Nom-Nom stood at the edge of the shoreline with her hands folded politely in front of her chest, one foot tapping against the sand as she stared up at the night sky.
Her eyes followed the tiny blue speck darting around in the sky, weaving between flashes of light and streaks of color as spells screamed past him from every direction.
From where she stood, it looked straight-up fun.
"No fair…" she muttered, her cheeks puffing slightly as she tracked his movement. "Master's hogging all the fun…"
Not realizing the Master in question was this close to peeing his pants.
"Hurry up…" she murmured. "I wanna go too."
That's when she saw it.
The sudden distortion near the larger ship as light bent in a way it hadn't before. A shimmer rippling across the air and stretching too far, and then shattering into drifting sparks of gold.
Nom-Nom's eyes widened as her lips curved a, "Ooooh…"
And then Nico's voice followed along that invisible thread connecting them.
[Nom. You're up. Eat whatever they throw at you… and don't try to tank it.]
She blinked, processing that.
"…He wants me to eat everything?" she asked aloud, tilting her head slightly as she considered the instruction with complete seriousness.
For half a second, she looked genuinely thoughtful.
Then her expression broke into a wide, delighted grin.
"Yay!"
The air around her warped as heat poured out from her body, and purple flames began spiraling outward in a sudden rush.
Obsidian scales formed along her arms and shoulders while three massive wings burst free from her back; the absence of the upper right wing did nothing to slow the power building inside her.
Nom-Nom bent her knees slightly, planting her feet into the sand as she focused all that fire beneath herself, gathering it like a coiled spring ready to snap.
"Okay!" she said cheerfully. "I'll eat everything!"
And then-
-BOOM-!
The blast detonated beneath her feet in a violent eruption of violet flames, launching her skyward like a living projectile as her wings snapped open and beat hard to give her extra momentum.
Back aboard the Southern Vigil, the command center felt suddenly quieter.
Nymira's head tilted slightly inside her crystalline pod as new data cascaded across the runes orbiting her.
"Chimera B-41 inbound," she announced, her voice layered with the Soul of Luke's ship.
Yet, Thane's eyes never left the night sky, where a streak of violet fire tore through the air toward them.
"Good," he said as a slow smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, "Now we fire the rail gun."
The runes around Nymira shifted instantly, tightening into new configurations as she processed the order.
"Calculating predicted trajectory," she replied. "Target vector updating. Adjusting for acceleration variance."
While outside the ship, the rail gun woke fully.
The massive barrel rotated with deliberate, heavy precision, each movement accompanied by the low groan of reinforced adamantite joints locking into place.
Blue runes flared to life along its length, crawling over the engraved surface like veins as power flooded into the weapon.
Lightning began to arc around the barrel, snapping violently into existence before grounding itself against containment fields.
Within it, a five-kilogram projectile sat suspended in layered spell matrices, its surface carved with the runes of Dragon's Rot, a curse refined over centuries for a single purpose: To kill dragons.
When launched, it would accelerate to Mach 10, carrying enough destructive potential to punch straight through scales and bone alike, delivering the curse straight into the dragon's core.
And as the barrel finished aligning and aiming directly at the streak of purple flame arcing through the sky-
"Target locked," Nymira reported.
Thane inhaled slowly, savoring the moment, savoring the fact he didn't fall into that flying man's trap, then let the breath out through his nose.
"End it."
And the rail gun fired.
-BOOOM-!!!!!
Thane watched the rail gun fire with a blinding flash of white and a thunderous recoil that shuddered through the Southern Vigil.
And for the first time since this whole mess began, he allowed himself to relax.
The projectile tore through the night like a shooting star, its trajectory flawless, its speed obscene, its purpose absolute.
All covered in a dragon-killing curse, delivered at Mach 10, aimed straight at a creature already mid-leap and unable to dodge.
"Heh," Thane muttered, a smug curl forming at the edge of his mouth. "So much for special forces."
He could already see Luke's expression when the reports came in.
And then, the night split open.
A vast, luminous silhouette formed from pure purple fire erupted from the streak mid-air, expanding outward as if answering the attack with enthusiasm.
It resolved into the unmistakable shape of a dragon's head before opening its maw and biting it down.
And the projectile vanished.
Simply ceasing to exist.
The dragon's head dissolved back into flame, revealing the purple streak continuing forward exactly as before, completely unbothered.
While Thane deflated where he stood.
Behind him, Nymira whispered, "Captain, it… ate our shot."
"…Yeah," he rasped, "I saw that."
He stared at the sky, watching the violet streak grow larger, his brain very slowly accepting that a weapon designed to kill dragons had just been treated like a snack.
And as the streak approached, it revealed a woman-shaped figure wrapped in purple flame, three wings spread wide, and a disturbingly bright grin plastered on her face.
And the next moment –
-BOOM! - CRASH!
The streak hit the rail gun's barrier with a deafening crash.
The golden field bent inward before shattering the next second as Nom-Nom slammed through it feet-first, before coming to a stop directly in front of the rail gun.
Alarms screamed through Nymira's rune feeds as containment fields spiked.
And before anyone could react, purple fire surged again.
The silhouette of a dragon's head burst outward from her own, jaws opening wide as she leaned forward with obvious enthusiasm before -
-Chomp.
- The rail gun disappeared.
Runes, adamantite, spell matrices, containment fields… all of it vanished between her teeth like it had never existed.
Silence fell over the command center as Nymira stared at the absence, runes flickering wildly as she recalculated reality several times in a row.
"…Captain," she said quietly. "It ate the rail gun."
Thane's straight posture had long deflated to the point where it was no longer straight as he said, "… Yeah, I saw that too."