Aexilica had woken up in some of the least-pleasant conditions a person might ever find. To this day though, mere yards from a slumbering dragon was pretty much as bad as it had ever gotten for her.

Instinct would've had her leap to her feet in a frightened reflex and start sprinting away, but instinct was often more of a killer than the dangers it warned of. Aexilica had mastered herself enough not to panic and flee, knowing that the rattle of ringmail would more than likely wake the damned dragon and be the death of her right then and there.

In her silence, Aexilica was able to see a few other things as well. The first was Vari. Also unconscious, or perhaps more likely asleep. It'd been the exhaustion that passed them out in the end, starting around the dragon's ascent. She could feel the memories coming back now. As it'd flown higher, the air felt like it'd gotten thinner. Harder to breathe. Eventually Aexilica had felt her consciousness slip away.

Evidently, Vari had now. She considered waking him but…No, not until she'd had a better look around at least. Knowing him, Vari the Idiot would grab his weapon and throw himself at the dragon again the moment he rose.

They were in a cave, naturally. Aexilica had never exactly understood why, but in her long years of experience with monster hunting she'd learned that caves would inevitably attract just about every kind of creature which was naturally hostile to humanity. Or, in cases where none were available, would seemingly spawn them from thin-air.

In this case, there didn't seem to be more than just the dragon. That was far from a comfort. Aexilica had heard stories of the creatures of course, mysterious, northern beasts of terrible power. She'd heard they were intelligent too, though this one didn't seem to be.

Aexilica froze as the dragon shifted, one great wing half-stretching and already filling the cavern around them. It was far from a tight space, either. Big enough that she could've built several of her old house and fitted them all inside.

What caught Aexilica more than the sheer size of this monster, though, was what she saw once its ring raised. Lying unconscious and with the monster curled around her was a tall, thin, blonde girl who didn't yet look like she was into her twenties.

Eirik's daughter. Aexilica realised, feeling her heart begin to beat all the faster. She drew several conclusions quite quickly. Either this dragon had recently killed an entire pack of cyclopes by itself without injury, or…

Eirik is a lying bastard.

But that was a concern for the future, right now Aexilica was in the den of a…dragon. Fuck. Metaphors broke down in extremis, she supposed. And she was spiralling, needed to focus. Had to bite back her panic and fear and force herself to return to the matter at hand.

They couldn't fight the dragon, that much she was sure of. Emma's apparent ability to fly had been a pleasant surprise—surprising to nobody as much as Emma herself, Aexilica suspected—but even that hadn't done much to level the playing field in a three-on-one. And as much as she hated to admit it, the gap between Aexilica's own abilities and that damned woman was growing larger fast.

Try as she might, Aexilica couldn't think of any workable plan that didn't involve waking Vari up. If she tried to carry him out herself, she'd probably end up doing that accidentally…And under far less controlled circumstances than she'd prefer.

There was nothing for it. Steeling herself, she leaned over and gently nudged the Sculd's shoulder.

"Vari…" Aexilica whispered. "Vari—"

—"BASTARDS!" He roared, leaping to his feet like someone was dragging him up on rope and staring around. Everything happened at once, and none of it was good.

The dragon woke up with a roar, the girl with a scream. Aexilica leapt to her own feet too, panic coursing through her.

It wasn't the panic that made her attack. It made her move, but not attack. That was simply what Aexilica figured to be her best chance of actually escaping. She'd seen the dragon move from the last cave, knew she couldn't match that speed—not for the ten paces she'd have to maintain it for to reach the exit.

So instead she attacked, and went for the eyes. Maybe if the dragon was blinded and stunned she could take the chance to get herself out of there before it recovered, and keep all her flesh at room temperature and still clinging to her bones.

Aexilica leapt, landed on the dragon's head and clung on for dear life right up until her fist came down hard in one of the creature's eyes. However tough the dragon was, it did not like that. Not one bit, and it was more than a little vocal about its discontent.

Vocal, and physical.

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It thrashed around, twisting and shaking with such strength that even Aexilica's arms were soon pushed past their limit. She went flying, fast, and hit a wall. It was fortunately far and fortunately not head first, but the impact to her back still emptied every bit of air her lungs held and left her to drop and wheeze on the ground.

She still was when Vari came flying at the dragon, not going for the head and settling instead for hefting a boulder larger than most people's torsos high into the air before bringing it down hard on the dragon's back. The rock split almost in half, and the dragon's tail snapped back to crack against the Sculd's chest. He was sent flying in very much the same trajectory as a fifteen-stone man suddenly hit by a limb weighing several times what his entire body did, and landed in about the same condition Aexilica had.

One second, maybe two. That was all the dragon had needed to leave them both gasping on the stone. And it was still moving. The cave felt like it was trembling as the dragon shrieked, and Aexilica was reminded again of how potent the thing was.

What shocked her, though, wasn't anything about the creature itself, but rather the girl who'd been unconscious with it coiled around her.

"Kallvindr, stop!" She roared, and in that single instant the dragon froze. Aexilica froze too, Vari, not the sharpest tool in any bunch, did not. Fortunately he was too busy gasping for breath to do much else or cause any further issues, and his immobilisation served as well as deliberate caution would have in any case.

Aexilica got to her own feet, carefully. Slowly. Not moving in any of the ways that a giant, fire-breathing predator might take as invitation to strike. She still didn't know where her weapon was, nor what was going on. But if the dragon attacked that would very likely be the last thing she ever saw. Her ribs still ached from where it had struck her, and that had been a panicked, dazed thrashing. A deliberate killing-stroke from such a creature would be the last thing she ever saw, or felt.

"Who are you?" The girl asked, staring daggers at Aexilica. Aexilica stared them right back, though knew her gaze must have had its effect blunted. There was only one dragon involved in the staring contest, and its presence on the other side was leaving hers somewhat diminished.

She took her time in answering, this situation had suddenly gotten…complicated.

***

Emma wasn't sure why she'd taken so long to experiment with flight. Sure, it was exhausting. Imprecise, kind of dangerous and a bit shit compared to the Superman-style swooping she'd have liked to be doing, but it was just such a useful advantage that she felt ridiculous for not having explored it sooner.

Then again, she'd had a lot on her plate basically every day she'd spent here. Especially now that Aexilica and Vari had been snatched.

Because you missed something, because you're an idiot. Because you're just as much of a loser here as you ever were there.

No, there was no time for that now. Emma would feel sorry for herself when she'd actually focused and helped out her fucking…Friends?

Allies, sure, that. No need to over-complicate things. Things were already complicated enough when one was trying to make a hang-glider.

Well not a hang-glider actually, given that Emma's ability to hang from anything was about the same as a baboon's ability to construct a helicopter. The energy construct she started with borrowed the same basic shape, but was created with a little cubby section for her to tuck her body into and seal herself in.

Emma would have liked to put a lot more time into testing her makeshift vehicle than she could, but sadly there simply wasn't that much to spend. She took flight with the old man pressed beside her and Larry under one arm, yelling for both of them to shut up as they screamed. Neither did. The glider descended from atop the plateau and caught the wind instantly.

Hardened energy was light, really light. Emma wasn't surprised at all by how violently its trajectory changed and spat the thing back upwards, nor how quickly it started shivering with the strain.

It was only a hasty reinforcement from her Matter powers, Emma thought, that kept it together. But it climbed high and climbed quickly, levelling out as Emma tilted it forwards with a nudge of Energy. Then levelling too much, falling, spinning, throwing her rapidly towards a meaty death.

Emma just barely avoided impact with the stony ground, only to end up heading in entirely the wrong fucking direction. That demanded more corrections, led to more unintentional adjustments and threw her off all over again. It was the better part of half an hour before she had something of a hang over her own flight.

"You're gonna fucking kill us!" Larry screamed into her ear.

"Shut up." Emma groaned. "You're a head, it's not like you even have anything to lose if I do."

That did not mollify him for some reason, and Emma was treated to Larry's howling for the remainder of their journey. It was not, however, a very long one. Now that she knew where she was going, her sheer velocity paired with the ability to cut over all those pesky natural barriers meant that it took less than an hour to reach the peak Eirik had pointed out.

That brought a new issue to the forefront of things though. Landing.

Ordinarily Emma would've had a simple solution, just collapse whatever was holding her up and use the ample time she had before landing to create a parachute out of hardened energy. The problem with that was that she was going really fast. Even if she could make her falling mechanism in two seconds—and that was a big fucking if— she'd probably be close to a hundred metres from where she started by the time it was done.

That didn't bode well for Larry or Eirik, who definitely wouldn't be in a position for Emma to catch them before they could faceplant below. Larry might survive that, but Eirik the Money-Giver definitely wouldn't.

Emma chewed on the problem, somehow calm despite her imminent arrival leaving very little time to do so.

"We're getting closer!" Eirik gasped, panic staining his voice now.

"Shut up." She grumbled, face still pinched with thought. Eventually Emma just swore.

"This is gonna suck, just a warning."

She hardened energy around the glider into great, long panels held in place by her new yellow variety of energy. The springiness, the glueiness, kept them in place nice and properly as the bone-shaking deceleration racked everything. It was a good sign, any deceleration that didn't have Emma's guts trying to escape through her asshole wouldn't have been enough at this stage. Not for the final part of her cunning plan.

"We're going to hit the mountain!" Larry screamed.

"Yep!" Emma laughed.

They hit the mountain.

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