Silence crept over the battlefield like a slow, suffocating fog.
Not peace.
Not calm.
Just exhaustion.
Pieces of the Outer Rifts hovered in strange orbits.
Shards of land drifted, rotated, or flickered like holograms.
The Riftstorm had quieted… but only because it was gathering strength again.
Jimmy stood with his hands on his knees, chest heaving, armor cracked and smoking. His HUD flickered, rebooting in looping cycles. The Iron Six formed a protective semicircle around him, armor in worse shape than he'd ever seen.
Across the shattered battlefield, the Wolf King stood with his lieutenants at his back. His metallic-black flame armor flickered. He, too, was panting lightly — not from weakness, but from exhilaration.
He wanted more.
He wanted everything.
He wanted the dragons.
But even the Wolf King had stopped.
Because the Rift had become unpredictable.
Too unpredictable.
Floating islands wobbled.
Gravity convulsed.
Dimensional lightning rippled between cliffs.
The entire battlefield threatened to collapse into pure, screaming nothing if the fighting continued at the same intensity.
Jimmy swallowed hard, his voice trembling as he opened his external microphone.
"We… we can't keep this up."
He expected the Wolf King to leap across the field and tear him apart.
Instead, the monster actually tilted his head.
"You are weak."
"Yeah," Jimmy admitted, coughing. "I'm not thrilled about it either."
The Wolf King's molten eyes narrowed.
"If you stop fighting…
you die.
If you run…
I hunt you down."
Jimmy raised a hand, wincing as pain shot through his arm.
"Just… give me a second. I'm trying… to think."
The Wolf King clicked his claws together, producing sparks.
"Thinking is for prey.
Knowing is for predators.
And I know this:
Your forces are breaking."
Jimmy wiped blood from his nose.
"And you know your battlefield is breaking too."
The Wolf King paused.
A long, tense moment stretched between them.
Yes.
Even he could feel it.
The Rift's unstable pulse.
The dimensional cracks widening.
Time-holes forming and collapsing in random bursts.
One wrong attack from him…
One too-powerful blast from the Buddies…
And the entire battlefield would unravel into raw dimensional energy — killing everyone.
The Wolf King growled low, voice rumbling like an avalanche:
"You suggest… we stop?"
Jimmy looked around at the floating debris, drifting like broken planets.
"We don't have a choice," he muttered. "Not unless you want to sink into a time pit for eternity."
Shadeclaw flickered beside the Wolf King.
"He wants to delay us.
He fears us.
He is stalling."
Jimmy pointed at the biggest dimensional crack in the sky — a swirling hole where distant stars bled into the void.
"Trust me, Shadeclaw, if I was stalling, I'd lie better."
Hallowjaw clacked his ribcage open and shut menacingly.
Red Howler sniffed the air, molten saliva dripping onto the ground.
The Wolf King lifted his massive hand.
The lieutenants fell silent instantly.
He stared across the war-torn rifts at the weary Buddies.
Then he said something no one expected.
"Speak, Jimmy."
Holding for Two MonthsJimmy exhaled shakily.
"Alright. Here's the truth," he said. "We need two months. Sixty days. That's it."
The Wolf King blinked.
Shadeclaw hissed.
Red Howler's shoulders tensed.
Jimmy held up both hands.
"I'm not asking you to stop forever. I'm not stupid."
The Wolf King's head tilted, amused.
Jimmy continued:
"The tournament starts in two months. You want dragons? You want their blood? Their power? Their heads on a silver platter?"
He pointed to the sky.
"That's where you'll get them."
The Wolf King's lips curled into a grin.
Jimmy kept going, voice growing steadier:
"You can fight me here and now. Keep killing my soldiers. Keep shredding my mechs. Sure. But the Rift will collapse in a few hours. We'll all be trapped."
He pointed at the swirling cracks again.
"Or…"
He swallowed.
"You sit this one out.
We pause.
We rebuild our positions separately.
And in sixty days…
you face the dragons in the arena with the entire multiverse watching."
The Wolf King's eyes flared.
Shadeclaw snarled, stepping forward—
"We should tear them apart NOW!"
Hallowjaw roared in agreement, ribs rattling.
Red Howler cracked his neck, claws itching for more blood.
But the Wolf King raised a single hand.
All three fell silent.
He stared at Jimmy with the focus of a predator who enjoyed puzzles.
"You propose a truce," he said.
Jimmy nodded weakly.
"Temporary.
Just long enough for the tournament to start."
The Wolf King leaned closer, towering above him.
"I am not afraid of the Rift.
I am not afraid of death.
Why should I agree?"
Jimmy's chest tightened.
He had one card left.
"Because if the battlefield collapses," he whispered, "you'll never fight the dragons. Ever."
The Wolf King flinched.
A subtle reaction — but real.
Jimmy pressed on.
"You want their blood. Their evolution. Their legacy. You want to surpass Bones. Right?"
The Wolf King's flames pulsed.
Jimmy stepped closer, enough for the ground beneath him to scorch.
"You can't do that here. Not in a dimension that's about to eat itself."
Silence.
Long, oppressive silence.
The Iron Six tensed behind Jimmy.
Buddy troopers waited with bated breath.
Shadeclaw's claws twitched.
The Rift cracked again overhead.
Finally…
The Wolf King spoke.
The Deal"Sixty days.
Then the dragons die."
Jimmy's knees buckled.
But he kept standing.
"Deal."
The Wolf King snarled.
"If you lie…
if you break our truce…
if you attempt to evacuate the dragons…
I will tear the Barrier Realms apart to find them."
Jimmy nodded.
Fair enough.
Shadeclaw hissed angrily but held position.
Hallowjaw's flames flickered in disappointment.
Red Howler dug claws into the ground, frustrated.
Jimmy raised both gauntlets and activated a crystalline beacon on his belt. A pulsing blue sphere unfurled above him — a formal Buddy truce signal.
The Wolf King snorted.
He slammed his claw into the ground, sending black fire spiraling upward into the air.
Two signals.
Two colors.
Two armies.
One truce.
The battlefield sighed — literally — as the Rift's chaos quieted around them, sensing the ceasefire.
The Wolf King turned away.
Shadeclaw vanished into shadow.
Hallowjaw slithered back through a dimensional tear.
Red Howler leapt onto a drifting stone island and disappeared.
But the Wolf King paused once more and looked back at Jimmy.
"Train your dragons.
Strengthen them.
Feed their fire."
He cracked his neck.
"I want prey worth killing."
Then he stepped into a shimmering rift of black flame and vanished.
AftermathJimmy finally collapsed to the ground, coughing violently.
The Iron Six rushed forward.
"Director!"
"I'm fine!" Jimmy wheezed, even though he clearly wasn't. "Just… just give me a second. Maybe six."
A medic drone zoomed over, scanning him and administering a stabilizer shot.
Jimmy frowned.
The battlefield was quiet now.
But only quiet.
Not safe.
Not healed.
Only postponed.
One of the Iron Six — Lancer — knelt beside him. "Sir… sixty days is nothing."
Jimmy nodded grimly.
"I know."
Now came the hardest part:
Surviving long enough to get to those sixty days.
Reinforcing positions.
Keeping the hybrids at bay.
Repairing rift stabilizers.
Ensuring the Wolf King didn't get impatient.
Two months of fear.
Two months of tension.
Two months until the inevitable.
Jimmy looked up at the flickering sky.
"Hold the lines," he whispered. "Because in sixty days, all hell breaks loose."
The truce had been forged.
But peace
was the last thing anyone would feel.
The Howling War was far from over.
It had only learned to wait.