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It was rough, like two pieces of rusty metal grinding together. A half-maniacal cackle fueled by so much pure fucking joy I wondered if I'd finally lost what was left of my mind.

But I couldn’t let him have the last word…

“I spent a hundred years in Hell, you asshole.”

“And yet, somehow, ye're still late.”

I laughed harder. Sully was alive. The bastard was alive. And for the first time in a century– so was I.

Slowly, I stood up. My joints popped under the weight of my armor. I kept my head on a swivel; my preternatural sight, amplified by the return of my Dragon King, cut through the heavy, unnatural fog hanging over the landscape. Something was profoundly wrong. This wasn’t the shifting, malevolent topography of Hell.

“Hold on, Lad,” was the only heads-up I got before the incredible Magic of the Ancients beat against my skin.

From one breath to the next, the Stygian Iron armor I had been forced to wear for the last century was burned away, replaced by the glorious bronze scales of none other than King Sullevan of the Imperial Topaz Dragons. I felt lighter than air. We hadn’t Shifted. I was still me, still at the forefront of my mind. I was still only six feet four, not the ten-foot height of Sully’s Warrior Dragon, but I was being protected by the scales of the Dragon King with whom I shared my soul for the first time in over a hundred years– and I was happier than I knew possible.

“Thank you, Sully,” I whooped, unable to keep the sheer joy from my voice. “I feel…”

“Restored,” he finished my thought.

“Absolutely.”

“As it should be,” Sully proudly sniffed.

Drawing in a sharp breath, I brought all the scents of my surroundings in close. I had to determine where we were.

“The air doesn’t taste of burning copper or rot,” I mentally commented.

“Aye,” Sully replied. “’Tis cold.” He paused, then added, “Strikingly, beautifully cold.”

And he was right. It also smelled of ozone, dry sage, and ancient, baking earth.

“Shit!” I gasped. “We’re in Texas.”

The realization hit me like a physical blow. I knew that dirt. I knew the specific, stubborn grit of the Chihuahuan Desert. I was a Texas Ranger, a man who had sworn an oath to protect this very soil before everything went sideways on that cursed oil rig. I remembered Keevandrie. I remembered the blinding flash of the explosion, the containment Wards shattering, and the sickening lurch as I fell backward into a yawning abyss of fire.

“That was then. This is now.” Sully’s wizened voice and the warmth of our history and camaraderie filled my mind and soul.

He was absolutely right. I was back on the mortal plane. But the triumph of survival was instantly strangled by a cold, looming dread.

“How long?” I whispered.

Time in the Pit didn't adhere to the turning of the Earth. A century in Hell could feel like a single, unending day of torment, or it could stretch into a millennium. I looked down at my gauntlets, then out into the hazy darkness of the desert. If I had been gone as long as my soul suggested, the world I left behind was dead.

And my brother… Guy.

The thought of my brother hit me the hardest. It was a sharp twist of grief that threatened to break my focus. Had Guy survived the explosion? Had he spent the last several decades believing I was dead? Or worse, had Guy met a similar fate?

Before the spiral of questions could pull me under, a familiar, guttural click echoed through the fog, followed by a low, desperate moan.

My head snapped toward the sound. Whatever had opened the Hellmouth hadn't just spit me out– it was still leaking. The structural integrity was failing, and the Pit was dumping its garbage right into the Texas sands.

Instinct overrode grief. I was a Dragon Guardsman. Innocent people lived on this side of the line, and if these things breached the perimeter, there would be a massacre.

“Are ye ready, Lad? It is time.”

With a low growl, I leaned into the transformation. My human form Shifted effortlessly into Sully’s battle-hardened Dragon Warrior form. Bronze scales rippled across my skin like polished shields, hardening into an impenetrable layer of living armor. Horns swept back from my brow, and my posture elongated, towering over the landscape at a menacing ten feet tall.

At the crescendo of my Shift, my broadswords returned to the scabbards on my back. I drew them, and the Ancient steel sent a sharp note of defiance into the quiet night.