“Thanks. I have to keep an eye on the enchanted dork. I love him so much, but sometimes he can be reckless,” Tonya murmured, looking at Ashure with worry and warmth as he shouted orders.
“We’ll help you protect him. Blackheart and his evil sister won’t know what hit them,” she promised, testing the weight of her Bubble Binder cannon.
“Excuse me. Diaper told me to come get a nice, shiny weapon,” a pirate behind Tonya said.
“Here you go,” Amber replied, holding out a slender gun with a large hopper.
“What’s it do?” the pirate asked, clutching the Sticky Popcorn Cannon and looking like he wasn’t sure if he’d won a prize—or been cursed.
“Shoot any threat, and it’s guaranteed to attract sea monkeys,” Amber promised.
The pirate’s eyes widened, and he gave them a snaggle-toothed grin before he nodded and hurried back to his post.
“I’ll see you two later. Whatever you do, stay safe. While this may seem exciting, it is also very dangerous,” Tonya murmured.
“We will. If things get crazy, our dragons will take over,” Amber promised.
“Yeah, they are good at keeping us safe,” Jade added.
Tonya breathed out a sigh of relief, rolled her shoulders, and covered her face before she turned and stalked towards Ashure with a determined stride. They watched her go before Amber turned and looked in the now almost empty bag.
“Is there anything else?” Amber asked.
“Just this,” she said, lifting a small crate.
“Holy crud, you didn’t,” Amber groaned. “You brought a batch of Demented Symbiots?”
Jade grinned, unapologetic. “Yep. You can never go wrong with deranged little creatures who scream battle chants in gibberish and fight dirty.”
Amber’s eyebrows shot up, and she giggled. “They’ll pair nicely with the sea monkeys.”
Jade clutched her chest. “Don’t threaten me with a good time.”
She turned and slung the Bubble Binder over her shoulder as shouts and the first sounds of explosions lit the air. She made her way to the stern. Wind lashed her cheeks as sea mist stung her eyes, each step up the final stairs echoing like a drumbeat in her chest.
And then she saw it.
Mere hundreds of yards from them, the sea was filled with ships—twisted silhouettes of skeletal masts and tattered sails. The largest—Blackheart’s flagship—loomed like a leviathan reborn, stitched from the bones of beasts and crowned in green fire. Creatures flitted above it: dragons, wyverns, and serpentine flyers with glowing eyes and jagged wings.
Jade’s breath caught. This battle was nothing like the space missions they’d trained for, but fear had never stopped her before. She was a Valdier dragon-shifter. A princess of the royal house. Daughter of Trelon and Cara Reykill. And a Dragonling! She wasn’t going to hide when the fate of the world—any world—was at stake.
Now we fight, her dragon snarled.
The roar of her dragon took her by surprise. She could feel it rising inside her before it cascaded over their enemies. Pink and rose-colored scales rippled across her skin. Below her, she could see Amber’s dark red scales doing the same
She lifted the Bubble Binder when she noticed dark shadows rising from the evil pirate’s ships. She tested the cannon’s balance.
“How good do you think you would be at firing this with your claws?” she asked her dragon, her eyes narrowing.
Better than you, her dragon sniffed. I can hold with four limbs. You only hold with two.
“Let’s test to see how good you are,” she snickered as she transformed.
A burst of pink shimmered around her, and in her place, a sleek determined dragon stood—scales glowing like pink opal spun with starlight, horns curved elegantly back, her wings unfolding with a powerful snap.
She gripped the Bubble Binder in her talons and launched herself off the deck just as the first cannonball whistled through the sky.
It missed by inches.
