Instead of running away, Wulf lunged forward, drawing a short sword. He lunged closer to Oltáneach as a waterfall of flame roared out the dragon's mouth.

The flame passed right beside Wulf, but the heat made the air shimmer. He wrapped an arm around Oltáneach's neck and dragged the long python to the side, then pulled back. Oltáneach's flame sprayed up into the sky, travelling high enough to burn away the clouds and create a hole in the layer of dust and ash.

Then the flame stopped, and Wulf slammed the dragon's head into the ground. A shockwave of dirt and mud raced away from the impact. Oltáneach flailed his wings, trying to know Wulf off, but Irmond fired an arrow, striking one of the dragon's claws and deflecting its wing.

"Kalee, I'm going to need some extra weight," he said. "Do you need to link?"

"If you want to keep him down and coordinate a few debilitating blows, then yes," she replied.

"We need him alive," Wulf said. "Otherwise he won't tell us what we need."

He pulled his mana back into the socket, temporarily shutting off the flow, and Wraith fell still for a few seconds. Its weight still kept Oltáneach down. They controlled its neck, but he couldn't say how much longer. A regular Oronith might have a better chance, but Wraith's stone was lighter than most.

"I'm ready!" Kalee called.

"Release!"

He let go of his mana, and it surged back into the channels of Wraith. Both his and Kalee's mana met in the dream link, and his stomach dropped. The edges of his vision blurred, and a swell of nausea overwhelmed him.

Linking their minds hadn't hit this hard before, but they'd never tried linking again after their kiss on the beach.

They were much, much closer now.

A veil of clouds washed over Wulf's vision, and Oltáneach faded away. His mind was wrenched out of his body, and he found himself standing in an ink painting. A vision. Dream mana swirled around his mind, telling him that he saw a small house in the south of the Istalis Confederacy. The floor was made of pale boards, and the house itself stood on stilts on the shores of a lake. Humid air swirled around, and everything was misty and blurry.

Everything except Kalee.

In the vision, Wulf didn't wear his armour of his piloting suit. Just an academy coat. Kalee wore her uniform as well, a formal white shirt and a skirt, but she knelt in the center of the floor. She held her eyes, clawing at them, and tilted her head up, as if trying to see something in the distance.

Wulf sprinted toward her. "What's wrong? What's—"

He passed through her, like he didn't even exist. He came to a halt on the other side of the house's living room, right beside a window. Pale light filtered in from outside, but he didn't even cast a shadow.

It was like he wasn't here.

A man with long black hair marched along a boardwalk outside the house. He pushed open a sliding wooden door, holding a basket full of fruit, and closed it behind him. As best Wulf could tell, the man was in his fifties, but he was an Ascendant, and he could've been much older. Even though he wore no badge, he gave off the arcane presence of a Gold.

Kalee gave off the presence of an Iron.

This was a memory.

"Another nightmare?" the man asked. His tattered white and green robe swayed behind him. "Or is it getting worse."

At first, Kalee didn't respond. The man asked louder, almost shouting, and finally, Kalee replied, "Another nightmare!" Her tongue sounded like it was tying itself in knots. She hesitated unnaturally between words, like she could barely hear herself talk.

Wulf grimaced and hung his head. "Kalee…"

Even if she could hear him, it wouldn't matter.

"I need to do something," she continued, addressing the man. This must have been her old master. "I can't keep living like this…and don't tell me revenge won't make it better. Anything is better than this."

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The man shrugged. "If you want revenge," he said, leaning right beside her ear, "find the demon-spirit that did this to you."

"I'm not strong enough."

"Precisely. And you never will be. You're not the kind of person to make it past Iron, not without any major changes in your life. Those…changes do not come willingly. You have lost the will to improve, and you will not find it again easily."

It'd take the world ending for either of them to reignite that spark, that joy of pushing for magical growth once more. To give them the kick they needed to get to Gold and beyond. Wulf shuddered at the thought.

"I have to do something," Kalee repeated.

"So you will find your family."

"They are equally culpable."

"Perhaps. Most likely, they are already dead."

"I'm still going to go."

"Then I cannot help you any longer. If you leave now, and give up everything I have taught you, so be it. Eventually, the bird must leave the nest." Her old master's voice was bitter with disappointment. "I am going fishing for dinner. If you are gone by the time I am back, know that I did truly wish the best for you."

He set down his basket, picked up a wicker hat from beside the door, and marched outside.

Kalee stayed still in the center of the floor, shoulders quivering, crying but not voicing anything.

"Just a vision…" Wulf whispered. He was seeing her greatest shame, her greatest regret, her greatest fear. He wasn't sure what he could do, but he ran over anyway, begging his body to have some form. Some mass. The ability to do anything, to affect anything, to change the world around him.

If he couldn't do that, then what was the point of any of this?

Concentrating on feelings of warmth, he let them seep out into Kalee. Slowly, his arms gained mass, and her shoulder dipped, as if he was there, filling her with warmth, guiding her and begging her to keep trying.

Something twanged in the back of his mind. The vision trembled, and a yellow-gold glow shimmered around Kalee. Threads of golden light circled her for a moment, before fading away. "I want you to succeed…" he whispered. "I want you to go on and win. Maybe not now. Do what you have to. Just don't die. Live to the end."

She still stood up and walked away. She still left her old master, but now, she walked with a touch more determination.

~ ~ ~

In Wulf's last life, twenty five years before the end of the world, Dr. Arnau—then Master Arnau—died.

It was a fiend attack. While Wulf climbed in the cockpit of Fiendhammer and fought off the colossal Iron-tier fiends, protecting the village he and Master Arnau had trained near, she stayed on the ground, protecting the village from the hordes of smaller, mindless demons. She'd killed droves of them, but they weren't expecting this attack, and there were too many. The attacks had been increasing in strength and frequency.

Besides, without an Oronith, a Pilot was never at their true strength.

In the aftermath of the fight, with the bodies of three Fiends smouldering in the distance, and with Fiendhammer crouched amidst the burning ruins of the village, Wulf climbed out of the cockpit and ran down.

It didn't take long for him to find Dr. Arnau. She laid on her back, still half-encased in her granite golem, its helmet pulled back, gasping for breath.

"Hold on, Master!" Wulf shouted, falling to his knees beside her. "If you deactivate your golem, we can stanch the bleeding, and—"

"It is too late for me, and it's much too late for you to be calling me Master."

"You'll always be Master to me."

"I—" She coughed, and blood dribbled down her chin. "No, Wulf. Now is my time. I can feel it." She paused, looking him straight in the eyes. "In some ways…I've always felt it. In your presence, I felt as though the future was assured, like nothing could deviate from the way it had been…"

"No, Master, I don't understand." He choked on spit and wiped his eyes. "You can't leave me. You'll be fine, just—"

"Promise me, Wulf. Promise me something."

"What, Master?"

"You'll live your life. Live a full life, live a meaningful life. Find something to cling to."

"I—I don't know how! But I won't let yet another person die! Too many have gone already! Not you, too! I…can't do it!"

"Listen to me!" Dr. Arnau bellowed.

Wulf almost didn't. But a swell of golden light surged around him, strands and tendrils seeping around his limbs, and the scene shimmered again. A pressure settled on him. It was familiar, but he couldn't say why.

Don't give up, Wulf, came a voice inside his mind. Kalee's voice.

Who the hell was Kalee?

The voice faded as soon as it came, and the name faded out of time and memory, but Dr. Arnau remained.

"If you won't do it for yourself, then do it for me," the old woman gasped. "Burn my body, spread my ashes in the far reaches of the world, and see it for yourself. You must."

'"I will, Master."

"Promise me."

"I promise."

~ ~ ~

The vision faded. Wulf's mind snapped back into itself, and he wrangled Wraith under control.

It was time to teach this dragon a lesson.

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