The Dream-Dragon, Scyzarchon, flew upward and out from behind the Tower, its magnificent, terrifying form much larger than the AT-ATs, larger even than the Guardship had been, at least seven hundred feet long from the tip of its long, reptilian snout to the tip of its spiked tail, its wingspan gigantic. The beating of those colossal wings created a fierce and terrible windstorm that battered the enemy Stormtroopers on the ground, as well the advancing calvary of Dreamers, and Gadget and its friends. its scaly hide was a bright, burning blood red, its terrible eyes a blazing, golden yellow, the horns that protruded from its skull a gleaming, bone-white, as were its hooked claws. its long, serpentine neck had scaly ridges that descended along its length and down its humped back, as well, and then down its long, bone-tipped tail. It had arms that descended from its distended belly, as well as a long pair of double-jointed arms melded to its huge, bat-like wings that it now extended to their full width, and glided downward upon, swooping over the battlefield. It drew back its head and then wrenched it forward, opening its mouth, spewing out a huge, downward streamer of flame at a contingent of the Eorlingas nearby; they and their clockwork steeds were engulfed in bright, hot fire. They died screaming, roasted alive, their bodies consumed in the orange and yellow conflagration, the metal of their mounts melting in the heat. The enemy Stormtroopers fighting the Rohirrim were engulfed as well; the Biomechs and Deceptibots were incinerated as well; collateral damage, Gadget supposed as it watched, horrified. Scyzarchon swooped back up into the air and readied for another pass at the battlefield, laughing. Its voice was deep and menacing, and familiar — it was Ravenkroft’s voice, only dropped a few octaves.

  “Jesus Christ in a dump-truck!” cried Gadget. To himself he muttered, “So that’s the mighty Scyzarchon. We meet in battle, at long last . . .”

  The Biomechanoids and Deceptibots currently fighting him, the remaining calvary, Mystikite, Dizzy, Pris, and Buffy, all broke ranks and suddenly ran away, abandoning the fight altogether. They scattered and scrambled, running to and fro, running to be anywhere but in the path of the Dragon as it once again swooped down from above, this time laying down a streamer of bellowing fire that incinerated the ranks of the Klingon warriors currently waging a fight against a flank of Biomechs and Deceptibots to the east; both the enemy Stormtroopers and the Klingons were obliterated, the Dragon’s wrath setting them all ablaze, cooking them to death. The Dragon beat its mighty wings, creating a fierce gust of wind that nearly blew Gadget off his feet, and pushed itself back up into the air. The Dragon breathed another gust of immolation at the Pernian dragonriders in the sky, disintegrating both they and their fire-breathing mounts, burning them to human cinders and charred, bone-winged skeletons that plummeted from the sky like falling comets ablaze; it showed no mercy for those of its own kind. It whooshed back around, wheeling in the sky, and came around for yet another pass at the battlefield. It let loose another blast of incineration from its throat. The blazing column of flame immolated an entire section of the battlefield where some of the Autocons were busy fighting off a contingent of Deceptibots, and where the G.I. Joes presently engaged in hand-to-hand combat with a horde of Biomechs. And so much for the Thundercats, too . . . the Dragon disintegrated them all with its insidious breath-torch. It then circled in the air above for a moment, then stretched out its wings to catch itself on the wind, and then descended, and settled to its mammoth clawed feet on the ground just ahead of them, and fixed the five of them with a piercing, golden-eyed stare. And there it sat, doing nothing but staring at them, its spiky tail wrapped around its distended form, its wings folded across its back.

  Someone in the calvary yelled, “Hold men! Hold!” The remaining calvary gradually obeyed, reigning their clockwork horses to a stop and standstill before the Dragon’s massive form. The Dragon seemed to ignore the two-thousand-plus horsed soldiers gathered to its right, just as it ignored the amassed horde of Klingon warriors to its left, who also seemed to hold their advance, unsure of what to do against this new foe. The Elven archers on the neighboring hillock also stood at the ready, but did not fire; they too were unsure of what to do next. The remaining Autocons and G.I. Joes likewise stood amidst the fallen Biomechs and Deceptibots, all staring at this newly-arrived, gargantuan creature that had made such a grand and terrifying entrance, and now sat itself down in the center of the carnage and simply ignored them, and instead simply stared right at the five heroes who stood at the center of all the carnage.

  “SO,” the Dragon intoned in a booming voice that echoed across the battlefield. “YOU HAVE COME.”

  “Uh . . . yeah!” said Gadget, in a loud voice. He gulped down a lump of fear and nerves. “We have! Ravenkroft — if that’s you in there — come on. You know you can’t win. You know . . . we’re going to beat you!”

  He had no idea if that was true, now.

  “Yeah!” cried Dizzy. “You heard him, Ravenkroft! We’re not frakkin’ around, here!”

  “MORCHON?” said the Dragon, as though tasting a foreign word on its tongue. “AH, MORCHON. THAT ENTITY NO LONGER PERSISTS. THE ZARCTUREAN ENTITY . . . NO LONGER PERSISTS. I, SCYZARCHON, AM ALL THAT THERE IS, NOW. I AM THE ONLY REALITY. IT IS I WHOM YOU SHALL FACE.”

  Above them, Gadget saw the Demonbane suddenly vanish from the sky with a bright flash of light and a clap of rolling thunder. Darmok and Misto must’ve engaged the hyperdrive. A few seconds later, about a hundred and twenty yards ahead of him and the others, a fierce wind kicked up, and a luminous ball of light was suddenly expanding from a tiny pinprick. The sphere glowed and fluoresced, with lightning bolts caressing its surface, as it ballooned outward from nothingness until it encompassed an area of about three hundred and fifty feet . . . and then came a deafening —

  BOOM!

  And then suddenly, the Demonbane was right in front of them, slowly rotating in the air lopsidedly, with one wing-thruster out, and with its cargo-bay doors opening up, with Misto standing there at the opening, motioning for them to all come on, already. The backside of the ship had been completely blown apart, with twisted metal fragments sticking out every-which-way.

  Gadget knew what he had to do. He and Dizzy and Pris all exchanged a look — each knowing exactly what the other meant by it — and then he ran toward Misto along with the others anyway.

  “Thank the gods you guys are still okay!” said Misto as he, Dizzy, Mystikite, Buffy, and Pris all arrived on the cargo bay ramp. He turned and gazed at Scyzarchon. “Looks like we’ve got big trouble, here.”

  “Yeah, tell me about it,” said Gadget. “Look. You guys take Buffy and Mystikite onboard. Me, Dizzy, and Pris will deal with the Dragon on the ground, here.”

  “Damn right,” said Pris, grinning. “I always wanted to fight a dragon.”

  “Say what?” said Misto, his eyes bugging out.

  “Yeah, say what?” said Buffy. “There’s no way we’re leaving the three of you — ”

  “Exactly,” said Mystikite. “No way. We’re not bowing out of this fight now.”

  “No, he’s right,” said Dizzy, shaking her head. “The three of us can fly, and Pris can do magic. Like it or not, you two are ground-bound . . . and you don’t have near the range of powers that the three of us do. Plus, you four can do more good with the Demonbane to cause that thing trouble. You’ve got a whole weapons system at your disposal. So use it.”

  Mystikite sighed in frustration and pinched his nostrils together. “Okay, fine. Fine. You three fight the dragon on the ground, and we’ll do air support, I guess.”

  “Gadget, you don’t have to do this,” said Buffy, and put her hand on his cheek. “This is suicide.”

  “Y’know, for the first time in my life,” said Gadget, looking into her eyes and meaning every word, “I honestly feel like dying isn’t an option.”

  She nodded, as though she understood — really, truly understood. He thought she did. “Good luck,” she said.

  “Yeah,” said Mystikite, clapping him on the shoulder. “Good luck, brah.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “I’ll need it. You too, guys. Like they used to say on Battlestar Galactica — good hunting.”

  “Be careful, Diz,” said Misto. He hugged her. “Just be careful.”

  “I will,” she said, and hugged him tight. “Now get back up there and help us kill a dragon.”

  “Roger that,” he said. “You go kick some ass for me.”

  “Roger-roger.” They parted. “Now go.”

  Misto took one last look at her, and then turned and hurried up the ramp. Gadget, Dizzy, and Pris turned and walked back down it, and back onto the battlefield. The ramp closed behind them, and the Demonbane began to lift back up into the air, flying lopsided due to its damaged thruster.

  “I sure hope we know what we’re doing,” said Gadget, turning to Dizzy.

  “Oh that’s the fun part,” said Pris. “Because we don’t.”

  “Don’t remind me,” said Dizzy.

  Together, they walked away from where the ship had landed, toward the center of the battlefield where Scyzarchon had lighted, toward the Dragon himself. When they had reached the halfway point, Gadget motioned for them to stop. On either side of them stood two columns of the Rohirrim on their clockwork horses, looking to them expectantly. Behind each of those columns of horsed warriors, stood flanks of Klingon warriors, all looking at the Dragon with a mixture of awe, anticipation, puzzlement, and contempt. And beyond them, all the others — the Autocons, the Joes, the Jedi, the other myriad characters of Gadget’s Dream Army. All of them looked to the three of them, now, as they made their way toward the Dragon down the path that the others had cleared for them. The Biomechs and Deceptions had fully retreated; there was no sign of them anywhere. Where had they all gone?

  The Dragon continued to fix them with his piercing, golden-eyed stare as they approached it.

  “SO,” it bellowed. “YOU HAVE DECIDED TO FACE ME. YOU ARE NOT COWARDS AFTER ALL. THIS IS GOOD. NOT GOOD FOR YOU . . . BUT GOOD, NONETHELESS.”

  “I’ve heard enough,” said Gadget. He unholstered his Proton Weapon, jacked-up the power-level, and opened fire on the Dragon. The beam slammed into the Dragon, right on its distended belly, just below where its neck joined its body. A brilliant explosion of light and sparks ensued, and the Dragon cried out in pain — its bellowing roar echoed across the battlefield — and reared backward, taking a step back, but when Gadget cut off the beam, only a scorch-mark remained on the Dragon’s scaly hide. The Dragon grinned a hideous, toothy grin at them.

  “YOU’LL HAVE TO DO BETTER THAN THAT,” it said. “YOU NEED A LESSON IN HUMILITY. HERE. ALLOW ME.” The Dragon craned its neck back and lifted its head. It opened its toothy jaws, drew in a breath, and then spewed a column of bright orange flame at the Demonbane, engulfing it in fire. The ship’s remaining wing-thruster exploded, as did its two rear thrusters., three colossal fireballs jettisoning outwards from it as it was rocked in the air, and began to plummet earthwards.

  “Shit, shit, shit!” cried Misto, as the bridge of the ship exploded in fire and sparks, the control consoles all overloading and belching smoke. How could things have gone this badly so soon? That damn Dragon showing up had really thrown a kink into things. But he knew the truth — that Dragon was the Alien and Ravenkroft, fused into one. It had to be. It was the real reason they were here. Misto gulped. Goddamn that thing was big!

  “Fuck!” yelled Darmok, shielding herself from the sparks that exploded out of the console in front of her. “We’re going down! Strap yourselves in!”

  “Aw Jesus,” said Mystikite, “you mean to tell me we’re going to crash?” He made his way to the navigator’s seat, sat down, and strapped himself in. Buffy did the same at the comm station.

  “Yep, it looks that way,” she said. “I think we stood a better chance facing the dragon.”

  “Yeah, no kidding,” said Mystikite.

  “Everybody hang on! Here we go!” cried Darmok.

  Misto watched through the forward viewport, his heart hammering in his chest, as the ground rapidly approached and the ship careened out of all control, spinning in the air. He held onto his seat for dear life, and saw that Darmok gripped the cushioned arms of her seat for all they were worth. The bridge had gotten hot — too hot — as the fires around them raged out of control. The primary power conduits had overheated, and that had caused the first of the fires. Then the secondary conduits had gone up in flames. The weapons systems were useless, now, as were the flight controls. Even the attitude control thrusters were non-functional. Misto strapped himself in, and saw Darmok do the same. Hopefully these safety-straps would keep them in their chairs. Hopefully. Misto wasn’t fool enough to think they would save their lives, though. Buffy and Mystikite looked nervous as they tried to avoid the fires burning around them.

  Oh well, thought Misto. She was a good little ship, for the short time that we had her. He would miss her. Damn that fucking Alien and Ravenkroft! Damn them both to hell! Well, he would see about doing just that. He swore, right then, that they would finish this fight, that he would help finish it, if it was the last thing he did.

  The ship vibrated, rattled, and groaned, the metal buckling and bending as they headed toward the ground. Closer, closer they came. Misto’s heart continued to beat wildly against his ribcage. It seemed like these moments stretched on into forever, the crash happening in slow motion around him. They would most likely all perish in the crash, if the ship came down on its nose . . . Well, he and Darmok would perish in the crash. The fire would most likely kill Mystikite and Buffy, the two of them being Vampires.

  But thankfully, the back end of the ship hit first.

  BANG! KA-BOOM!

  He felt the shock of the impact rattle through his bones, so hard that his teeth clicked together in his snout. Buffy screamed and Mystikite cursed. Had it not been for the safety straps, Misto would’ve been thrown from his chair and through the glass of the forward viewport, which now shattered into a billion pieces, showering both he and Darmok with broken glass. Ouch. That would leave a few cuts. He could feel the blood on his fur already. Thankfully, being coated in the blue stuff had shielded most of his skin; and thankfully, Darmok had a similar coat of fur to shield her. A piece of the control console in front of her broke off and flew up and hit her in the head, whacking her right in the face and opening a gash on her forehead. She looked dazed by the blow. A sparking wire fell from the ceiling and hit the weapons console, causing it to explode in a shower of yellow sparks. Buffy turned her head away from the blast, uttering a small scream . . . and then fainted, passing out cold.

  The ship had landed leaning to one side, with the forward viewport all askew, the metal frame bent all to hell — but with the glass busted out, it provided an easy means of escape.

  “Come on!” yelled Misto. He unbuckled his safety straps and got up. He felt very sore.

  Darmok still looked dazed. She blinked her eyes, looking as though she were trying to clear her head. She unbuckled her straps and tried to focus on Misto. “Misto? That you?”

  “Yes, it’s me,” he said, knowing he sounded somewhat impatient. “Come on, we have to get out of here! We’ve lost the ship. We’ve crashed. We need to get out.”

  “Don’t need to tell me twice,” said Mystikite. He unbuckled himself and got up, and crossed to where Buffy was buckled in. Why had she fainted? Maybe it had been the threat of the fire — perhaps that had been too much for her, on top of everything else she had faced so far today. If so, it was understandable. Mystikite unbuckled her, and lifted her into his arms.

  “Misto . . .” said Darmok. She stood up, on wobbly legs, and simply looked at him for a moment. Then, she seemed to snap back to reality. “Misto. What. What happened. Did we land?”

  “Yes,” he said. “We landed, alright. We’re all okay. For the most part. But we gotta get off this ship. Come on.” He turned to Mystikite. “Come on man. Let’s get outta here.”

  Misto scrambled and squeezed himself through the bent-up metal of the forward viewport and out onto the ridge of the ship’s head-like structure, which, from the way the ship lay, was some twelve feet above the ground. He edged himself along the ridge, until he got to the side hatch, which was only six feet off the ground, and then jumped for it, landing on the ground hard. His knees almost went into his chest, his feet hit so hard. But at least he was safe on the ground. Darmok came down behind him, and finally, Mystikite — with Buffy in his arms — came down behind her.

  The four of them stood on the battlefield, gazing at the Dragon in all its glory as it sat there, taunting the other three heroes, who stood about a hundred yards away from them.

  “We’ve got to help them,” said Misto.

  “But how?” asked Darmok.

  “Yeah, how?” said Mystikite. “We’ve got a passed-out Buffy and a broken ship to work with. Not exactly a winning combination.”

  “We’ll think of something,” said Misto. He thought for a moment, trying to come up with something, anything. “Darmok. Do you think we could salvage the ship’s computer system? Get power running to it, at least?”

  “Maybe,” said Darmok. “But why?”

  “Just a thought,” he said. “But Mystikite. If we could do that . . . could you maybe use the ship’s computer to interface with whatever part of this world is connected to the NeuroScape? To open a door to that Room of Requirement of yours? To get the four of us some better weapons for ourselves, so we could join the fight against the Dragon?”

  “Maybe,” said Mystikite. “But that’s a big maybe.”

  “It’s worth a shot, though, right?” said Misto.

  Mystikite shrugged. “Yeah, it’s worth a shot, I suppose. We’ll have to circle around to the back of the ship — what’s left of her — and go in that way, if we still can, and make our way back to the bridge.”

  “Right,” said Misto. He regarded Buffy, passed out in Mystikite’s arms. “You think she’ll be okay?”

  “I hope so,” said Mystikite. “She’s the only real weapon we have. And besides that, there’s the little fact that’ y’know, I happen to love her.”

  They hurried around the flaming wreckage of the ship, heading toward what remained of the cargo bay. There they found the smashed-up remains of the back of the ship, the wrecked engine room with a wide hole torn in it, the metal twisted into shreds and strips and jutting out in all directions, the cylindrical hyperdrive unit lying on its side in a mass of tangled, sparking cables and hoses jetting clouds of coolant gas. Flickering fires leapt out of the engine room on all sides. They way through was almost impassable — but the key word was almost. Misto could see a path that led from where they stood, through the torn-open hull, on through the engine room, across a wireframe walkway and over to the hatch that led into the rest of the ship . . . If they were careful. If the ship didn’t collapse on them while they were in there. If the fuel tanks didn’t rupture and it didn’t explode with them inside.

  “Come on,” he said, squaring his shoulders. “We’re goin’ in.”

  “I had a bad feeling you were gonna say that,” said Mystikite, leery of all the fire everywhere He sighed. “Oh well. Who wants to live forever?”

  Gadget, Dizzy, and Pris all three exchanged the same look, and Gadget nodded to the two of them. It was now or never. They had to “get this party started,” as Buffy might say. Then all three of them levitated off the ground, up into the air, headed upward so they could meet the Dragon face-to-face. They stopped when they were level with the Dragon’s blazing, yellow eyes — they gleamed like fractured gemstones the color of molten gold set into its head — with which it glared at them menacingly. Each eye was the size of two of them. The Dragon curled the lips of its long snout into a hideous parody of a grin as they levitated before it.

  “AH, SO YOU HAVE COME CLOSER,” it said. “GOOD. ALL THE BETTER TO BE EATEN QUICKLY!” It laughed at them, a deep, guttural chuckle.

  The Dragon then reared up onto its hind legs, moving much more quickly than Gadget would’ve thought possible for a creature of such massive size. It drew away from them and reached up to grab at them with its claws. He, Dizzy, and Pris all shot off in different directions through the air, all three racing away from each other. Gadget had moved himself through the air using the Helm before, but he had never actually flown under his own power before now . . . it was exhilarating. An empowering feeling, a feeling of unlimited strength and ability. But it didn’t last long . . . right now, he was more scared than he had ever been in his life, more terrified of the Dragon than he had ever been of anything else, ever. But he was managing, or so he told himself. He wheeled around in the air and came about, took the Proton Weapon in his hands, and wrenched the handlebar grip in the center to one side, opening fire on the Dragon.

  The slithering orange beam shot out of the wand, and blasted at the Dragon’s eyes. A mutually-opposing beam of yellow fire shot out of the Dragon’s eyes, though, and countered his beam. The two collided in front of the Dragon’s face, obliterating each other in a fiery explosion of light and electricity. Gadget felt the force of the blast all the way up into his arm — a thing that shouldn’t have been possible — and went reeling back through the air. Meanwhile, Dizzy fired her Interphase Pistols at the Dragon; the shots simply ricochetted right off of it; impossible as it seemed, the thing was impervious to her antiproton blasts. Pris tried to attack the Dragon with magic. She hurled curses at it with her wand, flinging spell after spell at it, multicolored flares of light erupting from the wand and colliding with its hide, but these also did no good. The Dragon merely chortled in its deep, throaty voice.

  “FOOLS!” it said. “YOU CANNOT HARM ME WITH YOUR PITIFUL HEDGE-MAGIC. NOT EVEN WITH YOUR COMBINED MIGHT CAN YOU DEFEAT ME! NOW . . . TASTE . . . DEATH.”

  Scyzarchon reared back its head and then whipped it forward on its serpentine neck. A roiling jet of flame came roaring out of its mouth, headed right at Gadget. He flew away from it, fast, the wind smashing against his face. His heart beat frantically in his chest, panic almost overtaking him. Almost. He managed to stay just far enough ahead of it to barely outrun it — though he could feel the heat baking off the fireball and warming his backside as he flew, it was that close — until finally it dissipated, about thirty yards away from the Dragon. He turned in the air and saw Dizzy and Pris try to attack the Dragon again, and saw the Dragon breathe fire at Dizzy, who pulled the same trick as he had — flying away at top speed, and managing to stay just ahead of the flames. Pris flew away and circled around the back of the Dragon and to its other side, still firing offensive spells at its hide, hoping to make a dent. She left scorch marks on its hide, but alas, no real wounds. The Dragon tried to grab at her, but she was too fast for it.

  The Rohirrim calvary, the Elven archers, the Klingon Warriors . . . the Gundam pilots, the Autocons, the G.I. Joes, and the Jedi . . . the entire Army of Dreams now attacked the Dragon on the ground, attacking the creature’s legs and the rest of it with arrows, projectile weapons, ray-guns, and pulse-cannon fire. The Dragon roared in protest — and mostly, Gadget thought, annoyance — and began kicking and stomping on the battlefield, thrashing and smashing the Eorlingas and the others. But the calvary and the other troops learned quickly — they began riding away from the Dragon or moving around its legs and feet, swarming around them like insects. The Autocons, being gigantic robots, and thus having larger weapons, had more of an impact — if they could be said to be having one at all. The Elven archers launched volley after volley of arrows at the beast, and the arrows all slammed into Scyzarchon’s hide, but seemed to do little to slow the great creature down. It kept on thrashing about, stomping the hell out of the calvary and the attacking troops, occasionally breathing fire down into them and immolating a good number of them. More troops kept appearing as Gadget concentrated on the Helm and on pulling in more Dreamers from across the world — it was wearying, and it made him feel drained — but Scyzarchon kept flaming them out, and kept on stomping. Meanwhile Dizzy and Pris continued their attacks on the Dragon, and Gadget renewed his own attack with the Proton Weapon. They had to, at some point, make a difference with this thing . . . they just had to . . . it couldn’t be invincible, could it?

  Gadget ceased his attack, cutting off the power to the Proton Weapon. He had an idea. He levitated downward, back to the ground, and settled onto his feet. He reached up onto the back of the Proton Weapon and unhooked the Wraith Trap. He screwed up his courage, and then ran toward the Dragon.

  He wound his way through the chaos of the clockwork-horsed calvary, pushed and shoved his way past the Klingons — gods, were they ever a sweaty, hot, smelly mess! — and finally came to where the Dragon was lifting and lowering its huge, massive feet. He hoped it didn’t step on him. He set the Wraith Trap down, and then ran in the other direction, unspooling the cable from the Proton Weapon as he went. Once he was about forty feet away, he dropped the foot-pedal on the ground, and stomped on the first switch.

  The Wraith Trap opened, and a swirling, yellow-purple vortex of light appeared hovering over it, and from out of its depths soared the two captive Wraiths he had imprisoned earlier in his adventures in the Dreamworld. They shrieked, their cries bloodcurdling and furious, echoing across the battlefield as they ascended and traveled upward and through the Dragon’s scaly flesh. The Dragon roared in protest, a genuine scream of pain and angst — Good, thought Gadget; scream for mercy, you bastard! — and began thrashing around even more violently. The Dragon shrieked as well, and cried out:

  “HOW DARE YOU . . . HOW DARE YOU! GAH! GET THEM OUT, GET THEM OUT! AHHH!” It zeroed its sights on Gadget, pinpointing him with its golden-eyed glare, and breathed fire at him. Gadget zipped up into the air at an angle, narrowly avoiding the plume of flame as it impacted the ground and billowed into the air, a mushroom cloud of fire. The Wraiths emerged from the Dragon’s chest, wound around its colossal form, and then dove right back into it again, winding through its guts, then circling its body once more. It didn’t look like they were going to leave it alone anytime soon. The Dragon continued to buck and rear, snorting flame at Dizzy and Pris as they continued their attacks, but now, it didn’t seem quite so haughty and confident; there was an air of desperation and franticness to its movements, as though it were panicked . . . less annoyed, and more actually frightened, if only somewhat. The Wraiths had made a difference, however slight. Now if only they could keep up their attack . . .

  Gadget levitated closer to the Dragon and once more let it have it with everything his Proton Weapon could produce. While he was at it, he telekinetically lifted up chunks of concrete and steel rebar and barbed-wire from the fallen guard-bunker, and threw it at the Dragon’s head with as much force as he could muster. The barbed-wire tangled itself around the Dragon’s head and the Dragon winced at the bombardment with all the chunks of rock, but it kept on breathing fire at his friends, and didn’t seem too deterred from its wrath either way. Oh well. It had been worth a shot. Gadget kept up the attack with the Proton Wand, only shutting it off for fear of the weapon overheating. Then he summoned lightning from the clouds, and the arc of electricity he called forth struck the Dragon’s horns . . . but the Dragon, its scalp smoking, only shook off the blast and continued to wreak havoc on the attacking Army below . . . and kept trying to grab and incinerate his friends. If they didn’t watch it, the Dragon was going to get lucky one of these times. He only hoped that their luck could hold long enough for them to find some way of bringing the damn thing down.

  The Wraiths continued their fearsome attack on the Dragon, winding their way in and out of its belly and chest, ectophasically shocking it. Gadget hoped they could keep doing it long enough for something to turn the tide in their favor.

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  Then, he remembered.

  The sword.

  Dràchynthyr.

  “Dragon-slayer,” in the Olden Tongue.

  Still sheathed, on his hip, all this time.

  And then, he remembered about Dizzy’s guitar — still strapped to her back, just as it had been, all this time, waiting to be used — and what they had originally come here to do. The sword . . . it had an auxiliary input port mounted in the grip. A quarter-inch phone jack . . . an audio input. Because of course it did. Of course!

  He looked to the Tower of the Combine, and at the expectant faces of the captives there, who still watched the battle with bated breath and bare feet. They had all long ago abandoned their busy-work, their desks, their forges, their conveyor belts, and the drudgery of their enslavement, as all their masters had now fled. They looked on now with anxious excitement, and hope kindled in their eyes. Gadget didn’t need to the Helm to read their minds, to know that the faintest light of sunshine now shined in their hearts, that the thought of sweet freedom had now begun to occur to them for the first time in what might have been centuries to them. He also didn’t need a Portal Gun to show them the way back to the Real World, and to better lives lived in the light of a new day dawning. His heart ached and burst for them, for the hope he saw in their faces. He would do this for them.

  He raced through their air to where Dizzy hovered in space and fired her Interphase Pistols at the Dragon, rapid-fire, a determined sneer on her face, and Pris hovered next to her, lobbing offensive spells at the creature.

  “Dizzy! Pris!” he cried. “I need your help! I know! I know what we need to do to destroy this thing!”

  “Oh? Feel like sharing?” said Pris, as she fired off a red, glowing ball of energy from her wand. It hit the Dragon’s hide and dissipated. She mouthed the word, “Fuck!”

  “Your guitar, the sword,” said Gadget. “They’re the keys. We have to plunge the sword . . . into the Dragon. And then hook your guitar up to the audio input on the sword, and then you play the solo. I think that’s how it works.”

  “But where are we gonna get power from?” asked Dizzy.

  “Leave that to me,” said Pris. “I’ve got your power needs covered.” She held up her hand; lightning crackled at the edges of her fingertips.

  “Right,” said Dizzy. “Next question. How the hell do we get close enough to do that?”

  “I have no idea,” said Gadget. “Look out!”

  The Dragon reared back its head again and whipped it forward, breathing flame at them once more. Gadget, Pris, and Dizzy scattered in three different directions, all zooming away from the plume of fire, trying to outrun it. The coattails of Gadget’s jacket caught fire. He telekinetically summoned a gust of air to blow them out, but it was close . . . too close. Dizzy had a point: How were they going to get close enough to do that?

  Misto, Darmok, and Mystikite — still cradling Buffy’s limp body in his arms — made their way through the flaming wreckage of the Demonbane. The fire was blazing hot, and licked and sizzled on all sides. The entire cargo bay was aflame, with a narrow, zigzagged path that led through the blaze, which Misto and the others now followed toward the hatch at the far end. The heat was almost unbearable. Mystikite looked the most uncomfortable as he made his way through sideways — he had to watch out for Buffy, to make sure the flames did not touch her, not even her hair — as bloody sweat leaked down his forehead and face. Misto wasn’t in much better shape; the fur covering his body made him overheat even more so. Darmok seemed highly uncomfortable as well as, slowly, step by step, they made their way to the hatch.

  Finally, they made it. Misto grabbed the manual override to the hatch and turned it, and the hatch swung open. They all three went through, and were greeted immediately by a refreshing gust of cooler air. Misto closed the hatch behind them. They were in one of the access corridors that led throughout the ship’s interior. Following it would lead them to a stairwell which would lead them to another corridor which, if they followed it, would lead them back to the bridge, which was where they needed to go if they wanted to access the ship’s computer. Not that they had any guarantee that this crazy plan would even work, that was.

  They made their way through the corridor, up the stairwell, and onto the bridge. The fire had died down here. “Jesus,” said Misto. “This place is wrecked.”

  And it was. The bridge and the consoles there were badly burned, the seats and their cushions little but charred remains; wires hung from the ceiling, the conduits were blackened and covered in soot and ash. Mystikite sat Buffy down in what remained of the seat in front of the ruins of the weapons station. He took a seat in front of the comm station, which looked, for the most part, like it was still functional.

  “I’ll try to tap in from here,” he said. “Gimme a minute.” He tapped out a sequence of commands on the keyboard, and the monitor in front of him came to life. His eyes scanned the text. “It looks like the primary computer system is still operational. That means the piece of herself that Pris put inside the computer is still . . . alive inside of it. If I can just get through to it, maybe I can get the comm system to . . . I dunno . . . reach out . . . and connect to the NeuroScape systems. It’s a long-shot, but it just might work.” He furiously tapped away at the keyboard for a few moments, concentrating. Misto could only watch him, holding his breath.

  Finally, Mystikite exclaimed, “Yes! I’m in! Now then . . . all I need is a clear channel . . .” He continued to tap in commands, and worked feverishly at the keyboard for a few more moments.

  Then, from out of nowhere, a few feet away, a bright rectangle of white light slid open from out of nowhere, sliding up from the floor, hovering in the air in front of them, a doorway cutting into some other, extradimensional space. On the other side, Misto could see the Room of Requirement waiting for them.

  “Alright, Mystikite!” cried Darmok. “You did it!”

  “Damn right I did,” said Mystikite, grinning. “I’ve told you guys. Huge penis. Enormous.”

  “Y’know?” said Darmok, “I’m starting to believe him.”

  “Okay,” said Misto. “Let’s get going. Let’s see if we can’t try to find some kind of weapon that can actually hurt that damn dragon!”

  He got up, and walked through the rectangle of light. Darmok followed him. Mystikite gathered Buffy into his arms, and followed after them.

  Once inside the Room of Requirement, they found it much as they had left it: Racks upon racks of various kinds of weapons, all arrayed in rows upon rows, workbenches and tools scattered about, bright fluorescent lights mounted in the ceiling.

  In Mystikite’s arms, Buffy began to stir. “Ugh . . . Mystikite? What . . . what happened? Did we . . . did we make it? Did we land?”

  “Uh, yeah,” he said to her. “We did. Sort of. Can you stand?”

  “Um, I think so,” she said groggily. “Here, let me try.”

  He lowered her to her feet, and she tried to stand. She staggered only once, and then steadied herself on her feet. “Whoa. Okay. That’s better. Where . . . where are we. This looks like the Room of Requirement. What’re we doing back here?”

  “Well . . . you saw the dragon, right? On the battlefield?”

  “Uh . . . yeah. Oh my God — Gadget, Dizzy — !”

  “We’re going to help ‘em out,” said Misto. “We’re here to find some kind of weapon that can actually hurt that thing. Maybe weaken it enough for them to get in some kind of winning shot. But what kind of weapon can hurt something that big, though? It doesn’t look like anything they’re throwing at it is doing any good.” He glanced around at the racks of weaponry. “You guys got any ideas?”

  Darmok looked to her left, toward a large weapon that looked like a large bazooka, with a big diamond tip on the end and a large glass coil wrapped around its barrel, leading to a tank of blue liquid at the base. It had gears and wheels mounted toward one end, and a hefty amount of circuitry on that end as well. It sat on a pedestal, meant to be fired from a sitting position on a vehicle of some kind. It had hoses and wires leading to a control console and a series of tanks and what looked like an air compressor machine.

  “What does this do?” she asked.

  “That,” said Mystikite, “I think, is a Freeze Ray. It pretty much does what its name implies. Whatever you zap with it goes from whatever temperature it is to two-hundred-and-seventy below, pronto. Instant cryo-freeze. But it never worked right.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Misto.

  “Well,” said Mystikite, “I mean it doesn’t work. The effect wears off after a few minutes, and whatever it is reverts back to its normal state. So it’s pretty useless.”

  “Maybe not completely useless,” said Misto. “It might just give Gadget, Pris, and Dizzy the advantage they need. If we could freeze that dragon for just a few minutes, make it hold still, for just long enough . . .”

  “Then maybe they could get in a few shots that count,” said Buffy. “Brilliant.”

  “Well how do we get it working?” asked Darmok.

  “Good question,” said Mystikite. “It needs power. We’d have to hook it to the main power conduits of the ship. Do you think there’s still enough power running to the bridge?”

  “Only one way to find out,” said Misto. “Come on . . . let’s get this thing ready.”

  Gadget flew away from the Dragon’s lethal fire-breath once more, feeling the heat of the flames almost cooking his backside, sweat dripping from his brow. How the hell were they going to get close enough to plunge that sword into it? Let alone have time to plug in that guitar, run power to it, and have Dizzy play that solo? It seemed impossible. But they had to find a way. They had to.

  He turned, and raced back toward where Dizzy and Pris hovered in the air some distance away from the Dragon. The Army of Dreams continued to attack the Dragon’s legs and belly the ground, and it continued to decimate their numbers with fire and stomping and by swatting at them with its claws. The Rohirrim calvary was down to about a thousand men now; the Elven archers were down to only a hundred Elves now; and there remained only two hundred or so Klingon warriors. Only a handful of G.I. Joes were left, and most of the Gundam robot mech-suits had been thrashed into piles of junk, lying in smoking, sparking ruins on the battlefield; the Autocons had been reduced to junk-heaps as well, trashed beyond measure . . . only a few of them remained in the fight. Things were not looking good. The Dragon was well-night invincible. The Wraiths were still doing damage to it — the Dragon cried out in agony as they swarmed through its flesh once again, poking through its scales here and there, darting in and out of it — but other than acting as an irritant, they did no lasting harm. The only hope they had was the sword on Gadget’s hip . . . and it looked like they had no opportunity to use it.

  Gadget eyed the Dragon. Maybe if they could get it into its belly from the ground? But, no. Its belly was twenty feet into the air from the ground, and with it thrashing its legs about like that, they had little hope of being able to get it in the clear.

  “Any ideas?” he said to Dizzy as he arrived at the place where she hovered. The Dragon was twenty yards away from where they floated in the air.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “None whatsoever. I'm as stumped as you are.”

  “Maybe the head,” said Pris, appearing deep in thought for a moment.

  “Huh?” said Gadget.

  “Yeah, look,” she said. “It’s the only part of itself the Dragon can’t breathe fire on, right? If we circle around back of it, and land on its head, then maybe we can jamb the sword into its skull and go from there.”

  “Good luck getting it to hold still for that!” said Dizzy.

  “I know,” said Pris, frowning. “That’s the only flaw in my plan.”

  “Still,” said Gadget, “it’s better than doing nothing.”

  “Yeah, that it is,” said Dizzy. “Okay. We’ll break from here . . . You and Pris go that-a-way, I’ll go this-a-way. We’ll meet around back of the Dragon — and hope that that thing can’t turn its head all the way around — and then we’ll fly up onto its head. If it tosses us, it tosses us. But at least we tried.”

  “Roger that,” said Gadget. “Come on, Pris. Let’s go.”

  Gadget shot off to the left, and Pris followed him. Dizzy departed to the right. The Dragon snorted fire at them as they passed it, but they were well out of range. He felt the wind on his face as he banked through the air in a wide arc, and watched the fight unfold beneath him as he glided over the battlefield. It was an awesome sight. Two Gundams engaged the Dragon’s front right leg, firing missiles at it; the missiles exploded on contact, two roaring fireballs that engulfed the scaly creature’s flesh, but did little damage. The Gundams then proceeded to attack the Dragon with their fists, punching at it, but with one swift kick, the Dragon knocked both of them prone; sparks and fire blew out of their chest-pieces, black smoke billowing from their robotic armatures. Both Gundams went down for the count. Gadget winced. Meanwhile, a group of Klingon warriors attacked the Dragon’s front left leg with their bat’leths, trying to hamstring the creature by cutting into the tendons in its leg. The Dragon kicked, and tens of warriors went flying through the air screaming, their bodies landing on the ground with dull thuds. They died on impact and disappeared, de-rezzing, the Dreamers inhabiting them as avatars going back to the “real” world, if there was such a thing. At the same time as all this happened, as Gadget came around the side of the Dragon, he saw a contingent of G.I. Joes on the Dragon’s rear left flank, attacking it with rapid-fire, coordinated pulse-rifle blasts from over two dozen guns at once, the blasts ricocheting off the Dragon’s hide. They weren’t making much of a dent in its defenses, but they tried valiantly. They had even brought in a tank to lob high-energy balls of plasma at the beast . . . to little effect. The Dragon turned its head toward them and breathed fire at them. They were soon engulfed in the orange flames, roasted alive, their screams echoing through the air as they burned and writhed in pain.

  Gadget and Pris made it around the back of the Dragon, and he saw Dizzy coming around the other side and heading toward them. They met in the air and then together, they headed toward the rear of the Dragon’s head, a mass of bone-spikes and horns, and the one area of flat scales that Gadget saw they were aiming for. They touched down there, and the Dragon immediately roared and began shaking its head. Gadget tried to steady himself, as did Dizzy and Pris. But the Dragon shook too vigorously, and Gadget stumbled and fell, and lost his purchase. He staggered right off the edge, and caught himself in the air, hovering there on telekinetic waves of force, as did Pris; Dizzy caught herself using her repulsivators. The Dragon turned its head toward him and sucked in a breath, and Gadget raced away at top speed, out-running what he knew was coming. The Dragon breathed fire at him, but luckily enough he was well out of range before the fireball came roaring after him. Dizzy and Pris were also out of range by then, too.

  He tapped the communicator pin on his lapel. “Dizzy.”

  “Yeah,” came her voice through the pin.

  “We need to try again,” he said.

  “But how can we?” she asked. “That thing will just shake us off again.”

  “I know, but — “

  Just then, something new happened: The Dragon roared in protest as from across the battlefield, there came a blinding flash of white light, a bolt from some sort of weapon or another . . . a shining beam of scintillating energy, shining out from . . . where? It didn’t matter. The beam impacted the Dragon right in the chest, and the reddish-gold scales there began to turn to ice crystals. The effect spread out, too, with more and more of the Dragon — who roared mightily, craning its neck to the stars and howling in rage and fury — began to turn to hard, rocky ice, freezing in place, turning into a five-hundred-foot-long icy statue where it stood. The effect took only around a full minute to spread from the Dragon’s chest to its extremities, the last thing to turn to ice being its enormous head, its blazing yellow eyes never turning, but instead staying on fire and ever-watchful, darting around in their sockets, still aware of everything around it; the teeth in its mouth, also turned to ice, remained in a perpetual sneer and gnarled into a toothy snarl.

  Gadget looked, and saw Misto, Mystikite, Darmok, and Buffy, far across the battlefield, standing on the ridge of the Demonbane’s forward cockpit, with some sort of weapon there with them, with hoses and cables leading back through the shattered forward viewport. Buffy leaped up and down, clapping, and smiling. They were the ones who had done this. Gadget smiled.

  But there was no telling how long the effect would last. Gadget tapped the communicator pin again.

  “Dizzy,” he said. “We need to move, while the Dragon is frozen.”

  “Roger-roger,” she said.

  “Meet us up top, on the Dragon’s head,” came Pris’s voice.

  “Gotcha,” said Gadget. He flew upwards, up the side of the Dragon’s long, craning neck, now frozen in place, until he reached the top of the Dragon’s head, where he found Dizzy and Pris already there and ready. He settled to his feet. He could feel the cold coming off the Dragon’s icy scalp. Beneath his feet, the ice cracked suddenly, and a wave of heat came through. Uh oh. The ice-effect was already fading.

  “Hurry,” said Pris.

  Gadget unsheathed Dràchynthyr. He had gone through so much — or at least, his Dream-Avatar, Gadgorak, had gone through so much — to retrieve this sword. And now it was finally going to be put to its intended use. He eyed the crystal sword for a moment, appreciating its beauty, and then turned its tip downward and shoved it through the crack in the ice, down into the Dragon’s scaly scalp.

  The ice around the Dragon’s jaws shattered all at once, a huge crashing cacophony of sound, and the Dragon roared in agony, the ice around its neck fracturing, and it shook its head roughly. Dizzy, Gadget, and Pris were all knocked to their feet, but not knocked off. Gadget grabbed hold of the sword for support. Dizzy grabbed hold of Gadget, Pris grabbed hold of Dizzy, and Dizzy grabbed hold of the crack in the ice. They pulled themselves to their feet. Dizzy grabbed the guitar by the neck and wrenched it off of her back and into her arms, and grabbed the coiled cable that she had wound up and mounted on the back of it, the cable that had the phone-plug on one end of it, which she had originally intended to plug into Gadget’s Mind-Weirding Helm during the Mind-Meld with Ravenkroft. Now it would serve a different purpose.

  “Here, Gadget!” she cried, and tossed him cable with the phone-plug, as the Dragon shook its head again and roared once more. Pris nearly slid off the Dragon’s head, but used her powers of levitation to hover just over the Dragon instead. Dizzy took off on her repulsivators, guitar in hand, but only levitated as far as the cable would reach — three or four feet, leaving Gadget to plug the jack into the sword. He managed to get to his feet, grabbing the sword for support. He steadied himself, and plugged the phone-plug into the jack on the end of the sword, and then held onto the sword with a death-grip with both hands.

  “Got it!” he yelled. “It’s all yours, Dizzy!”

  “Pris!” cried Dizzy. “I need power!”

  The Dragon raised its head to them, and centered its gaze upon them.

  “Coming right up!” said Pris. She reached over and grabbed the neck of Dizzy’s guitar in one hand, and raised the hand holding her magic wand to the sky, closed her eyes, and intoned, “Fulmen Ciere!”

  The Dragon sucked in a deep breath.

  Lightning struck Pris’s outstretched wand, shot through her writhing body as she grinned like the devil, and into Dizzy’s guitar as Dizzy began to play the loudest, meanest guitar solo ever heard. Gadget felt the power of the solo and the lightning slam into his body and his teeth slammed together, his muscles suddenly on fire. The sounds of Dizzy’s shredding echoed through the night air and across the battlefield, and the Dragon screeched in protest and screamed a hideous roar, its jaws wide open and its blazing eyes holding terror as they never had. The remaining ice around the Dragon all shattered, ice-crystals and shards and plates of it raining down upon the Army of Dreams below as the Dragon’s thrashing about freed it from the ice. But it was too late; the guitar solo had signaled the beginning of the end for the great creature. Gadget held on for death life as the electricity coursed through his body, setting his nerves ablaze, and he did not let go. The power ran through him and he heard the music blasting through his skull.

  The Army of Dreams attacked the Dragon with renewed vigor and spirit. Seeing it seriously harmed for the first time gave them inspiration and hope. Even the two Wraiths redoubled their attack, writhing in and out of its flesh like two worms digging through an apple. The Dragon stumbled backward, roaring in agony and fear as Dizzy played her guitar solo. A faint, eldritch nimbus appeared around the Dragon’s body, and the Dragon began to shrink in size. No longer five-hundred feet long, it lost some of its size, and now shrank to merely four hundred and eighty feet in length . . . now only four hundred and fifty. Gadget levitated into the air, his feet lifting off the Dragon’s head, his hands still on the sword, gripping it tightly. The sword came loose from the Dragon’s head, but the lightning bolts coruscating from the sword made contact with the Dragon still, plowing into its scales and down into the wound the sword had made.

  The attacking calvary of Rohirrim soldiers on clockwork horseback rallied at the sight of the Dragon shrinking, and laid into the monster all the more, and the Elven archers loosed a fresh volley of arrows at the creature. Four hundred feet, now; and still shrinking. The Klingon warriors redoubled their efforts at cutting the thing’s hamstrings, and were successful this time — one of the Dragon’s legs gave out from beneath it, and it went down to one knee in one corner of its body with a pained roar — almost as though it were begging for mercy. But no mercy was to be found. Three hundred and twenty feet, now. The Dragon breathed fire in every direction it could, lashing out with the only real weapon it had. The G.I. Joes managed to puncture its rear right hindquarter with plasma fire from their tank, blowing a huge gaping hole in the creature’s hide. The dragon roared in pain and agony as its musculature was exposed, blood and sinew flying from beneath its scales in blackened, reddish pieces, molten viscera visible beneath as it rolled onto its side, kicking and screaming, and breathed fire at them furiously. Two hundred and fifty feet, now.

  Dizzy continued to play her frenzied music, really getting into the groove of the song, ad-libbing the notes, going all prog-rock on the chord progressions, really zoning out, her eyes closed, her fingers dancing across the fretboard and her other fingers plucking and strumming wildly. Pris continued to writhe in the air next to her, twitching and spasming as the lightning flowed through her from the bolts that cascaded down from the sky and into her wand and into her, as though she were having an epileptic fit. Gadget ticked and jerked as the power continued to flow through his body, his brain in overdrive . . .

  Gadget’s mind’s-eye widened, as the eye of the universe opened before it and its gaze blazed through him with the galvanic power of a thousand incandescent galaxies. The rush of electric energy coursing through him overpowered him, intoxicated him, as his entire life flashed before his mind in one dizzying blur of images and sounds and emotions, all out of sequence, a jumbled mixture of sensations and feelings, one leading to another, to another, to another, one memory bleeding into the next. He relived the memory of seeing a colorful clown at his fifth birthday party, replete with popping a red balloon giraffe, and the spicy aroma of the perfume worn by the lone, pimple-faced girl he had danced with at a school dance in the sixth grade; he felt the press of his mother’s soft lips upon his forehead at three years of age, and the rough feel of his father’s arms as he hugged him goodbye at the hospital on the day before he had died. One moment unstuck in time collided with the next in a dizzying vortex of memories and thoughts, as time and space ceased to have any meaning, this one crystallized instant in time becoming eternal. His mind opened up and he could suddenly feel, sense, everything Dizzy thought and felt — including her true feelings for him; there was love there, of a kind, though it was vastly different than what he felt for her — and Pris too, her thoughts as well, though they were digital and slightly alien-feeling; as well as Mystikite’s thoughts, and Buffy’s love for him. Could feel Darmok’s love for Misto, and his nascent love for her. Could feel and touch the leathery scales of the Dragon beneath him, and could feel the scorching heat of its fires burning in the pit of his stomach. He was wrapped inside the folds of the minds of the Dream Army below, as well — each of them — their innermost thoughts, their worldly troubles and angsts, their lives beyond the Dreamworld; the smell of the grease in the fry vats at their fast food jobs, the jarring sounds of telephones ringing in phone-banks in cubicle farms; the sounds of children crying in their cribs at night, demanding to be changed and fed; the shouts of arguments with spouses; the slow drip of sweat after sex in the dark. For just an instant, he felt connected to everything around him, sensing every scrape and bruise that befell each of the soldiers in battle; the warmth of blood on their skin; he felt every atom and molecule displaced and shifted; could touch every cell membrane as it divided, sense every particle as its quantum state was determined. He ceased to have a self — the loss of identity itself a destructive and jarring sensation — and became Many Gadgets at once; for every Gadget that existed in every universe, every parallel reality, he became consciously aware of the multiplicity of their existences, and saw through each of their eyes the splendor of their worlds; he grasped, in its infinite complexity, the saga of the multiverse through the loss of his essential uniqueness in the vastness of space and time, drowned for a moment in his own multidimensionality. And then he collapsed back into one self, the one that existed in this moment, this singular now, snapping back to this world in this instant, infinitely wiser but incapable of ever articulating just what it was he had experienced.

  And then, in a moment of sudden clarity, he realized the truth: Scyzarchon was not just the Dragon . . . was not just Ravenkroft and the Alien fused together into one being. And it was not just the Guardian of the Tower of the Combine. It was much more than just that. No . . . Scyzarchon was the illness, was his schizoaffective disorder . . . or rather, it represented its power over him. Its control over him, the way the specter of it had dominated his life up until now. He could see it; visualize it as chains binding him, glowing chains that wrapped around him — indeed, like a serpent — winding and coiling around him — the ominous hold that the illness had taken over him, that the fear of it ruining his life had exerted over him all these years. Scyzarchon, the Dragon itself, was the anxiety that permeated his existence; the Dragon — and the chains — were the morose sadness and grief that he could never escape, the grief he felt for a future that he felt he would never have because the illness had preempted it. And in that moment, this sudden, blazing instant of clear-headedness, he made a decision . . . to burn away the anxiety once and for all; to unlock the chains, to destroy the fear, to destroy the Dragon. To immolate the self-destroying terror that he felt at the approach of each new day’s dawning, the apprehension he felt with each coming night, the existential angst that had until now flowed through his veins as surely as the power to destroy it flowed through them now. He now made the decision to blast away all of that angst, to char it into ash and let it blow away on the winds of time and eternity, never to be seen again; with the power of the Multiple Gadgets of the Multiverse at his command, he could do anything; alone they were weak, together they were strong. And so, here and now, he made the decision to set himself free of it. The illness would always be with him, yes. He would always have the mood swings, the anxiety, the depression, the manic highs, probably the hallucinations too. All of this was true. In many universes, he would always be “unwell.” The medication would not always work the way it should. But he would always have a choice in how he dealt with it; and so would many versions of himself. So no. He would no longer be a defeatist. He would no longer be a prisoner to the feeling of eternal doom and gloom, the idea that he could never have a life because the illness had taken his away from him. He would no longer allow himself the luxury of wallowing in self pity. He would no longer allow these chains to bind him. He would decide to be, like Harry Potter, the boy who lived.

  And in that moment, he set himself free.

  Gadget looked to the Tower of the Combine. They had done it. One by one the captive children were disappearing, fading from the Tower’s grasp. They were free from its imprisoning embrace, now. They would lead Dreaming lives, now, all of them . . . the Mundanes and the Geeks there alike would be free to Dream, to live rich fantasy lives, without the burden of the Real strangling their imaginations or holding their inner-children captive to the illusion of the all-consuming nature of the dominant paradigm any longer. They were finally freed from such a dismal fate as that. And to think, they would’ve remained that way forever if it had not been for this adventure that they had undertaken this night, due to some wild fluke of chance. It was almost enough to make one believe in Fate, or Destiny.

  The Dragon was now less than a hundred feet long — and quite dead — and the Klingon warriors had moved in and started chopping it to pieces with their bat’leths. It was a gruesome sight. Dizzy quit playing her guitar, finishing the solo at last.

  The power-flow cut off, and Gadget let go of the sword. He sucked in a breath and the colors of the world around him pulsed and throbbed before him with vibrancy. The sudden lack of power rushed through his body and he tingled all over, a shudder passing through him.

  His hands felt tingly and numb, and the hairs on his arms all stood on end. Tiny arcs of lightning whipped around on his fingers. He held them up, examined them. Dear gods . . . the power that had flowed through him . . . what had it done to him?

  He felt different.

  Changed, though he could not say how.

  What on Earth had it done to him?

  He felt drained and tired as the electricity faded from his veins, and the world stopped glowing a power-blue color.

  “Oh God. Do they have to do that?” said Dizzy, looking at the Klingons as they chopped and hacked at the Dragon’s corpse.

  “Well, they’re Klingons,” said Gadget, huffing and puffing to catch his breath, “so kinda, yeah.” He felt — not to use too prosaic a word — energized. Alive. More alive than he ever had before. Dangerously alive. And yet — not manic. No. This was different than the dangerous highs of mania. He had been manic, and he knew the difference. This was not that. This was . . . something new.

  “Ugh,” said Pris. She stowed her magic wand, which smoldered now. She panted for breath, the lightning having worn her out. “I don’t wanna watch.”

  “Then let’s get back to the Demonbane,” said Gadget, waving his hands to clear away the left-over stinging sensations. “I think the Army has served its purpose, anyway. I can send them away, now.”

  “Really?” said Dizzy. “You have . . . that kind of power?”

  “I think so,” said Gadget, wiping the sweat from his brow. “At least, I can try.”

  “Let’s see,” said Dizzy. “Give it a shot.”

  Gadget closed his eyes and concentrated on the image of the battlefield, on the Army of Dreams. His head still rang somewhat from all the current that had passed through him. He focused on sending the Army back where they had come from . . . on the telepathic web he had created that had brought them into being in the first place. And then, in a single second’s time, the sounds of the Army all around him . . . ceased. The battlefield went quiet. He opened his eyes, and discovered that they were alone. Only he, Pris, and Dizzy remained, hovering over an empty, silent field, with a dead Dragon lying in their midst, and with the wreckage of the Demonbane not far off, with Misto, Darmok, Mystikite, and Buffy standing there on the edge of the forward cockpit unit. No Army of Dreams. Just them.

  “Guess I do after all,” he said, gulping. “I’ll have to watch myself. I guess I’m stronger than I thought I was.”

  “Well guys,” said Pris, “what’ll we do now? The Dragon is dead. Ravenkroft and the Alien are history, now. So shouldn’t this whole thing . . . be over?”

  “Yeah,” said Gadget. “Good point. I wonder why we’re still here?”

  And then, as though his question had been a magic incantation, the world around them dissolved suddenly into nothing but bright, white light. Gadget blinked, his vision turning stark blue-white for a moment as he was blinded briefly. He felt a tumbling sensation as the ground vanished beneath his feet, and he felt his stomach lurch as though he were being flung through zero-gravity and were floating weightless through some unseen space. When he finally felt the ground establish itself beneath his feet once again, and he began to blink his eyes clear of the light, and it began to fade somewhat, he found himself once more standing in the backyard of Viktor Arkenvalen’s summer-home with the others, standing exactly as he had been when they’d left Earth for the Dreamworld. He looked around at all their faces as they stood there in the rain, all of them blinking in surprise . . . indeed as though just awakened from a Dream.

  Neither Ravenkroft — nor Viktor — was anywhere to be found.

  The horrible, shredding sound echoed throughout the telepathic web. All over the universe, their kind perished. Thousands of the Zarcturean, the once-proud race that had drug itself up from the slime, with the help of the mighty Eidolon, died upon “hearing” the sounds invading their brains. They perished in pain, writhing in their pods, in their ships, in their natural habitats. Their home planet was not spared the destruction; all over their homeworld, their young and old alike perished. Their Queen, too, died — in fact, she died first — and spread the viral brainwaves to all her young, all her loyal servants. The entire Zarcturean race was wiped out within a matter of moments from the instant the Attack began, with none spared the hideous atrocity that came from across the stars from Earth. The Queen only had time to think four words — “Oh no. The Humans” — before she died.

  “The end came swiftly. All over the world, their machines began to stop and fall.” It was much the same with the Zarctuean ships in orbit around the Earth. One by one the great saucers faltered in their orbit. Explosions wracked the ships from bow to stern, at first beginning in their engine compartments, then spreading to their life support systems, then culminating in their superstructures and their structural integrity systems. The ships simply exploded in space, the debris fields scattering, tossing junk toward the Earth and moon, where later, Earthling scientists would discover — and quickly classify — new technologies hitherto unknown to humankind. Fireballs of bright, colorful green and yellow hues rocked the skies, for those careful enough to be paying attention. Radio telescopes on Earth recorded the fanfare of the Zarcturean ships’ demise, their recordings quickly classified and their existence hushed-up by those at Area 51. The Hubble Space Telescope saw the whole thing and took pictures. Its visual record, too, was censored from the record.

  Elsewhere, on Earth, thousands of Dreamers awoke from a fitful slumber, unsure of how or when they had fallen asleep, nor where they had gone during it. They remembered images of fighting in a great war, of battles fought and won — or lost — and feelings of great empowerment. For a time, they had lived as they had never lived before, been great heroes fighting for a cause they had, for a brief moment, believed in with all of their heart and known to be right and true. They would never forget the singular sensation of elevated consciousness with which they awoke, and would forever see the world in brighter colors after that night of Dreaming. No one would ever be able to recall just what had happened during those hours of sleep, except for very rare individuals, but in fitful dreams, and moments of fleeting clarity, they would remember, and smile, knowing that they had helped turn the tide in the fight for humanity’s future, and that they had helped win the day against overwhelming odds. They had been a part of something special and sacred, and in their hearts, they would always know — they were of the Army of Dreams, and therefore, would always be special, Chosen, of a few who knew that the world was bigger on the inside.