It had been thirty years since the incident with the galaxy conquering aliens. We had enjoyed our epic peace. No problems of any cataclysmic nature to report. That didn’t stop us from training as if we were at war however. Yukon had gotten himself up to 100 million rajoules though for the most part he was out of the game. His three children were a little stronger than he was. His twin boys Sasha and Michael were at about 150 million rajoules each and his daughter Rachel was at 145. In Rebekah’s family, she was by far the most powerful with a reading of 325 million rajoules. Her daughter Sheila was at 175 and her youngest boy, (well, he was 19, so not that young) Hania, he was at 135 million. Rebekah’s husband didn’t even come close, but he wasn’t weak by any stretch of the imagination. His reading was 25 million rajoules. Sora’s family was an inspiration however. The Princess Cecilia was at 100 million. Their three boys were at 350 for Greg, the eldest, 310 for Simon and 300 for Terry the youngest. Sora himself was at 900 million. All three of those families could power every sun in the galaxy for a few years.

Now my family…..well, it was just Jason and I, but it was still home. The love of my life was at 850 million. Drum roll please….. I was at 1.125 billion rajoules. That was mostly because I trained with Jason and Sora so much. They were relentless. We did most of our training on one of the moons of Saturn, Phoebe. It was far enough away to not affect Earth and we got to cut loose. I made an atmosphere so we could breath.

It was funny though, as our powers got closer in strength, it became harder to win every fight. It became more about strategy than sheer energy. It was exactly what I had been waiting for.

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Life had been good during that thirty year hiatus of battle. The relationship I had with my friends was amazing. The kids had all left to start their own families so there was a bit of empty nest syndrome. My phone was ringing off the hook because they were all so bored. It was great. The relationship I had with Jason was even better. We had never been happier. It could have been because we still went on dates so our lives wouldn’t stagnate. We never seemed to run out of things to talk about and we had sex like we were teenagers. Well, I did have the body of a 20 year old and him a 30 year old. It also helped that he never cheated on me that is if you didn’t count what happened before we found one another again. It was forty years of fidelity. That was the best part.

I hung out with Yukon and Betti often in those days. Twenty years prior, we lost Alistair and Yukon had never truly been the same. Alistair had been a brother to Yukon and the loss was felt by us all. We had a memorial service to honor his time on the Earth. Betti actually had the most to say about him. Her tribute was quite touching.

I was about to turn 59 in a month and I was still carded when we went out or when I would try to buy a bottle of alcohol. “Black don’t crack,” as they said in my world. I still couldn’t believe that the two of us had been there long enough to celebrate another birthday. Jason’s birthday was in August and he would be 63 and still looked like a super model. It was no wonder we were insatiable. Jason and I had sex two or three times a day, and when he retired a year before, that number jumped to four or five.

We handed the reins of the company to Betti’s children, our nieces and nephews. It happened right after Dr. Coates passed away 10 years prior. Jason wanted to be with his family more, so he groomed Sasha, Michael and Rachel to take over. They took control after Jason’s 62nd birthday. And though Jason took a big pay cut for retiring early, with all of the money we saved and won from the various tournaments, we were set for many lives.

We were both past the age of being allowed to enter, even though I was still the reigning champ. The last tournament I participated in was more of a retiring ceremony. Obviously I could still fight, but the tournament committee thought I was a human with crazy powers so they only took my age into consideration. I was fine with it. I couldn’t cut loose anymore in that tiny ring.

Life as we knew it was awesome. There was only one thing that bothered Jason and I. We still couldn’t return home. I thought that at the return of my angelic powers, I could take us home, but it didn’t happen. I could teleport anywhere in the universe, but not across dimensions. Even after the cyborg threat, I thought our job had finished. I was content to stay on, but I missed my family on the other side. I never said goodbye to them.

There had to be something left for us to do, or I was sure we would have already gone back home. We found out the hard way what that something was.

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Jason and I were vacationing on Kelder’s planet Venus. The whole planet was like a tropical rain forest on Earth, so it was like going to the Amazon, except with more hotels. We had been there for a month just lounging around. Jason had started writing a book. It was semi-autobiographical. I only say semi because he left out that he wasn’t from this dimension or that he could shatter a planet with his fists.

I was writing too, but my writing was of the musical variety. Even though I wasn’t doing music in this universe, my musical talent hadn’t disappeared from having a different body. Since retiring, I’d already written over 50 songs. If we ever did go back to our own reality, I would have a lot of material for new albums.

After writing practically every day, I took a break and went training in the forest with my Mitmeer weapon. Over the years, I had completely mastered it so I could turn it to any weapon I desired. However, the first few years I had it, it only turned into a staff. I became really proficient at it. Many years later, I was able to create different types of swords and turn it into a bow and shoot magical arrows. I could make Sais, nunchakus, a shield or anything I could ever imagine. When it wasn’t a weapon, it was a silver chained necklace with an amethyst crystal.

While I was in the middle of my training, Jason came bounding through the forest and almost bowled me over. He was frantic. “Babe, what’s wrong?”

He said, “The Earth is under attack!”

“What are you talking about? Who’s attacking the Earth?” I asked.

“I’m not sure of all of the details but I got a cryptic message from my sister saying something about cyborgs returning.”

“Cyborgs!?”

Apparently the remnants of the alien race that made themselves into cyborgs had come back seeking revenge. They had already decimated half of the Earth’s population. Sora and the others were fighting them, but despite my friend’s power, they were outnumbered. We had to leave immediately. Jason flew off to handle things with Kelder and would meet me back on Earth. I teleported to Earth as soon as he left.

I arrived in West Lake City and was appalled at what I saw. Buildings were smoldering and many had been destroyed. I could hear people screaming in the distance. The dead littered the streets. It was a nightmare.

I walked down the main street and out of some nearby rubble, a hand shot out and grabbed my ankle. I jumped back, but when I saw it was just a hurt woman, I went back. I helped her out of the debris and then I healed her. When she was better, she told me everything that happened. The attack happened without warning and was over just as fast. Once a city was destroyed, they moved on to the next.

I thanked her for the info and was about to take off when she stopped me. She recognized who I was. I was pretty famous and not just from the tournaments. It was my friends who stopped the last invasion and we had been on a lot of talk shows because of it.

I flew off to find Sora and the others. They were spread out all over the planet fighting the cyborgs. There were thousands upon thousands of them. It still boggled my mind as to how we missed so many.

I felt Sora ahead of me. When I was a few miles from his position a few cyborgs tried to way lay me. I say some, but it was more like fifty. I could sense all of them scattered around the planet. We didn’t do a thorough job last time for there to be so many left.

The weakest member in our group was still stronger than what I felt from each of the cyborgs, but there were still too many of them….even for me. If 100 of them gathered together, since they all felt like they had about 10 million rajoules a piece, I would have a hard time in my normal form and it took time to transform.

I couldn’t waste time with the riff-raff. There were a lot more of them fighting against Sora and his family. They didn’t have my healing abilities but I wasn’t worried about that. I was worried that I could feel Cecilia fighting and she couldn’t transform like the rest of us, so that was as strong as she was going to get. I needed to help them as soon as I could.

Raw power wouldn’t be enough with these numbers, so going dragon was out of the question. They were fast and strong, but not fast and strong enough. I knew what needed to be done.

As the cyborgs charged me, I braced myself and then transformed. A humongous burst of black energy left my body and wrapped around me. The cyborgs stopped dead in their tracks. When the smoke cleared, I had changed. My muscular torso had stayed the same for the most part except it was half flesh and half scales. Onyx wings grew out of my back and long black ears. Long black horns emerged out of my forehead. My face was elongated to accommodate large teeth. From shoulder to elbow, my arms hadn’t changed, but the forearms were covered in scales and I had claws for hands. The lower half of my body was that of a dragon. I had black clawed feet covered in black scales and a long onyx tail. The whole process made me like two feet taller, but I was up in the air so who could really tell?

I called this form ‘Dragon Warrior’. It gave me all of the powers of the previous forms but in a smaller and more compact package. And the fact that it was my seventh form, it made me 42 times more powerful than my human one. If you are unsure of the math, that means, in rajoules, my power reading would have been over 47 billion! It’s time to make mince-meat out of these alien/ robot hybrids! I thought.

The cyborgs combined their efforts to attack me. They literally combined their bodies to create a new singular being. It raised their power significantly but not enough to make a difference. The new amalgam cyborg came at me and threw a punch that landed on my chest. The force of the blow sent a shock-wave of energy in all directions. I felt nothing.  It was like a fly had landed on my chest.  The amalgam backed off and went in for another hit but I just used my dragon step to avoid it (dragon step is what I call a quick movement when it seemed I disappeared and reappeared somewhere else). They, or it, kept attacking but it had no effect on me. It was also taking too long, so I used my dragon step again to get behind the amalgam and I placed my hand on its back. I blasted it to pieces with a powerful energy attack.

I shouldn’t have played around so much, I thought. That fight took five minutes and I could feel Sora’s family weakening. I needed to hurry. I was about to leave when Jason appeared before me.

“Sorry I’m late, but I just had to put down 20 of those damned machines.”

“You’re just in time; let’s go!”

We flew the last couple of miles to Sora’s position. We got there and stopped just short of them. It looked like they were fighting the entirety of the invasion fleet. There were hundreds of the cyborgs surrounding Sora and his family. Princess Cecilia was injured and her son Terry was trying to hold her up. Sora, Greg and Simon were holding the army back, but I could tell they were tired.

Jason and I teleported next to them. “It looks like you guys could use a little help,” I said.

“No, really? What the hell took you guys so long? We’ve been fighting for hours!” Sora bitched.

I looked down and saw the broken bodies of all of the defeated cyborgs. Some of them were amalgams like I had just fought. It was no wonder Cecilia had gotten injured. “I told you I was going on vacation. I was visiting Kelder, but this is no time for that,” I told him. “Why haven’t you guys transformed? There is a whole planet in danger. We don’t have time to waste!”

“The reason is…” Sora trailed off and looked away from me.

“Spit it out!”

“They just seemed so weak; I didn’t think I would need to transform. But then they started that combining shit and making stronger versions of themselves. Cecilia took on one of the combined cyborgs and got hurt.”

Cecilia piped up. “He’s lying James! I just made a stupid mistake is all,” she said wincing.

“Be careful mom or you will hurt yourself again,” Terry moaned.

“I’ll be fine Terry. Your old mother still has some fight left in her. I need to say this. We were celebrating the fact that it seemed so easy when a combined cyborg snuck up behind me and basically sucker punched me. I should have known better. I’m in my fifties for God’s sake!”

I smiled and then floated over to her and laid a hand on her shoulder. My hand started to glow and then she was healed. Terry floated backwards and Cecilia stood up straight. I held my hand up high in the air and it turned white again and the light spread to Sora and the rest. All of their fatigue and injuries were gone. “Now, will you guys hurry up and transform so we can end this invasion?”

There was a flash of crimson light from Sora and he was covered in the glow. When it was done, he was also in the Dragon Warrior mode, only red. “Gladly…. Boys; if you would be so kind?”

An explosion of light surrounded the boys, or rather the thirty-something’s and then they too were in Dragon Warrior mode. Greg was an emerald color, while Terry was silver and Simon was magenta. The power emanating from the four of them was astounding. Getting rid of the threat wouldn’t take long at all.

I looked back at Jason and Cecilia. “Are you guys ready?” I asked.

Jason winked and then smiled. He raised his energy to his full 850 million and screamed, “Hell yeah baby!”

Cecilia raised her energy to the full 100 million and gave a sassy hip shake. “Let’s get these fuckers! Oh; sorry boys.”

“No worries mom, but, what she said,” Terry said while laughing. We all joined in.

We went to work taking out the rest of the cyborgs around us. It was over in moments. They even tried combining again but it didn’t make a lick of difference. We made short work of every single cyborg in an hour.

We celebrated when we were done, but that was surreptitiously cut short. We all felt Rebekah’s life force fading. She was on the other side of the planet fighting the last cyborg, but it wasn’t like all of the others. His power was off the charts. It felt bigger than mine. But none of that mattered, because we had to save Rebekah. She was our friend and there was no way we would let her die.

I told everyone to hold on to me so we could teleport to where she was still holding on for dear life.

When we arrived on the scene, we were horrified at what we saw. Rebekah’s husband was dead; torn in half. Sheila and Hania were dying at their father’s feet. Rebekah herself was being strangled by the mechanized fiend. When Sora saw that, he lost it and charged the beast. He punched it. His fist connected with the killer cyborg’s left jaw and it was sent flying through the air. Sora caught Rebekah before she could fall.

While Sora took care of Rebekah, I tended to her children. I knelt beside them and healed them straight away. Unfortunately, I could do nothing for their father. I couldn’t heal the dead; all I could do was comfort them.

Jason, Terry, Greg and Simon flew over to help Sora and Rebekah. I stayed back to help any injured humans. Cecilia helped me, but all she could do was administer first aid, but that still helped immensely. It gave me time to heal everyone before it was too late.

With everyone fighting, the guys and Rebekah were finally able to take out the uber cyborg. Sora had to go up two more forms to do it, but they were able to destroy it in the end. He had gone past the next level of Twilight Dragon Warrior to Celestial Dragon Warrior. Sora and I were the only two Draglorians to ever reach that level of transformation. It put us on a whole different level of power. The Celestial Dragon Warrior’s power was based off of the first transformation and the power that came with it. So, say me, who in my first dragon form, my rajoules reading was at 6.75 billion, take that number times 54 and you would get a reading of 364.5 billion. Since Sora was at 5.4 billion in his first form….well, you get the picture. The evil cyborg never stood a chance. However, that level of energy decimates a planet, so Earth was in ruins.

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Before I finish the Wizard’s Stone saga of my tale, let me completely explain the Draglorian transformations. When I first transformed, I didn’t know what the names of the different forms were, let alone that they even had names. I only later found out from my father King Edward. He explained it all.

The first six levels were all dragons, starting with the basic dragon form. In that mode we were able to control one element in nature. For me, that was fire. Sora could control the ground or earth and Rebekah could control water. In the second form called the Dragon of Elements, we could control the four basic elements; air, fire, water and earth. The third form was called Prism Dragon because we could control light. The fourth was Shadow Dragon for its use of dark energy attacks. Twilight Dragon was the fifth and combined the efforts of the previous forms but also added every possible element like carbon or argon gas and so on. The sixth and most powerful form ever attained by a Draglorian was called Celestial Dragon. It was rare and difficult to achieve.   King Edward was the first in a millennium to reach it.  If one could achieve the pinnacle of the Draglorian race, they would be able to manipulate all of matter. It was a very cool power. The coolest part of all of the transforming was the power acquired in dragon form carried over to human form, but to a lesser degree. As a human, I could easily turn a bicycle into a car and back again, but as a Celestial Dragon, I could turn an ocean into diamonds.

When Sora and I first reached the great height that was Celestial Dragon, we both thought that was it, but we kept pushing anyway and we were rewarded with something greater. We were able to reach another form, but it wasn’t a pure dragon. We dubbed the form Dragon Warrior since it had aspects of both dragon and human. However, what we gained in strength and speed, we lost in abilities. That seventh form only allowed us to use all elements like the second form did. One good thing was that it was far more powerful.

As far as we knew, no other Draglorian had ever reached these heights. If someone had, it had long been forgotten and no records were ever kept. That didn’t stop us from trying to get to higher levels and we were met with great success. As I’ve said before, the eighth level was called Twilight Dragon Warrior and the ninth was Celestial Dragon Warrior. That final form, as my father thought it to be, took matter manipulation to a whole other level. It was also the form that Sora used the least. Just being in the form had negative effects around us. The energy coming out of us warped our surroundings to such a degree that we always feared what it would do to the whole planet.

There were only three Draglorians that could reach that form: my father, Sora and I. Sora’s children could get up to the seventh form of Dragon Warrior and all of Rebekah’s family could reach Celestial Dragon, but that was it. Though, as far as I was concerned, there had to be another level above Celestial Dragon Warrior. It never felt like the end to me, but neither I nor Sora had gone beyond that level and my father didn’t even try to. No matter how hard we tried, we never went higher, but only got stronger. That in and of itself was a good thing, but it wasn’t enough for me. Sora was fine with it, but I always wanted more. It was a sickness, I know, but I had to continue to get stronger. I was pushing myself to the breaking point and beyond and not getting what I strongly felt existed. I thought to myself, if effort and strength aren’t the key, then what is?

Once the cyborg threat had been quelled, we went on to relief duty. The world and its people were in ruin. Billions of people had lost their lives and the planet was nearly gone. If I were back in my own dimension, I could have just snapped my fingers and made everything right again, but not here. There was a lot more mystical energy in this dimension but it was harder to control. It was the opposite where Jason and I came from. Queen Annabelle and Master Chow took it upon themselves to fix the planet, but they couldn’t do anything about the dead. A heavy price had to be paid in order to bring back the dead using their magic. Because of that, we decided to use the wizard’s stones. Magus Foseel only needed our energy to make a wish come true. The only restrictions he had were number of wishes. I had my reservations about calling him though. I still didn’t trust him, and it wasn’t just because of what he did on our first meeting. Every time we called him, his power was greater and so was his dark presence. Neither should have happened, because he was supposed to use that power to fuel the power of the wish. Not to mention, he was supposed to be a good person without malicious intent and I always felt malicious intent. I didn’t really remember the great wizard, but what I did remember of him was that he was a kind and loving person with immense power. This wizard, though still powerful, was about as nice as receiving a parking ticket and getting your car towed on your birthday.

Jason and I went around gathering the stones. It only took us a few days to find them all. We brought them to the woods behind our house. Sora, Yukon and Rebekah came as well, just in case the wizard needed more energy than I could give alone. We only thought that because it was a lot of people to bring back.

With the stones gathered, I said the words, “Four stones are gathered; four fates are entwined. The journey had been made; lives have been combined. By your name, I call you forth; Magus Foseel!”

The stones turned black and then the familiar dazzling bright view. The discordant choir sang their usual terrible song, though they sounded far more menacing than ever. After all of the sickeningly familiar lights and fanfare, the Magus appeared. That time, however, he didn’t appear in the stones light, he was standing on the ground and was also corporeal. That had never happened before.

The presence of evil was greater than it had ever been, and it was at that moment that it hit me. I shouted, “Everyone move back! It’s not the right wizard!”

The magus smiled a sinister and wicked smile.

Sora, Yukon and Rebekah stepped back, but Jason stood his ground and asked, “What are you talking about James? This is the same wizard we’ve always dealt with.”

“And that’s the problem. I couldn’t figure out why there was all of the evil in the air every time we summoned him. The wizard who made the stones, and I once met, was very kind and extremely powerful. He had an air of purity about him. I have never felt that with this magus. I know who you are now, Claudus. I’m right, aren’t I?”

Magus Foseel walked over and stopped a few feet away from me. “It took you long enough Adonael. I was beginning to wonder if you had a brain in that head of yours,” he said and then he laughed. It was a disgusting sound; like nails on a chalkboard. As he laughed, this dark and loathsome energy began to seep out of him like smoke. The energy got bigger and stronger with each passing moment. Before long, it was pushing us all back.

When he stopped laughing, the outpouring of energy subsided.

“When did you make the switch? Was it at the beginning?” I asked.

Magus Foseel straightened his robes and sat down on a newly conjured throne. “No, it wasn’t at the beginning. It took me several hundred years to break free from the prison you and my dearly departed brother put me in. Unfortunately, I no longer had a body to return to, so I needed to do something about that. For about a hundred years after that, I would possess hapless souls who crossed my path. Because my victims had little to no mystical powers, I couldn’t use them for very long. That was true until one day…. I happened upon a being with a great affinity for the mystical arts. One thing better, he was after the stones my brother created. I saw an opportunity.”

“Villains and their exposition; is this going to be long, because we have things to do?” Sora asked.

Claudus Foseel snapped his fingers and the ground beneath our feet opened up. Roots grabbed all of our ankles and pulled us down. The ground closed up at our necks so that only our heads were above ground. “It won’t be much longer Sora; just sit tight,” he said. “Now, where was I? Oh yes, the opportunity… So, I found the stones and called forth my brother with that lame spell. As soon as he was summoned, I left the body of that poor soul and hid away so my brother couldn’t detect me. Once it was time for the drawing of energy, I made my way to the two of them and allowed myself to be sucked up into the energy flow. And so, I entered my brother and over time, I was able to take over his body. He’s still in here somewhere, but I have complete control of his body. That aside, I wanted to give you all my thanks. That goes especially for you James. All of the energy you’ve provided set me free. It also boosted my own powers. Here’s a demonstration.”

Magus Foseel disappeared and reappeared atop a nearby tree. He raised his hand above his head and a magical circle appeared. Within seconds a monstrous meteor fell from the sky. Yukon gasped and Rebekah screamed. Jason looked scared, but Sora and I were calm. He exploded out of the ground and flew into the air. He then transformed to Twilight Dragon Warrior and made his way to the celestial orb falling from the sky. As the meteor entered the atmosphere, it started to heat up and so did the air for several miles around it.

The rest of us broke free of our earthly prison and watched as Sora made his way to the meteor. He only had a short moment of time to stop it. It was falling to the Earth at a devilish speed.

Once Sora was about a mile from it, he held out both hands. Energy was leaving his body and surrounding the meteor. I could feel the intensity of it from where I was. The meteor slowed down and then came to a stop. More energy poured out of Sora and swirled around him creating a globe of energy. He pushed out and the meteor reversed direction. Higher and higher it climbed and picked up speed. Just before it left the atmosphere, Sora stopped pushing and it kept moving on its own. He had saved the day.

“That was good Sora,” Claudus shouted. “But what are you going to do about that?”

There was a loud thunderclap above us, and we looked up. The first meteor was coming back down along with a second of greater size.

Sora tried to stop both of them, but the force of the two giants orbs was pushing him back. He had exhausted a lot of energy to stop the first one.

The others flew up to help. Jason flew up to the new meteor and Yukon flew to help Sora with the other one. Rebekah turned into a Celestial Dragon and made energy barriers to try to stop them, but it only slowed them down a little bit.

I flew up to the magus and threw a punch. I figured if I could take him out, the spell would end and get rid of the meteors. Unfortunately, he put up a strong shield which blocked my attack. I hit it and all of the bones in my hand broke. I screamed in pain, but it healed almost immediately. I shouted, “Why are you doing this? If you destroy the planet, you’ll die too!”

He shook his head and smiled that terrible smile and said, “I won’t die, because you won’t die. I have all of your powers. Since you’re an immortal, I am one too. And as for this planet, I’ve gotten all I need from it. I can find another one just like it to set up as my capitol for ruling the universe,” he said. He laughed maniacally. I didn’t know anyone actually did that.

They were having trouble up above. Sora had gone up to Celestial Dragon Warrior and managed to stop the first meteor, but the other was still falling. He and Yukon flew over to help Jason and Rebekah with that one and with their combined efforts, they stopped it. I also transformed to my C.D.W form and flew up to help, but Claudus Foseel flew up to stop me.

He raised a hand and fire balls came out of the sky. He was literally raining down fire. It didn’t hurt me in the slightest, but the ground below was not so lucky. When the magus realized that wasn’t working, he sent all manner of things at me, even a gravity-well to try to suck me up. I just repelled all of the attacks. None of that deterred him however, because he had one more trick up his sleeve. He landed on the ground and formed another magical circle that covered the whole forest.

There was a rumbling underneath the forest floor. Suddenly, a geyser of fire shot out of the ground from multiple points. The geysers got more intense and with greater frequency until the forest had become a lake of fire. Lava was erupting from new spouts of baby volcanoes. The energy in the air shifted and storm clouds appeared overhead.

“I have destroyed the Earth’s core. Even if your friends manage to stop the meteor, this world is doomed.” He smiled and then flew into the air.

I was beside myself. How can I save the universe if I can’t even save one planet? I thought. It didn’t make any kind of sense to me. Was I to just roll over and die? There had to be something I could do. At that point, something in me snapped and I lost it.

I dashed after Claudus Foseel and caught him with my telekinesis. He struggled to get free, but it was a futile attempt. He was trapped. “I will not let you harm any more people.”

“What are you going to do about it?” he croaked. “We’re too evenly matched and your telekinesis can only hold me for so long.”

“It’s long enough for what I have planned.” I held out my left hand and squeezed. The magus grabbed his heart and panicked. “You will no longer cause us pain. Goodbye Magus,” and I slammed my fist shut. Claudus’ eyes bugged out and he slumped over. I lowered him to the magma, but before he went in, he burst apart and there was an outpouring of all the energy he had collected over the millennia. It scattered in all directions. Some of it went to my friends since they had made wishes in the past. Other rays of energy simply disappeared. The vast majority of it headed straight for me and found its mark. Since I had given the most energy out of anyone at any time, it made sense that the bulk of it would return to me, but I wasn’t prepared for what happened next.

The sudden power surge coupled with my heightened emotions and rush of adrenaline caused an unexpected change. I felt uncomfortable. I started to ache all over and then it hit me hard. I doubled over in pain. It felt very similar to my ordeal in heaven. I let out a scream and black energy exploded out of my body and wrapped itself around me like a cold blanket. In an instant, the pain was gone.

When I could see again, I looked around in a daze. I couldn’t see as well as before; something was blocking my peripheral vision. I turned my head and heard a clanking sound and I felt like something was weighing down my body. I raised my arms and saw armor; I was covered in it from head to toe. It was black as pitch. I was also not in my C.D.W form but a human one. I turned my head in the other direction and hit it on the hilt of a sword. I drew the sword from my back and looked at it. It was my Mitmeer weapon. I hadn’t called it out and yet there it was, on my back. I returned it to where it was.

As I was mulling over the strange new armor and reverting back, a spout of lava shot up under me and just before it hit, it was stopped by some force field around me. It wasn’t cylindrical, but it resembled that of a….dragon. I sent out a bolt of lightning in the shape of a boomerang and when it came back to hit me, it was repelled by the field. The force field showed more of itself and it indeed was in the shape of a dragon.

I was still figuring things out when rocks started falling all around me. I looked up and saw the meteors being destroyed by my friends. That extra bit of energy was just enough to get the job done. They had all gone through their own changes. Rebekah had made it to Dragon Warrior mode. Jason and Yukon were generating a lot more energy than ever before. Sora was also moving around with ease in his C.D.W form. That’s when I finally realized what happened. I had finally achieved it. I was in the final form, I had to be. It was the only thing that made sense. I could feel the strength surging through my veins.

The world was still falling apart and I was admiring my new muscles. It took another geyser of fire shooting up in front of my face to snap me out of it. I got serious. I sent a telepathic message to the others to help get people to safety. I was going to work my way to the Earth’s core and attempt to fix Claudus’ last act of evil. Sora, Jason, Yukon and Rebekah flew off in different directions. I dove into the lava and headed straight for the center of the planet.

It didn’t take me too long to get to the center. The Earth had become so fractured that there were plenty of paths to take. I had never been to the Earth’s core before, so it was a little shocking to see that it was nothing like I had ever imagined. I had been in other planet’s cores before and even though it was usually chaos, it was structured chaos. There was none of that to be found here. It was hot as hell down there. Even I was having a hard time staying cool. The gravitational field was all out of whack and I had no idea where I was supposed to start to fix the problem. The only place to start was at the beginning and that meant fixing the distortion field emanating from the center.

I used an opposite charge to cancel it out and that nullified it, but that was the easy part. The hard part would be calming the raging storm of fire all around me.

I moved to the center of, well, the center. I held out my arms. They started glowing. The fire beneath me rose higher and higher and more chaotic than ever. The lava began to rise and coronas arched over them all. Before long, I would be engulfed in that mess. I was quickly losing control of the situation. If I didn’t do something fast, the planet would be lost.

I went for a different approach. I sent out as much cold air as I could muster without freezing the core all together. The top layer of lava hardened and I stood on the surface. Within minutes, the mess of a core that I had found had returned to normal. Somehow my ass-backwards attempt of stopping the fire had worked. I didn’t really care as long as I actually stopped the destruction.

I teleported back to the Earth’s surface and saw all the lava there had cooled and was hardening. It was still in bad shape, but at least it was something that could be fixed. It was going to take a lot to rebuild and since we hadn’t quite recovered from the cyborg thing, people’s spirits would be really low. We certainly had terrible luck.

Exhausted from my ordeal, I sat down on the hardened lava. It was really hard to move. My arms felt like they had been dipped in lead. I thought about the others as I sat there, almost motionless. Had they been able to save everyone? I was about to send out a telepathic message when I heard Sora say they were headed back. They were very successful. That’s good news. I have more good news; the Earth is safe. I managed to save the core!

James, that’s awesome! We’ll see you in a bit. This day has wiped me out and I’m not flying as fast as I used to, Sora said.

Ha, ha, I know what you mean my brother. I barely have the energy to think right now, so I will see you when you get back.

Wait, you haven’t checked to see how I’m doing.

Jason, my love, just get your perfect ass back here and I will check everything personally.

Ooooo, everybody hurry up because I want to Fu—see my husband!

Ewww, really Jason! Rebekah said.

I laughed. That made me feel so much better.

While I waited for my friends to return, I thought about all of the adventures we had together. I didn’t know why I was feeling so nostalgic all of a sudden, but this last thing felt like the end to me. A lot had happened in my 59 years in this dimension. There had been a lot more fighting than I thought was possible, but I had gotten immensely stronger because of it. The only negative I guess was that this body never truly felt like mine. That was probably the reason I didn’t get back all of my angel powers.

Ten minutes later, the gang arrived. Yukon gave me a high five. Rebekah gave me a kiss on my cheek. Sora and I locked arms and then hugged. Jason picked me up, spun me around and then gave me a long and passionate kiss.

“You guys aren’t going to have sex right here, are you?”

“Seriously Yukon, that is disgusting! That is, unless you want to join in…” I joked.

“What? No, I didn’t mean…”

We all burst out laughing. It was so obvious that we were relieved that mess had ended, but I for one was not looking forward to clean up duty. And without the wizard’s stones, it was going to be a longer process. So many people had lost their lives and we had no way of bringing them back.

The five of us were devising a plan when there was a violent earthquake. The ground split beneath my feet and the wizard’s stones shot out of the ground. They flew into the air and hovered; spinning around themselves with a soft but powerful glow. There was a hum emanating from within the stones. It was such a beautiful sound, like wind chimes on the back porch in summer time. The stones shown with a brilliant green hue and as they got brighter, the hum grew louder.

The air sizzled with energy and it got into all of us and it made us feel happy and giddy. The chiming had turned into singing and was quite deafening, but soothing too. The stones suddenly exploded. The choir of invisible singers let out a collective ‘aah’ and went silent.

In place of the stones, there stood a man dressed from head to toe in white. From his white boots to his white robes; from his white sash with white sparkling stars, he was quite spectacular. It took me a second and then I finally recognized him. It was the wizard who made the stones. Magus Ronaldo Foseel had finally appeared.

Before we could speak, the magus bowed his head. “Thank you so much; you have done well James. I witnessed the whole thing from within my mind. I’m sorry I couldn’t stop my brother for you, but he was just too powerful.”

I floated up to Magus Foseel. “I would like to say that is all right, but I won’t. Your brother made our lives a living hell, but it wasn’t your fault so let’s just move on. Also, we won in the end and that’s all that really matters,” I said.

The magus and I caught up on old times but then he got serious. “The reason I have returned is two-fold. First, I’m going to bring back everyone who has died since the cyborg crisis began. I won’t be able to do anything about the planet. If I do, I won’t be able to do anything about the people. I only have enough power for one or the other. Choose which one I should do.”

“We should bring the people back. The planet can be fixed at any time, but the people can’t be,” Yukon said.

“This planet is completely ruined. If we don’t fix it now, it could take decades before its back to normal,” Rebekah opinioned.

"What about your husband?" Yukon asked.

"He would want this too.  He wouldn’t want to be back if like that."

Before Sora could chime in, I held up my hand to stop them. “There’s only one choice to make you guys. We can always rebuild, but we can’t bring the dead back to life.”

“You’re right as always James,” Yukon quipped.

“Yeah, go ahead honey and make the wish.” Jason grabbed my hand and gave it a quick kiss.

I said, “I wish that you would bring back every human that died since the cyborg crisis started.”

“You have made a wise decision.”

Elder Magus Foseel raised his hand and produced a glowing orb of the purest white. It grew and grew. When it was as large as a yoga ball, it exploded into tiny beams of light and shot out in every direction. I heard more voices in my head. Everyone who had died was coming back to life.

When the magus was done, he turned around and started to float away.

“Wait! What’s the second thing you were supposed to do?” I called out.

He stopped and turned back around. “Oh yeah; that.” He smiled. I saw a hint of his brother in that smile. It was almost as sinister, but luckily just the playful kind, not the ‘destroy the universe’ kind. “You and Jason can go home now. My work is done. The wizard’s stones are now gone. You all will have to fend for yourselves from now on. Goodbye everyone. Have good and happy lives.” The wizard floated up and with a final hand wave, he disappeared in a flash of light. It was sort of anti-climactic.

After the magus was gone, I wondered what he meant by that. How were Jason and I going to make it back home? I had tried as soon as I found out I could teleport again. I essentially hit a wall and was bounced back to this world. I tried a few times every year but to no avail. Perhaps it would work this time, but there was really only one way to find out.

“If the magus is right, then you and I can finally go home, but it’s a one-way trip. If it works, I can’t come back,” I said.

“What?” Rebekah shouted.

“You can’t leave now; I was just starting to like you.”

“Whatever Yukon; you’ve been calling me brother for the last three decades,” I said with fondness.

“Yeah, well…” and he trailed off. I thought I saw the hint of a tear.

Sora walked over and then stopped a couple of feet away. He looked me up and down and then asked, “Will I ever see you again James?”

I beamed. “Of course you will; we’re brothers right?” And then we did are special brother’s handshake. It was cheesy, but we loved it. We both laughed. “I’ll come back in a few years. I’ll look a little different since it will be my original body, but you’ll still know it’s me.”

“That’s good enough for me!” Sora exclaimed.

They all walked over to Jason and gave him a group hug. “I love you guys so much. Please tell my sister that I will miss her.”

“You’ve got it Jason.”

“Oh,” I said. “Give my love to all of your families and try to explain what happened. I am going to miss you guys. I love you all.”

They nodded, but there was no more concealing their tears. They all cried openly at that point.

I grabbed Jason’s hand and squeezed it. He squeezed it back. He smiled at me and then nodded. I returned the nod and looked back to my friends. And then, with one final wave, I said, “I love you.”

We disappeared in a flash of light.

Next Chapter: Next Chapter