The howl reached the Wolf King before the alarms did.
It was not sound.
It was not thought.
It was inheritance.
A rupture passed through the Lupine Empire's stellar lattice—an ancient network older than hyperspace lanes, older than treaties, built from bloodlines, moons, and the shared memory of survival. The moment it broke, the Wolf King felt it in his marrow.
Three points of impact.
Three wounds opening at once.
He stopped mid-stride in the command hall of B.U.D.D.I.E.S. HQ, massive frame going utterly still as heat rolled outward from him in an involuntary wave. Officers nearby staggered, some gripping railings as gravity wavered under the sudden pressure of restrained fury.
Shadeclaw felt it too.
He didn't need the howl. The shadows around his feet recoiled, then sharpened—predatory, alert, recognizing a threat that had chosen its ground carefully.
Mira's ears flattened as her shadow-wolf senses screamed warning. She turned toward the Wolf King, already knowing the answer before the words came.
"They've crossed into Lupine space," the Wolf King said.
His voice was calm.
That was worse.
Jimmy's console lit up a half-second later, confirmations flooding in faster than any one analyst could read.
"Multiple Dark Buddy signatures," an officer reported. "Command-level. Coordinated assault vectors. Targets appear to be—"
"The border worlds," Jimmy finished quietly. "The old pack worlds."
The Wolf King's claws curled, gouging faint lines into the alloy floor.
"They didn't choose strategic hubs," Shadeclaw said, eyes dark. "They chose identity."
"Yes," the Wolf King replied. "Because Bones understands symbolism."
The holo expanded, resolving into three colossal figures marching at the head of a vast invasion armada.
They were not spectral horrors or shadow-wrought anomalies.
They were warlords.
Each stood well over fifteen feet tall—bodies forged from the brutal union of orcish ferocity and giant-blooded mass, clad in corrupted armor layered with Dark Buddy sigil grafts that pulsed with green-black energy. Where lesser Dark Buddies were weapons, these three were generals, chosen for their ability to command annihilation on a civilizational scale.
Gralmar Duskwrought stood foremost.
Broad even by giant standards, his armor was a moving fortress of obsidian plates and siege sigils. Massive tusks curved upward from his jaw, cracked and reforged with sigil-metal after countless wars. He wielded a colossal war-maul etched with runes designed to collapse shields, cities, and morale alike.
Gralmar did not charge worlds.
He dismantled them.
He specialized in prolonged planetary sieges—breaking infrastructure, starving populations, forcing empires to tear themselves apart long before his armies delivered the final blow.
Draven Mor'gash stood to Gralmar's right.
Leaner—though no less terrifying—his half-giant blood stretched his orcish frame into something unnervingly fast for its size. His armor was lighter, layered in adaptive shadow plates, and his eyes burned with predatory intelligence rather than brute rage. Twin execution blades hung at his sides, bound with fear-reactive sigils that sharpened the longer an enemy hesitated.
Draven did not conquer openly.
He infiltrated, assassinated leaders, corrupted pack hierarchies, and turned loyalty into suspicion. Entire systems had fallen without realizing they were under attack—until Draven walked through the ruins and claimed them.
Grothar Nightrender brought up the rear.
He was the largest of the three.
A walking catastrophe of muscle, bone, and sigil-reinforced armor, Grothar's giant heritage was unmistakable. His steps fractured terrain. His presence bent gravity. He carried no finesse weapons—only a massive cleaver-axe and his own unstoppable momentum.
Grothar was deployed when Bones no longer cared about what remained afterward.
Where he marched, planets broke.
Together, they led a vast Dark Buddy invasion force—warships, shock troops, corrupted constructs, and siege beasts—advancing with terrifying coordination toward the heart of the Lupine Empire.
This was not a raid.
It was an extermination campaign.
Silence fell over the command deck.
Bones was not whispering anymore.
He was declaring war.
The Wolf King turned away from the holo without another glance.
"I am returning home," he said.
No justification.
No apology.
No hesitation.
Shadeclaw stepped forward immediately. "I'm with you."
Mira followed, shadows already coiling tighter around her form. "So am I."
Jimmy did not argue.
He exhaled slowly, then straightened, all traces of hesitation gone. "Then B.U.D.D.I.E.S. acknowledges this as a formal assault on a recognized sovereign power."
The room snapped to attention.
"Prepare two G.A.M.B.I.T.s for immediate deployment," Jimmy ordered. "Full complement. No half-measures."
Jake's head lifted sharply. "Send me."
Swift didn't wait for permission. "Me too."
Jimmy looked at them both—really looked.
Then nodded. "Approved. Bronze and Silver Buddies attached to Lupine Command."
The Wolf King finally turned back, golden eyes burning with something far older than anger.
"You honor my people," he said.
Jimmy met his gaze evenly. "We honor those who stand."
Across the room, Danny watched the moment lock into history.
This was not a fracture.
This was a fork.
He stepped toward the Wolf King, the noise of the command deck dimming around them.
"You hold," Danny said quietly. "I finish the cage."
The Wolf King bared his teeth—not in threat, but in respect. "And when you do, my empire will still stand to guard it."
They clasped forearms once—brief, absolute.
Then the room moved.
Orders flew. Routes plotted. G.A.M.B.I.T. silhouettes lit up on the tactical map as engines spun to life. Jake and Swift turned and ran without looking back, already shifting into command mindsets forged by months of brutal training.
Shadeclaw and Mira vanished into shadow a heartbeat before the Wolf King followed, heat blooming as he accelerated toward the hangars.
The Lupine Empire would not face this alone.
Danny turned as Solmara approached, her expression grave but resolved.
"The last two stones won't wait," she said.
"I know," Danny replied.
Elysara stepped up beside him, pale hair braided tight, eyes steady despite the enormity of what was unfolding. For the first time, the faint pull in her blood stirred—not fear, but orientation.
"They're far apart," she said softly. "But… not unreachable."
Danny glanced at her. "You can feel them."
She nodded. "Not clearly. But enough."
Solmara watched the exchange with something like reluctant acceptance.
"Then we move now," she said. "Before Bones decides which front he wants to break."
Far away, across three burning systems, Bones observed the split with open satisfaction.
"Yes," he murmured. "Run home, Wolf King. Chase the lock, Golden Dragon."
Green fire flared brighter as his commanders advanced.
"Let's see who finishes their sentence first."
The Lupine Empire did not panic.
That alone marked the difference between a civilization that had survived extinction cycles and one that merely occupied space until something stronger arrived.
As the Dark Buddy armada tore through the outer jump lanes, pack-world defense grids came alive in layered sequence. Not in response to alarms—but in recognition. Old protocols, older than many of the stars now burning at their edges, awakened like muscles remembering how to clench.
On the frontier moon Kharrox, the sky split open.
Gralmar Duskwrought arrived first.
His flagship—a siege-vessel the size of a continental plate—punched out of hyperspace trailing a wake of distortion that folded orbital space into jagged angles. Hundreds of lesser warships followed, arranged not for maneuverability, but inevitability. This was not a fleet meant to dance.
It was meant to advance.
On the moon's surface, Lupine sentinels lifted their muzzles as one. Ancient stone towers etched with pack-runes flared to life, shields rising in overlapping arcs. Cities did not evacuate. They hardened. Civilians moved underground in practiced silence while warrior packs took position along the ridgelines.
Gralmar smiled, tusks flashing.
"Good," he rumbled, voice carrying through the void via amplified dread-signals. "They remember how to stand."
He raised his war-maul.
The first strike shattered a shield array kilometers away, not by impact, but by resonance. Siege sigils bloomed across the moon's crust, rewriting gravity vectors, collapsing defensive geometry into itself. Lupine cannons roared back, beams of stellar plasma slamming into Gralmar's advance ships—but where they struck, Dark Buddy vessels absorbed the energy, feeding it back into corrupted shields.
This was not a test.
This was the opening grind of extermination.
Elsewhere, far closer to the Empire's heart, Draven Mor'gash slipped into existence without fanfare.
No fleet announcement. No signal spike.
Just the sudden absence of certainty.
On Velthryn Prime, pack-leaders began to die quietly.
A communications relay went dark—then reactivated, broadcasting subtly altered orders. Patrol routes shifted by degrees too small to raise alarms. A pack-warrior turned on a brother after a whispered doubt seeded itself where loyalty had once been unquestioned.
Draven walked through it all unseen, twin blades never leaving their sheaths.
Fear did his work for him.
And then there was Grothar Nightrender.
Grothar did not choose border worlds.
He chose a pillar.
The industrial planet Ruun-Tal, forge-world of the Lupine Empire, screamed as Grothar's armada arrived directly above its primary foundries. Orbital defenses fired once—only once—before Grothar himself leapt from his flagship.
He hit the atmosphere like a meteor.
The impact shattered tectonic plates. Mountains folded inward. Shockwaves raced across the planet's surface faster than sound, tearing cities from their foundations.
Grothar rose from the crater, cleaver-axe already swinging.
He laughed as he worked.
—
The Wolf King felt all three fronts simultaneously.
Not as pain—but as strain.
The pack-bond stretched across systems, transmitting need, fear, resolve. He stood in the launch bay of the first G.A.M.B.I.T., engines roaring around him, heat bleeding off his frame in shimmering waves.
"We split," he ordered, voice carrying over the din. "Gralmar first. He breaks worlds slowly. That gives us time."
Shadeclaw nodded, shadows already slipping forward. "Draven is mine."
Mira's eyes burned silver-gold. "I'll hunt with you."
Jake cracked his knuckles, armor locking into place. "Grothar?"
Swift inhaled, scales beginning to surface beneath his skin. "We slow him."
The Wolf King met Jimmy's gaze across the holo-link one last time.
"Hold the line," Jimmy said.
The G.A.M.B.I.T.s jumped.
Space folded.
And the Lupine Empire answered the challenge of annihilation with teeth bared and banners raised—not in defiance, but in memory.
They had survived worse.
And this time, they did not stand alone.
—
Far away, in quieter darkness, Magic Kid crouched beside a containment vault that pulsed like a living heart.
The B.L.O.B. shifted within, pseudopods pressing against transparent alloy, reforming, dissolving, learning.
Magic Kid grinned, fingers tracing equations in the air that only he could see.
"Everyone's so busy choosing sides," he mused. "No one ever asks what happens after the cage closes."
The B.L.O.B. absorbed another fragment of biomass and split—once, twice.
Magic Kid laughed softly.
"Oh Bones," he whispered. "You're not the only one planning for the next disaster."
—
And on a silent trajectory through dead space, Danny stood at the prow of Solmara's vessel, Elysara beside him, both feeling the pull of the last two sigil stones like distant stars calling their names.
The war had split into three paths.
None of them led away from Bones.
They only led closer—to the moment when strength would no longer be enough, and someone would have to decide what staying truly meant.
The first clash did not announce itself with thunder.
It announced itself with pressure.
The moment the Wolf King emerged from folded space above Kharrox, every Lupine on the moon felt it—spines straightening, hearts hammering, the pack-bond tightening into something fierce and focused. The sky burned gold-blue as the G.A.M.B.I.T. tore reality open, its hull bristling with cannons and fighter bays yawning wide.
Gralmar Duskwrought looked up from the surface.
For the first time since the invasion began, the siege lord smiled wider.
"So," Gralmar rumbled, voice carrying across vacuum and atmosphere alike through Dark Buddy projection fields, "the king comes himself."
The Wolf King did not answer with words.
He answered with arrival.
He leapt from the G.A.M.B.I.T. before it had fully stabilized, heat and gravity warping around his form as he descended like a falling sun. The impact crater dwarfed Grothar's initial strike on Ruun-Tal—bedrock liquefying, shields buckling as shockwaves rolled outward.
Lupine warriors howled.
Gralmar swung his war-maul down to meet him.
The collision cracked the moon.
Force met force—not energy, not sigil, but raw mass and intent. The Wolf King skidded back meters through molten stone, claws digging trenches. Gralmar staggered one step, armor screaming as siege runes flared to compensate.
Gralmar laughed.
"Yes!" he bellowed. "This is how a world dies properly!"
The Wolf King rose, eyes blazing. "You will not have this one."
They collided again—fist to maul, flame to sigil—each blow rewriting the battlefield. Gralmar's siege magic tried to anchor the Wolf King, to slow him, to turn the terrain itself into a weapon.
It failed.
The Wolf King burned through it.
Every strike he landed carried not just heat, but legacy—the weight of moons defended, packs preserved, empires built tooth by tooth. Gralmar's armor began to crack, not because it was weak, but because it had never been meant to withstand something that refused to be moved.
High above, Lupine cannons found their rhythm, punching holes through Dark Buddy formations now faltering without their general's full attention.
Gralmar snarled. "You think this wins the war?"
"No," the Wolf King replied, slamming Gralmar into the ground hard enough to expose the mantle. "But it saves my people."
—
Across the system, Shadeclaw moved like a thought Draven Mor'gash could not outrun.
Velthryn Prime's shadow corridors twisted and folded as Shadeclaw slipped through them, Mira pacing him in perfect silence. Draven's fear-threads snapped one by one—not because Shadeclaw resisted them, but because he used them.
Draven turned as shadows converged.
"Ah," he said calmly. "The king's knife."
Shadeclaw didn't slow. "You don't belong here."
Draven smiled thinly. "Neither do you."
The blades came free.
What followed was not a duel—it was an erasure attempt.
Draven struck at Shadeclaw's doubts, whispering about Mira, about loyalty, about the cost of following kings. Shadeclaw answered with absence, cutting through illusion with shadow forged into certainty.
Mira hit Draven from behind, claws tearing through sigil armor as Shadeclaw's blade pinned him in place.
"You chose the wrong pack," she said.
Draven vanished in a scream of displaced shadow—not dead, but driven out, his infiltration web collapsing in his wake.
Velthryn Prime stabilized.
For now.
—
On Ruun-Tal, Grothar Nightrender roared as Jake and Swift arrived in a storm of fire and steel.
Swift took the sky, silver wings snapping open as lightning lanced downward, forcing Grothar to look up. Jake hit the ground hard, Bronze Dragon form flaring, B.E.A.R. units dropping around him in coordinated fire.
Grothar laughed, cleaver-axe swinging, obliterating three suits in a single arc.
"MORE," he roared.
Swift dove, lightning crackling, while Jake drove forward, refusing to yield ground. Every blow they traded with Grothar slowed him—not stopping, not defeating, but buying time.
Time for evacuation.
Time for shields to reestablish.
Time for the Empire to endure.
—
Far from the burning fronts, Solmara's vessel pierced the veil of a dead star system.
Danny felt the sigil stone before he saw it.
Suspended within a fractured planetoid, drained nearly to dormancy, its geometry flickered weakly—still intact, still indestructible.
Elysara gasped softly. "That's one."
Danny nodded. "And it's not alone."
Solmara's ring flared. "We're not first."
A presence stirred.
Not Bones.
Something older than ambition and newer than regret.
An Elemental Lord watched from the shadows of the broken system—measuring, waiting, already calculating how much Danny could be worth if captured instead of killed.
Danny's scales prickled.
The war was converging again.
And Bones—watching all of it unfold—smiled as Gralmar bled, as Draven withdrew, as Grothar laughed in defiance.
"Good," Bones whispered. "Let them win today."
Because victory made tomorrow hurt more.
Gralmar Duskwrought hit the ground hard enough to make the moon scream.
The Wolf King stood over him, chest heaving, flames rolling off his shoulders in slow, controlled waves. Around them, the battlefield had changed shape—craters overlapping craters, molten rock cooling into jagged spines, the sky fractured by burning debris and retreating warships.
Gralmar tried to rise.
One knee buckled.
The siege lord snarled, tusks dripping with molten stone. "You think this ends here?"
The Wolf King's claws closed around Gralmar's throat and lifted him effortlessly. The pressure alone cracked siege sigils that had endured orbital bombardment.
"No," the Wolf King said evenly. "This ends when you leave."
He hurled Gralmar upward, straight through the collapsing remnants of his own command vessel. The explosion rippled outward, a beacon to every Dark Buddy ship still in orbit.
Retreat signals flashed.
Not because they were beaten.
Because their general had been removed from the equation.
Across Kharrox, Lupine warriors howled—not in celebration, but in warning.
The war was not over.
But it would not be decided today.
—
On Velthryn Prime, Shadeclaw stood amid dissolving fear-webs as Mira wiped Draven's blood from her claws. The shadows around them calmed, receding back into something closer to normal.
"He'll return," Mira said.
Shadeclaw nodded. "They always do."
"But next time," she continued, eyes hard, "he won't underestimate us."
Shadeclaw looked toward the stars, where the Wolf King's presence burned bright. "Next time, we hunt him first."
—
On Ruun-Tal, Grothar Nightrender finally withdrew—not driven off, but recalled.
Jake slumped against a half-destroyed forge tower, armor scorched, breathing heavy. Swift landed nearby, silver wings folding slowly as his lightning faded.
"That," Swift muttered, "was unpleasant."
Jake laughed weakly. "Yeah. But he didn't finish the job."
Around them, evacuation transports lifted off, civilians safe. The forge-world still stood—scarred, burning, but alive.
The Lupine Empire endured.
—
And then there was silence.
Not peace.
Just the pause between strikes.
At B.U.D.D.I.E.S. HQ, Jimmy watched the battle feeds terminate one by one. Losses were tallied. Survivors counted. The cost was high—but not catastrophic.
"Send reinforcement rotations," Jimmy ordered. "Lock in Federation status for the Lupine Empire effective immediately. Publicly."
An aide hesitated. "Bones—"
"—will see it," Jimmy finished. "Good."
Recognition was not a shield.
It was a line.
—
Far away, in dead space, Solmara's vessel drifted closer to the fractured planetoid.
The sigil stone pulsed weakly now, responding to Danny's presence. Creation stirred in his chest, not flaring, not consuming—but steady, focused.
Then the pressure changed.
The stars dimmed.
Storm clouds formed where no atmosphere existed.
Lightning crawled across vacuum.
Solmara stiffened. "Tempestron."
A figure stepped from the storm—regal, furious, cloaked in thunder and pride. His ring blazed with stolen sigil energy, power borrowed and burning hot.
"You should not be here, Golden Dragon," Tempestron said, voice rolling like thunder. "That stone belongs to us."
Danny stepped forward, golden light tracing the edges of his form. "It belongs to the cage."
Tempestron sneered. "And you belong inside it."
Elysara felt the pull then—not toward the stone, but toward Danny. Her blood sang faintly, resonating with creation it barely remembered.
Tempestron noticed.
His eyes widened.
"Well," he said softly. "That changes things."
Danny moved.
Creation flared—not fully unleashed, but enough. Tempestron was driven back, lightning shattering against golden force as Danny reached the sigil stone and laid a hand upon it.
The stone brightened.
Not violently.
Correctly.
Tempestron snarled, retreating into storm as Solmara raised her ring defensively.
"This isn't over," the Elemental Lord vowed. "You've shown us what you are."
Danny watched him vanish. "That was the point."
The stone stabilized, dormant but whole.
One left.
—
Bones felt the shift.
Not anger.
Not panic.
Calculation.
His commanders had failed—but not fatally. The Lupine Empire stood, but it was bloodied. Danny had secured another stone, but at the cost of exposure.
And the frame—the continuity frame—waited.
Bones leaned back, green fire curling lazily around his fingers.
"Good," he murmured. "They're learning the rules."
He smiled wider.
"So am I."
Somewhere, Magic Kid laughed.
And across the multiverse, lines were redrawn—not between good and evil, but between those who would stay… and those who would eventually walk away.