It's not every day that you see a dragon, let alone two of them. Two dragons. Two actual, living, breathing dragons, one of which had just tried to roast me alive with its breath weapon. Each one was as big as a house, and wore the same silver power-suits as all the other Vyxit troops, complete with a fancy visor over their eyes. One of the dragons had two wings, while the other had four, the second pair of which were made from the same silvery, metallocrytalline substance as the Vyx modules, and which sported turbines and some truly fearsome-looking blasters in some kind of fusion of biology and machine.

It had to be one of the aegises the Treefathers had warned us about.

It would have been easier for me to appreciate the awesomeness of the moment if I hadn't wanted to end myself and everyone else because my wife was dead and gone forever.

Unfortunately, the Vyxit had no interest in giving me the time or space I needed to grieve. On the other hand, I couldn't deny that my pain gave me strength, and I was going to need every last drop of that.

You see, the half-machine dragon aegis was infected.

Could I use it to hack into the Vyx Network? Well, there was only one way to find out. However, there were problems that I had to deal with, first.

Both &alon's forces and the wyrm brigade were concentrating their attacks on the strongest Vyxit troops. Leaping bat-winged fungal hounds, wyrms toting laser-blaster tanks, and dozens of other kinds of creatures both nightmarish and wild were bearing down on the two dragons, the walker mechs, and other elite Vyxit troops. I had to cut through &alon's monsters with repelling blasts from the Sword to keep them from overwhelming the dragons with the sheer load of their accumulated weight, and put up extra force-fields to block the wyrm brigade's weapons.

Thankfully, the Sword helped with that.

I screamed. "Don't kill the infected dragon! I need it to hack into the Vyx Network!"

I could scarcely believe what I was saying.

Lt. Dueright shot up and yelled, flaring the crest between his horns. "You tell us now!?"

"You heard the man!" Brigadier-General Watterson roared. "Hop to it!"

Unfortunately, that was easier said than done when all of the Vyxit were trying to kill us. Nor was &alon about to make nice with her frantic hunters.

Drawing power from the Sword, I blew repulsion waves through the air to clear my immediate surroundings, scattering dozens of Vyxit aerial fighters. I had to expand the warding sphere even more just to give my magic room to act before it crashed into the ward and got negated by it.

"Hold them off for me!" I yelled.

I flew upward.

Several Vyxit death rays swept across my path, forcing me to bolster the ward to block them. The effort made my hunger spike. At the same time, the dragon aegis rocketed upward, its turbines roaring in its machine wings. It flew past me, up and up, but then stopped its flight midair with a sudden reversal of its turbines' flow.

For a brief moment, it seemed to hover above and ahead of me, with its underbelly facing me and both of its pairs of wings spread wide. It pointed a claw at me—or was it at the Sword?—and then flicked its tail, kicked its legs, and dove toward me. It threw itself into a corkscrew with a roar.

Oh fudge.

I think the Vyxit wanted the Sword.

I sped up my thoughts.

Had I brought them here? Was all this death and destruction my fault?

But I stopped that train of thoughts in its tracks.

This was &alon's doing, not mine. None of this would have happened if it wasn't for her!

A fiery aura lit up around the dragon's body, giving off blistering heat, fierce radiation, and unstoppable force as sharp as blades of pure vacuum. Energy pulsed through the lines of circuitry on the mechanical portions of its. Its turbines screamed out air and revved into high speed.

Sound thunderclapped.

The dragon blasted forward like a shooting star.

I had to shrink my ward and redirect the power to bolster my flight magic enough to speed myself out of the way of the mecha-dragon's attack.

I howled.

The effect was devastating and indiscriminate: wyrms, fungus creatures, even other Vyxit unfortunate enough to be in the dragons' path were seared to glimmering cinders. Trails of ash rained down on the battlefield in the dragon's wake. The aegis banked around in a wide turn and came flying back at me.

It opened its mouth and roared.

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I got the briefest glimpse of how the dragon's silver power suit interfaced with its biology where it lined the insides of its mouth and throat—circuits lighting up all across the mechanical parts of its body—before a cloud of mist spewed out, ignited, and then crackled into a volley of green lightning bolts. The dragon launched it directly at me.

The beam was as thick around as I was.

Raising the Sword, I concentrated on the ward in front of me to block the blow, drawing from the power feeding the &alon-repelling barriers. Wyrms went silver-eyed as the great sphere contracted and left them out in the open.

Damn her! Damn her!

The magic struck. It was like I was holding up a shield against a nuclear bomb! Waves of force swept off from my forcefield and wards, along with snarling sparks. The shockwaves knocked everyone back except for the dragon. Lightning crackled and spat as I deflected it, leaving trails of molten stone where it struck the ground. Larger bursts detonated like bombs, blasting things to smithereens on impact.

I shuddered to think of what would have happened if I hadn't been able to block the attack.

The draconic aegis must have noticed my anxiety, because mounting power started glowing over its body all over again, circuitry glistening.

I screamed as I sped away. I barely managed to dodge this second shooting star attack, and lost the last few feet of my tail in the process.

All the while, laser fire shot at me from below and death rays bore down on me from above and behind. I spiraled around and around, flying like mad. Each turn brought me closer to the ground.

I plucked a fungus hound off the ground, absorbing as I darted over the heads of the Vyxit ground troops. It helped, but not enough.

I looked up and behind.

Oh God.

A battalion of Vyxit troops was trumping across the wrecked land, racing toward me. A walker-mech led them, and &alon's forces and silver-eyed wyrm brigaders chased in pursuit. Overhead, heat and fiery radiation streamed off the mecha-dragon's turbines.

It was powering up another shooting star attack!

Three flower ships descended toward the ground ahead of me. Red lights of imminent death rays gathered at their noses.

I slowed time, desperate to give myself a chance to think.

There had to be something I could do!

I focused on the Sword.

C'mon, can't you do something?

And, just like that, it did. The dial of scintillating threads gyred like slow-motion clockwork. The weaves folded in on themselves and then opened up like a flower. I hyperphantasized a "tab" slotting into place with a click as the movements finally stopped. The tab's threads were some of the thickest I'd ever seen, and the brightness with which they shone left afterimages in my third eyes.

Even if the Sword's usefulness wasn't as reliable as I would have liked, there was no denying its power. I didn't trust it enough to believe it would always come to rescue when push came to shove, but I trusted it enough to use its power when the opportunity presented itself.

Suisei spoke up just as I was about to send my energy into the Sword.

"Wait, Genneth," he said. "That spell is going to take a lot of power. Just look at it! Even with the Sword, you don't have enough to use it, fly, and keep &alon at bay. You've been expending too much energy!"

He was right. I needed to eat more to replenish my reserves, but there just wasn't enough time!

Darn it! The other wyrms had power, why couldn't I use that?!

"Wait! Wait!" Suisei said, hearing my thoughts. "That's it! That's it! &alon made sure all the wyrms' powers worked at the same wavelength. That means their powers are already primed to mesh with your own. Tell them to pool their strength, quickly!"

Letting time resume its flow, I shrank my ward until it was just large enough for me, and then had the Sword duplicate it, flicking my thoughts at the appropriate tab again and again. Each flick wove a copy of the white, staticky ward around a wyrm.

I started with the nearest wyrm brigaders who'd fallen into &alon's control.

I trumpeted my plan to the other wyrms

"Give me your power! Give me your power!"

The dragon shot at me; the death rays fired.

Lt. Dueright answered my call with one of his own, though by then, his pataphysics had already reached me. With a thought, I tied his blue and gold threads to the Sword, and, instantly, it was as if a burden had been lifted off my shoulders. I spread the wards further, freeing more wyrms, even as the dragon rocketed toward me.

Their pataphysics shot toward me and wrapped around my Sword. Energy lashed to the holy blade again and again, filling me and it with power.

I felt like I could reach up and pluck the Moon out of the sky.

Roaring, I grabbed the Sword with both hands, raised it up high and swung, activating the thickened tab and letting the accumulated power flow.

A double wavefront shot out from the Sword as personal wards blossomed into place around every wyrm in sight. The outer layer of the wavefront was psychokinetic repulsion, the inner layer, a negating ward.

The magic swept out like a tsunami, launching Vyxit and fungus back as if they'd been shot out of a cannon, while leaving the warded wyrms completely untouched. The death rays deflected at sharp angles, tearing through both armies. The dragon aegis' magic sputtered and failed. The beast lost control, falling into a tailspin. I shot forward, hovering low to the ground. The wyrms' donated power swirled coruscant around the Sword of the Angel, growing brighter still as I twisted the weaves into a biting edge of the sharpest force. I swung at the plummeting mecha-dragon, slicing off one of its legs and both of its left wings.

It roared as it crashed, digging a deep furrow flinging ash and dirt every which way.

I yelled for help. "Everyone, help me! Come here! Now!"

I put all of my power into the defensive wards.

The wyrms flocked into our massive anti-magic barrier. Brigadier-General Watterson, Slick, Lt. Dueright, and so many others gathered around me, bodies tense and ready to fight.

The Vyxit were coming. &alon, too. Dear lord, I sensed her monsters approaching us from underground, digging through the earth with ferocious speed.

They were going to attack me from below.

"Give it all you got, Dr. Howle!" Watterson said.

The wyrms gave it their all, transferring as much power to the Sword as they could muster. I immediately got to work, drawing the supply to reinforce the now massive spheres of forcefields and wards that bloomed forth to surround us. A couple yards away, the mecha-dragon struggled to push itself upright.

It roared in agony.

Slithering over to the beast, I breathed gout after gout of spores. I focused on its wounds, and I didn't stop until I could see &alon's black mycelium pushing against the inside of its suit.

I know I should have had more sympathy for the dragon, but I didn't. I was already spent.

"What are you doing?" Slick asked.

"I'm going in," I said.

I set my body to keep feeding power to the Sword and its magics while I was out of commission. Then I threw myself onto the thoroughly infected mecha-dragon, and though I didn't have the slightest clue whether or not this would work, there was one thing doubt which I could be dead certain:

It was going to be a while before I felt any hunger pangs.

I tightened my grip on the Sword as my body began to merge with the dragon's. I felt the weapon's warmth and might flow through me, reassuring me as I opened my thoughts and plunged into the world of the mechanical minds.

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