Danny stood suspended above the canyon of Pyra'nael, wrapped in the luminous cage of the Last Flames of Creation. Colors he had no names for rippled across his skin. Every heartbeat echoed through the flame like a drum striking the beginning of time.
Kael'ar hovered nearby, wings half-folded, watching with reverent intensity.
"Let the flame remember you," the Phoenix whispered. "And let yourself remember the flame."
Danny's eyes snapped open.
They weren't human anymore.
Each iris swirled with the molten glow of a newborn star.
But he wasn't transforming yet.
This was the moment before the moment.
The inhalation before the roar.
The breath before the world shifts.
And the shift was coming.
Far away, across universes, Swift felt it first.
Swift's training staff clattered to the courtyard floor as his breath caught in his throat. A silver aura shot upward around him, instinctual and sharp.
Jake looked over from the boulder he had nearly punched in half.
"Bro—? You okay?"
Swift didn't answer.
He stared at the sky.
The clouds were moving wrong.
Not drifting.
Not blowing.
Moving—as if the wind were circling around a distant sun.
Jake stiffened as the bronze patterns across his arms lit up.
He felt it too.
Warmth.
Heat.
Pressure.
A distant call in a voice not made of sound.
"Danny," Swift whispered.
Jake swallowed hard. "He's… doing something big."
Swift shook his head.
"No. Not something big. Something ancient."
Their auras rose higher in response without their permission—
Silver and bronze instinctively recognizing the awakening of gold.
Both dragons felt it down to their bones:
Danny wasn't transforming.
Danny was becoming.
They weren't scared.
They were in awe.
And they weren't alone.
Shadeclaw materialized at the edge of the dojo's forest, hidden in a lattice of living shadows. He was trembling again—but not from fear this time.
From recognition.
Every time Danny's aura flared, Shadeclaw felt pressure in his bones, like his very existence recoiled from the golden heat.
But Shadeclaw was not here to fight.
Not today.
Bones' words still echoed:
"Tell me how bright the sun burns."
Shadeclaw watched Swift and Jake stare upward. Watched the sky glow faint gold and silver and bronze. Watched the world itself hold its breath.
"This fire…" Shadeclaw whispered, "is the fire that erased me."
He shaded his eyes as a pulse of creation energy rippled from the sky.
Even at this distance, it stung.
Swift spun instantly, staff raised.
Jake's aura flared, muscles bulging as bronze chi surged.
Shadeclaw froze.
He had planned to observe from afar.
Not be noticed.
But Swift's voice cut through the air.
"I know you're there."
Jake pointed. "Show yourself, shadow-boy."
Shadeclaw hesitated.
Before he could flee, the golden pulse struck him from behind.
Not physically.
Cosmically.
Shadeclaw coughed, stumbling out of hiding and collapsing to one knee, gasping like the air had been sucked out of him.
Swift didn't lower his staff.
Jake didn't lower his fists.
Shadeclaw managed to rasp:
"Your… Golden One… he is touching a fire too old for my body to endure."
Swift's eyes narrowed.
"What are you talking about?"
Shadeclaw looked up, eyes wide.
"The sun of the beginning wakes. You do not understand the magnitude of what he is becoming."
Jake tensed.
Swift stepped closer, voice steady but sharp.
"Explain."
Shadeclaw exhaled raggedly.
"Dragons follow the Order because creation chose them. Golden Dragons were its voice. Its will. Its architects. Their flame is the blueprint of existence."
He stared toward the glowing sky.
"And he is waking that flame."
Jake whispered, "He's going full dragon."
Shadeclaw shook his head violently.
"No. Not full dragon. Full origin. He is awakening the fire that built stars."
Swift lowered his staff just slightly.
"He's not doing it to destroy anything."
Shadeclaw laughed softly—brokenly.
"That is what terrifies me."
Back on Pyra'nael, Danny floated higher as the Last Flames of Creation spiraled around him. His markings glowed so brightly they began to burn through his clothing. His heartbeat surged until it matched the rhythm of the flame beneath him.
Images slammed into him:
• Golden wings that stretched from horizon to horizon
• Planets forming beneath them
• Phoenixes dancing in spirals of cosmic dust
• Dragons weaving sunlight into rivers
• An ancient war between light and ruin
• A Wolf King—not this one, but a primal ancestor—ripping apart the sky
• The Order fracturing
• The sealing stones forming around Bones
• And the Golden Dragons choosing extinction to save the universe
Danny gasped.
His chest heaved.
He felt their sacrifice.
Their purpose.
Their wounding.
Kael'ar approached, voice soft:
"Do you see?"
Danny shook, overwhelmed.
"Yes."
"Do you understand?"
Danny's eyes filled with heat.
"I think so."
Kael'ar placed a wing gently against his back.
"Then take what remains. Let the Creation Flame welcome you home."
Danny reached downward—
And plunged both hands into the Last Flames of Creation.
The world screamed.
So did he.
But not in pain.
In recognition.
The Wolf King felt it instantly.
He reeled backward, claws gouging the stone beneath him.
The fire inside Danny didn't radiate outward like normal energy.
It dropped downward—through the dimensions—through the Rift—straight through the Wolf King's chest like a spear.
He froze.
It wasn't an attack.
It was a reminder.
Of what Golden Dragons were.
Of what they meant.
Of what they could do.
Of what Danny might become.
His lieutenants flinched.
Shadeclaw, across realities, collapsed fully.
The Wolf King whispered:
"So the sun chooses to rise."
A slow, feral grin spread across his muzzle.
"Good."
In the void between realms, Bones paused from carving sigils into the darkness.
He felt Danny's awakening ripple like a shockwave through the sealing stones.
His green fire flickered.
"…Interesting."
He tapped his skeletal fingers together.
"The boy grows faster than even I predicted."
The sealing stones pulsed, reminding him of their existence.
Bones snarled softly.
"If he ascends fully, the stones might react. I must… prepare."
A grin spread across his face.
"And the Wolf King will be even more eager to accept my offer."
He drifted into deeper darkness.
"The sun rises.
Time for shadows to stretch long."
Magic Kid felt a tingle run up his spine.
He looked up from shaping a mountain into a giant rubber duck.
"Huh. Something big just happened."
His staff vibrated.
A green flame flickered at the top.
Magic Kid tilted his head.
"Bones wants to talk?"
He giggled.
"Delicious."
He hopped onto his disc.
"Planet Kidtopia can wait. Chaos calls!"
And he shot into the void.
Back at the dojo, Swift and Jake braced as a final pulse of creation energy swept across Earth, rippling through soil and stone and sky.
Swift whispered:
"He's coming back."
Jake swallowed hard.
"Not as the same Danny, is he?"
Swift shook his head.
"No. He's about to walk out of that flame as something the world hasn't seen in ages."
Jake stepped back, giving the sky space.
"Then we better be ready to meet him."
Swift exhaled, expression steady.
"For the first time…
we might be following him instead of training beside him."
The sky split open with radiant light.
A golden tear.
A gateway.
A sun.
And Danny stepped through it.
Not transformed.
Not monstrous.
But burning.
Pure.
Awake.
Kael'ar appeared behind him, wings ablaze.
"The ascension begins," the Phoenix murmured. "This was merely the first breath."
Danny looked at Swift and Jake.
His friends.
His Order.
His family.
And when he spoke, his voice carried the echo of every Golden Dragon who had ever lived:
"We have work to do."