The room was silent when Jimmy finished speaking.
Not the awkward silence of people unsure what to say next, but the heavy, deliberate quiet that followed a truth too large to argue with. The kind that pressed inward, forcing everyone present to feel the shape of it.
Bones was free.
Not "contained."
Not "dormant."
Not "temporarily displaced."
Free.
The sigil stones floated in their containment array at the center of the chamber, five points of ancient geometry suspended in careful balance. Their light was steady but subdued, each one humming with restrained potential. They were beautiful in the way weapons often were—precise, elegant, and terrifying in what they represented.
Danny stood a few steps back from them, hands clasped behind his back, posture straight. He felt their pull faintly, like distant gravity wells brushing the edges of his awareness. They did not call to him urgently. They did not demand.
They waited.
Jimmy adjusted his glasses and glanced down at the datapad in his hands, the picture of a bureaucrat returning to familiar ground even as he discussed the end of worlds.
"Let's be very clear," he said calmly. "We are not protecting a prison. We are trying to rebuild one."
Jake swallowed. Swift's jaw tightened visibly.
Mira folded her arms, gaze fixed on the stones as if daring them to contradict Jimmy.
Shadeclaw's shadows rippled uneasily at his feet.
"The original seal required all seven stones," Jimmy continued. "Aligned. Balanced. Fed once—once—by a Creation Dragon, and then left alone. No cycling. No drain. No recharging."
He looked up at Danny.
"That is no longer an option."
Danny nodded slowly. "Because Bones is already out."
"Yes," Jimmy said. "And because the longer the stones are handled, drained, recharged, or misused, the more unstable any new prison becomes."
Solmara stepped forward, hands folded behind her back. "A partial configuration can still restrain him."
"For a time," Jimmy agreed. "Weeks. Maybe months. Less if Bones interferes directly."
The Wolf King let out a low growl that reverberated through the chamber. "Then time is our enemy."
Jimmy inclined his head. "Time is always the enemy."
Swift finally spoke, his voice tight. "This is on me."
No one turned to him immediately. That somehow made it worse.
"I was tricked," Swift continued, fists clenched at his sides. "Bones used me to open the seal. If I hadn't—"
"Stop," Danny said quietly.
Swift looked up, eyes raw.
Danny met his gaze without accusation. "Bones doesn't need mistakes. He manufactures them. You're not the cause. You're the entry point he chose."
Swift exhaled shakily, nodding once.
Jimmy tapped the display, and the holo shifted.
Two sigil points glowed a different color—dimmer, distorted.
"The Elemental Lords currently control two stones," Jimmy said. "They are actively draining them—not enough to destroy them, but enough to render them useless for imprisonment."
"And every time they do," Solmara added, "they grow stronger."
"And Bones grows safer," Danny finished.
The implication settled like frost.
"Which brings us to the real problem," Jimmy said, voice even. "Danny."
Danny did not flinch.
"If the Lords succeed in forcing you into repeated recharges," Jimmy continued, "the prison becomes theoretical. Bones doesn't need to escape again if sealing him becomes impossible."
Jake frowned. "Because Danny would be the only way to power it."
"Yes," Jimmy said. "And no one can force a Creation Dragon to do anything… except responsibility."
Danny closed his eyes briefly.
Responsibility had always been the lever.
Far away, in a place where light bent unnaturally and shadows stretched in impossible directions, Bones laughed.
The sound echoed through corridors of blackened bone and green flame, bouncing off walls that had once been temples, prisons, palaces, and mass graves in equal measure. He reclined on a throne grown from fused remains—not of bodies, but of ideas, crushed civilizations rendered into symbolic form.
"Five," Bones mused, tapping a skeletal finger against his skull. "They have five already."
Green fire flickered brighter in his eye sockets.
"So earnest. So desperate to fix what's broken."
He rose, towering and thin, flames licking along his ribs as he paced slowly.
"They still think the stones are the goal," he said to no one. "Such precious little locks."
He stopped, head tilting.
"No," Bones corrected himself. "They've figured out something."
His grin widened.
"They've figured out him."
Danny.
Bones tasted the name like a promise.
"Creation always thinks it can choose restraint," Bones said softly. "That's the lie I love most."
Solmara stood before the Elemental Lords alone.
The chamber was vast, carved from raw elemental matter—stone, flame, shadow, storm, and light interwoven into an uneasy truce of space and power. The Lords occupied their respective thrones, each radiating authority born of dominion rather than consent.
Pyronyx burned brightest, molten armor shifting with barely restrained fury.
Umbrakrell was half-seen, half-not, presence bleeding into shadow.
Terragorn sat unmoving, hands resting on his knees, gaze fixed on Solmara with measured interest.
"The stones were never meant to empower you," Solmara said, voice steady despite the pressure bearing down on her from all sides. "They were built to cage Bones."
Pyronyx laughed, sparks erupting from his shoulders. "And yet Bones walks free."
"Yes," Solmara said. "Because you helped him."
That snapped Pyronyx's attention fully onto her. "Careful."
"I am being careful," Solmara replied. "More careful than any of you have been."
She stepped forward, ignoring the heat, the crushing gravity, the slicing wind.
"Bones does not need your strength," she continued. "He needs time. And you are giving it to him."
Terragorn finally spoke. "You believe returning the stones ends this."
"No," Solmara said. "I believe refusing to drain them gives us a chance."
Umbrakrell's voice slid through the chamber like smoke. "And what of power?"
Solmara met the shadowed gaze. "Power without permanence is illusion."
Silence followed.
Terragorn's eyes narrowed slightly. "And Danny?"
Solmara did not hesitate. "If you turn him into a battery, you guarantee Bones can never be sealed again."
That landed.
Not with Pyronyx—who snarled dismissively—but with Terragorn.
"You ask us to surrender leverage," Terragorn said.
"I ask you to choose a future," Solmara replied. "Not endless escalation."
Terragorn leaned back, stone grinding softly.
"You assume Bones will destroy us," he said.
Solmara's voice dropped. "Bones destroys everything eventually."
She turned and left before they could answer.
Back at HQ, Danny stood alone before the stones.
Five points of ancient purpose, suspended in silence.
He reached out—not to touch, not to draw power—but to acknowledge them.
"You weren't made to be used," he murmured. "And neither was I."
The resonance shifted subtly—not approval, not judgment.
Recognition.
Behind him, Jimmy watched quietly.
"You've decided something," Jimmy said.
Danny nodded. "I'm going to save Elysara."
Jimmy did not react immediately.
"When?" he asked.
"Soon," Danny replied. "Before Terragorn turns her into another lever. Before Bones benefits from her suffering."
Jimmy adjusted his glasses. "That will provoke escalation."
"Yes," Danny said. "But leaving her there guarantees it."
Jimmy studied him for a long moment, then sighed.
"Then we prepare," he said. "Because when you move… the galaxy will notice."
Danny looked at the stones once more, then turned away.
This wasn't about balance anymore.
This was about refusing to let the war decide who he was allowed to save.
Training did not pause for grief.
Staff Sergeant Sorn made sure of that.
The moment the briefing ended, the six were already moving—boots pounding steel, armor snapping into place, systems coming online with practiced efficiency. The training deck of the G.A.M.B.I.T. became a crucible again, not because it was ordered, but because everyone understood the clock had changed.
Bones was free.
That truth threaded itself through every drill, every strike, every shouted command.
Sorn stalked the deck like a living war machine, massive frame wrapped in reinforced combat plating, simian features carved into a permanent scowl of disapproval.
"You don't get better after the enemy moves," he barked. "You get better before he even knows you exist."
Danny stood at the center of the formation, calm amid the chaos. His movements were precise, economical—no wasted force, no unnecessary flare of power. Where once his strikes had cracked air and warped gravity, now they landed with surgical intent.
Creation restrained was harder than creation unleashed.
Shadeclaw blurred through the shadows, Mira moving with him now as a mirrored presence—shadow wolf and assassin, two silhouettes flowing like liquid darkness between targets. They didn't overpower. They dismantled.
Jake and Bumble worked in seamless tandem, the bot's scanners feeding Jake real-time data as he adjusted angles and timing, bronze-scaled fists hammering through simulated defenses with brutal efficiency.
Swift moved faster than ever, silver light flickering beneath his skin—not transforming fully, but always ready. Every movement carried the edge of regret sharpened into resolve.
Jade hit like a storm given fists, chi-racked arms detonating against reinforced targets in percussive bursts that rattled the deck plating.
Sorn watched it all, arms crossed.
"Again," he growled.
They ran it again.
And again.
Between drills, Swift finally broke.
He stood off to the side, sweat dripping from his chin, chest heaving—not from exertion alone.
"I opened the cage," he said suddenly.
The words cut through the noise.
Danny turned first.
Swift's hands trembled. "Bones didn't trick me with force. He tricked me with purpose. He made me think I was doing the right thing."
Silence spread outward.
"I won't let that happen again," Swift said, voice rough. "Not with the stones. Not with Danny. Not with anyone."
Danny stepped closer, placing a hand on Swift's shoulder.
"Then don't make this about guilt," Danny said quietly. "Make it about correction."
Swift met his gaze. "I am."
Sorn snorted. "Good. Guilt gets you killed. Correction keeps you alive."
Training resumed.
Terragorn felt the shift before Danny ever moved.
Not a surge. Not a flare.
Intent.
The resonance patterns around the sigil stones subtly reconfigured—not increasing, not draining. Stabilizing. Defensive.
Terragorn stood within his domain, hands clasped behind his back as the elemental currents bent around him.
"He has chosen," Terragorn murmured.
Umbrakrell's presence slid closer, shadows thickening. "He will come for her."
"Yes," Terragorn said. "But not recklessly."
That displeased him more than rage would have.
"He learns restraint faster than anticipated," Umbrakrell observed.
Terragorn's eyes narrowed. "Then we teach him consequence."
Deep within the labyrinthine structures of Terragorn's realm, Elysara lay resting against a slab of warm stone, her breathing shallow but steady. The chains were gone now—replaced by proximity fields that hummed softly, holding her in place without biting into flesh.
She was no longer screaming.
That worried Terragorn.
Elysara opened her eyes slowly, feeling the altered resonance again—not pulling, not tearing.
Approaching.
"He's coming," she whispered.
The warmth in her chest pulsed faintly in response—not urgency.
Decision.
Back at HQ, Danny stood with Jimmy in the observation corridor overlooking the docked G.A.M.B.I.T.s—twenty-seven of them, colossal behemoths of steel and light, each carrying the weight of entire wars.
"You know Bones will move when you do," Jimmy said.
"Yes," Danny replied.
"You know Terragorn will escalate."
"Yes."
"You know this will put the stones at risk."
Danny turned to face him fully. "And you know I won't leave her there."
Jimmy studied him for a long moment.
"You're choosing a person over a strategy," Jimmy said.
"No," Danny corrected gently. "I'm choosing a strategy that doesn't sacrifice people."
Jimmy smiled faintly. "Creation talking."
Danny's eyes flickered gold. "Someone has to."
Jimmy straightened, professionalism settling back into place. "Then we prepare extraction contingencies. Diversionary stabilization teams. And a fallback plan in case Bones intervenes directly."
Danny nodded. "Thank you."
Jimmy adjusted his tie. "Don't thank me yet. This is the kind of decision that rewrites ledgers."
Danny looked out at the stars.
"So be it."
Far away, Bones laughed again.
Not loud.
Not cruel.
Just amused.
"Ah," he said softly, green flames dancing. "Now this is the part I enjoy."
The game was no longer about stones.
It was about choice.
And that was always where destruction found its opening.
Bones did not wait.
He never had.
While the Buddies counted stones and weighed consequences, while Elemental Lords debated leverage and philosophy, Bones moved where he always moved best—into the unguarded spaces between attention and certainty.
Far from B.U.D.D.I.E.S. HQ.
Far from the sigil stones.
Far from Danny.
A backwater spiral arm of the multiverse burned.
The planet had once been blue.
Not a dramatic blue—no oceans glittering with romance, no ancient megastructures or heroic last stands. Just a working world. Trade routes. Families. Weather patterns that repeated predictably enough to be boring.
Bones liked those worlds best.
They screamed the same when they died.
Green fire rained from the sky like judgment rewritten by madness. It did not burn the way normal flame did. It unmade. Buildings didn't collapse—they unraveled. Stone forgot it was stone. Steel softened, then screamed as it twisted into nothing recognizable.
The Dark Buddies moved through the chaos like carrion birds.
Once, they had been Buddies.
Agents. Soldiers. Specialists.
Now they were something else—armored in corrupted insignia, their systems twisted to feed on entropy itself. Each kill, each collapse, each act of terror fed data and energy back through a lattice Bones had embedded into their very nervous systems.
Destruction flowed upward.
Bones stood above it all, hovering just off the planet's gravity well, massive skeletal frame wreathed in emerald flame. His presence bent space subtly—not enough to tear it apart yet, but enough to remind reality who was winning.
He inhaled.
The scream of the planet entered him.
Not metaphorically.
Literally.
Power surged through his ribs, cracks sealing, fractures knitting together as green fire intensified. He flexed one clawed hand slowly, savoring the sensation.
"Mm," Bones murmured. "That's better."
Below, a Dark Buddy commander knelt amid the ruin, one arm missing, half his helm melted away to reveal a face hollowed by corruption.
"Report," Bones commanded.
The Dark Buddy's voice crackled. "World neutralized. Population collapse at ninety-eight percent. Remaining pockets—"
"—are irrelevant," Bones interrupted. "Good work."
The Dark Buddy straightened, pride flickering through the corruption.
Bones tilted his skull, studying the devastation.
"You feel that?" Bones asked conversationally.
The Dark Buddy hesitated. "My lord?"
"The drag," Bones continued. "That tugging sensation. Like something trying to pull me back into a box."
The Dark Buddy swallowed. "The stones—"
Bones laughed, the sound echoing across vacuum and atmosphere alike.
"Yes," he said. "The stones."
His eye flames narrowed.
"They're scrambling to rebuild my cage," Bones continued. "Five little rocks tucked safely away. Two more being abused by idiots who think power belongs to them."
He leaned forward slightly, looming.
"And one Golden Dragon trying very hard not to become my eternal battery."
Bones straightened, stretching his arms wide as if embracing the devastation.
"Fine," he said. "If they want to rush… let them rush."
He gestured, and the Dark Buddies across the planet synchronized instantly.
"Move on," Bones ordered. "Next system. Same pattern."
The Dark Buddy hesitated. "The Buddies may notice—"
Bones' head snapped down, emerald flames flaring violently.
"Oh, I want them to notice."
The Dark Buddy bowed deeply. "As you command."
As the Dark Buddies lifted off, leaving a dead world behind, Bones remained for a moment longer, gazing at the cooling ruins.
"You see," Bones said softly, as if explaining to an invisible audience, "destruction isn't just about ending things."
He clenched his fist.
"It's about feeding."
Space folded around him as he vanished, already moving toward the next target.
The alert reached B.U.D.D.I.E.S. HQ three hours later.
Not a distress call.
Not a request for aid.
Just silence—followed by data that should not exist.
Jimmy stared at the holographic display, jaw tightening as the reports scrolled past.
"Confirmed planetary death," the analyst said quietly. "Dark Buddy signatures present. Residual energy matches Bones."
Danny felt it before Jimmy finished speaking.
The resonance did not spike.
It pulled.
Not toward the stones.
Toward absence.
"He's feeding," Danny said.
Solmara turned sharply. "Already?"
"Yes," Danny replied. "And not cautiously."
Jimmy exhaled slowly. "He's rebuilding himself."
Shadeclaw's shadows writhed violently. "Then Terragorn isn't the only problem anymore."
"No," Danny agreed. "He never was."
Mira's voice was steady, but her eyes burned. "How many worlds?"
Jimmy shook his head. "We don't know yet."
Silence fell again—but this time it was sharper, edged with urgency.
Danny closed his eyes, fists clenching.
Bones wasn't just trying to avoid the prison.
He was racing it.
And every second Danny hesitated, the price was measured in dead worlds.
Danny opened his eyes, gold flaring briefly—then folding back under iron control.
"We can't wait," he said.
Jimmy met his gaze. "We were already past that."
Somewhere in the multiverse, Bones laughed again.
Not because he had won.
But because the board was finally crowded.
The war stopped being theoretical.
That was the phrase Jimmy used when he reconvened the emergency council, though everyone in the room already felt it in their bones. Holo-screens filled the chamber wall to wall—systems blinking from green to amber to red as reports streamed in faster than analysts could catalog them.
Dead worlds.
Scoured trade routes.
B.U.D.D.I.E.S. outposts gone dark without distress calls.
Bones was no longer hiding.
He was announcing.
Jimmy stood at the center of it all, jacket off now, sleeves rolled up, the cosmic custodian stripped down to the administrator he truly was—one who had spent six thousand years keeping disasters compartmentalized and contained.
"This isn't random," Jimmy said, tapping a cluster of systems that formed a ragged arc across the holo. "He's not just feeding. He's shaping."
Solmara stepped closer, eyes narrowed. "He's carving supply lines."
"And panic corridors," Jade added. "Refugees will flood toward stable zones."
"Which puts pressure on us," Swift said. "And draws attention away from the stones."
Danny watched the pattern resolve in real time, creation-sense mapping intent where data could not. Bones' movements were crude in scale but elegant in purpose—each ruined world a drumbeat, each silence a scream meant to be heard across the multiverse.
"He wants us divided," Danny said quietly.
"Yes," Jimmy replied. "Responders, evacuators, stone-guards, hunters. He's daring us to choose."
Mira folded her arms. "And if we chase him?"
Jimmy shook his head. "He's too mobile right now. Too fed. We'd lose people chasing shadows."
The Wolf King snarled softly. "Then he burns unchecked?"
Danny's jaw tightened. "Not unchecked. Unanswered."
All eyes turned to him.
Danny took a breath, steadying the storm that wanted to rise. "Bones is accelerating because he knows we're trying to rebuild the prison. Terragorn's pressure on the stones was meant to slow us. Bones' rampage is meant to force our hand."
Jimmy's gaze sharpened. "Toward what?"
Danny didn't answer immediately. He reached inward, not to the stones, not to creation flame—but to the steady, fragile presence that had become a constant at the edge of his awareness.
Elysara.
Weaker now.
Still holding.
Still there.
"Toward me," Danny said.
Solmara's expression shifted—calculation colliding with realization. "If you move to rescue her—"
"—Terragorn loses leverage," Danny finished. "Bones loses a pressure point. And both of them are forced to respond to me instead of the galaxy."
Jimmy exhaled slowly. "That concentrates risk."
"Yes," Danny said. "On purpose."
The room fell silent again, but this time it was not paralysis. It was alignment.
Swift nodded first. "If Bones is feeding on chaos, then stopping Terragorn's trap doesn't just save her—it starves Bones of time."
Jake clenched his fists. "And if we keep waiting, more worlds die."
Shadeclaw's voice was low, edged with something feral. "Terragorn thinks she's bait. Bones thinks she's irrelevant. Both are wrong."
Mira looked at Danny, eyes unwavering. "You're not choosing between her and the war."
"No," Danny said. "I'm choosing the front where we can win."
Jimmy studied him for a long moment. Then, slowly, he nodded.
"All right," he said. "Then we pivot."
He turned, barking orders that sent analysts and officers scrambling.
"Redeploy response teams to evacuation corridors. Minimal engagement. We buy time."
"Lock the stones down. No recharging without my authorization."
"Prepare strike tasking for a deep insertion."
Jimmy looked back at Danny. "If you do this, it has to be decisive."
Danny met his gaze. "It will be."
Across the multiverse, Terragorn felt the shift.
Not in the stones.
Not in Elysara.
In Danny.
Terragorn stood at the edge of his domain, storm-light rolling across his armor, the air thick with charged intent. Umbrakrell emerged from the shadows beside him, silent as ever.
"He is coming," Umbrakrell said.
Terragorn nodded. "Yes."
"And Bones?" Umbrakrell asked.
Terragorn's mouth tightened. "Bones grows bold. That is… inconvenient."
"You allowed him space," Umbrakrell observed.
"I allowed him time," Terragorn corrected. "I did not anticipate his impatience."
The storm intensified around Terragorn, lightning crawling along his gauntlets. "If the Golden Dragon rescues the girl, my leverage collapses."
Umbrakrell tilted his head. "Then you should stop him."
Terragorn's eyes burned. "I will. But not directly."
He turned toward the depths of his domain, where ancient conduits hummed and sigil-drains lay dormant, waiting.
"If Danny moves openly," Terragorn said, "I let him."
Umbrakrell's shadows deepened. "And then?"
Terragorn smiled—a slow, calculating expression carved from stone and storm.
"Then I let Bones overextend," he said. "And when both believe they are winning… I decide who truly benefits."
Elysara woke to silence.
Not the heavy, oppressive quiet of Terragorn's chambers—but something gentler. The constant hum had softened, the pressure eased. Her body ached in a way that suggested survival, not collapse.
She drew a shallow breath, testing herself.
Alive.
The warmth in her chest pulsed faintly, then steadied.
"He's moving," she whispered.
The stone beneath her responded—not with power, but with resonance dampened by distance.
She pressed her palm against it, eyes closing.
"I can hold a little longer," she murmured. "But not forever."
Somewhere impossibly far away, Danny felt the truth of that settle into his core.
He opened his eyes.
"Prep the WhistleDawn," he said.
The war was no longer about stones alone.
It was about refusing to let destruction dictate the shape of creation.
And for the first time since Bones walked free, Danny was no longer reacting.
He was advancing.