“Oh!” Kaitlyn exclaimed. “Got it!”
She sent the image to the dragon, complete with golden astronauts, and the giant creature responded immediately, moving again, circling the Orion and its launch rocket warily, seeking a way to attack the beast without harming the craft.
“It understands!” Kaitlyn called out.
“Yeah, but it can’t find a way in,” Mackenzie said.
They watched as the blazing creature flitted in and out of range, swiping with a claw here, snapping at a wing there, slicing away at its enemy’s armor bit by bit. Its progress was painfully slow, but as the seconds dragged on, more and more thin lines of angry red light appeared on the black dragon’s hide, until it finally uncoiled itself from the Orion, screaming in rage.
Rush and the others cheered, but their celebration was short-lived. Once the black was no longer encumbered by its position, it began striking back, and gashes of brilliant white light began to stream through the golden dragon’s burning hide, showing where it, too, had been injured.
It took a nasty swipe to the side, and then another to one of its back legs. The champion fought bravely, its attacks precise, its defense calculated, ensuring that the battle did not surge back toward the Orion, but the fact that it was sacrificing itself to protect the spacecraft was taking its toll, costing it too heavily.
“Four minutes,” Sam called out, but they could all see for themselves that the noble creature wasn’t going to last that long.
Mackenzie watched as the burning dragon began to falter. She had been studying the black intensely, learning how it moved, how its momentum traveled through its body, and she sent that knowledge to the golden dragon’s awareness, showing it where each strike would land. But if dodging a blow would lead them back toward the launch pad, the blazing creature took the hit instead.
Taking the hits it wants to take, Mackenzie realized bitterly. The thought reminded her of the conversation she had had with her father, in what seemed like a lifetime ago, but she heard his words again now, echoing in her mind.
Sometimes, Mac, running away is the best long-term strategy.
“Three minutes to launch,” Sam announced.
Suddenly, she knew what they had to do. She tried to convey the plan to the majestic beast that fought so bravely for them, but she was already feeling drained, and the great dragon was fading. For several agonizing moments, she wasn’t sure it had understood her, but then she saw a new pattern beginning to emerge. Their champion was choosing its hits differently now, moving the battle back toward the summoners themselves.
And then it happened. The black dragon saw their portal, a swirling black disc against the bright blue sky, suspended seven stories up, above the observation deck of the Exploration Tower. Abandoning the Orion, the black dragon streaked toward the platform where they all stood, intent on destroying the humans who dared to challenge it.
The golden dragon, its scales blazing in the sun, continued to battle against the black, but now it heeded Mackenzie’s every warning, dodging every attack, using every opportunity in between to weaken its enemy by striking another angry red gash into its jet-black hide.
Their objectives had shifted. Now it was the black dragon that had an ultimate goal—a purpose that began to take its toll on the malevolent creature as it, in turn, was willing to absorb its opponent’s fiery attacks, trying to reach the observation deck that much sooner, while it still knew where its true enemy stood.
Their hero fought valiantly, refusing to succumb to its wounds, while brilliant white light spilled from more gashes than they could count. Its attacks finally began to slow, its energy failing, as the grappling behemoths neared the observation tower—the humans on the seventh-floor deck watching helplessly, knowing there was nowhere to run. When the blazing dragon fell, their lives would be forfeit, one way or another, even if the black had to bring down the entire building to ensure it.
The black dragon was close enough now that they could see every wicked spike along its back, every armor-clad scale along its hide, every onyx tooth in its gaping maw. So this is what death looks like, Rush thought, as the black dragon, sensing victory, surged toward the gold, catching the majestic creature in its claws and raking a terrible gouge into its belly, splitting it open right before their eyes, from the middle of its chest to the base of its tail, a torrent of white light bursting forth from its dying body.
“No!” Sketch screamed, his lone voice crying out to it for them all.
But in that moment, the golden dragon, with a last heroic effort, wrenched itself farther into the black dragon’s death grip and clasped the monster’s back, digging its claws into its enemy with all its might. The black, realizing its mistake too late, roared in defiance, struggling to break free, but the portal was already too close.
As a final burst of light exploded from the raging inferno that their shining, white defender had become, it passed into the portal, clutching the black dragon to its heart and dragging the furious beast with it, back into the realm from which it came.
59
Instructor Report
“This is really what happened? Everything in this report is true?”
“I have reviewed the tapes personally to verify my memory of the events. I can assure you that they did, in fact, occur exactly as described. The Intuitives protected the Orion project. They saved the launch, as well as everyone in that observation tower, although their own lives represent the most precious resource that could have been lost.”
“Intuitives? That’s what we’re calling them now?”
“It seems appropriate. We can call them summoners, if you prefer.”
“Summoners, gryphons, gargoyles attacking planes, dragons attacking the Orion launch… this was supposed to be a civilian program to develop military intelligence, not a military program masquerading as a high school. This whole thing is spinning way out of control.”
“I disagree. ‘This whole thing,’ as you say, might no longer be what it was originally intended to be, Colonel, but I would argue that the change is for the best. The ICIC belongs to the Intuitives—all of them, not just these six—and the first summoners have come fully into their own. The events documented by this report prove that we are in a far better position today than we were a mere month ago.”
“So what the hell are we supposed to do? Leave everything in the hands of a bunch of kids while someone else is out there right now—right now, I promise you—planning their next piss-damn demon attack in this… this hidden war?”
“We trust them. We teach them. We depend on them. At the moment, they are our only hope, and this hidden war, as you say, is only just beginning.”