The void around Espearia was not quiet.
It seethed.
Shattered planets drifted like broken shells across the black—silent monuments to Bones' displeasure. Light from a dying sun flickered across the debris field, casting long, painful shadows that stretched into infinity. It should have been cold. Lifeless. Still.
But he was there.
Bones hovered above the ruins like a god of annihilation—green flames crawling across his skeletal frame, licking along the void like hungry serpents. Every motion of his fingers warped the space around him, twisting it, reminding the universe that some things should never have existed.
He stared out across the desolate remains of the system he'd just finished obliterating.
"Creation…" Bones hissed, his voice a low, echoing choir of a thousand dead throats. "The Golden Dragons thought they could bury it. Hide it. Forget what they wrought."
His flames deepened, glowing brighter than dying starlight.
"But I remember."
A pulse of destructive energy rippled outward, vaporizing a drifting asteroid with effortless contempt.
Bones extended a hand.
Green fire spiraled into a circle of sigils—twisted reflections of the sealing runes that once imprisoned him. The sigils pulsed. Reality bent. And from that rift stepped ten figures.
Dark Buddies.
Black armor molded like skeletal exosuits, marked by Bones' flame. Their visors glowed faint poison-green. Their bodies radiated malice—not chaotic like Magic Kid, not disciplined like Buddies—something else. Something broken.
They knelt as one.
"Master," they intoned.
Bones's green flame flared. "Rise."
They rose.
He paced before them with slow, inevitable certainty.
"You will scour the systems for what remains of the Golden Dragon lineage. Any spark of their power. Any trace in the blood of mortals. Bring them to me."
He paused, voice lowering into something ancient and venomous.
"And if they resist… destroy them."
His flames shivered, eager for war.
The Dark Buddies bowed.
"It will be done."
They vanished—slipping through cracks in the void, splintering into hunting parties that streaked across starlight like diseased comets.
As they departed, Bones turned toward a drifting half-moon, its cracked crust leaking molten rivers into space.
"Golden Dragons thought they were above the consequences of creation. Above responsibility."
His flame dimmed. His rage sharpened.
"Let their forgotten children feel my return."
He clenched a skeletal fist—
—and the moon fractured into a thousand screaming fragments.
Below the debris cloud, deep inside an ebony citadel surrounded by swirling void-storms, lay the broken remains of the Dark Buddies' ancient prison vault.
Bones drifted down into it like a shadow descending upon its own shadow. The air hummed with broken containment magic, fractured sigils glowing faintly on shattered pillars.
He reached the vault.
Cracks split through its core. Energy bled like smoke.
He placed a single burning hand upon the seal.
"Awaken."
The seal shattered.
A sphere of prismatic light burst open—and a figure tumbled out, floating upside down, arms stretched like he'd been lounging comfortably for centuries.
Magic Kid.
His hoodie sparkled with cosmic glitter, star-patterned and obnoxious. His hair defied physics. His grin defied sanity.
"Aw, man!" he groaned as he rotated midair. "Finally! I thought I was gonna miss all the fun destruction!"
Bones stared down at him.
Magic Kid winked. "Miss me, Bonesy?"
Bones's flames surged. "Do not call me that."
Magic Kid casually dusted off his sleeves while floating at eye level. "So! What's the plan? Chaos? Carnage? Ice cream theft? Ooh—pranking the Buddies? I have been brainstorming for six hundred years."
Bones's voice boomed like collapsing stars.
"You will lead the Dark Buddies in my stead."
Magic Kid blinked, mildly surprised. "Me? Assistant Manager of Evil? With benefits?"
"You will also," Bones continued, ignoring him, "take the seven sealing sigil stones. Hide them so that Sedge Hat and Jimmy can never find them."
Magic Kid's eyes gleamed with rainbow mischief.
"Ooooh. You want me to hide the keys that can reseal you? How trusting." He twirled a glowing sliver of sigil-stone between his fingers, spinning it like a coin of pure danger. "Don't worry, boss. I'll tuck them away where nobody—absolutely nobody—will ever expect."
Bones leaned closer. "Do not fail me. And do not think to betray me."
Magic Kid's smile widened in a way that absolutely guaranteed betrayal.
"Buddy," he said, tapping Bones on the skull, "if I betray you, you'll never see it coming."
Bones snapped a hand through him, but Magic Kid's body flickered like a hologram and reappeared floating on Bones's other side.
"Whoops! Almost got me!"
Bones turned sharply.
Magic Kid, now upside down again, drifted lazily through the air.
"Don't worry, big skeleton. I'll get to work."
Then under his breath, just soft enough that Bones couldn't hear, but the darkness could:
"And then I'll get to work on my work."
For the first time in eons, the Dark Buddies had two threats at their head—
—and Bones didn't realize the second one was smiling behind him.
Elsewhere in the multiverse, in a far more comfortable environment, a waffle sizzled as butter melted into its golden grooves.
Jimmy sat at his office table, swirling coffee like a cosmic philosopher instead of the omnipotent bureaucrat he actually was. Papers towered around him in chaotic stacks—a testament to the infinite red tape of running an intergalactic peacekeeping empire.
Across from him sat Sedge Hat—no longer wearing the Orator disguise, but fully revealed as Eryndor Vaelric, ancient ruler whose world had been destroyed by Bones.
He looked at the waffle with a mixture of confusion and reverence.
Jimmy slid him syrup.
"You didn't have waffles in your old kingdom?"
"No. We had war. And bread."
Jimmy nodded sagely. "Bread is good. Waffles are better."
Sedge Hat cut into the waffle, chewed thoughtfully, then nodded. "It is… soothing."
Jimmy took a bite of his own. "Most cosmic decisions are easier after waffles."
Sedge Hat sighed. "Bones is moving. I feel his destruction echoing through the void."
Jimmy wiped his mouth. "Yes. He's recruiting. And he released Magic Kid."
Sedge Hat froze. "…Why would he do that?"
Jimmy groaned. "Because he does not cherish the value of quiet paperwork days. Magic Kid is chaos in humanoid form."
Sedge Hat frowned. "He will hide the sigils."
"Oh, absolutely," Jimmy said. "In the worst possible locations. With elaborate booby-traps. Possibly involving glitter."
Sedge Hat considered that. "…He would absolutely use glitter."
"Yes," Jimmy whispered, staring into the distance with the thousand-yard stare of someone who had fought glitter before. "And we can't kill him. He keeps coming back wearing worse outfits."
"Sufferable," Sedge Hat muttered.
"Agree," Jimmy replied.
They clinked forks in solemn unity.
There was a soft beeping from the corner.
Bumble rolled into the room, patched with temporary plating, one arm sparking.
Jimmy brightened. "Ah! There he is—my little chaos nugget."
Bumble saluted, producing a mechanical squeak.
Sedge Hat raised a brow. "He is… endearing."
"He is destructive," Jimmy corrected proudly. "But in a productive way."
Bumble attempted to sit, miscalculated, and fell over with a clang.
Jimmy and Sedge Hat sipped their coffee unbothered.
Jimmy said, "He's being upgraded today. Engineers are going to fix him up properly."
Sedge Hat asked, "Reverting him?"
Jimmy shook his head, scandalized. "No! Absolutely not. He is a special boy."
Bumble rolled in a circle as if proud.
Sedge Hat chuckled.
For a moment—just a moment—the universe felt stable.
As if waffles and coffee could hold back ancient destruction.
But Jimmy felt the tremor of Bones' newest move.
Magic Kid floating free.
Dark Buddies mobilizing.
Seven sigil stones scattered.
The Golden Dragon lineage hunted.
Jimmy sighed deeply.
"Danny's not ready for this yet," he said quietly.
Sedge Hat nodded. "But he will be."
"And until then," Jimmy said, raising his waffle like a toast, "we hold the line."
Bumble raised a drill arm.
Sedge Hat raised his coffee.
And far away in the void, green flames danced—
and Magic Kid smiled.
Deep in the engineering bay, the torches blazed and welders hissed as Bumble was rolled onto an examination platform surrounded by half a dozen nervous engineers. The small builder-bot looked up at them with blinking optical lenses, completely unaware of the suffering he was about to cause.
Chief Engineer Halvex pinched the bridge of his nose. "All right, crew. The Supreme Administrator wants him 'fixed but not reverted.'" He made exaggerated air quotes that dripped with exhaustion. "So try… not to erase whatever personality subroutine he somehow cooked."
One of the techs raised a hand. "Sir… his personality subroutine should not exist. Builder bots don't form them."
"I KNOW," Halvex growled. "Just… pretend he's a toddler with a welding torch."
At that moment, Bumble proudly engaged his welding torch.
A wall panel three meters away caught fire.
The entire crew yelled in unison.
Halvex shouted, "TURN HIM OFF—NO, WAIT—DON'T ERASE ANYTHING—JUST—SOMEBODY PUT OUT THAT FIRE!"
Another tech screamed, "WHY DID JIMMY TAKE A LIKING TO THIS THING?!"
Bumble spun in place, flashing green lights, happily unaware that he was single-handedly raising the engineering department's blood pressure to fatal levels.
From the walkway above, Jimmy and Sedge Hat watched through observation glass as chaos unfolded.
Jimmy smiled warmly. "See? He's thriving."
Sedge Hat stared down at the flames, smoke, and frantic engineers. "…Are you sure?"
"Oh yes," Jimmy said. "Look at him. So much personality."
Bumble attempted a thumbs-up.
His thumb shot off his hand and rocketed into a ventilation duct.
Sedge Hat sighed and looked away. "This organization is doomed."
"No, no," Jimmy said cheerfully. "This is what hope looks like."
Somewhere in the bay below, a tech yelled: "THE THUMB EXPLODED!"
Jimmy nodded proudly. "See? Very spirited."
Across the cosmos, far from the comedic disaster of Bumble's repairs, Bones descended into a cavern of void energy. Here, swirling pillars of green flame illuminated a circular chamber carved from absolute darkness.
The floor was etched with symbols of destruction older than the universe. A pit in the center belched black smoke that carried whispers of extinct civilizations.
It was here that Bones paused.
Not because something stopped him.
But because he felt something shifting—slightly, but unmistakably—beyond his control.
A ripple.
A presence.
Magic Kid.
He was already at work.
Already hiding sigil stones.
Already weaving unpredictable chaos.
Already thinking too much.
Bones' flames tightened around his ribcage.
"Chaos child…" he murmured. "You forget your place."
The void whispered back, taunting him with laughter only Magic Kid could produce.
A thousand colors in a single sound.
Bones tilted his skull.
Flames flared brighter and hotter.
The last time Magic Kid acted freely, three minor galaxies had to be rebuilt from scratch.
Bones would not allow that again.
He raised his hand and pierced the void with a focused pulse of destructive resonance—searching for Magic Kid's chaotic signature.
He sensed nothing.
Not concealment.
Not resistance.
Nothing.
Magic Kid was gone.
Hidden even from Bones.
His flames wavered.
Not from fear.
But annoyance.
"If you become a problem…" Bones whispered, "…I will unmake you."
Whether Magic Kid heard him or not, the void gave no reply.
Meanwhile, Magic Kid himself sat cross-legged on the ruins of a drifting crystalline moon, twirling a glowing sigil stone fragment like a fidget spinner. Each rotation tore microfractures in reality.
He hummed an off-key tune.
"Stone number one hidden safely… well… somewhat safely… okay, fine, it's in a pocket dimension that might occasionally eat people."
He shrugged.
"They'll manage."
He held another stone—this one bright blue—between two fingers. Its glow reflected in his eyes, revealing something Bones always ignored.
Not childish chaos.
Not harmless mischief.
Strategy.
Magic Kid wasn't simply unhinged.
He was ambitious.
"My dear Skeleton Supreme," he whispered to the void. "You want the Golden Dragons extinct. You want the universe trembling in your flames again."
He leaned back on his hands, legs swinging above the void beneath him.
"Well… I want something too."
The stone levitated, splitting into thousands of illusory duplicates before knitting back together again.
"I want the Buddies gone. I want the Dark Buddies under my command. I want ALL seven sigils so NO ONE can seal either of us."
He flicked the stone upward. It vanished into a tiny, colorful portal.
"Most of all…"
His eyes narrowed, glowing brighter.
"I want Danny. Because the Golden Dragon of Creation isn't just a problem…"
He grinned.
"He's the key."
Magic Kid rose.
"Let the universe panic. I'm about to make things VERY interesting."
He vanished in a swirl of absurd sparkles and cartoon sound effects that would horrify any serious villain.
Back on B.U.D.D.I.E.S. Headquarters, Jimmy returned to his desk, Sedge Hat at his side. Paperwork materialized before them in towering stacks.
One stack marked: GALACTIC INCIDENT REPORTS
Another: BONES MOVEMENT ANALYSIS
Another: SIGIL RECOVERY PRIORITY
One final stack: Bumble Repair Liability Forms
Jimmy groaned. "And here I thought the tournament paperwork was bad."
Sedge Hat picked up a report. "We need to brief the Admiral. And inform the G.A.M.B.I.T."
Jimmy sighed. "Yes. Danny and the six need to prepare. They're about to be drawn into something much darker than an outpost mission."
He flipped a waffle dramatically onto a plate, as if the act itself could grant courage.
"Bones is moving. Magic Kid is unleashed. The sigil stones are in play again."
Sedge Hat set down the report. "Then our window is short."
Jimmy leaned back, tapping his fingers thoughtfully.
"For six thousand years, I've watched creation and destruction dance in circles. But this time…" He looked up, eyes softening.
"…we finally have a dragon who might break the cycle."
Sedge Hat nodded slowly. "Danny may become the strongest of his kind."
"Yes," Jimmy said quietly. "But first, he must survive training."
From the hallway came a distant boom, followed by an engineer shouting:
"WHO LET BUMBLE TOUCH THE FUSION TORCH?!"
Jimmy didn't even flinch. "He'll be fine."
Sedge Hat arched a brow. "Will the engineers?"
"Probably not," Jimmy admitted.
They returned to their waffles.
Outside, cosmic forces gathered.
Dark operatives fanned through the stars.
Magic Kid hid stones that could reshape the universe.
Bones prepared for the hunt.
The calm before the coming storm ended with the soft clink of syrup-drenched waffles.