The Dragon Realm did not smell of life.
That was the first thing Danny noticed, though he could not have said why. There was light—too much of it, perhaps—folded into elegant geometries that arced across infinity like the inside of a cathedral built by mathematics itself. There was warmth, but it was regulated. Balanced. Perfectly measured.
Nothing here breathed by accident.
Danny stood at the threshold of the Hatchling Convergence, wings folded tight against his back, golden flame reduced to a dormant ember beneath his skin. Around him, Dragons gathered in silent tiers, their vast forms suspended in midair or anchored to crystalline platforms that rearranged themselves to accommodate weight and authority.
No voices overlapped.
No excitement rippled.
No anticipation stirred.
This was not a celebration.
It was a procedure.
Aurixal Tharandros hovered beside him, massive golden wings half-furled, expression unreadable. If any Dragon here carried something like unease, it was him—but even that was buried beneath centuries of composure.
"You were invited to observe," Aurixal said gently. "Not to interfere."
"I won't," Danny replied.
He meant it.
Before them, seven immense cradles of translucent crystal rotated slowly in a perfect ring, each one inscribed with sigils so fine they appeared more like ideas than markings. Inside each cradle, light pulsed—condensed, ordered, restrained.
Creation, reduced to a formula.
Danny took a step forward.
The Dragons noticed.
Vaelthysra Drakenor's platinum scales caught the light as she shifted, her gaze sharp. "He should not be this close."
Aurixal did not move. "He is family."
The word passed through Danny like a ghost.
He said nothing, eyes fixed on the nearest cradle.
Something stirred inside it.
A hatchling.
Not an egg cracked open by time and chance, not a life emerging from union and risk—but a being assembled, phase by phase, its form stabilized before consciousness ever sparked.
Danny felt creation there—but it was thin. Not weak. Just… contained.
"They're not born," Danny said quietly.
"They are formed," Vaelthysra corrected, voice clipped. "Refined. Balanced. Free of unnecessary volatility."
Danny's jaw tightened.
He reached out—not physically, but instinctively—and felt the matrices respond, shifting parameters as if recalibrating to his presence. One hatchling moved, its small, translucent claws pressing faintly against the inside of the crystal.
Curious.
Not commanded.
Danny's breath caught.
Aurixal watched him closely now.
"You no longer procreate naturally," Danny said.
Silence spread outward from the words.
Not outrage.
Recognition.
Kryndor Solathis tilted his head slightly, obsidian-gold scales drinking in the light. "Natural reproduction was… inefficient. Emotional attachment created instability. Loss."
Danny laughed once, softly. "Loss is the point."
Vaelthysra bristled. "Loss is a flaw."
"No," Danny said. "It's responsibility."
He stepped closer, close enough that the glow from the cradle painted his skin in refracted gold. The hatchling inside shifted again, reacting not to the sigils, but to him.
Danny felt it then—fully, painfully.
These Dragons were not anyone's children.
They were assets.
Products of perfected creation stripped of lineage, love, and consequence.
"You've made creation safe," Danny said. "And hollow."
Aurixal's wings twitched—just once.
Danny turned to him then, truly seeing him.
Aurixal had always been different. Kinder. Quieter. Watching instead of commanding. Danny had felt the connection before, never understanding why.
Now he did.
"You stayed," Danny said softly. "Your brother didn't."
Aurixal closed his eyes.
"He chose creation," Aurixal said. "I chose… exile."
The weight of it settled between them.
Danny understood then—not as lore, but as blood-memory—that Aurixal had been sent away when the Dragons withdrew. A younger brother, spared the burden of kingship, tasked with leaving behind the clan that chose to stay. The clan that would one day lead to Danny.
Family, stretched across eternity.
That was why Aurixal watched him.
That was why he listened.
That was why he never stopped him.
The hatchling's claw pressed harder against the crystal.
Vaelthysra recoiled. "This is why he should not be here."
"No," Aurixal said quietly. "This is why he must be."
Danny stepped back.
He felt sick.
Not with anger—but grief.
The Dragons had not just abandoned the multiverse.
They had abandoned love.
And now, faced with Bones—destruction given will—they could not act quickly because they had forgotten how to care deeply enough to risk losing again.
Danny looked at the hatchlings one last time.
"They'll be strong," he said. "But they'll never know why strength matters."
He turned away.
This place could not teach him anything more.
Behind him, debate was already beginning—phrases forming, positions hardening, timelines dissolving into eternity.
Danny walked toward the exit without waiting for permission.
Aurixal followed.
At the threshold, Aurixal spoke one last time.
"You don't have to carry this alone."
Danny stopped, but did not turn.
"I know," he said. "That's why I'm leaving."
He stepped out of the Dragon Realm.
Creation followed him.
The transition back into the wider multiverse did not arrive with violence.
It arrived with weight.
Danny felt it the moment the Dragon Realm released him—not the resistance of space, but the density of consequence. Here, things lingered. Damage accumulated. Choices didn't evaporate into abstraction. They stayed, layered on top of one another, shaping futures whether anyone wanted them to or not.
He welcomed it.
The B.U.D.D.I.E.S. headquarters resolved around him in stages—first as light and structure, then as sound, motion, urgency. The station was alive in a way the Dragon Realm never had been. Crews moved with purpose, voices overlapped, systems hummed under strain. It was messy. Inelegant.
It was real.
Jimmy sensed him before Danny finished materializing.
"Don't tell me," Jimmy said without looking up from a swarm of holographic displays. "They're still arguing about definitions."
Danny gave a faint smile. "They've perfected it."
Jimmy snorted. "Figures. Coffee? Waffle?"
"Later," Danny said.
That answer made Jimmy finally look at him.
"Oh," Jimmy muttered. "It's one of those days."
They walked together toward the central containment chamber—the space that used to house the sigil lattice. Danny had seen the schematics before. He had felt its presence for centuries without understanding its fragility. Now, standing at the threshold, the absence was almost louder than the alarms had been when it fell.
Where organic arches once braided into living geometry, there was nothing.
Not rubble.
Not wreckage.
Just… gone.
The B.L.O.B. had not destroyed the lattice. It had unmade it, absorbing the organic composite matter until the concept of permanence itself had been erased from that space.
"The lattice is unrecoverable," Jimmy said quietly. "Every model says the same thing. We can rebuild a structure. We can't rebuild that."
Danny nodded. He already knew.
"The stones?" he asked.
Jimmy gestured.
Seven sigil stones hovered in a loose formation nearby, dim but intact. They were unchanged—ancient, patient, indifferent. They did not mourn the lattice. They did not react to its loss.
"They still work," Jimmy said. "Just not the way the Dragons wanted."
Danny stepped closer, letting his senses brush against them. The stones responded—not calling, not commanding. Simply… aligning. They remembered their purpose even if the frame meant to hold them no longer existed.
"They were never judges," Danny said softly. "Never arbiters of good or evil. Just anchors."
Jimmy folded his arms. "Anchors need something to anchor to."
"Yes," Danny agreed. "Bones."
Jimmy's expression tightened. "And Bones is gone quiet."
That was the other absence.
Not silence, exactly—but restraint.
Bones had always been theatrical before. Loud. Catastrophic. Every move designed to be felt across systems. Now… nothing. Just distant reports of worlds destabilizing, of Dark Buddy activity increasing in efficiency but decreasing in visibility.
No grand declarations.
No taunts.
"He knows the rules changed," Danny said.
Jimmy nodded. "He knows he can be captured now."
"And that scares him," Danny added. "Not because he fears the cage—but because he fears being interrupted."
They both understood what that meant.
Bones was feeding slowly. Carefully. Letting destruction accumulate without drawing attention. Every year he remained free, his power returned closer to what it had been at the beginning of time.
If he reached that threshold again…
Only the original Creation Dragons could stop him.
And they were still debating.
Danny closed his eyes, seeing again the hatchlings in their crystal cradles. Perfect. Loveless. Strong without understanding why strength mattered.
"They can't act fast enough," Danny said.
Jimmy didn't argue.
"They won't," Jimmy said instead. "Not until the cost is undeniable. And by then—"
"It'll be too late," Danny finished.
A pause stretched between them—not uncertainty, but acknowledgment.
"So," Jimmy said carefully. "What are you thinking?"
Danny looked back at the sigil stones.
"The lattice made the prison permanent," he said. "But permanence was never the point. It was delay."
Jimmy raised an eyebrow. "You're thinking temporary containment."
"Stunning Bones," Danny said. "Long enough to attach the stones directly to him. They'll form a cage on contact."
"And he'll still whisper," Jimmy said.
"Yes," Danny replied. "Which means the prison will always be vulnerable."
Jimmy grimaced. "That's a hell of a gamble."
Danny opened his eyes.
"So is waiting."
Across the multiverse, in a region stripped bare by quiet annihilation, Bones paused.
He felt the shift—not in power, but in attention. The sigil stones were no longer static. Danny was no longer hesitant. The Dragons were no longer invisible.
Bones smiled.
Good.
Let them chase.
Let them plan.
The longer they debated how to stop him, the more he remembered what he was.
And when they finally came…
He intended to be ready.
Back at HQ, Danny straightened, resolve settling into place not as anger, but as acceptance.
"This won't end quickly," he said. "Years, maybe longer. Bones knows it. I know it."
Jimmy nodded slowly. "A long hunt."
"Yes," Danny said. "And it starts with not waiting for permission."
He turned toward the viewport, stars stretching endlessly beyond.
Creation was not safe.
Creation was not clean.
But it was worth staying for.
And this time, he would not leave it to gods who had forgotten how to love what they made.
Danny remained at the viewport long after Jimmy left him there.
The stars beyond B.U.D.D.I.E.S. HQ were never still. Trade lanes pulsed faintly, distant systems flared and dimmed, entire civilizations living and dying in light that would take centuries to reach this place. It was beautiful in the way something vast and indifferent could be beautiful—uncaring whether it was watched or understood.
The Dragon Realm had been beautiful too.
That was the problem.
There, beauty had been preserved. Curated. Stripped of mess and grief and attachment until it no longer asked anything of those who lived within it. Dragons had perfected the art of survival without consequence, and in doing so, they had forgotten why survival mattered.
Danny pressed a hand against the transparent barrier, feeling the faint vibration of the station's systems through the glass. Here, even walls reminded you they were working.
He exhaled slowly.
This was where the hunt truly began—not with a battle, not with a roar of flame, but with patience sharpened into intent.
Bones had gone dark because he understood something fundamental: the universe was no longer afraid of him in the same way. Fear had changed shape. It was no longer paralyzing; it was focused. The sigil stones existed. Danny existed. Capture was possible.
Not permanent.
Possible.
And that meant Bones had to be careful.
Somewhere beyond mapped space, Bones drifted through the ruins of a world that had already died before he arrived. The surface was a lattice of cracked stone and frozen oceans, its sun reduced to a dim ember by earlier calamity. Bones did not destroy it further. There was nothing left to take quickly.
Instead, he listened.
Destruction had a memory. Every scream, every collapse, every act of despair left residue in the fabric of reality. Bones fed on that residue now, slow and deliberate, letting it soak back into him like marrow returning to bone.
He could feel the difference already.
Not strength yet—but coherence.
He was becoming whole again.
"You've learned," he murmured to the void, voice barely more than vibration. "That makes this more interesting."
He could sense Danny's movement—not location, but direction. Creation always left a wake, no matter how carefully it moved. Danny was no longer drifting between identities. He had chosen a vector.
Good.
A hunter was easier to predict than a philosopher.
Bones extended his awareness outward, brushing against minds already weakened by loss. Refugees. Survivors. Commanders who had lost wars they did not understand. He whispered nothing yet. No promises. No bargains.
Not yet.
A whisper too early was a wasted opportunity.
Back at HQ, Danny joined Swift and Jake in the training bay hours later. Neither spoke at first. They didn't need to. They could feel it on him—the difference. Not power. Certainty.
"You went back," Swift said finally.
"Yes," Danny replied.
"And?" Jake asked.
Danny considered how to answer.
"They're strong," he said. "Stronger than they've ever been. And emptier than I expected."
Jake frowned. "That… doesn't sound like a compliment."
"It isn't," Danny said. "But it explains everything."
He moved to the center of the bay, rolling his shoulders as if shaking off something heavy. The space responded to him instinctively—lights adjusting, gravity compensating, systems recalibrating around his presence.
"I need both of you ready," Danny continued. "Not for a fight. For a pursuit."
Swift tilted his head. "Bones."
"Yes."
Jake's jaw tightened. "How long?"
Danny met his eyes. "As long as it takes."
Silence followed, not from hesitation, but from understanding.
"You're not waiting for the Dragons," Swift said.
"No," Danny agreed. "They'll come when they're ready—or when they have no choice."
"And until then?" Jake asked.
Danny smiled faintly, not with humor but with resolve.
"Until then, we stay ahead of him."
In the Dragon Realm, Aurixal stood alone near the Hatchling Convergence long after the others had dispersed. The cradles rotated softly, their light steady, controlled, perfect.
He watched one hatchling press its claw against the crystal again, repeating the motion without instruction.
Aurixal's chest ached.
"You remind me of him," Aurixal whispered—to the hatchling, to Danny, to a brother long gone. "And that frightens them more than Bones ever did."
He turned away, wings heavy.
For the first time since the withdrawal, Aurixal wondered whether leaving had truly spared them—or merely delayed their reckoning.
And far from both Dragon Realm and B.U.D.D.I.E.S. space, Bones smiled into the dark, patient and whole enough to wait.
The chase had begun.
Not with fire.
Not with war.
But with two beings who had finally stopped pretending the universe would resolve itself if given enough time.
And time, as Danny now understood, was the one resource they no longer had.
Danny did not sleep.
He stood on the outer ring of the station long after the lights dimmed to night-cycle levels, watching the slow rotation of the galaxy beyond the viewport. Somewhere out there, Bones was moving carefully, deliberately, like a predator that had learned the terrain well enough to know when not to strike.
That restraint bothered Danny more than open slaughter ever had.
Open destruction could be answered. It left scars, signals, patterns. Quiet destruction was different. Quiet destruction prepared.
He closed his eyes and let his awareness stretch—not searching, not calling, but listening the way one listened for thunder long before the storm arrived. Creation responded, not with images, but with pressure. Threads tugged at him gently, hinting at imbalance, at places where destruction had taken more than its share and left reality thinner than it should be.
Bones was grazing.
Not feasting.
The sigil stones drifted in their secured chamber several decks below, each one a silent promise and a silent threat. Danny could feel them now more clearly than ever—not as objects, but as relationships. They were not weapons. They were agreements. If placed correctly, if held long enough, they could deny Bones momentum. They could slow him. Starve him.
But they would never silence him.
Danny understood now why the Dragons had built the lattice. Not to trap Bones forever—but to avoid hearing him.
The thought made his jaw clench.
Bones whispered because someone always listened. Someone always wanted something badly enough to convince themselves that freeing him was worth the cost. The lattice had been a way to bury that truth under layers of permanence and pretend the problem was solved.
Now it wasn't.
And it would never be again.
Jimmy joined him quietly, holding two mugs. He offered one without comment. Danny accepted, more for the gesture than the drink.
"You know," Jimmy said after a while, "when the Dragons left, a lot of us thought they were cowards."
Danny didn't respond.
"Turns out," Jimmy continued, "they were just tired."
"Tired people still make choices," Danny said.
Jimmy nodded. "Yeah. They just like to pretend they don't."
They stood together in silence for a few minutes, watching a distant system flare as a starship exited jump-space.
"The council won't like what you're planning," Jimmy said eventually.
"I'm not planning anything," Danny replied. "I'm preparing."
Jimmy smiled faintly. "That's worse."
"Maybe," Danny said. "But it's honest."
He took a breath and felt creation stir—not wildly, not impatiently, but with purpose. For the first time, it didn't feel like something he was holding back or struggling to understand. It felt like something he was walking alongside.
That was new.
Creation wasn't a crown. It wasn't a burden. It was a responsibility that only mattered if you stayed close enough to feel it hurt.
Jimmy set his mug aside. "When you do go after him," he said quietly, "you won't be alone."
Danny glanced at him.
"Not the Dragons," Jimmy added quickly. "Not yet. I mean us. Buddies. Wolves. Everyone who's already paid the price for Bones existing."
Danny nodded. "I know."
Somewhere in the depths of the station, Bumble let out a cheerful electronic chirp as Jake passed by, utterly unaware that the universe was quietly bracing itself.
Across the void, Bones paused in his slow orbit around a dead world and tilted his skull as if listening.
"Oh," he whispered, amused. "You're finally thinking long-term."
He drifted onward, leaving the ruined planet untouched. There would be time for it later.
Always later.
Back in the Dragon Realm, Aurixal watched the hatchlings settle into their prescribed rest cycles, each one cataloged, stabilized, and archived. He felt the absence Danny had left behind like a hollow space that no amount of light could fill.
"He will not wait for us," Aurixal murmured.
No one answered.
Far from gods and councils and quiet stations, the multiverse continued to move—unconcerned with who led or who followed, caring only that choices were made and consequences followed.
And Danny, standing between creation and destruction, finally understood the shape of the path ahead.
Not a straight line.
Not a final battle.
But a long pursuit through years and sacrifices and moments where doing the right thing would cost more than anyone wanted to pay.
He welcomed it.
Because this time, when the whisper came, he intended to be close enough to answer it himself.
And to make sure no one else ever had to.
The station's night cycle ended without Danny noticing.
Light shifted subtly along the curved spine of B.U.D.D.I.E.S. HQ, panels brightening by fractional degrees, systems humming into a new rhythm as crews rotated and schedules advanced. Time moved because it always did—indifferent to contemplation, unimpressed by resolve.
Danny finally stepped away from the viewport.
Not because he had reached peace, but because peace was no longer the point.
He moved through the station without escort, the way he always had. People noticed him—how could they not?—but no one stopped him. Buddies, engineers, pilots, medics… they looked up as he passed, some with awe, some with trust, some with the quiet relief of knowing someone was thinking about the problem that kept them awake.
He didn't correct them.
He didn't reassure them.
He simply kept walking.
The sigil chamber felt colder now.
Not physically—environmental controls were immaculate—but conceptually. The absence of the lattice left the space feeling unfinished, like a sentence cut off mid-thought. The seven stones hovered in a loose, carefully balanced formation, each one faintly luminous, each one containing a fraction of something that could never be fully expressed.
Danny stood beneath them and closed his eyes.
Creation responded immediately.
Not in spectacle. Not in flame.
In alignment.
He felt the stones orient to him—not submitting, not obeying, but recognizing a shared purpose. They had been made to imprison Bones, yes—but more than that, they were meant to slow inevitability. To buy time in a universe that otherwise rushed toward entropy with alarming enthusiasm.
Time.
The Dragons had hoarded it.
Bones was consuming it.
Danny intended to spend it.
He reached out and touched the nearest stone.
The contact was not painful. Not overwhelming. Just… honest. The stone did not show him visions or grant him insight. It simply reminded him of what it was for.
"You don't care who uses you," Danny murmured. "You just care that someone does."
The stone glowed slightly brighter, as if acknowledging the statement without comment.
Danny withdrew his hand.
This wasn't the moment.
He knew that now.
Bones had gone dark because he was afraid—not of destruction, but of interruption. He would not reveal himself until he believed the risk had diminished, until his strength returned far enough that even a stunned capture would be uncertain.
Which meant the hunt would not be loud.
It would be subtle.
Measured.
Years, not weeks.
Danny turned away from the stones and left the chamber without sealing it behind him. Let them remain visible. Let everyone know what was at stake.
Secrecy bred complacency.
Elsewhere in the station, Swift was already preparing—running simulations, mapping probability curves that refused to settle into clean answers. Jake worked alongside him, Bumble perched happily on his shoulder, occasionally chirping nonsense that somehow cut through the tension just enough to keep them human.
Shadeclaw and Mira trained in silence, refining movements that no longer belonged to any one discipline. Wolf. Shadow. Assassin. Something new.
Jimmy oversaw it all from the center, paperwork stacking higher than seemed reasonable, waffle iron cooling on a side counter because even he knew this wasn't the moment for jokes.
And far, far away, Bones continued to drift.
He did not rush.
He did not rage.
He fed on what destruction had already provided, letting it knit him back together slowly, patiently. He avoided places where resistance had grown strong. Avoided Danny's wake. Avoided the Wolves.
He had learned.
"You're different now," Bones whispered to himself, voice echoing through the hollow of a ruined world. "That makes you dangerous."
He smiled.
"And predictable."
Back in the Dragon Realm, Aurixal stood before the council as debate resumed—slower now, heavier, infected with a truth they could no longer fully ignore.
"They act without us," Vaelthysra said sharply. "They always have."
"Yes," Aurixal replied. "And they keep surviving."
Kryndor watched the projected movements of the multiverse with keen interest, noting where Danny's influence bent probability without breaking it. "If he succeeds," he said thoughtfully, "the balance shifts permanently."
Aurixal met his gaze. "It already has."
No one argued.
Because deep down, they all felt it.
The era of sealed mistakes and abandoned responsibilities was ending.
Not with a roar.
But with a decision made quietly, repeatedly, by someone who refused to leave when staying became unbearable.
Danny stood once more at the edge of the station, looking out into the dark.
He did not see a final battle.
He saw a path—long, dangerous, uncertain—stretching forward through years of sacrifice and hard choices. A path that would demand everything from him and offer no guarantees in return.
He stepped onto it anyway.
Because creation was not about perfection.
It was about staying long enough to fix what you broke.
And this time, Danny intended to see it through—no matter how long the hunt took, no matter how softly Bones whispered, no matter how many gods hesitated behind him.
The universe moved on.
So did he.