Artur leaned into the chair, his hand holding onto the orbs controlling the ship as he willed it to fly into the night. The force of acceleration forced him back into the seat, and his arms strained to keep his body forward enough to see the path ahead of him.

  Behind him, the dogs of death chased in the form of a massive leathery lizard with red scales. When he left Grim Aegis to flee from Miss Malone's clutches, he never imagined that he would be piloting a slipship to run from a dragon.

  "Mari, there must be a way to flee." Artur focused on the screen in front of him as sweat dripped from his brow. "We need to lose him, tell me!"

  "You are compatible with the system," Mari chimed over the speakers. "Open your gate."

  Artur furrowed his brows. He had seen Alex merge with the ship a few times to pilot it and thought it was something only Alex could do. However, if Mari was telling him differently, who was he to argue?

  He opened his gate. Cold power cracked through his arms and into the orbs. Artur's power allowed him to generate massive barriers, and as his mind fused with the ship, that same power was at his fingertips, ready to be used on a scale he had never done before.

  "Is this how you felt on that day?" he whispered as he opened his eyes to the world around the Nighthawk. "The world around you a moldable clay?"

  Hrrm.

  He no longer needed the screens to see around him, as he was a part of the ship. To look behind the ship, all he needed to do was will it, and behind him, he could see the dragon's massive wings flapping through the sky to keep up with the Nighthawk's engines. The engines hummed around him, pushing the ship faster through the sky.

  The dragon opened its maw as he watched, and orange flames licked behind its fangs.

  Artur moved without thinking, but it wasn't his body that reacted. In his mind, he reached out his hand, opening his body to the flow of aether and focusing on the area behind the ship. Blue sparks fired from his imagined fingertips as he called up a barrier against the flame.

  From the ship, from his body, a shield rose before the fire, crackling to life in a dome as the flames crashed out like waves. The waves slammed against his shield and split, burning out into the night for a brief moment until the dragon could no longer maintain his fire.

  "It is hard to believe," Artur whispered in the strange space he occupied. "Perchance I could take my leave."

  Boom.

  Even as he said it, claws slammed into his shield. The ship shook around him, and he shook all the same. He was one with the ship, and the blow burned against his shoulder like a smoldering flame.

  It was a hard sensation to describe. He was in his body, but his body was also the ship. He was separate, but he was also part of the ship.

  "A feeling that is quite odd," Artur said, turning his head to the moon before him. "One cannot help but be awed."

  "Threat approaching!"

  Mari pulled him from his reverie, and Artur spun in his mental world to see the dragon coming down from up high with a claw. Artur threw out his hand, forming a shield in his mind and catching the dragon's attack. His arm shook as his nerves lit afire again.

  Boom. Crackle.

  The shield burst like a thunderstrike under the dragon's claws, and Artur laughed. His hand shook, and his vision blurred as he and the dragon flew through the sky, trapped in their strike and the momentum of their flight.

  This power was beyond his ability. He knew it. An amplification device in the ship's core pushed his ability beyond its limits and pulled more power into his shields. He had to admit, it felt good.

  "Mari, is this what it means to be powerful?" he whispered as the dragon withdrew into the nearest cloud, and he let his shield burn away. "A fleeting taste of the bountiful."

  He thought back to Grim Aegis and the device that maintained the gate. Was this what his mother felt when she operated the gate—the intoxicating strength that flowed through his heart? He pushed the thought away. Those were problems best left in the past when she was still alive. Now, he had a dragon to face.

  He scanned the skies around the ship, searching for any sign of the dragon. The ship slowed with his thoughts, its engines humming lower as it slowed against the moon. Artur was in the open sky, a hole in the clouds over Aherlow.

  "Do you know where it is, Mari?" Artur asked as he cast around the ship. "Be it ground, sky, or sea?"

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  "The clouds!"

  Roar!

  From the clouds, the dragon emerged, its wings flapping hard as it cut the distance between itself and the ship. Artur smiled, already having formed his own plan. He held up both hands while waiting for the dragon to come into range. He just needed one moment, the perfect instance to catch the dragon with his shields.

  Artur had one problem with his cursed power. It was largely defensive in nature. Normally, he could just maintain one shield and use his sword to accomplish everything regarding fighting. However, with the ship's power, he was certain he had another option.

  "Twin Shield!" The words fueled his power.

  He held out both hands as the dragon came into range, swinging them like a sword right into each other and aiming for the dragon's wings. The dragon didn't get the chance to dodge as blue lights flickered around it, and the two shields crashed together.

  The strike's impact shook through his arms, and the dragon crumbled between the shields, its wings crushed between them. Artur stood in the void momentarily, his breath heavy as he looked at the cursed lizard trapped between the two bubbles.

  "A power justly feared," he whispered as he released his hold and let the dragon fall. "Should I feel this weird?"

  As he said it, he fell back from the orbs, releasing his hold on the ship and falling back into the chair. The rush of euphoria faded when he relinquished the controls, and a bright white light blinded him as he closed his eyes against a nettling pain in his skull.

  Commander Milton stood in his office, embracing the Path of Will as he considered the possibilities. He didn't know precisely where Ortega was at the base, but he sensed the man. If he hadn't been so sure that Ortega and WPN One were related, he would have asked WPN One for his exact location. WPN One hadn't told him that the outlaw was anywhere near Aherlow, though, just like the other outlaws he had received reports on just minutes before.

  "'Chosen One' Keita and 'Green Tea' Kageka." Milton furrowed his brows as he crossed his hands behind his back. "There are more of them wriggling out from beneath every rock. That's not even counting the ones that are running with Ortega. Those blasted Scions!"

  They invited the outlaws into the Core. Instead of cracking down on the outskirts and suppressing the message, they had invited those who were discontent with the status quo right on in. Every outlaw, warlord, pirate, and revolutionary was heading right toward one of the four key islands, right toward bases just like his, ready to overwhelm them with more problems than they had seen in the entirety of Milton's life.

  All of it was done so they could do some house cleaning.

  "How many lives are they going to sacrifice?" Milton clenched his teeth. "How many people will never see their families again just because they needed to cull the weak?"

  Milton understood the reason and didn't want the problem coming down on his head. He liked and respected his men, and that was one reason; however, the deeper reason was that it would happen on his watch. If they failed and failed loudly, it would all come back on him.

  Then, he would face the wrath of the chiefs, regardless of whether it was his fault.

  "Why did you have to come here and now, Ortega? And why did you need to hide him from me, WPN One?"

  He knew she wasn't watching. He could sense when her strings were close by. Normally, she didn't bother with him much, keeping her strings concentrated everywhere in the base but in his office and his sealed room. However, he could occasionally sense her checking up on him like a cat checking on its owner to make sure the owner was still there.

  He was dallying.

  "I need to get to focus," Milton said. "Where is Eaton?"

  Thump.

  He slammed his boot down on the floor and walked toward the window. He had expected Secretary Eaton in her office, but she wasn't there. He had tried her quarters on the way, but she wasn't there either. She was on call as much as he was, and he never imagined that she would desert. That didn't leave many options for where she may have gone, and Milton didn't like the possibilities that were left.

  Knock. Knock.

  "Come in!" Milton yelled, hoping it was Secretary Eaton returning.

  Click.

  "Sir!" a soldier came in, saluting Milton and standing at attention.

  Milton eyed the soldier as he continued his salute. Milton took a moment to peer past the soldier and out the door. Secretary Eaton hadn't returned to her desk, so she hadn't been there to screen the man before he arrived. Milton clenched his teeth and began to grind them together. What was a king on the board without the queen to handle the tasks? Without Secretary Eaton in her post, he would have to handle the problem the soldier brought, regardless of his preferences.

  "Report."

  "Message from Grim Aegis, sir!"

  Milton's blood froze at those words. Grim Aegis was the key island that its base protected. While they were in regular communication, those were usually just status reports of the number of ships passing through to ensure that none were waylaid on the trip. To receive a message from Grim Aegis directly and off the normal timetables wasn't normal. It was downright terrifying.

  "Go ahead," Milton said, shaking his head as he cleared away his worries.

  "The message was cut off mid-way," the soldier said. "But I will tell you what came through. "The gate is shut. We are losing."

  Seven words. Milton waited for a moment before realizing that was all there was to the message. Milton took a deep breath when the soldier indicated that that was all there was to the message. Everything from the last few days fell from his mind for a moment because they were no longer critical. Even Ortega, for whatever reason he was in the base, was small compared to this.

  "Find Secretary Eaton," Milton said, pushing up from his desk. "I know she's in the base somewhere. I need her here right now!"

  "Yes, sir!"

  The soldier scrambled away, practically sprinting out of the room to escape Milton. There was too much happening at once, and he wasn't sure he could keep Ortega's presence under wraps anymore. If the soldier's words were true, there was a problem at Grim Aegis he would have to respond to. That meant he couldn't afford to spare the time to handle anything at his base delicately.

  He peered out the window, looking out to the island at the center of the dome and at the small tugboat that now rested at its docks. That tugboat didn't belong, and Milton didn't have to guess why it was there.

  That would be Ortega, and it confirmed WPN One's complicity in the outlaw's infiltration. Milton quickly analyzed the board and made his choice. He turned for the door and knocked over his queen on his way out.

  "One problem at a time, one gambit before another."