Noodle squared up with the incoming ship, completely passing his mom and aunt on his way up. They were busy dealing with all the smaller ships, so it was his job to take care of the annoying big one. At least, that’s what he’d gotten from his dad.

But Noodle wasn’t really paying much attention to what Father said. He was just glad he got to do something. Hanging out with his brothers and sisters in the Forge was fun, but it was hard to ignore all the fighting going on when a bunch of people were running around with whatever stuff Aunt Cat or his mother had thrown into the Forge.

On his way up, none of the ships had paid any attention to him. Maybe they couldn’t see him since he was so small right now. After all, his current form was only a foot long. Noodle found that more than a little funny, considering just how big he could get.

Before he did anything about the ship, he took the chance to see how things were going. Checking out the battlefield was really easy from so high up, and his vision was super good, being a dragon and all. What he saw was real weird.

Father and Uncle Erik were sitting in a big circular building with a bunch of injured people and a few Entrance Blades. Of course, his uncle was healing all the people, so that made sense. Uncle Erik was a really good healer. At least, he said he was a lot; Noodle didn’t see him using it much in the Forge since Father could just will people to get better if they got hurt.

The part that looked weird to him was what his mother and aunts were doing. A whole bunch of metal guys were fighting Uncle Dave and a bunch of undead in a giant dome made of bone, and Aunt Cat wasn’t around. But the strange part was how small the undead army was. Noodle had seen Aunt Cat summon an army way bigger than that before.

The same with Aunt Asherta and Mother. They were taking out ships, but neither of them was going all-out. He knew for a fact that his mom could use one of her big attacks and wipe out a dozen ships in an instant. Same with Aunt Asherta. She could rip through metal like it was paper when she really started using her full draconic strength. But now, she was barely even trying.

Then Noodle remembered Father saying something about not killing people. That would explain why everyone was holding back so much, even if he thought it was silly. The people they were fighting were definitely trying to kill them, so attacking right back was just natural. Holding back was a mistake their enemies wouldn’t make. And if they did, it was just a weakness to exploit.

Not that it mattered. No matter how silly he thought they were being, Noodle knew that his family wasn’t losing. Uncle Dave was, frankly, scary as all get out. Noodle found it hard to imagine a situation where he’d lose unless he had to fight someone like Noodle’s dad. Same with Mother and Aunt Asherta. They were way too powerful to ever lose to a bunch of crappy ships flying around, throwing out useless attacks that barely did anything.

That didn’t mean Noddle was going to follow their example. He wasn’t going to be holding back. Instead, he was going to show these annoying people that they couldn’t pick a fight with his family and expect to win.

With that thought in mind, Noodle let himself expand. Keeping himself to a smaller size wasn’t hard, exactly. It didn’t take any effort on his part to maintain a different size, but after a while, it started to feel awkward, like he had a kink in his spine. It was nice to be back in his full size.

Now he was staring down at the ship that was suddenly much smaller than him. It was roughly the same diameter, but it was much, much shorter. Noodle was, as always, longer than he was wide, and his increased size translated to a lot more length than anything else.

Staring down at the tiny ship, Noodle wondered how he was going to deal with it.

{}

Otto stared slack-jawed out the porthole. He was supposed to be manning the flack cannon to his side, but the weapon was left completely forgotten as he looked at the massive, sinuous dragon that had suddenly appeared in front of their ship.

The Vengeance was a rapid-response vessel, one of three such etherships stationed on the supermassive carrier flagship Liberation. Alongside the Retribution and the Avenger, they were ships designed to rapidly switch out their armaments to deal with any emergent threats that showed up during the battle. Shrouds could be infinitely varied in their powers, and the three response ships were meant to act as a counter to that variety.

Surprisingly, the Vengeance had been called, but not against any of the shrouded powerhouses over at the main meeting hall that were stirring up trouble. So far, the plans in place at that sight had managed to keep them in check, Instead, their ship had been called to deal with a small cluster of shrouded that had somehow managed to slip the suppression field.

Leadership had been real quiet so far on how that had happened, but the scuttlebutt around the ship was that one of the shrouded had just the right domain to counter the field. More than that, they’d managed to transfer that immunity to a small number of other shrouded, and they were making trouble.

They were supposed to be dealing with some kind of object shrouded riding a big bird and throwing out clouds of disruptive materials to counter the energy and physical attacks from the other etherships while another shrouded, a creature type, used some sort of breath attack to disrupt the defensive shields.

With that in mind, the Vengeance had been outfitted with anti-material flak cannons to pierce their defenses and a reinforced ether generator along with a double-layered shield to stop the initial assault. Then the high-density laser arrays would rip the shrouded apart, clouds or no clouds.

They certainly weren’t expecting a dragon whose head was as big as the entire ship! Otto could only stare at the colossal beast as it glared at the Vengeance. Not a single thought moved through his head before the dragon started moving. Once it did, his mind caught up with what was going on around him, which was mostly a lot of screaming.

The commander was screaming over the communication crystals to open fire, everyone in his weapons bank was screaming about how they were going to die, and the air itself was screaming as the dragon surged forward toward the Vengeance. It extended its front feet, three toes each ending in talons longer than Otto’s entire weapons bank.

The talons surged forward and Otto felt his life flash before his eyes. Then the tip of each claw, burning orange like molten metal, stopped dead in the air a good hundred feet from the ship. Otto let out a little laugh. He’d completely forgotten about the shield. Of course they were fine; even a monster of this magnitude couldn’t break through the Vengeance’s defenses so easily.

Immediately, Otto’s training kicked in and he jumped to get the flak cannon up and running. Other members of his and other weapons banks had recovered faster than him and already opened fire on the giant dragon. Unfortunately, nothing seemed to be working at all. The thick silvery metallic scales covering it from snout to tail deflected everything that hit them.

They were at a stalemate. At least, that’s what Otto thought until he saw the dragon’s open maw descending from above. The massive jaws were more than large enough to wrap all the way around the shields and let the burning, serrated teeth three rows deep clamp down on the invisible barrier and squeeze.

For the first time, Otto saw the shields. They turned a translucent white as they strained to hold back the raw power of the dragon’s bite. For a brief moment, Otto hoped that even the absurdly powerful jaws wouldn’t be enough to bust through the ship’s reinforced and double-layered shields.

Otto reeled back as his hopes were dashed by a blazing light that surged across the barrier. With its mouth still clamped around the Vengeance like it was a chew toy, the dragon had released a surge of bright white fire tinged with tongues of red, gold, and purple flame that swallowed the entire vessel.

With a sound like metal sheering, Otto watched the shields in horror out the porthole. Cracks had started to form.

{}

“Hi, Mel.” Dave smiled at Mel’Zally, Greater Duchess of the Nine Hells and Succubus Queen. Also, a close friend and former work colleague. “How’ve you been?”

In response, she could only shake her head. “You’ve got a lot to answer for, mister.”

“What did I do wrong?” Dave asked, genuinely confused.

“Oh, maybe just a little something to do with all this?” She gestured toward Dave himself. “What happened?”

“Oh yeeeeah.” Dave laughed embarrassedly. “All this? Oh, nothing much. Met a Necromancer from a weird universe who was more powerful than any other I’ve ever seen. She formed a familiar pact with me and managed to forcefully change my undead race. Nothing much.”

Mel laughed. “It’s always something with you, Dave. You’re a magnet for weird things.”

“It’s not my fault!” He protested. “I was just going on a routine summoning, I swear. It just…got a little weird.”

“Kinda making my point there, bud. If a ‘routine summoning’ can end with you changing your race, which is supposed to be impossible if I’m not mistaken, then I’m pretty sure that’s no longer a routine summoning.” Dismissing his blustering response, she looked around the battlefield curiously. “Where are we right now?”

“Middle of a battle.” Dave shrugged.

“Yeah, I got that part. I’d like some more detail.” Mel laughed.

“Yeah, so that Necromancer I formed a pact with is kinda trying to stop a genocidal rebellion intent on overthrowing a naturally occurring ruling class of superhumans by killing all the superhumans, of which she is one.”

“If they’re naturally occurring, how does the rebellion plan on dealing with the ones that show up after the genocide is over? People tend to be pretty against killing their own kids.” Mel immediately pointed out one of the many, many problems with the Rebellion’s plans.

“Dunno, not my problem. We’re just dealing with them,” Dave waved toward the Ethermen currently locked in a stalemate with his Abominations now that Mel had prevented any flames forming in the Cage of Bone.

“They look like those cyborgs; you remember? The ones from Ivalis.” Mel glared disgustedly at the machine-human hybrids. “Ugh, who came up with that? Their souls are screaming. And not in a fun way.”

“Yeah, the Revolution here seems pretty loose on morals. Believe it or not, all of them used to be kids that parents willingly gave up to be part of the program. I don’t think they knew what exactly would happen, but still.” Dave shook his head.

“Is there no way to undo the damage?” Mel asked.

“Not practically.” Dave shrugged helplessly. “They’re too strong to subdue in mass quantities and they can self-detonate if captured. We managed to return one of them to humanity a while back, but he…wasn’t well. We’re better off ending their suffering.”

“Whatever,” Mel flung her hand up as if throwing aside the entire conversation. “I assumed you called me here to get in on the action?”

“If you don’t mind.”

Mel responded with a genuine smile. “Anything for you, Dave, you know that. You should call me up more often. I still owe you big time for all you’ve done for me. Of course I’ll help.”

Dave shook his head rapidly. “You don’t owe me a damn thing. I was just cleaning up Reggy’s mess. I’ve told you, we’re square.”

“You didn’t have to do as much as you did and you know it.” Mel countered. “It’s not like Reggy’s faults were your problem anyway. You deserve the credit for the good you did for me, so just shut up and let me be grateful.”

“Fine, fine.” Dave raised his hands placatingly. “Have it your way.”

“Hmph.” Mel huffed. Then she disappeared in a flash of red and purple flames.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have called her,” Dave muttered to himself. “She does kinda tend to go overboard.”

He thought about it for a moment.

“Eh, it’ll be fine.” He focused back on the battle. “What could go wrong?”