The wind changed before anyone saw him.
Up until that moment, the storm had been wild and chaotic—howling from every direction, ripping across the plateau in lurches and snaps like an animal too wounded to run straight. Lightning burst wherever it pleased, dancing jagged and angry between clouds and fractured land.
Then, in a single breath, the chaos… organized.
The roaring air twisted into spirals, circles nesting inside circles. Invisible rings of pressure spun around an axis none of them could see, carving smooth tunnels through the debris-filled gusts. Lightning stopped lashing randomly and began striking at precise intervals—three bolts close together, a pause, three more, another pause.
Mira's fur stood on end.
"The storm changed," she growled. "It's listening to something."
Shadeclaw's eyes narrowed as he tasted the air. It felt heavier, like the atmosphere had been wrapped around a fist.
"No," he murmured. "It's obeying."
Swift flicked through data on his wrist console, frown deepening. "Wind shear has synchronized. Electromagnetic flux field has adapted to a… rhythmic pattern. Someone is controlling the weather."
"Like… a cosmic thermostat?" Jake asked, voice shaking.
"Like a conductor with a storm for an orchestra," Swift said.
Jade squinted up at the sky where the lightning was starting to form lines rather than bursts. "You guys are really bad at making this not terrifying."
Bumble vibrated. "TERROR LEVELS: RISING. HOW EXCITING."
Danny had felt it before anyone else spoke.
The sigil-stone pulse in his chest—already weakened, wary—shrank from something. Not in fear exactly, but in instinctive recoil, like a small flame drawing inward from a gust of freezing air.
The presence that had hunted him in hyperspace—the enormous shadow mind scraping at their dimension—that was still out there, looking. This was different. Closer. Physical. But wrapped in the same kind of wrongness, filtered through something human.
It made his skin crawl.
A bolt of lightning speared down in front of them, slamming into a jagged column of obsidian with enough force to crack it in half.
The thunder hit a heartbeat later, a brutal concussive punch that made several cadets flinch.
Out of the blinding afterimage, something stepped.
The lightning didn't fade away.
It condensed.
A pillar of white-blue energy shrank, coiling tighter and tighter until it wrapped itself around a floating platform—the base of a throne made of stormcloud and crackling arcs. The figure sitting on that throne drifted a few feet above the ground, cloak and hair whipping around him without any apparent concern for the gale.
He was human.
Or had been, once.
He wore armor that looked like it had been forged from stormfronts—layers of dark metal edged in moving cloud patterns, veins of light running through the plates. Wind curled around his shoulders like loyal animals. Lightning danced lazily between his fingers.
Three rings spun around his left forearm, circling just above the wrist.
They weren't decorative.
They were wrong.
Made of metal that didn't reflect light correctly, each etched with runes that seemed to shift when you weren't looking directly at them. As they turned, the air rippled and the storm responded.
His eyes were pale blue-white, irises almost invisible, pupils thin lines of harder light.
He took in the plateau, the cadets, the still-dissipating stormborn remains… then his gaze settled on Danny.
The rings spun faster.
"There you are," he said. His voice carried easily through the wind, crisp and calm, as if the storm were just background noise he'd chosen to ignore. "The one the stone calls to."
Danny swallowed, throat suddenly dry.
Shadeclaw shifted subtly, stepping half a pace in front of him. Mira's claws extended with little metallic clicks.
Swift stepped to Danny's side, eyes focused on the rings. "Elemental interference localized around his body. The storm is emanating from him."
Jake hid halfway behind a taller cadet. "Great. Wonderful. We landed on a planet and found a weather boss."
Jade cracked his knuckles. "Looks punchable."
The man on the storm-throne raised an eyebrow at that.
"Enjoy that bravado while it lasts," he said lazily. "I am Lord Tempestron, Storm of the Seventh Ring. Elemental Lord of the Tempest. And you, Golden Dragon, are carrying something that does not belong to you."
The sigil inside Danny recoiled again.
Not from the name, or the title.
From the rings.
…burns… the whisper shivered faintly through his chest, more emotion than word. …wrong… twisted…
Danny forced himself to stand his ground. "The sigil stone isn't yours," he said, surprising himself with how steady he sounded. "It doesn't belong to you. Or me. It belongs to itself."
Tempestron smiled without warmth.
"Spoken like someone who has never held real power in their hand," he said. "You don't own the storm, boy. You learn to make it kneel."
The three rings flared in unison.
Wind tore across the plateau—not from everywhere, but from directly behind the elemental lord, slamming into the Buddy formation like a hammer. Even with their stances braced, several cadets skidded backward.
Jake would have tumbled into a fissure if a B.E.A.R. hadn't jammed its foot down behind him like a metal wall.
"WHY ARE THESE THINGS ALWAYS SO DRAMATIC?!" Jake shrieked over the wind.
Bumble's optics flickered. "DETECTED: EGO LEVELS OFF THE CHARTS."
Tempestron's gaze sharpened, finally flicking off Danny to take in the others. His expression held irritation… and interest.
"A wolf pair," he said, eyeing Shadeclaw and Mira. "Unusual. One shadow, one light. And a Silver-blooded whelp hiding in a human shell." His eyes lingered on Swift. "Bronze, too. Curious that so much draconic scrap survived when the true flames went out."
Swift's jaw tightened, but he stayed quiet.
Mira growled low. "You've been hunting dragons?"
"Not personally," Tempestron said, dismissive. "We had… other priorities."
His attention returned to Danny, rings pulsing softly.
"We were told to watch for the return of a Golden," he said. "To mark his passing. To see if the old tales were true."
Danny's skin prickled. "Told by who?"
Tempestron's smile widened.
"Bones, of course."
All the air seemed to leave Danny's lungs in one rush, cold and sharp.
Of course.
Swift spoke up, tone carefully neutral. "Bones told you about the sigil stones."
"He told us many things." Tempestron lifted his ringed arm slightly, and all the lightning in the sky flickered in response. "He explained how these are but fragments of a greater whole. Remnants of Creation's first heartbeat, shattered and scattered. He told us of the Seven. And he told us"—the rings glowed brighter—"that if we gathered them, we could ascend beyond simple elemental dominion."
Mira's lips skinned back from her teeth. "And you believed someone like Bones."
"We confirmed what we could," Tempestron said coolly. "His… relationship with destruction does not negate his knowledge of creation. He cannot destroy what he does not understand."
"Actually," Jake muttered, "I'm pretty sure he can."
Tempestron ignored him.
"We, the Elemental Lords, were not born with these rings," he continued, eyes distant for a moment, like he was recalling something half-reverent, half-traumatic. "We were chosen by them. One for storm. One for stone. One for flame. One for tides. One for void. One for growth. One for light."
The storm around him intensified with each word.
"Each ring grants mastery over its element," he said. "But they are incomplete. Fragments of a larger will. Bones said your sigil stones would complete that circle. That together, their power and ours would forge a new era."
"An era of who?" Danny asked. "You? Him?"
Tempestron shrugged lightly. "Those who are strong enough to wield both creation and destruction deserve to remake reality as they see fit. Wouldn't you agree, child of gold?"
"No," Danny snapped. "I don't."
Something hot and clear burned through his fear, cutting it down the middle.
"I've seen what happens when someone like Bones gets even a sliver of the power he wants," he said. "And you think adding more to that pile makes sense?"
"You speak as if we answer to him." The air crackled dangerously around Tempestron's throne. "We do not kneel, dragon. We collaborate. Our goals aligned. That is all."
Shadeclaw let out a low, disgusted sound. "You let destruction whisper in your ear and call it collaboration."
"The sigils don't want you," Danny added, feeling the faint pulse in his chest quiver in agreement. "They're afraid of you."
Tempestron's smile vanished.
"Then they will learn fear of something greater," he said, and raised his arm.
The first bolt he threw wasn't meant to test.
It was meant to maim.
Lightning shouldn't bend midair like that. It shot toward the group, then curved at an impossible angle, threading around a B.E.A.R. and two cadets to aim directly for Danny's chest.
Shadeclaw moved faster than thought.
He slammed into Danny, tackling him aside as the bolt tore through the space they'd just occupied. The crackling aftershock numbed Danny's fingers even at that distance.
Mira launched herself at the throne in the same instant, claws out, eyes burning. The wind jerked sideways, knocking her trajectory off just enough that she flew under Tempestron's platform instead of into him. She twisted midair and landed in a three-point crouch, skidding on stone.
Assault cadets opened fire.
Beams of plasma and hardened energy streaked through the air.
The storm moved.
Wind solidified into walls, dense enough that their shots hit and ricocheted off in sputtering bursts of stray light.
"He's redirecting ballistic paths," Swift called out. "Ignore straight-line targeting! Focus on suppressive fire!"
Jade grinned and did exactly the opposite.
He charged.
"Jade!" Danny shouted.
Too late.
Jade slammed his chi through his arms. Energy crackled red along his muscles, building in violent racking pulses. He leapt, fist cocked back, aiming for the bottom of the storm throne.
Tempestron glanced down at him like one might regard a particularly loud insect.
He flicked his fingers.
Wind caught Jade mid-punch, rotating him ninety degrees and slamming him into the ground. It wasn't even a brutal impact—more insulting than injurious.
Jade groaned into a mouthful of dust.
"I'm fine," he muffled. "Everything hurts, but I'm fine."
Jake was still behind the B.E.A.R. line, hands shaking. "Open fire! Open fire! Uh—not at the dragon! Or the wolves! Or us—just at HIM!"
One of the B.E.A.R.s unloaded its miniguns. The spinning barrels spat a storm of kinetic slugs high into the air.
Tempestron raised his palm.
The bullets slowed. Stopped. Hung in a ring around him like a halo of metal.
Then, with a small closing motion of his hand, he crumpled them midair into a dense sphere and dropped it lazily to the ground, where it hit with a heavy clang.
"Enough," he said, bored. "The cheap tricks of mortals are beneath me. I came here for one thing."
His gaze speared Danny again.
"You."
The rings burned brighter.
The air around Danny thickened, pushing in from all sides. Wind coiled around his ankles, his wrists, his throat. Not choking—yet. Testing. Probing. Measuring.
Danny gasped and pushed back instinctively with his inner light.
The creation energy responded sluggishly, weakened by everything that had already happened today. It pressed outward anyway, a faint glow forming around him like a second skin.
Tempestron's eyes narrowed.
"Oh?" he said softly. "You wield it raw."
Danny's teeth clenched.
He could feel the stone inside him trying to recoil, but also trying to reach—like it wanted to merge with his intent and didn't know how are anymore. It had been muffled, drained, smothered by something. Every pulse felt like it scraped against rust.
He didn't try to blast the elemental lord.
He just tried to stand.
He forced his feet down through the pressure, creating a small platform of solid golden light beneath his boots. The stone wasn't strong enough for grand gestures—but it could handle this. A simple act of assertion.
I am here. I refuse to be moved.
The platform glowed brighter.
The wind shuddered around it, confused for a fraction of a second as it hit something that didn't belong to storm or earth.
Tempestron's lips parted with the smallest expression of surprise.
"Interesting," he murmured. "Creation, unrefined. No ring. No conduit beyond the sigil's echo. And yet…"
His gaze roamed over Danny like a calculation.
"…enough to be dangerous, if tempered."
Shadeclaw stepped fully between them now, teeth bared, shadow flaring along his arms and claws like liquid darkness.
"You will not touch him," he said quietly.
Mira positioned herself at Danny's flank, hackles raised, lightning from the storm reflecting in her eyes. "Try," she added.
Swift moved closer to Danny's other side, fingers still on his console. "Tempestron," he said carefully, "you understand that any attempt to seize a sigil by force risks destabilizing it—and the planet around it."
"Bones warned us," Tempestron agreed. "He told us that destruction and creation dance on a knife's edge. That if the seal breaks—everything around it shatters."
He smiled.
"Which is why we take the bearer first."
The storm slammed down.
Wind compressed like a fist.
Danny felt invisible fingers press against his ribcage, his spine, his skull. Not physically—on that deeper level, where power recognized power.
The stone screamed.
…NO…
Golden light burst out, colliding with the storm-pressure. For a moment the two forces fought, the air between them rippling like a heat mirage. It wasn't a full clash—more of a shove than a punch—but it left Danny shaking.
Tempestron's eyes flashed.
"So that's how it is," he said softly. "It favors you."
"It chose him," Shadeclaw growled. "Not you."
"Not yet," Tempestron corrected. "But everything breaks with time. Rings. Stones. Dragons."
His gaze flicked over the squad again, weighing their stances, the way they protected Danny, how they moved when he did. He watched Shadeclaw's guard, Mira's instinctive counter-leans, Swift's positioning relative to the team. He took in Jade's bruised grin, Jake's barely-contained panic, Bumble's chaotic firing logic.
He learned.
And he liked what he learned.
"Your little squad is impressive," he admitted. "Misguided. But impressive. Bones did not mention that you would be this organized."
"Good," Swift said. "We'd hate to make his job easier."
Tempestron chuckled. "You think you stand above him."
"No," Danny said. "I think we stand in his way."
The wind surged again.
Then, just as suddenly, it stopped crushing.
Tempestron relaxed back into his storm-throne as if sitting on a comfortable couch.
"No," he decided. "Not today."
Everyone froze.
Mira snarled. "Coward."
"Strategist," he corrected, unoffended. "Your energies are low. The sigil is weak. The planet is already collapsing under its own wounds. I have no need to waste myself on you now when the stone is so close."
The rings spun faster.
"I will claim it," he said. "And when I do… I will return for you, Golden Dragon. Properly prepared."
The air above him split open along a line of lightning.
The storm itself twisted into a corridor, winds folding back to carve a path through the chaos. For a second, the canyon Danny had seen in his vision was framed at the far end of that tunnel—a jagged mouth of rock and endless falling light.
Tempestron rose higher, carried by his storm-construct.
"If you would protect the stone," he called down, "then catch me."
Jake's eyes bulged. "We're— we're supposed to RACE the storm guy?!"
Jade spat blood and grinned. "Oh, now it's fun."
Bumble hopped in a circle. "RACE ACCEPTED. WE WILL LOSE."
Mira hissed through her teeth. "He's heading straight for the sigil."
Swift's fingers flew. "He has a direct path through the storm—no resistance. We'll have to go through the terrain. It will slow us."
Shadeclaw watched the elemental lord streak toward the canyon, eyes burning. "So we move faster."
The tunnel of storm closed behind Tempestron, leaving only the raging sky.
Danny could still feel him, though.
A concentration of power tearing toward the stone. A ravenous intent wrapped around a human core, convinced of its own right to ascend.
In his chest, the sigil-whisper flickered like a candle struggling to breathe.
…bearer… do not… let…
The thought cut off in a crackle of panic.
"We can't let him get there first," Danny said, voice raw. "If he takes the stone—if Bones told him even a half-truth about what it can do—"
"We know," Swift said. "Which means—"
"It's a race," Shadeclaw finished.
Mira took a step forward. "Recon clears the path. Now."
"Assault follows hot," Jade rumbled.
"Security keeps the line," Shadeclaw growled.
"B.E.A.R.s stay ready until called," Swift ordered. "We can't have them fall into a fissure on the first leap."
Jake raised a trembling hand. "Can we not fall into a fissure on any leap?"
"No promises," Jade said.
Danny looked once more toward the canyon.
The sky above it flashed with unnatural light.
He set his jaw.
"Move," he said. "We beat him there. Whatever it takes."
The storm roared around them as they advanced—
six young warriors, one malfunctioning bot, and a growing army of cadets—
chasing an Elemental Lord across a dying world for the sake of a stone that didn't belong to anyone…
but had decided to trust a Golden Dragon anyway.
Whatever waited near the sigil, it would not find them unprepared.
And Tempestron would learn that he was not the only one who could call storms.
Danny could create them.
He just had to remember how.
They ran toward the canyon, toward the stone, toward the waiting jaws of a battle they didn't yet understand.
And above them, unseen in the higher dark of the storm, something older watched.
Not Tempestron.
Not Bones.
Not Magic Kid.
Something that still lingered between dimensions, amused and curious, waiting to see which side would win the race.
For now.
The world shook.
The storm screamed.
And Chapter 169 closed on a single shared vow, unspoken but blazing in all six of them:
We will not let him take it.
Not Tempestron.
Not Bones.
Not anyone.
Not while we still stand.