to just fly me there than to teleport me to another base, then fly me over.

This base has a rather fast plane on standby most of the time.

"Alright," I say. "I'll be there shortly."

"Thank you."

The call ends and I hand the secretary back his phone, then weave together the teleport spell. Spatial magics aren't that easy to cast, but the three and a half minutes it takes me to carefully complete the spell is still faster than it would take for me to get picked up, then taken to the base.

Immediately after it completes, I appear at the main security checkpoint for the security base, where several soldiers immediately go for their weapons. They quickly recognize me and relax as I marvel over the barrier.

This isn't the entrance I was trying to go to, but I must have targeted too close to the base. The barrier redirected my teleport to here, where there are more guards.

"The general called," I say. "Requested assistance for a Rift."

"Let us check," one of them says.

A minute later, an SUV shows up to pick me up and take me to the base's airfield. From there, I'm flown to a town cluster a few hours northeast of here while being briefed on the situation. The Rift itself is about an hour's drive from the towns, while the beasts coming out of the Rift are more slow-moving than that.

Rather than landing in the airfield there, I'll be jumping out of the plane like I did at the demon island. The monsters have figured out there's a town of delicious people nearby and are on their way there. Soldiers have already moved to intercept them and will be handling the weaker monsters at the front.

I was called in because while weaker monsters came through initially, the Rift is estimated to have monsters near my own strength. They've already sighted a few which have several thousand units of mana in strength, but I'm not even here for those.

I'm here for the big boys which haven't come through yet. Other mages who got called in will handle those, in a mix of youth and adults with abilities geared towards handling those types of monsters at those strength.

The plane isn't really suited for hovering and we don't want to have to fly in circles while waiting. It's better if I'm close by once the strongest beasts come out.

To make that happen, I'm put into a helicopter which overs over the area closest to the Rift. It's a few minutes later when the stronger monsters come out.

It's like the same as what happened over at Nine Springs, years ago, only worse. This beast could probably wipe out the entire town cluster without a particularly strong mage involved.

The monster which is definitely around my own level in strength looks similar to a bear, but not quite. Its face is more of a mix between bear and bull, and it has scales running down its spine and covering its chest, in addition to a few other spots on its body. His bull-like horns look almost as if made out of bluish crystal, which suggests he really does have quite a lot of mana.

If those are mana crystals, then his actual mana capacity is a lot higher than estimated. Monsters with mana crystals as part of their body use them as reserves, but they don't affect their physical strength and toughness. Since the mana from those crystals isn't flowing through their bodies, it doesn't influence them.

However, it means I'll need to be more conservative with my own mana and be more careful. He probably has more mana than I do, though I'll have an advantage in my lightning magic. As long as he doesn't have that or anything else which can compete or outdo it – like temporal or spatial magics – I should be fine. Lightning magic is hard to counter without stuff like that, and it's effectively become an inherent magic to me. It costs me less mana while being more effective.

Just as I go to jump out of the helicopter, another one of those monstrous bears steps out of the Rift.

"That might be a problem," the officer accompany me says.

There's usually only beast of this strength level in a Rift of this strength.

"Nah," I say. "I'll be fine as long as I'm not facing, like, five or six of them. The size of their horns and depth of the color, if that screen is accurate, means I can probably lightning-charge myself and use physical combat for the most part."

This is the perfect opportunity for me to try something I saw in one of the videos Xander posted from his trip to the zoo, too.

"Don't be cocky," the officer says. "If you can't handle it, back out immediately."

"No worries," I snort. "I'm thirteen, not an idiot. Okay, maybe a little impulsive, but I'm not going to throw myself into a situation I can't win. See you when I finish!"

I jump out of the plane and use my magic to affect my descent, including lightning-charging myself on the way down. My target is the first of the two monstrous bears and when I slam into it, lightning explodes all around me.

While the bear managed to throw up a barrier in time to shield itself, the other monsters around aren't strong enough to fully withstand it. Many of them are wiped out immediately, while others are severely wounded.

The bear thrusts its paws upwards and its barrier shoves against me. I flip in the air and land with another lightning wave. A moment later, I dash forward and right before I slam into the new barrier the bear conjured, lightning flows around me. This is the shock aura spell cast by one of the lightning wolves from the zoo… but my own version because I'm not Xander and can't just see the magic involved to learn.

While the barrier shields the bear from my charge, it didn't conjure it before my shock aura connected. Burns form where the sparks flash across his body before the barrier blocks out my aura.

I continue attacking the bear monster, darting in and out as I do. Most of my attacks are relatively weak, focused on my physical strength more than anything. The shock aura and lightning charge are relatively cheap and my goal is to burn through his mana. His barriers might not seem like they're taking damage, but that's because he's pumping them full of mana to keep them strong and to repair them immediately.

Which is mana-intensive.

The monsters around us die as we fight, and the other monstrous bears (I've seen five total but there might be more) seem occupied by something or someone else. There must be another person as strong as me or stronger sent out here, but I can't focus on that.

This one bear is taking all of my attention. Fortunately, it seems like I wasn't the only high-power person called in as I can feel two more people moving around, killing things.

Younger than me, judging by their sizes, and likely Kings. I can't look for them, though, as I really need to focus on this opponent.

When I finally manage to wear out the bear's mana and simply beat it down until it dies, I realize that my left arm must have broke at some point. It's hanging limply by my side and pain fills it. Whenever that happened, I must have subconsciously stopped using it.

Now that my fight against the bear monster is finished, I look around to see what else I need to deal with. There aren't very many monsters left, including the bear ones. All of the monsters I can see are weaker ones, things the Special Magic Forces can handle.

Though another of the bear monsters is about to emerge from the Rift. Its head is coming through it now. I should group up with whoever was helping me out…

"What in the storms?"

A strange mass just surrounded the Rift, a cloud of purple and grey and gold, the grey itself seeming tinted with blue and green. The entire thing seems to be solid, vapor, and ethereal at all once and is far more magical-seeming than anything I've ever seen before. It seems almost akin to a jewel, but also a dream.

No.

That word fills the air, my body, my mind, my soul, my being. That statement has no gender, no species. It's an awareness. An absolute denial to reality itself. A force of magic so powerful, I'm sure even an ordinary person could sense the amount of mana poured into it.

Then the Rift vanishes.

Bad.

All remaining monsters within my perception suddenly falls to the ground, the electrical signals I'm feeling in them disappearing. Only two others remain, and they feel small, like children. The two who were helping me out. I can't see their sources, but that's not important at the moment.

Bye.

The strange, magical mass then fades away, like a comforting dream after a long, peaceful rest.

"Gatewood, come in," a voice says through my earpiece. "This thing still working?"

"Y-yeah," I shake my head a little, forcing myself out of the stupor induced by… whatever the heck that was. "Looks like it survived my magical strength. What's up?"

"What in the fuck was that?"

"I have no fucking clue," I say. "Was that either of you, munchkins?"

The two smaller electrical signals suddenly freeze up. They themselves don't freeze up, but whoever they belong to do. A moment later, they vanish. Definitely relatives of Xander's, if they're teleporting kids.

"Were some other kids sent out here?" I ask.

"No," he answers. "Was that what we couldn't see taking the other beasts on? A kid?"

"They were invisible," I say. "I think? I couldn't see them, but I could sense their electricity. There were two. I don't think it was them that did… whatever the heck that was, though. From what I could tell, they were probably just as stunned as I was. How're the others?"

"Doing good," he says. "Every monster which emerged from that Rift died when it said 'bad'."

"Do you think it was a god?" I ask.

I'm not religious, but I accept that there are gods in existence. Adrian King has mentioned in the past that they exist, so I have no reason to doubt it.

"Don't know," he says. "We've got a healer incoming to your location. That arm went limp early into the fight, so it might need immediate treatment."

Very few people are good enough at healing magic to mend broken bones. Very few. Even in the military, there aren't many which can do it well enough I won't need at least a cast. It'll be better for them to spend their mana healing the soldiers. They deal with combat more often than me, so they'll need healing faster.

"No…" I say. "Others probably have worse injuries, right?"

"We sent in a few healers," he tells me. "And there aren't any critical injuries. Ironically, it's the strongest person we sent out who seems to be the worst-harmed."

"Huh."

"Just wait there," he tells me. "They'll arrive in three. Don't jostle your arm before it gets healed, that'll just increase how much she needs to do."

A few minutes later, a combat group approaches me, one of their members marked with the healers' insignia. She looks over my arm and casts a healing spell on it, and the pain begins to fade as my bones shift. It still hurts, especially as I'd apparently broken it in seven places and shattered three small sections of it, but she's one of the best healers in the country.

They brought her in from the demon islands in case something really bad went wrong here. She's not able to bring someone back from the brink of death or fully repair badly-damaged arms, but she can do a good enough job that I won't need a sling.

"Don't give it too much strain for a few days," she tells me. "Light lifting only, but it's best to avoid lifting with it if you can. Avoid any impacts – no combat training which uses it. It'll still be a little sore, but you should be good to go on Tuesday."

"Understood!" I say. "Thanks! I'll head to the base now to get changed. Let's hope we never meet again!"

A standard farewell from a civilian hired for something like this. Never meeting again means there's never again a situation where someone this powerful has to come out to help.

Though I still want to know who those twins were, and what that mysterious being was.

"Let's hope we never meet again," she responds, then her group begins returning to the others.

I weave together the teleport spell, grateful for my decision to buy it. Did Xander have some sort of awareness that this might happen? Is that why he didn't have an issue selling me the teleport spell? It wouldn't surprise me if he turned out to be psychic, too.

Once the spell completes, I feel the very small sink of mana which happens right at its end to act as the fuel for the actual distance itself. The spell consumes mana as I weave it together, then a bigger amount of it right at the end once everything is set.

Immediately, I find myself back at the base. Here, I'm debriefed while I change and my arm is looked over, then they give me the all-clear to go. My pay for this should transfer sometime this evening, and I'm asked to minimize any comments about the strange being.

They want to reduce the odds of panic over its appearance, so it's understandable they don't want me to say anything.

Now cleared to leave, I exit the base and teleport home, then head inside to join my boyfriend.

Tyler's playing a game on my TV in my bedroom as he waits for me. The moment I enter the room, however, he pauses the game and charges me.

"How'd it go?" He asks as we hug, and I give him a brief kiss. "Didn't get hurt, did you?"

"So much happened," I tell him. "And I have zero clue where to start."

[Sig – 13 years] → begins during Luke's PoV.

We cannot decide if Xander is having a bad dream he needs to be woken from or if he's having a good dream he's enjoying. Either way, hearing his mumbles is really funny. The four of us are doing our best not to watch him, but it can be hard not to look over with some of the things he says.

Especially since his voice is very calm when he does mumble something, very casual.

"Begone with them," Xander mumbles. "No chocolate cat shall survive the afternoon… the optimal choice would be void magics. If the gummy bear army lacks void magic, then obviously, they should use flamethrowers. And air magics, to avoid the chocolate fumes from tainting my food."

"Seems he's calmed down," Isaac says quietly. "So it's an army of chocolate cats, huh?"

"Fighting an army of gummy bears," I snicker. "And he's still concerned about not letting chocolate anywhere near him."

"What do you think he's eating?" Sam asks.

"This is Xander," I say. "We can just ask. Hey, Xander? Whatcha eating?"

"Banana bread with chopped walnuts," he mumbles. "Perfect for watching chocolate cats get incinerated by gummy bears."

"Enjoy," I tell him. "If your nap takes longer, want us to wake you up for dinner?"

"Oh… this is a dream."

The four of us snicker at his sleepy realization that he's dreaming. We still don't know why he can talk with us like this while dreaming, but it does make for some funny conversations.

"Are we past the homework part?" Xander asks, his voice still in that calm, casual tone it's been in for the entire time since he began mumbling during his nap. "Did I oversleep?"

"We're done with homework," Connor tells him. "But it's not four yet."

"Oh," Xander says. "It's a big banana bread… but I guess I can wake up if I get a hug right after."

As much as I'd like to hug him right now, if he doesn't sleep for at least forty minutes, he'll still be tired after and will likely end up taking another nap after dinner. Letting him nap for longer now will give us more time to watch the highlights from his stream earlier, too.

"You don't have to wake up!" I tell him. "You're probably still tired, right?"

"Um…" Xander thinks for a few moments. "My mana level is really low, so it'd be better for me to eat real food instead of dream food, wouldn't it?"

Breathing dragon fire and doing other spells the dragon showed him earlier must have used a lot of mana. I guess even for someone one-quarter dragon, imitating a full dragon's magic must use a lot of mana.

"Choice is yours!" I tell him. "Though I bet the banana bread would be a good pre-waking snack!"

"Okay…" he says. "Lemme see if I can find some icing to slather on it. No, no, no. I want cream cheese icing, not plain icing. That's for cinnamon rolls, not banana bread."

One of the gummy bears just offered him a bowl of icing, didn't it?

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