The sigil stones did not glow brighter when Danny entered the chamber.
They never did.
Five of them hovered within the containment lattice at the heart of B.U.D.D.I.E.S. HQ, arranged in a careful, mathematically unforgiving geometry that left no room for error or improvisation. Each stone was the size of a human torso, faceted and ancient, their surfaces etched with creation runes so old they predated language as the universe now understood it.
They were quiet.
Not dormant.
Not inert.
Waiting.
Danny stood just outside the containment field, hands at his sides, shoulders squared but not tense. He felt them the way one felt an unfinished sentence—complete in structure, incomplete in meaning. Five points defined the shape of the prison, but two absences pulled at the pattern like missing teeth.
Jimmy stood beside him, datapad tucked under one arm, glasses reflecting the stones' faint inner light. Around them, the chamber was sealed and shielded beyond redundancy—layers of tech, sigils, and bureaucratic paranoia stacked until even reality itself would have to submit a request to enter.
"You feel it more clearly now," Jimmy said.
Danny nodded. "It's not louder."
"No," Jimmy agreed. "It's clearer."
They stood in silence for a moment longer, the kind that didn't need to be filled.
Beyond the chamber walls, B.U.D.D.I.E.S. HQ moved at a faster cadence than usual. Not panic—never panic—but acceleration. Orders rippled outward through command chains, task forces shifting assignments, evacuation corridors re-prioritized, research divisions pulling ancient archives from deep storage.
Bones was free.
That fact had changed the tempo of everything.
"We can attempt a partial convergence," Jimmy said at last, breaking the quiet. "Five stones aligned could restrain Bones temporarily. Days, maybe weeks if nothing interferes."
"And if something does?" Danny asked.
Jimmy didn't sugarcoat it. "Then the backlash could fracture the lattice. Worst case, we lose the stones."
Danny's jaw tightened. Losing stones didn't just mean failure—it meant irreversibility.
"So we don't rush," Danny said.
"No," Jimmy replied. "We don't rush."
Danny turned slightly, eyes tracing the empty points in the lattice where the last two stones should be. "But we don't stall either."
Jimmy smiled faintly. "There it is."
Danny met his gaze. "The cage isn't just unfinished. It's exposed. Bones knows where the gaps are."
"Yes," Jimmy said quietly. "And so do the Elemental Lords."
The briefing room filled gradually.
Not all at once—this wasn't a council convened in fear—but deliberately, as if each presence needed to settle into place before the next arrived. Solmara entered first, her expression composed but eyes carrying the fatigue of someone who had spent too long arguing with gods who refused to listen.
The Wolf King followed, armor repaired but still bearing scars from Terragorn's storm. His presence drew space inward around him, heat radiating subtly as if the room itself recognized authority when it entered.
Shadeclaw appeared without announcement, shadows detaching from corners to coalesce into his form. Mira walked beside him, steps silent, gaze alert.
Swift, Jake, Jade, and Bumble arrived together, the bot rolling cheerfully at Jake's heel as if the galaxy were not on the brink of catastrophic failure.
Staff Sergeant Sorn leaned against the far wall, arms crossed, expression permanently unimpressed.
Jimmy waited until they were all present.
"Status," he said simply.
Solmara stepped forward. "Pyronyx has declared the stones his by right of conquest. He is openly draining his."
No one was surprised.
"Umbrakrell," Solmara continued, "has not responded directly. But shadow movement suggests repositioning. He's hunting outcomes, not sides."
"And Terragorn?" the Wolf King asked.
Solmara hesitated. "Silent."
That drew attention.
"Silent is never passive with him," Shadeclaw said.
"No," Solmara agreed. "It means recalculation."
Jimmy tapped the holo table, bringing up a layered star map. Five sigil points glowed steady blue. Two pulsed amber, distorted and unstable.
"These two stones are the bottleneck," Jimmy said. "And Bones knows it."
As if summoned by his name, an alert chimed softly.
An analyst's voice filled the room. "Confirmed Dark Buddy incursion at the Thalos Verge. System collapse ongoing. Estimated civilian survival—negligible."
Danny closed his eyes briefly.
Bones wasn't just destroying.
He was timing.
"He's forcing us into a dilemma," Jimmy said. "Chase him, and the stones remain divided. Focus on the stones, and he feeds unopposed."
"And if we try to do both?" Jade asked.
Jimmy's mouth twitched. "Then we stretch ourselves thin enough for Bones to exploit."
Danny opened his eyes.
"What if the dilemma is false?" he asked quietly.
The room stilled.
Jimmy turned toward him. "Explain."
Danny stepped closer to the holo, fingers hovering just above the star map. "Bones wants us to believe the stones are the only answer. That rebuilding the cage is the endgame."
"And it isn't?" Swift asked.
"It is," Danny said. "But it's not the only front."
He looked at Solmara. "What did Terragorn say near Elysara?"
Solmara frowned, then nodded slowly. "He spoke openly—assumed she was too weak to matter. He believes the cage can be replaced. That Bones could be bound through alternate constructs. Ones that would… devastate entire sectors."
Jake's eyes widened. "That's insane."
"Yes," Solmara said. "But it tells us something."
Danny nodded. "It tells us they're afraid of the cage being finished."
Jimmy's gaze sharpened. "So you're suggesting—"
"That we stop treating the cage as a future event," Danny finished. "And start treating it as inevitable."
Silence followed.
Sorn broke it with a low chuckle. "That's the kind of thinking that gets people killed."
Danny met his gaze evenly. "Or saves them."
Sorn studied him for a long moment, then grunted. "Fair."
The Wolf King stepped forward. "If the cage is inevitable, then the war becomes a race. Not to overpower Bones—but to finish before he makes finishing impossible."
"Yes," Danny said. "And Bones just told us how he plans to try."
"By corrupting the convergence," Shadeclaw said.
Danny nodded. "He won't steal the stones. He'll poison the ritual."
Jimmy exhaled slowly. "Which means we need to know exactly how the cage is built."
All eyes turned to Danny.
He didn't hesitate.
"Then it's time I stop treating that knowledge like something I'm afraid to look at."
The sigil stones pulsed faintly—as if acknowledging the decision.
Far away, across broken systems and burning worlds, Bones tilted his skull and smiled.
"Oh," he murmured. "Now you're thinking dangerously."
The room didn't feel smaller when Danny spoke.
It felt sharper.
Like the air itself had been honed to an edge by the simple act of naming what everyone was really afraid to touch: not Bones' power, not the Elemental Lords' ambition, but the actual mechanism that had once worked—and had failed not because it was weak, but because it was vulnerable to hands.
Danny stepped closer to the containment field. The five sigil stones hovered in their lattice, silent as law. Their surfaces caught light and refused to reflect it cleanly, as if each facet was less a crystal and more a frozen decision.
"You want to know how the cage is built," Danny said quietly. "Then we have to talk about it as what it is."
He looked at the others, one by one—Jimmy, Solmara, the Wolf King, Shadeclaw, Swift, Jake, Jade, Mira, Sorn.
"It's not a spell," he continued. "It's not a throne. It's not a ritual that needs worship or permission."
His gaze returned to the stones. "It's hardware."
Jimmy's mouth twitched. "I knew I liked you."
Danny didn't smile. "Anyone can place the stones."
That landed hard.
Jake frowned. "Anyone?"
Danny nodded. "Anyone. Human. Wolf. Buddy. Elemental Lord. A terrified civilian with shaking hands—if they can get close enough."
Solmara's eyes narrowed. "Because the stones are keyed to Bones, not to us."
"Exactly," Danny said. "They don't judge who uses them. They don't care. They were built with one job: to lock onto Bones and form the cage around him."
The Wolf King's voice rumbled. "Then why did it fail?"
Danny's answer came without hesitation. "Because locking him isn't the hard part."
The room held its breath.
"Stunning him long enough to do it is," Danny finished.
Sorn let out a low, appreciative grunt. "There it is."
Danny lifted his hand toward the holo table. Jimmy tapped, and the projection shifted—showing a representation of Bones' recorded manifestation patterns, his known "density" signatures, the way reality warped around him when he moved.
Danny spoke as if he could see it in his bones.
"When all seven stones are placed on him—properly spaced, anchored into his resonance field—they don't just 'hold' him," he said. "They assemble."
He traced a circle with his finger.
"A plated meteor," Danny continued, voice low. "A structure that grows outward from the stones themselves. Layer on layer of compressed creation geometry and dead-space alloy. It forms around him like armor—but it's armor designed to imprison what's inside."
Swift swallowed hard. "Like a tomb."
Danny nodded. "A moving tomb at first. Then it settles. Becomes inert. Heavy. Unforgiving."
He looked up. "And once it's complete—Bones is drained. Not killed. Not destroyed. Drained."
Mira's voice was quiet. "So he can't fight from inside."
"He can't do anything but whisper," Danny said. "Through cracks. Through faults. Through microscopic seams that aren't weaknesses so much as… inevitabilities."
Jade's jaw tightened. "And that's how he gets out."
Danny nodded once.
"One stone removed is enough," he said. "Not two. Not half. One."
The chamber felt colder.
"Because the cage isn't 'seven stones,'" Danny continued. "It's seven points of balance. Remove one point, the structure loses symmetry. The plated meteor fractures. Bones floods back into the gap like water through a split dam."
Jimmy exhaled slowly, eyes on the holo. "So the prison isn't broken by brute force. It's broken by access."
"By temptation," Solmara murmured.
"Yes," Danny said, and his voice tightened slightly. "That's the original failure. Not that the Golden Dragons couldn't make a cage."
He looked at the stones again, and for a moment the gold in his eyes flickered—not power, but memory.
"It's that they couldn't guarantee the cage would stay closed," Danny said. "Because they walked away."
Silence.
Swift's face tightened like he'd been struck.
"They built a lock," Danny continued, "and left the key sitting on the floor of the universe."
Sorn's voice cut in, harsh and practical. "Which means your 'inevitable' plan still needs the same thing it always needed: time and a hammer."
The Wolf King bared his teeth in a grin. "We have hammers."
Danny nodded. "We do. But the time—" he glanced at the red alerts still blooming on the side holo screens, casualty reports stacking like bodies in a ledger "—Bones is stealing."
Jimmy tapped the air, and the holo changed again—this time showing a silhouette of Bones, surrounded by seven marked anchor points. As Jimmy rotated it, the points pulsed: five bright, two dim.
"So," Jimmy said, voice steady, "what's the operational requirement?"
Danny answered immediately.
"We need Bones stunned long enough to place seven stones," he said. "Close range. Physical placement. No shortcuts."
Jake frowned. "How long?"
Danny's eyes narrowed slightly as he calculated. "Long enough for each stone to lock. Seconds, but not forgiving seconds. If he moves, if he warps space, if he disrupts resonance—one stone won't seat properly and the whole structure fails to assemble."
Solmara's expression sharpened. "And the Elemental Lords want to drain the last two stones so even if you place them—"
"They won't have the charge to lock," Danny finished. "Or they lock weakly. Or they assemble incomplete. A cage with gaps is worse than no cage at all."
Shadeclaw's shadows rippled. "And Bones knows this."
"Yes," Danny said. "Which is why he's escalating destruction. He's feeding to reach a state where 'stunning' him becomes impossible."
Jimmy's voice was flat. "So we're in a race against his power curve."
"And against his influence curve," Solmara added softly.
Because they all understood the other half now: Bones didn't need to overpower the cage if he could convince someone to open it.
Mira's gaze slid to Swift for a moment—not accusing, just acknowledging history.
Swift's throat worked. "He'll try again," he said, voice rough. "He'll try to get inside my head again."
Danny looked at him calmly. "Then we make sure you're not alone when he does."
The Wolf King's low growl vibrated through the floor. "And when we do stun him… I will stand over that cage until my bones become its wall."
Jade cracked his knuckles, chi flickering faintly like heat haze. "And if someone reaches for a stone to pull it off…"
His grin was sharp and unpleasant. "They won't have hands anymore."
Jimmy cleared his throat pointedly.
Jade sighed. "Figuratively."
Sorn barked a short laugh. "Sure."
Danny turned back to the stones, feeling their quiet weight. "The cage is simple," he said. "That's why it's terrifying. It's not mystical. It's not complicated. It's a physical fact: seven stones on Bones equals a prison. One removed equals freedom."
He looked over his shoulder. "So our mission is also simple."
Jimmy's eyebrows rose. "Do tell."
Danny's voice dropped into something steady and absolute.
"We secure the last two stones," he said. "We stop the draining. We keep them charged. And then we pick the battlefield where Bones can be stunned."
The room held still.
"And we do it," Danny continued, "in a way that makes it as hard as possible for anyone to ever remove a stone again."
Solmara's eyes narrowed. "How?"
Danny didn't answer immediately.
Because the answer wasn't just tactical.
It was philosophical.
It was the thing the Golden Dragons had refused to do.
He looked at Jimmy. "We don't walk away when it's done."
Jimmy's expression softened just slightly. "That's a vow."
Danny nodded. "And I don't make them lightly anymore."
The sigil stones pulsed faintly in their containment field, like silent approval—though they did not judge, they did respond to proximity and intent in the only way hardware ever could: by syncing to the operator that understood what it was built for.
The room's lights flickered.
Not from the station.
From the holo feed.
A new alert surged through the system—red, urgent, screaming in neat bureaucratic fonts.
"INCIDENT REPORT: SIGIL CONVERGENCE INTERFERENCE — ATTEMPTED CORRUPTION EVENT."
Jimmy's head snapped toward the screen. "Where?"
The analyst's voice came through, tight with controlled panic. "Outer corridor relay hub. Someone—or something—just attempted to inject a destabilization sequence into the sigil containment algorithms."
Shadeclaw's shadows surged outward like living knives. "Dark Buddy."
Solmara's jaw tightened. "Bones."
Danny's gold eyes hardened, not flaring, just focusing.
"He's making his first move against the convergence," Danny said quietly.
The Wolf King stepped forward, heat rising. "Then we answer."
Jimmy was already moving, barking orders into his comm. "Lock down the sigil chamber. Seal all access. Deploy internal response teams. And get me Sedge Hat—now."
Danny turned, already heading for the door.
Swift fell into step beside him, silver light flickering beneath his skin.
Jake followed, Bumble rolling after him, chirping angrily.
Jade cracked his neck, grin returning in a way that promised violence.
Mira and Shadeclaw melted into motion, shadows threading ahead of the group.
Sorn's voice boomed behind them. "If this is a drill, it's the worst one I've ever seen."
"It's not a drill," Jimmy muttered.
And far away, in a ruin-lit corner of the multiverse, Bones tilted his skull and smiled wider than the shape of any sane grin.
"Let's see," he whispered, green fire dancing. "Can they protect the lock… while I teach the key to walk?"
The alarms did not scream.
They layered.
A low, subsonic thrum rippled through B.U.D.D.I.E.S. HQ first—felt more than heard—as internal bulkheads began sealing in sequence. The station's architecture shifted subtly, corridors re-routing, gravity fields adjusting, access hierarchies collapsing inward like a closing fist.
This was not panic protocol.
This was containment doctrine.
Danny felt it immediately. Not through comms, not through displays—but through creation itself. The five sigil stones flared in his awareness, not brighter, not louder, but tighter. Their fields pulled inward, compressing, as if bracing for impact.
"They're not trying to take the stones," Danny said as they ran. "They're trying to desync them."
Jimmy's voice crackled through the corridor speakers. "Confirmed. The intrusion isn't physical—yet. It's an algorithmic poison layered over ritual geometry. Whoever wrote it understands both."
Shadeclaw didn't slow. "Bones."
"Yes," Jimmy said. "But not directly. He's using intermediaries. Dark Buddies augmented with stolen sigil mathematics."
Jade barked a laugh as he slid around a corner, chi crackling along his arms. "Of course he is. Bastard's always been a plagiarist."
The corridor ahead erupted.
Not with fire—but with absence.
Lights dimmed as a section of the passage folded inward, reality thinning as shadow and corrupted geometry tore through alloy and forcefield alike. Three Dark Buddies emerged—not charging, not roaring, but moving with unsettling precision, their forms wrapped in fractured sigil constructs that pulsed erratically.
They weren't here to fight.
They were here to write something.
"Do not let them reach the relay nodes!" Jimmy shouted.
Too late.
One of the Dark Buddies slammed a clawed limb into the wall, green fire erupting as corrupted sigil logic bled into the station's systems. The air rippled. Gravity lurched.
Danny stepped forward, creation flaring—not explosively, but surgically. Golden geometry unfolded around his hands as he grabbed the interference itself, fingers sinking into a construct that wasn't supposed to be tangible.
"Jake!" Danny snapped. "Containment field—now!"
Jake didn't ask how. He never did.
Bumble chirped furiously as Jake slammed a device into the floor, a vacuum-stabilized anti-slime containment unit unfolding outward. The field snapped into place, isolating the corrupted sigil math before it could propagate further.
Shadeclaw was already moving.
He vanished into the shadows cast by the interference, reappearing behind the second Dark Buddy. His blades didn't strike flesh—they severed connections, cutting the entity off from the corrupted lattice it was feeding into.
The Dark Buddy convulsed, then collapsed, inert.
The third tried to flee.
The Wolf King intercepted it like a freight train made of flame and muscle, claws closing around its torso as fire erupted from his jaws. The Dark Buddy didn't scream—it glitched, form unraveling as the corrupted sigil math burned away under raw elemental force.
Silence fell again, broken only by the hum of stabilizing systems.
Danny exhaled slowly, sweat beading at his temple.
"That was a test," he said.
Jimmy's voice was grim. "Yes."
"He wasn't trying to break the cage," Danny continued. "He was mapping response times. Learning how fast we can react."
"And how you counter corruption," Solmara added, her voice joining the channel. "He felt you touch the interference."
Danny closed his eyes briefly. "Then he knows I can undo it."
"That makes you a higher priority target," Jimmy said.
Danny opened his eyes. "I already was."
The Wolf King wiped ash from his claws. "He's probing the lock."
"Yes," Danny agreed. "Because he knows he can't stop the cage from being built."
Jade's grin faded slightly. "So he's trying to make sure it can't stay closed."
Shadeclaw reappeared beside Danny, shadows restless. "He's not after the stones. He's after trust."
Mira nodded. "If he can make us doubt the stability of the cage, someone will hesitate when it's time to place the last stone."
Danny's jaw tightened.
Bones didn't need to convince everyone.
He only needed to convince one person, at the wrong moment, that removing a stone was mercy, or safety, or necessary.
"Which means," Danny said quietly, "the real battlefield isn't the convergence."
Jimmy finished the thought. "It's us."
The station lights steadied. Systems reported green across the board. The immediate threat was contained.
But no one relaxed.
Far away—beyond sensors, beyond sigil detection—Bones felt the echo of resistance ripple back through the corrupted logic he had released.
He tilted his skull, green fire flickering with amusement.
"Oh," he murmured. "They're learning faster now."
He turned his gaze toward the two remaining sigil stones, still draining, still contested.
"Good," Bones whispered. "That just means the choice will hurt more when it comes."
Back at HQ, Danny stared at the stabilized relay hub, golden light fading from his hands.
"This doesn't end with a fight," he said. "It ends with a moment."
Jimmy nodded slowly. "Then we'd better make sure that moment belongs to us."
The race was no longer theoretical.
It had begun inside the lock itself.
The relay hub finished sealing with a muted clang, layers of alloy and forcefield knitting back together as if nothing had ever gone wrong. Diagnostic lights shifted from red to amber, then finally to green. On paper, the incident was resolved.
In reality, everyone in the corridor knew it had only sharpened the blade.
Danny stood very still, eyes unfocused as he tracked the afterimage of the corrupted sigil logic fading from his senses. It left behind a residue—not damage, not poison, but understanding. Bones had written that interference like a signature. Careful. Curious. Testing boundaries instead of smashing them.
"He's learning how we think," Danny said.
Jimmy's voice came through, quieter now that the immediate crisis had passed. "He's always done that. Bones doesn't just break things—he studies the fracture."
Shadeclaw knelt beside the collapsed Dark Buddy remains, fingers hovering just above the ash-black fragments. "This one wasn't fully autonomous. There were decision loops tied to an external observer."
Danny frowned. "Remote?"
"Not quite," Shadeclaw replied. "More like… advisory. Bones didn't pilot it. He nudged it."
Jake grimaced. "So even when he's not here, he's still in the room."
"Yes," Solmara said over comms. "That is his oldest talent."
The Wolf King growled low in his chest. "Then we stop letting him whisper."
Danny turned toward Jimmy's projected image. "We need to harden more than the cage."
Jimmy nodded. "I know. That's why I've already issued the order."
The lights in the corridor dimmed briefly, then flared as a new system came online. Across the station, subtle shifts occurred—privacy fields reinforcing, psychic dampeners activating in key locations, command hierarchies tightening into smaller, more resilient clusters.
"No single point of moral failure," Jimmy continued. "No lone hero moments. No one stands alone with a stone."
Danny exhaled slowly. "Good."
Swift stepped closer, silver light flickering faintly beneath his skin. "Bones will still try. He'll find cracks we don't expect."
Danny met his gaze. "Then we don't pretend we're immune."
He looked at all of them now—his team, scarred and evolving, standing in the wake of a threat that had not been meant to kill them, only to prepare them.
"We're not stronger than Bones," Danny said. "Not yet. Maybe never in the way people expect."
Jade snorted. "Comforting."
Danny's mouth curved into a faint smile. "But we're harder to isolate than he is."
That landed.
Mira's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "He thrives on singular choices. Singular moments."
"Yes," Danny said. "And we're going to deny him those."
Jimmy's voice softened, just a fraction. "You're thinking like a custodian now."
Danny didn't answer immediately.
When he did, his voice was steady. "Someone has to stay."
Silence stretched.
The Wolf King inclined his head, a gesture of respect. "Then you will not stay alone."
Shadeclaw's shadows settled, coiling closer to his form. "Nor will you be unwatched."
Jake nudged Bumble, who beeped affirmatively. "And you'll have a malfunctioning robot with questionable loyalty."
Bumble chirped indignantly.
Despite everything, Danny laughed quietly. The sound felt strange—and necessary.
"Okay," Danny said. "Here's what we do next."
He turned, already walking toward the central lift. The others fell in without question.
"We accelerate recovery of the last two stones," Danny continued. "Not with brute force. With pressure. We force the Elemental Lords to choose sides publicly."
Solmara's voice sharpened. "That will fracture them."
"Yes," Danny agreed. "And fractures are where Bones likes to work. Which means—"
"We bait him," Jade finished.
"No," Danny corrected gently. "We occupy him."
Jimmy raised an eyebrow. "Careful. That sounds dangerously close to bait."
Danny glanced back, golden eyes calm. "Bones wants to make the cage irrelevant. So we make the moment unavoidable."
The lift doors slid open, swallowing the group in light.
Far away, beyond the reach of sigils and sensors, Bones paused mid-destruction again. He felt the shift—not in power, not in threat, but in intent.
"Oh," he murmured, green flame flickering thoughtfully. "They're planning around me now."
He smiled wider.
"Good."
The war had moved past reaction.
Now it was about who could endure the choice when it finally arrived.
The lift carried them downward through layers of the station that few ever saw.
Above them were habitats, command decks, the controlled chaos of logistics and life. Below them—far below—were the old vaults. Places built when B.U.D.D.I.E.S. was still learning what kinds of threats the multiverse could produce. Places designed not for comfort or efficiency, but for endurance.
The hum of the lift deepened, a low vibration that resonated in bone and thought alike.
Danny felt it before anyone said a word.
This wasn't just a change in altitude.
It was a change in weight.
"Jimmy," Danny said quietly. "We're going to the deep locks."
Jimmy's voice came through a fraction of a second later, unsurprised. "Yes. I figured you'd ask eventually."
The Wolf King rolled his shoulders, heat bleeding subtly into the air. "You keep dangerous things down there."
Jimmy's tone was dry. "We keep necessary things down there."
The lift slowed.
As it did, Danny felt the sigil stones again—not just the five secured ones, but the absence of the other two. The gap tugged at him, not emotionally, not magically, but architecturally. Like a bridge missing its final supports.
The doors slid open.
The Deep Lock Hall stretched out before them, vast and dim, illuminated by slow-pulsing bands of light embedded in the walls. The architecture here was older than most current galactic alliances—thick alloy ribs, layered forcefields, sigil-etched pylons that hummed with suppressed potential.
This was where B.U.D.D.I.E.S. stored ideas that had survived because they were too dangerous to forget.
Sedge Hat was waiting.
He stood near the center of the hall, hands folded behind his back, expression unreadable beneath the shadow of centuries. His presence felt… anchored. Not powerful in the way Danny or the Wolf King were, but heavy with responsibility.
"You're late," Sedge Hat said mildly.
"You're early," Danny replied.
Sedge Hat's mouth twitched. "You've felt it then."
"Yes," Danny said. "Bones is no longer testing reactions. He's testing resolve."
Sedge Hat nodded. "And the cage?"
Danny gestured faintly. "It still works. That was never the problem."
Sedge Hat's eyes flicked to the others. "And the stones?"
"Five secured. Two contested," Jimmy said. "You know the odds."
Sedge Hat sighed, the sound of someone who had watched the same tragedy approach from different angles across many lifetimes.
"Then it's time," he said, "to talk about why the Golden Dragons failed after the cage was built."
Silence fell.
Danny's jaw tightened. "They walked away."
"Yes," Sedge Hat agreed. "But not because they didn't care."
He turned, motioning them deeper into the hall. As they followed, the walls shifted, revealing sealed chambers—each containing relics, failed constructs, abandoned solutions.
"They walked away because they believed the cage was enough," Sedge Hat continued. "They believed that creation, once applied, could be left alone."
His gaze met Danny's. "Bones proved them wrong."
Danny nodded slowly. "Because the cage is physical."
"Yes," Sedge Hat said. "And the universe is not."
They stopped before a massive sealed door. Runes flared faintly as Sedge Hat placed a palm against it. The door did not open—but it listened.
"Inside," Sedge Hat said, "is the reason Bones has escaped every time."
The Wolf King growled softly. "Then open it."
Sedge Hat hesitated. Just for a heartbeat.
"Once you see it," he said, "you won't be able to pretend this ends cleanly."
Danny stepped forward. "I'm done pretending."
Sedge Hat nodded—and pressed his palm fully into the seal.
The runes ignited.
The door began to open.
And somewhere, across the multiverse, Bones felt something shift—not in power, not in danger, but in memory.
His laughter faded.
Just slightly.
Because whatever waited behind that door was something even he remembered fearing.
The choice was no longer approaching.
It was being uncovered.
The lift carried them downward through layers of the station that few ever saw.
Above them were habitats, command decks, the controlled chaos of logistics and life. Below them—far below—were the old vaults. Places built when B.U.D.D.I.E.S. was still learning what kinds of threats the multiverse could produce. Places designed not for comfort or efficiency, but for endurance.
The hum of the lift deepened, a low vibration that resonated in bone and thought alike.
Danny felt it before anyone said a word.
This wasn't just a change in altitude.
It was a change in weight.
"Jimmy," Danny said quietly. "We're going to the deep locks."
Jimmy's voice came through a fraction of a second later, unsurprised. "Yes. I figured you'd ask eventually."
The Wolf King rolled his shoulders, heat bleeding subtly into the air. "You keep dangerous things down there."
Jimmy's tone was dry. "We keep necessary things down there."
The lift slowed.
As it did, Danny felt the sigil stones again—not just the five secured ones, but the absence of the other two. The gap tugged at him, not emotionally, not magically, but architecturally. Like a bridge missing its final supports.
The doors slid open.
The Deep Lock Hall stretched out before them, vast and dim, illuminated by slow-pulsing bands of light embedded in the walls. The architecture here was older than most current galactic alliances—thick alloy ribs, layered forcefields, sigil-etched pylons that hummed with suppressed potential.
This was where B.U.D.D.I.E.S. stored ideas that had survived because they were too dangerous to forget.
Sedge Hat was waiting.
He stood near the center of the hall, hands folded behind his back, expression unreadable beneath the shadow of centuries. His presence felt… anchored. Not powerful in the way Danny or the Wolf King were, but heavy with responsibility.
"You're late," Sedge Hat said mildly.
"You're early," Danny replied.
Sedge Hat's mouth twitched. "You've felt it then."
"Yes," Danny said. "Bones is no longer testing reactions. He's testing resolve."
Sedge Hat nodded. "And the cage?"
Danny gestured faintly. "It still works. That was never the problem."
Sedge Hat's eyes flicked to the others. "And the stones?"
"Five secured. Two contested," Jimmy said. "You know the odds."
Sedge Hat sighed, the sound of someone who had watched the same tragedy approach from different angles across many lifetimes.
"Then it's time," he said, "to talk about why the Golden Dragons failed after the cage was built."
Silence fell.
Danny's jaw tightened. "They walked away."
"Yes," Sedge Hat agreed. "But not because they didn't care."
He turned, motioning them deeper into the hall. As they followed, the walls shifted, revealing sealed chambers—each containing relics, failed constructs, abandoned solutions.
"They walked away because they believed the cage was enough," Sedge Hat continued. "They believed that creation, once applied, could be left alone."
His gaze met Danny's. "Bones proved them wrong."
Danny nodded slowly. "Because the cage is physical."
"Yes," Sedge Hat said. "And the universe is not."
They stopped before a massive sealed door. Runes flared faintly as Sedge Hat placed a palm against it. The door did not open—but it listened.
"Inside," Sedge Hat said, "is the reason Bones has escaped every time."
The Wolf King growled softly. "Then open it."
Sedge Hat hesitated. Just for a heartbeat.
"Once you see it," he said, "you won't be able to pretend this ends cleanly."
Danny stepped forward. "I'm done pretending."
Sedge Hat nodded—and pressed his palm fully into the seal.
The runes ignited.
The door began to open.
And somewhere, across the multiverse, Bones felt something shift—not in power, not in danger, but in memory.
His laughter faded.
Just slightly.
Because whatever waited behind that door was something even he remembered fearing.
The choice was no longer approaching.
It was being uncovered.
The chamber did not reject Danny when he stepped back.
It simply waited.
The continuity frame's hum settled into a deeper register, less curious now, more reserved—like a door that had been opened once and would never again pretend it didn't exist. The void at its center remained hollow, edges trembling faintly, a negative shape that refused to be ignored.
Jimmy broke the silence first.
"We are not turning this into a martyr problem," he said flatly.
No one argued.
Sedge Hat nodded once, approving. "Good. Because that thinking is how the Golden Dragons justified leaving."
Danny turned toward him. "They thought walking away preserved purity."
"Yes," Sedge Hat replied. "They believed creation should not be burdened by what it opposed."
"And Bones proved that separation is a lie," Danny said.
"Exactly."
Shadeclaw's shadows rippled, uneasy. "Bones doesn't just escape cages. He waits for the moment after the cage works."
Mira looked at the frame again, eyes narrowed. "Because that's when people relax."
"And when doubt enters," Solmara added. "When vigilance fades into history."
Jimmy pinched the bridge of his nose. "Which means this thing—" he gestured sharply at the frame "—cannot be our primary plan."
Danny nodded. "It's not."
All eyes turned to him.
"It's our contingency," Danny said. "Our last layer. Not something we activate unless everything else fails."
The Wolf King's jaw tightened. "You speak as if you already know who would stand there."
Danny met his gaze evenly. "I know who won't be forced."
That mattered.
Sedge Hat exhaled slowly, centuries of regret surfacing briefly in his eyes. "Then perhaps this generation will do what the last one could not."
"Which is?" Jake asked quietly.
"Tell the truth about the cost," Sedge Hat replied.
They left the chamber sealed behind them.
This time, the door closed faster.
Not because it was afraid.
Because it had been acknowledged.
As the lift carried them back upward, no one spoke for several long seconds. The station's vibration returned to normal, layers of activity reasserting themselves. Life continued. War prepared itself quietly.
Finally, Swift spoke.
"If Bones learns about this frame—really understands it—he'll try to force it into play."
"Yes," Danny said. "He'll try to make it seem inevitable."
"And he'll try to break whoever could anchor it," Mira said softly.
Danny didn't deny it.
"That's why we don't center it," he said. "We don't let it become the story."
Jade scoffed. "Good luck with that."
Danny glanced at him. "We've been good at misdirection before."
Jimmy's voice came through the lift speakers. "Speaking of which. Intelligence update."
The holo flickered to life, showing a rapidly updating star map. Two points flared brighter than the rest—unstable, volatile.
"The remaining sigil stones are being drained faster," Jimmy said. "Pyronyx has increased output by thirty percent. Umbrakrell… hasn't."
Solmara stiffened. "He's holding."
"Yes," Jimmy said. "Which means he's waiting for leverage."
Danny studied the map. "Then that's where we apply pressure."
The Wolf King grinned, all teeth and heat. "You want to draw out the hunter."
"I want to force a choice," Danny replied. "For Umbrakrell. For Solmara's allies. For Bones."
Jimmy folded his arms. "You're suggesting a partial convergence demonstration."
"Yes."
Swift's eyes widened. "That's risky."
Danny nodded. "Which is why Bones will pay attention."
"And if he intervenes?" Jake asked.
Danny's gaze hardened slightly. "Then we learn how he breaks things before the real moment."
The lift slowed, doors opening onto the command tier. Activity surged around them—officers moving with purpose, analysts calling out data, strategy boards rewriting themselves in real time.
Jimmy stepped forward, voice carrying. "All right. Here's how this plays out."
He pointed to the holo. "We announce a controlled alignment test. Five stones only. No lock attempt."
Solmara's eyes narrowed. "That will force the Elemental Lords to react."
"Yes," Jimmy said. "And Bones to choose whether to interfere openly or continue shadow work."
Sedge Hat spoke quietly. "Either choice costs him."
Danny nodded. "And while he's focused on us—"
"The retrieval teams move for the last two stones," Shadeclaw finished.
Jimmy smiled thinly. "Exactly."
The plan settled over the room like a held breath. Dangerous. Imperfect. Necessary.
Danny felt creation stir again—not eager, not impatient. Aligned.
Somewhere in the depths of the multiverse, Bones felt the shift too. Not the plan itself, but the confidence behind it.
"Oh," he murmured, green fire flickering. "They're bluffing with the lock."
His smile returned—slow, sharp, delighted.
"Good," Bones whispered. "I love games with visible stakes."
Back at HQ, Danny stood at the center of controlled chaos, eyes on the star map, mind already moving several steps ahead.
This war would not be won by sealing Bones alone.
It would be won by making sure that when the cage finally closed—
There was no one left willing to open it.
The announcement went out without flourish.
No alarms.
No dramatic countdowns.
No language that suggested desperation.
It was framed as a systems verification exercise—a controlled alignment of the five secured sigil stones to test lattice stability under simulated convergence conditions. Routine. Necessary. Boring, if you didn't understand what was actually being tested.
Bones understood immediately.
Across B.U.D.D.I.E.S. HQ, personnel cleared nonessential decks near the sigil chamber. Observation wards activated. Psychic dampeners deepened. Redundant fail-safes nested inside one another like paranoid thoughts made solid.
Danny stood inside the primary control ring this time.
Not at the center—never at the center—but close enough that the stones' presence settled into him like gravity. Five points of ancient purpose, each one indifferent to heroism, loyalty, or fear.
They did not care that Bones was free.
They did not care who held them.
They only cared about alignment.
Jimmy's voice carried calmly through the chamber. "Begin phase one. Low-energy synchronization only. No drain compensation."
The stones responded.
Not by glowing brighter—but by agreeing.
Space between them tightened, distances adjusting by fractions too small for the eye but massive on a conceptual scale. The lattice formed—not a cage, not yet—but the shape of one. A promise sketched in hard light.
Danny felt it immediately.
Not pain.
Not temptation.
Pressure.
The kind that comes from holding something unfinished.
Around the chamber, monitors spiked, then steadied. Systems hummed as the station absorbed the strain. Somewhere far above, entire decks felt a subtle tug, like the station had briefly remembered it was not anchored to anything real.
"Alignment holding," an engineer reported. "No resonance cascade."
Jimmy exhaled slowly. "Good."
Solmara watched from the observation tier, her ring dormant but her attention razor sharp. She felt the shift ripple outward—felt it ping against the domains of the Elemental Lords like a thrown stone striking distant glass.
Pyronyx reacted first.
Not with subtlety.
A surge of heat flared across his stone's signature, the drain spiking violently as he tried to overpower the alignment through brute force. The lattice shuddered—but did not break.
"Pyronyx is panicking," Solmara said quietly.
"Good," Danny replied. "That means he doesn't know where Umbrakrell stands."
As if summoned by the thought, a second signal appeared on the holo—dark, compressed, cautious.
Umbrakrell was watching.
Not interfering.
Not assisting.
Measuring.
And somewhere far beyond even that, Bones leaned forward.
He did not feel threatened by the alignment.
Not yet.
But he felt something he hadn't felt in a very long time.
Constraint.
"Oh," Bones murmured, green fire dimming as he observed the pattern forming. "They're serious."
The five stones held.
The lattice stabilized.
And for the first time since his release, Bones felt a future narrowing.
That was when he chose.
Not to strike the chamber.
Not to attack the stones.
Not to corrupt the lattice.
Instead, Bones whispered.
Not to Danny.
Not to Jimmy.
Not even to the Elemental Lords.
He whispered into the one place the cage had never accounted for.
Memory.
Across the multiverse, old scars stirred. Regret sharpened. Doubt resurfaced in minds that had lived long enough to remember failure.
And in the deepest vaults of forgotten history, something ancient shifted—something that had once removed a stone not out of malice, but out of mercy.
Back at HQ, the alignment completed its test cycle.
Jimmy's voice was steady. "Phase one complete. Disengage."
The stones drifted apart, the pressure easing like a held breath finally released.
Systems normalized.
On paper, the test was a success.
Danny knew better.
He felt the echo Bones had left behind—not damage, not corruption, but direction.
"He's not coming for the stones," Danny said quietly.
Jimmy frowned. "Then what is he—"
"—coming for the moment," Danny finished.
The chamber lights dimmed slightly as a new alert pulsed across the holo—old, buried files unlocking themselves without authorization.
Sedge Hat's voice came through, tense in a way it rarely was.
"Jimmy," he said. "We have a problem."
Jimmy turned sharply. "Define problem."
"Someone just accessed records that haven't been touched since the first sealing," Sedge Hat replied. "Not the cage."
Danny's blood went cold.
"The release," he said.
Sedge Hat confirmed it with a single sentence.
"Yes."
And in the space between heartbeats, everyone understood what Bones had decided to do next.
He wasn't going to stop the cage.
He was going to make sure, when it closed—
Someone remembered why it had been opened before.
The room did not erupt into chaos.
That was the most dangerous part.
No alarms screamed. No emergency bulkheads slammed shut. The sigil chamber remained stable, the five stones drifting back into their passive containment positions as if nothing world-shaking had just occurred.
But the records had opened.
Jimmy was already moving, fingers flying across his datapad as Sedge Hat's access trace unfolded in real time. Lines of authorization cascaded backward through layers of dead protocols, some of them so old they predated the modern B.U.D.D.I.E.S. charter.
"Those files are supposed to be inert," Jimmy said, jaw tight. "Cold storage. No live hooks."
"They were," Sedge Hat replied. "Bones didn't brute-force them. He didn't need to."
Danny felt the truth settle into place with sickening clarity. "He used the alignment."
"Yes," Sedge Hat said quietly. "Not the energy. The pattern."
Shadeclaw's shadows stirred uneasily. "He mirrored the lattice logic."
"Exactly," Sedge Hat confirmed. "The partial convergence re-established a resonance pathway that hadn't existed in millennia. Long enough for Bones to… knock."
Jimmy swore under his breath. "What did he get?"
Sedge Hat didn't answer immediately.
That was worse than any alarm.
"He accessed the release chain," Sedge Hat finally said. "The human side of it. The people."
Swift's breath hitched. "The ones who removed a stone."
"Yes."
Jake's voice was barely above a whisper. "They weren't traitors."
"No," Sedge Hat said. "They were caretakers. Custodians. Survivors."
Danny felt something tighten in his chest—not fear, not rage, but recognition.
"He's not looking for leverage," Danny said slowly. "He's looking for precedent."
Solmara's eyes narrowed. "He wants to prove the cage fails by design."
"And that freeing him is inevitable," Danny finished. "Because someone will always choose mercy over vigilance."
The Wolf King snarled, heat flaring briefly before he forced it down. "Then we make sure they never stand alone again."
Jimmy looked up sharply. "What?"
Danny turned to face him fully now. "The first failure didn't happen because someone was weak. It happened because they were isolated. Burdened. Left to decide alone whether eternal imprisonment was just."
Silence fell.
Bones' whisper hadn't been loud—but it had been precise.
"He's going to find people who remember that choice," Danny continued. "Or recreate them. Put them in situations where opening the cage feels like the right thing to do."
Jimmy closed his eyes briefly. "And if he succeeds once—"
"We're back where we started," Danny said. "Except worse."
Sedge Hat's voice carried the weight of centuries. "This is why I stayed. This is why I built B.U.D.D.I.E.S. Not to guard stones. To guard people from having to make that choice alone."
Danny met his gaze. "Then we do it together this time."
A new alert chimed—different from the others. Not an intrusion. A location ping.
One of the archived release-event sites had reactivated.
Jimmy's eyes snapped to the holo. "That's impossible. That world was abandoned."
"It isn't anymore," Shadeclaw said, shadows tightening. "I can feel movement."
Solmara stiffened. "If Bones is reconstructing the context of the first release—"
"—then he's building the argument," Danny finished.
Jimmy straightened, voice snapping into command cadence. "All right. We move. Retrieval teams for the last two stones continue as planned. This—" he gestured to the new ping "—is a parallel threat."
Danny nodded. "I'll go."
Jimmy hesitated. "You don't know what you'll find there."
Danny's expression was calm, resolute. "I know exactly what I'll find."
He looked at the sigil chamber one last time—the five stones hovering in silent patience, indifferent to the war being waged around them.
"I'll find people being asked to make an impossible choice," Danny said. "And this time, creation won't abandon them."
The Wolf King stepped forward. "Then I hunt with you."
Shadeclaw was already moving. "I'll be ahead."
Swift swallowed, then nodded. "Not alone again."
Jimmy looked at them—at the team that had grown from reaction into resolve—and for a moment, the cosmic custodian allowed himself something like hope.
"Go," he said. "And Danny?"
Danny paused.
"Don't let Bones decide what mercy looks like."
Danny's gold eyes hardened—not flaring, not burning, but certain.
"I won't," he said.
Far away, in the ruins of a long-dead civilization reborn just enough to matter, Bones watched old names surface in new mouths.
He smiled—not wide, not manic.
Satisfied.
"History," Bones whispered, "always repeats… when no one stays to finish the sentence."
And as ships began to turn, as alliances strained and sigil stones waited in their cold, patient silence, the truth became unavoidable:
The final war with Bones would not be decided by who could build the strongest cage.
It would be decided by who could stand beside the key—
And refuse to turn it.