I - II - III - IV
Ollo slipped through the low weeds, weaving around everything in sight.
He learned he could turn quite fast, so losing his pursuit was simple: the blue bee was no match for the constant, sharp swerves he made along every monolith edge.
The whole escape may have actually been fun, if Ollo hadn’t seen what happened to the other racers who get caught.
It was a clubtail, pleading for mercy as a dozen bees clipped his wings and bit off his antennae, that killed Ollo’s spirits. There was also a racer who’d been de-limbed. Bees airlifted his worm-like body, pinching if he resisted. That sight almost made Ollo crash.
He continued to swerve, focusing on maintaining speed. The Ancestor had softened her light-flares, which allowed Ollo to better take in his environs and track the distant brown form of Flax.
His guide was right about last place being advantageous: if they had been up with the main plume of racers, they’d be evading hundreds of bees instead of just one or two.
Ollo turned a corner of another set of pillars Flax had rounded moments ago. The brown damselfly zoomed past a patch of grass, sputtered for a moment, and then turned around, suddenly chased by a blue blur.
Oh no. Ollo slowed down.
He focused his eyes and deduced that Flax was flying backwards, trying to shake something off his front. As he approached, Ollo could make out the bee clinging to Flax’s eye, sinking its jaws deeper and deeper.
Oh no, no, no. Ollo didn’t think he could tackle a foe without harming himself. Should he go for its abdomen? It’s throat? He recalled his days in the pond, chasing beetles. How much simpler it was then. All he had to do was barrel forward and disorient them.
I guess that’s what I do now.
Colliding with the bee’s side made the insect vibrate. Before it could get away, Ollo sank in his mandibles, biting down until he felt the tips of his jaws meet through flesh. With a swift yank, Ollo ripped off two limbs and half a belly, causing the bee to freeze, choke, and let go of Flax’s face.
“Oh praise Meganeura!” The damselfly pulled free, bleeding from his eye. “I thought I was food!”
***
They were each into their second glass of mead. Diggs pointed at red numbers on-screen, which sporadically increased.
“You’ll notice we’ve lost a few drones in these hives, but a culling is necessary. We need only the tough to remain. If the military wants a fleet of drone-soldiers, we need to ensure they’re Navy SEALS. Right, Sergeant?”
Teresa sipped her mead. She had to admit, as ridiculous as this was, the dragonflies at least seemed capable of defending themselves. Considering that many conflict areas now had regular bouts of locust swarms and blackflies. Oh, how the world has changed.
Diggs then whispered something to Cesar and leaned against a monitor. “Now, this being a reconnaissance mission, Sergeant, I’d like to show you just how expertly our little guys can observe a target. You see that scarecrow over there?” He pointed out the windows at what looked like a strange tree in the distance. “Go ahead and watch that for a moment.”
***
Once they left the grid of monoliths*,* the lights in Ollo’s head began to spark. Magenta and pink created a ribbon to fly along, with bright blue hoops to soar through.
Flax and he resumed their tandem flight, cruising over patches of bushes, saplings, and increased foliage.
“I’ve flown three other races Ollie. Sometimes there’s an odd mosquito, maybe a horsefly or two, but never a ... bee horde.” Flax’s voice quivered. *“*Why would The Ancestor have us go through such a thing? That was too cruel. Something feels wrong.”
Ollo couldn’t speak from any previous experience, but he agreed that it felt like a violation. He continued combing his vision grid, until he finally spotted dragonflies ahead.
The neon colors brought them both to where everyone else had reached, forming a perfect loop of remaining racers around a frozen envoy.
“Well, it looks like we’re still in last,” Flax said. “But why another circuit? Seems very strange.”
The Ancestor’s lights forced them into the centrifuge, looping a motionless (dead?) Envoy that stood on one foot. No matter what rank you were earlier, everyone broke even here.
“Is this normal?” Ollo asked.
“Not during a race.”
“Should we … try and break out?”
“We have to obey her lights.”
They stayed tandem in this slow-moving circle, flying behind a tattered-looking narrow-wing. Ollo got a clear view of the other racers, and could see that many were now missing limbs or parts of their wings. He may have been one of the lucky unscathed.
The signet on his back then started to heat up, making brief, delicate clicking sounds. Is it a sign? Does the Ancestor want me to notice something?
***
The photographs were clear and admirably hi-res. Teresa was impressed that so little was obstructed by the dragonflies' own wings.
“Imagine wanting to get a picture of a target,” Diggs began, “but he’s being held in a cell, with window slots too tiny for a human hand to get through. Or*,* maybe he’s being moved, protected by countless guards, each on the lookout for cameras or spies. Well, the solution to both scenarios is sending a tiny, inconspicuous dragonfly.”
The screens were tuned to display various angles of the scarecrow. A hay torso. A beekeeper mask. Wooden stake arms.
“Naturally, you couldn’t send a swarm like we have now into a more intimate operation,” Diggs said, “but you could send clusters, break them off into groups, and have them follow multiple suspects. That sort of thing.”
Teresa nodded along, and decided she wanted to see them enact a request of her own. “Can they take aerials?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Bird’s-eye views. Sometimes our satellites can’t penetrate cloud cover.”
“But of course.”
***
Ollo realized what the Ancestor’s clicking meant. She wants me to seek my companion. I’m supposed to find Imura.
His incredible eyes searched for those familiar black-and-yellow stripes. He was very good at discerning nearby kin, spotting pondsitters, a duskhawker, and various types of reedling. But a tigertail was nowhere to be seen.
Instead of stripes, Ollo soon winced to see crimson and violet strings that beckoned upward. Lady Meganeura’s lights had returned, growing brighter by the moment.
“Are you feeling that?” Flax slowed their momentum.
“Yes,” Ollo said, “we need to rise.”
They engaged their wings and fluttered upwards, following the threads of purple and red. The racers around them did likewise, and as a group, the insects formed an imperfect halo of shifting wings, ascending far higher than the glass dome would ever have allowed.
Soon it became cold. Harsh winds buffeted Ollo and Flax. With each rise in elevation, the air grew emptier, sharper. The damselfly shivered. “Where could she p-p-possibly be taking us? And why?”
There was nothing above, save for a deeply-hazed sun and ragged clouds. When the race reached a height where no one could refuse shivering, the lights finally faded.
For a moment, all the racers stared at each other, observing this hazy troposphere, horrified at how far below the earth that stared back was. If anyone were to stop their hovering counter-strokes, a simple breeze could spell the end.
Then Ollo’s signet began to heat up, making the same delicate clicking as before. I need to find Imura.
He tapped his partner’s tail. “Flax, we’ve got to move. I think The Ancestor’s giving me a sign.”
“A sign?” Flax wheezed. “Keghhh. Heghhh. Ollie, I don’t trust any signs right now. I’m telling you, something about this is really off.”
But Ollo searched anyway, scanning for those stripes. He slowly let go of Flax’s tail. “If you won’t come with me, I’ll go myself.”
“Are you deranged—you want to travel alone?”
A cloud form encroached with menacing slowness, whispering of icy chills. Below it, the lights re-emerged as spikes of cyan and jade. But they weren’t directing downwards, back to safety like everyone hoped; instead, they urged them to the east, along a long, horizontal track across the grey sky.
“Oh Lady Mega...” Flax’s shivering briefly stopped. “She wants us to race at this altitude?”
Despite his complaint, the majority of racers had already taken off, slowly following the lights against the clouds and turbulence.
Ollo let go of Flax. “Are you not going?”
“No, I’m not going!” Flax said, shivering again. “If disobeying lights is going to p-p-pop me, then so shall I pop, but I’m not flying out there to die in a broken race any longer! You’d be an even bigger dullard to try.”
A frigid draft briefly seized Ollo’s muscles. He shook them awake.
“These obstacles are cruel,” Flax continued. “Look at these fools, breaking their wings. And for what, Ollo? Come back down. Save yourself.”
Ollo inspected the race ahead, hoping to agree, but then he spotted them. Those black and yellow stripes. They were diving just ahead between hoops of cyan.
He took off alone. Flax yelled something, trying to turn him back. But he couldn’t, not when Imura was so close.
***
The aerial views were equally impressive. Dragondrones could be commanded to take long, sweeping scans of the geography below, and unlike satellites, they could penetrate cloud cover.
Teresa swiped between the photos, getting a full lay of the land. She paused on the hexagonal roof of their gazebo; next to it stood the cheery form of Diggs, halfway through his second cigarette.
“Like what you see?” Diggs asked, stubbing his ash outside.
Teresa continued swiping. “It’s nice that there’s a large fleet; guarantees decent coverage.”
“It does! And the pilots are so cheap to reproduce! Hundreds of eggs from a single mating, each one containing a design that’s been refined over three hundred million years. Where else can you find a deal like that?” Only by gaming nature, Teresa supposed.
The screens all began to flash with a cloud icon in the upper right.
“Rain incoming,” Cesar mumbled.
Diggs glanced at the screens, and his smile widened even further. He stretched a hand outside the Gazebo, twiddling his fingers. “Looks like we’ll get a firsthand glimpse of weather hazards.”
“Is that a problem?” Teresa asked.
“Oh my, no. But bear in mind, under extreme weather conditions we’re bound to lose a couple,” Diggs said. “That’s why we send so many. The beauty of dragonflies is that they’ll take care of themselves. They’re able to hide and recoup their energy. Real drones would be out of luck in the field.”
Teresa considered this. He’s not wrong.
“Now, you might think it impossible for an airborne creature to avoid such a wet sky, but insects are different. Their tiny brains dilate time. A speeding water droplet to you is just a slow, avoidable drip to them.”
***
Ollo’s whole body trembled with fear. He tracked as many liquid meteors as he could. Other racers nearby began to break off from the Ancestor’s lights, returning to a more comfortable height, but Ollo refused to give up. He wanted to see the track through the clouds to the end—the mission was his own now.
He navigated the downpour, following the jade thread as it zigged and zagged. Further ahead, a faint tigertail pattern descended gradually.
The course goes down. That’s a relief.
Then a droplet smacked Ollo’s blindspot: his eye scar. It felt like a wet reckoning. His vision flashed. Epilepsy. Oh no, no, no, no.
He spiralled down, spinning like a whirligig. Jade and cyan flared through his mind. Ollo saw the earth rise towards him in bursts, like the bottom of the pond. For a moment it felt like he was diving. Swimming. Paddling.
No. Stay sharp. Must stay sharp.
He shook as he plummeted, shedding as much water as possible, and did his best to avoid more rain. Ollo prayed to The Ancestor. Begged. And with a sudden glint, her blinding lights abated. Ollo’s senses returned.
He alternated his wings, fore and aft as Flax had shown him, and by some miracle, the wind contoured his flight, levelling him out—but just barely.
There came a crash, and sharp things thrust their way into his space: pinecones and needles. Instinctually, Ollo thrust his legs out and cushioned against impact. His face smacked a tree.
Moments passed. Lifetimes.
Ollo wheezed and groaned, feeling his voice echo around him. Only it wasn’t an echo. The whole stream of remaining racers were now here, using this pine tree as shelter. They were coughing, shuddering, and fighting for space on the wood.
Ollo wiped his eyes, shocked to see he was still among the competitors. He looked around to orient himself, trying to spot a familiar form. The first he encountered was Gharraph.
“YES!” the green emperor howled. “Finally!”
The power of his voice came with an aftershock. Ollo watched him move along a pine branch, needles snapping beneath his wings. “Deliverance draws near! This is it, my fellow dragons—the race we’ve been waiting for!”
A couple racers rallied in coughs and shouts, supporting this sudden zeal.
“The Ancestor has been testing us, and the moment has come where we reach her final light.”
More shouts. The remaining morale seemed eager. Ollo gazed down among the cries, having heard a familiar pitch. He crawled past others until he reached a scant little broadleaf by the pine’s roots. There he saw them. The black and yellow stripes.
“Glory to The Ancestor! Her greatest race yet!” Imura lay half-obscured by the leaf, echoing Gharraph’s call.
Ollo tentatively approached, appreciating the richness of her colors. Excitement boiled away all his weariness; it felt as if he were molting. Eventually, his mandibles managed to align words. “Imura. Are you … all right?”
Her wings were sopping. One antenna was apparently gone. “Who is that? Ollo?”
There was no use containing himself. “Oh, thank Mega! You’re alive! You’re okay! This is good! This is so good!”
She stared at him, jaws agape. “How are you here? Shouldn’t you be back—”
“I was chosen! An Envoy chose me! I was destined to compete. To find you. To make sure you’re safe.” Ollo spoke faster than he could think. “I learned to fly tandem: Flax showed me. I know how to save us. I know how to fly us back!”
Imura looked at him, wiped rain off her head, then withdrew beneath the leaf. “I don’t understand; what are you talking about?”
Ollo folded his wings and followed her. “This race, it’s not heeding any of the usual rules. It’s twisted and dangerous.”
“Of course,” Imura said. “She’s pushing us. This is the race where she’ll offer it.”
“Offer what?”
“The next reward: beyond Outside.”
The two bugs observed each other beneath the leaf, neither believing the other was there.
“But, you’re hurt,” Ollo pointed at her feeler. “And you’re wet. You don’t actually plan on continuing?”
“What? Ollo. We need to keep going.” Imura wiped her eyes in small circles. “Can’t you feel that? Her lights?”
A pinging re-emerged in Ollo. Tiny white dots, venturing out, urging them still further east. Their pull was faint now, but he knew that would soon change.
“I don’t think that matters,” Ollo said. “What’s important is that we’re alive. That’s why she wanted me to find you.”
“But Gharraph—he’s right.” Imura grazed Ollo’s wings, testing their pliancy. “A new prize awaits. Beyond Outside. What could that even be?”
Ollo thought back to the adulthood he envisioned: the simple life among unadulterated nature. The childhood myth. He came to a realization.
“I know what the prize is.”
“What?”
He tapped the moist bark beneath them, inhaled some of the fresh air. “It’s living here.”
“What?”
“Back in the pond I saw flashes, images of what I thought adulthood would be like. It’s supposed to be a return to living outside. Not just in glimpses, or races. But living here. A paradise unbound.”
Imura froze, she grabbed her one remaining feeler, wringing it as she thought. “By Mega’s light … you’re right.”
The tigertail began to pace, massaging her head. “We race to prove our best***.*** We’re proving we can live out here. That must be what comes next. Settling down in life beyond the dome!”
Her enthusiasm enlivened Ollo; it made his whole harrowing journey worthwhile. This is why they were meant to reunite. A mutual swoon. A harmony. And now, together, they could figure out the rest of their lives.
“You’re completely undamaged.” Imura held Ollo’s tail, wiping what little moisture still clung to it. “It’s a miracle you’ve made it this far. You know what I think?” She wiped a droplet off his antennae. Its receptors sent a warmth so soothing that Ollo’s legs nearly buckled. “I think it’s no coincidence the Envoy selected you, fresh-bodied and determined. You knew of our future first. You foresaw the prize.”
“I mean, maybe, but I don’t think I’m all that special ...”
“Of course you are!” She held him now, brought her eyes against his. Two worlds of ultra-wide vision overlapping. “When I was in the clouds,” Imura whispered, “I glimpsed her waiting. Do you understand? I glimpsed Meganeura.”
“What?”
“She’s close. Here, returned to us in physical form. Awaiting her champions. You must be among them.”
“Me? But what about you, what about—”
“I’ll be fine; I must recoup. It’s obvious that she’s placed me here, right now, so that I could convince you.”
She let go of Ollo, but even afterwards, he could still see her silhouette in his eyes, a beautiful after-image.
“Go.” Imura lifted the leaf, pointing outward. “Go up now; follow Gharraph with the others. Promise me you’ll obey the lights, and that you’ll reach her.”
Ollo looked at Imura through her own afterimage. He wanted to retract his theory, to wail against this decision. They couldn’t separate again, not after all the effort he’d put in. He wished he could remember an adage from the pond-lores, some statement to prove he should stay ...
“And tell her about the memory you had,” Imura said. “You’re one of the signifiers, Ollo; a key to the adulthood we’ve always deserved. By the glory of every rank I’ve ever earned, I thank you. You might just be the herald of a new age!”
***
The surveillance journey of the drones had gone from scarecrow, to an aerial sweep, to the cover of a pine tree. Now, they’d been sent off again to a road crossing. But instead of waiting, or gaining slight altitude, one particular green Dragondrone had the audacity to simply dodge traffic.
The car had been coming at him head-on. It seemed as though the bug was either going to become a bumper sticker or a windshield splat. Then, at the last possible moment, the camera-feed leapt up, and the blue of the Tesla’s roof whizzed by underneath. The little pilot turned, as if observing the car disappear and acknowledging the near-death encounter, and then continued flying as if nothing had happened.
Teresa watched this on repeat, studying the stabilization and frame rate, both of which were quite decent (considering the compression); but what really impressed her was the physical reaction time.
“I see you found him,” said Cesar, peering over Teresa’s shoulder.
“Found who?”
“Our strongest specimen.”
Cesar helped Teresa swap to the feed of a trailing drone that had witnessed the stunt. From a couple meters back, the large, green dragonfly played chicken, hovering at road-kill height. But as soon as the vehicle entered frame, he shot up in a flash, performing a quick spin at the end.
Teresa replayed the footage from this new angle on repeat, analyzing the movement—that is, until a clapping came from the mini fridge.
“Excellent!”
Diggs had been pouring the remains of the mead into the last two glasses, ensuring they were even. “I was hoping he’d show off!” The director squeezed between Cesar and Teresa, cheering as if this were some sporting event. “Amazing isn’t it? He’s an import from Tasmania, you know. Anax papuensis. An Australian Emperor. The species has been proving to be the preferred choice in our program. I’m so glad you got to see him flaunt!”
“Flaunt?” Teresa said, trying to understand how the term could apply.
“Yes, well, the Nootropic enhances their cognizance.” Diggs handed Teresa one of the glasses. “It makes them better flyers, but I’m starting to suspect it also adds a bit of personality. An edge, if you will. It’s what allows us to steer them into environments they would naturally avoid.”
Teresa gave her temples a small rub, trying to brush away her incredulity. A real drone certainly doesn’t come with any ‘Tasmanian reflexes.’ She took her drink and stood, giving her eyes a break by observing the valley.
“You know, Sergeant, I was thinking my proposal would consist of chiefly Australian emperors.” Diggs leaned back in his chair. “Your first Dragondrone squadron needs to be exceptional, don’t you think?”
It had taken him so long to start talking business, Teresa figured he had been saving it for once everything was over. “You’re talking about the package you’d offer me?”
He stood up, almost matching her height. “Yes. Just so you get a sense: I would offer you a starting fleet of say, two hundred pilots—seventy percent being Emperors—along with your own dronehangar. You would need one of our operators on site, of course, and I’d be happy to reserve one of our experienced interns. Cesar has been training a few.”
The assistant busied himself nearby, likely pretending to ignore their discussion. Teresa wasn’t sure what her answer was, anyway. As intriguing as some elements of the proposal were, at the end of the day, the technology still seemed too strange. Too ridiculous. But perhaps that’s how genius always germinates? From a seed of absurdity?
Then her phone rang. Its screen flashed with coordinates, indicating her incoming freedom. She stared at it, first for her own benefit, then as a double-take for Diggs. “You know what? I’m so sorry—I’ve been summoned, apparently. For a ‘Code R4.’
‘A code what?” Diggs asked.
“Arctic stuff. Immediate. Confidential. I’m sorry, but we’ll have to cut this demonstration short.”
The director settled his glass with a tiny frown. He turned to Cesar, who stared back, silently bemused. “Well, that’s too bad,” Diggs said. “I guess I should have prepared a contingency. There’s still another Gazebo I wanted to show you … some nocturnal capabilities you know nothing about …” he ran his fingers along the side of a monitor. The map indicated that they had reached marker ten out of thirty.
“I’m afraid duty calls.” Teresa gave him a wan smile. “We’ll have to reschedule for the rest.”
Diggs put a hand on Cesar and began whispering something quickly. They were rerouting map markers, cancelling dozens of icons.
Escape was definitely the right call, Teresa thought, and took a long sip of mead.
***
A new-found determination blossomed in Ollo, one born of finality and understanding**.** The sooner he met with The Ancestor, the sooner freedom would reach them all. And then he could exist with Imura as he had always wanted: in a paradise unbound*.*
He surged behind Gharraph and a dozen other dragons still willing to compete. He wasn’t all that fast of course, and lacked their days of dome-training, but Ollo had managed to decipher the code that enabled safe passage through the rain and obstacles. Trust Meganeura.
His latent realization had finally been brought to a head by Gharraph. The champion had impressed everyone as he defied a giant rolling beetle, screaming The Ancestor’s name. It was at that moment Ollo understood the power of devotion. An unconditional obedience to the Great Lady allowed racers to push forward and rank high. Follow her lights. Trust Meganeura.
As long as Ollo stuck as close as possible to the blinking white track, it felt as if he were truly invulnerable to any whim of The Outside. The race crossed several small fields, another flatworm of granite, and a copse of trees. At one point, it went over a roiling stream; its torrents of white foam reminded Ollo of the bubbles that diving beetles released when they had nothing else to lose. It had all been going remarkably well until Ollo reached the obstacle that had caught everyone else: a buffet of air too strong to overcome.
The elite dragonflies were being continually spat back. No one was able to beat the countervailing wind, which grew tenfold at the base of a knoll. Even the unstoppable Gharraph was being tossed backwards.
“We must hold the line!” The champion yelled. “Grab a stalk if you have to! We can’t fall back!”
Arriving late, Ollo avoided getting tousled and joined the rest as they dove into the grass, gripping the thickest sheathes available. The plants whipped viciously back and forth, forcing everyone to snap their wings down into tight folds.
How is the air so fierce?
The lights still pulsated and beckoned towards the knoll. She’s testing us now, more than ever, Ollo thought.
Then came the roaring: a dense, low, thunderous cry. Ollo swapped fearful looks with a ringtail. Neither of them knew what was coming.
It was the loudest sound Ollo had ever heard. As it neared, the wind began to wane. Ollo took a few breaths to relax his hold, trying to steal a glance at this loud thing—and that’s when the vortex seized him.
All four of his wings suddenly bent in the wrong direction, and his whole body spun out of control. His vision blurred, the only thing he could clearly see being the purple division of his scar. His body tumbled about, like he was being chewed and swallowed by billows of air. And then he saw something. A silhouette: a being. It was her.
His deity approached, drawing all the air towards her. The pull was inescapable. Ollo gazed up and beheld her empyrean presence.
She was a dragonfly, except colossal. Sleek, black, and large enough to swallow an Envoy whole. Ollo spotted Gharraph and at least two other elite racers all subjected to the same immense pull as he. No one could escape.
“We beseech thy ancient reverence!” the green emperor yelled, his own wings completely askew. “It is I, Gharraph, longest reigning champion there has been!”
Meganeura drew nearer and roared. From behind her, the sun fired a prism of ultraviolet rays.
“On behalf of my kin. I implore you. It is time. It is time we were awarded the next stage of our lives!”
Yes. Ollo wanted to shout. Break this cycle of racing. A life of forever Outside.
Their deity roared, ripping the air itself with the blur of her wings, shredding the droplets of rain that fell and surrounded them.
“We wish to roam new lands,” Gharraph continued, “to see what else there is.”
“That’s right!” Ollo added. “How it once must have been!”
The vortex had altogether ceased, creating a sense of utter tranquility. Instead of being pulled, Ollo’s body was allowed to float in a bubbly effervescence.
“We have passed thine divine trial,” Gharraph boomed, flexing his four, now-steady wings. “Offer us the final promise, O Great Meganeura! Usher in a new age!”
The green emperor flew close and bowed, showing deference to the almighty.
As he likewise approached, Ollo began to notice the strange appearance of Meganeura when seen up close. Her skin was matte, holding no shine. And her wings: they fluttered in a way that made no sense, as if spinning on one axis.
“O Great One from times beyond past. We’ve come now, to pay homage—” Gharraph was stuck by the Ancestor’s wing. His paltry form was cast into a thousand pieces across the luminous sky.
Ollo froze from shock. He watched as Meganeura’s massive black wings continued to chop the air, mincing everyone and everything. A new scar split his vision, dividing his world in two. Then it split him again. And again. And again. And again.
***
“A chopper?!”
Diggs’s mouth had lain open for almost a whole minute. He half-covered it with his hand. Then uncovered it. “That’s pretty neat.”
They had all stepped outside to observe the Black Hawk grow against the horizon, its propeller whirring louder and louder.
“Your facility here is actually not too far from our base in Whitehorse.” Teresa said. “There wasn’t a jet available, so they had to pick me up like this. I hope you won’t mind an improvised landing.”
Both men gawked at the sight. The chopper looked like it was emerging from the sunset, light appearing to melt around it.
“Land it anywhere,” Diggs said, his smile slowly fading. He began to whisper something, an angry something into his assistant, as if he were at fault. Cesar nodded, his blank look still unwavering.
Teresa watched the odonatologist walk dejectedly to the Gazebo and decided to try something.
“Director, what if I had a small counter-proposal?”
Diggs lit up immediately, “A counter-proposal?”
“What if”—Teresa glanced at her chopper, and then at Cesar walking off—“what if I took Cesar with me? For a kind of trial?”
“What do you mean?”
“It would be difficult to commit to a whole new fleet. But I think my Major would be open to a small selection. Cesar could come and demonstrate how your drones would operate around the arctic base.”
Diggs gave a her peculiar look, as if he were near-sighted. “I would have to think about it … Mr. Costales is crucial to our process here. I can’t have him missing for long.”
“Not long,” Teresa said. “Just a few days. All I would need is to demo a fraction of what you’ve shown me. We could potentially skip a whole year of bureaucracy and invest in a fleet sooner.”
Diggs gripped his chin. His eyes were questioning, almost leering, asking her one word: Why?
But Teresa couldn’t pin down exactly why. Perhaps it was that dead, defeated look on Cesar. A look that spoke of jaded hopes, long nights, and unwarranted exploitation. Maybe it was the mead, but Teresa had been struck with sympathy. If she could help someone else avoid the hell she went through during her early years, then maybe this whole charade could have a positive outcome after all.
“Well think about it anyway,” Teresa said. “I wouldn’t have to grab him now—”
“But if you did”—Diggs smiled again, his hands rummaging through his pockets—“it might heighten our chances of a complete investment?” The director produced a tablet and stylus.
“I’d be shuffling a lot of work here, so I’d have to cover Cesar’s absence. But I could offer him. At a premium.”
Teresa glanced at Diggs’ device; the man was not afraid to test military spending. His figure wasn’t far off from the cost of her summoning this evac. Should I just double down? Turn my escape into a rescue?
“That looks fine,” she eventually managed. “The major would be pleased.”
“Stupendous,” Diggs said quietly. He jotted a few more things to his device. “Let me find some documentation; give me a few moments.”
She turned away from the megalomaniac and ventured into the Gazebo. She found Cesar and explained what was being arranged.
“So … I’m going with you?” He only half-stood, his neck still mostly hunched over a screen.
“Yes.”
“Now?”
“Only if you’re able to.”
His eyes had a habit of getting stuck in one expression, and now it appeared to be shock. He fiddled with a screen, then beckoned Teresa over.
“Well, I mean, are you sure you want me now? It looks like your helicopter may have impacted some of our drones. I only have about twenty in operation that I could bring with us.”
“Twenty sounds plenty.”
“Okay ...” Cesar said, still having trouble meeting Teresa’s gaze. “You really think your boss would want this?”
Teresa offered a smile. “When he finds out I returned in a chopper with you, he’s going to be ecstatic.”
Or furious. But that’s fine with me.
***
Imura never did know what happened to end that fateful race, but whatever it was, it had worked. There truly was a reward beyond just racing Outside: it was racing Outside...of time and space.
She and all the survivors of the final trial had been transported across dimensions. They were ushered into divine chambers of pure metal, adorned with calming scents and sounds. They travelled to realms of fluffy, white rain and unparalleled vistas. They explored through the tropics, soared past forests, and flew above a vast, limitless stretch of pond with no lilies in sight.
It was admittedly a very strenuous lifestyle, one with as many dangers and mysteries as a dragon racer could expect. The Ancestor’s lights and Envoys were demanding, but it was nothing Imura’s clan couldn’t handle. Everyone agreed that this was a dragon’s proper existence, not the shameful depravity they had experienced in the dome.
Among Imura’s favorite new realms was the dry-world of sand. Here they had spent the last several days, exploring numerous tracks and following Envoys inside armored beetles. It was beneath the desert heat that she became a mother, a proud matriarch that reflected the spirit of Meganeura. Her children were as strong as she could have hoped for. Her offspring would all be little green emperors, mixed with tigertail stripes.
She laid her first batch in a pool warmed by the open sun, and pondered names. They had to be called something strong, of course, to tough out the new life of moving between worlds, but they also needed poise.
Although he was somewhat dotty, she had always liked the name of that red darner who had been so warmly precocious. He had such a strange vision, that one. Imura swirled her tail in the pond, remembering what he had said about an aimless adulthood outdoors. About life untamed. How unappealing it now sounded. Still, it was him, Gharraph, and the others who had met Meganeuara and brokered their future. Those lucky few could be in some even higher, more ethereal plane than me, she thought. Where could you be, Ollo? Somewhere of pure mirth?
Mirth. Now that's a pretty name.
Ripples formed across the pond as Imura’s tail swayed. The gentle movement dispersed her eggs throughout the pool, sinking them to all corners. She waited patiently to witness which of her children would first reach the surface, whether by accident or curiosity.
It all starts here: life’s earliest race.

I - II - III - IV
Ollo slipped through the low weeds, weaving around everything in sight.
He learned he could turn quite fast, so losing his pursuit was simple: the blue bee was no match for the constant, sharp swerves he made along every monolith edge.
The whole escape may have actually been fun, if Ollo hadn’t seen what happened to the other racers who get caught.
It was a clubtail, pleading for mercy as a dozen bees clipped his wings and bit off his antennae, that killed Ollo’s spirits. There was also a racer who’d been de-limbed. Bees airlifted his worm-like body, pinching if he resisted. That sight almost made Ollo crash.
He continued to swerve, focusing on maintaining speed. The Ancestor had softened her light-flares, which allowed Ollo to better take in his environs and track the distant brown form of Flax.
His guide was right about last place being advantageous: if they had been up with the main plume of racers, they’d be evading hundreds of bees instead of just one or two.
Ollo turned a corner of another set of pillars Flax had rounded moments ago. The brown damselfly zoomed past a patch of grass, sputtered for a moment, and then turned around, suddenly chased by a blue blur.
Oh no. Ollo slowed down.
He focused his eyes and deduced that Flax was flying backwards, trying to shake something off his front. As he approached, Ollo could make out the bee clinging to Flax’s eye, sinking its jaws deeper and deeper.
Oh no, no, no. Ollo didn’t think he could tackle a foe without harming himself. Should he go for its abdomen? It’s throat? He recalled his days in the pond, chasing beetles. How much simpler it was then. All he had to do was barrel forward and disorient them.
I guess that’s what I do now.
Colliding with the bee’s side made the insect vibrate. Before it could get away, Ollo sank in his mandibles, biting down until he felt the tips of his jaws meet through flesh. With a swift yank, Ollo ripped off two limbs and half a belly, causing the bee to freeze, choke, and let go of Flax’s face.
“Oh praise Meganeura!” The damselfly pulled free, bleeding from his eye. “I thought I was food!”
***
They were each into their second glass of mead. Diggs pointed at red numbers on-screen, which sporadically increased.
“You’ll notice we’ve lost a few drones in these hives, but a culling is necessary. We need only the tough to remain. If the military wants a fleet of drone-soldiers, we need to ensure they’re Navy SEALS. Right, Sergeant?”
Teresa sipped her mead. She had to admit, as ridiculous as this was, the dragonflies at least seemed capable of defending themselves. Considering that many conflict areas now had regular bouts of locust swarms and blackflies. Oh, how the world has changed.
Diggs then whispered something to Cesar and leaned against a monitor. “Now, this being a reconnaissance mission, Sergeant, I’d like to show you just how expertly our little guys can observe a target. You see that scarecrow over there?” He pointed out the windows at what looked like a strange tree in the distance. “Go ahead and watch that for a moment.”
***
Once they left the grid of monoliths*,* the lights in Ollo’s head began to spark. Magenta and pink created a ribbon to fly along, with bright blue hoops to soar through.
Flax and he resumed their tandem flight, cruising over patches of bushes, saplings, and increased foliage.
“I’ve flown three other races Ollie. Sometimes there’s an odd mosquito, maybe a horsefly or two, but never a ... bee horde.” Flax’s voice quivered. *“*Why would The Ancestor have us go through such a thing? That was too cruel. Something feels wrong.”
Ollo couldn’t speak from any previous experience, but he agreed that it felt like a violation. He continued combing his vision grid, until he finally spotted dragonflies ahead.
The neon colors brought them both to where everyone else had reached, forming a perfect loop of remaining racers around a frozen envoy.
“Well, it looks like we’re still in last,” Flax said. “But why another circuit? Seems very strange.”
The Ancestor’s lights forced them into the centrifuge, looping a motionless (dead?) Envoy that stood on one foot. No matter what rank you were earlier, everyone broke even here.
“Is this normal?” Ollo asked.
“Not during a race.”
“Should we … try and break out?”
“We have to obey her lights.”
They stayed tandem in this slow-moving circle, flying behind a tattered-looking narrow-wing. Ollo got a clear view of the other racers, and could see that many were now missing limbs or parts of their wings. He may have been one of the lucky unscathed.
The signet on his back then started to heat up, making brief, delicate clicking sounds. Is it a sign? Does the Ancestor want me to notice something?
***
The photographs were clear and admirably hi-res. Teresa was impressed that so little was obstructed by the dragonflies' own wings.
“Imagine wanting to get a picture of a target,” Diggs began, “but he’s being held in a cell, with window slots too tiny for a human hand to get through. Or*,* maybe he’s being moved, protected by countless guards, each on the lookout for cameras or spies. Well, the solution to both scenarios is sending a tiny, inconspicuous dragonfly.”
The screens were tuned to display various angles of the scarecrow. A hay torso. A beekeeper mask. Wooden stake arms.
“Naturally, you couldn’t send a swarm like we have now into a more intimate operation,” Diggs said, “but you could send clusters, break them off into groups, and have them follow multiple suspects. That sort of thing.”
Teresa nodded along, and decided she wanted to see them enact a request of her own. “Can they take aerials?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Bird’s-eye views. Sometimes our satellites can’t penetrate cloud cover.”
“But of course.”
***
Ollo realized what the Ancestor’s clicking meant. She wants me to seek my companion. I’m supposed to find Imura.
His incredible eyes searched for those familiar black-and-yellow stripes. He was very good at discerning nearby kin, spotting pondsitters, a duskhawker, and various types of reedling. But a tigertail was nowhere to be seen.
Instead of stripes, Ollo soon winced to see crimson and violet strings that beckoned upward. Lady Meganeura’s lights had returned, growing brighter by the moment.
“Are you feeling that?” Flax slowed their momentum.
“Yes,” Ollo said, “we need to rise.”
They engaged their wings and fluttered upwards, following the threads of purple and red. The racers around them did likewise, and as a group, the insects formed an imperfect halo of shifting wings, ascending far higher than the glass dome would ever have allowed.
Soon it became cold. Harsh winds buffeted Ollo and Flax. With each rise in elevation, the air grew emptier, sharper. The damselfly shivered. “Where could she p-p-possibly be taking us? And why?”
There was nothing above, save for a deeply-hazed sun and ragged clouds. When the race reached a height where no one could refuse shivering, the lights finally faded.
For a moment, all the racers stared at each other, observing this hazy troposphere, horrified at how far below the earth that stared back was. If anyone were to stop their hovering counter-strokes, a simple breeze could spell the end.
Then Ollo’s signet began to heat up, making the same delicate clicking as before. I need to find Imura.
He tapped his partner’s tail. “Flax, we’ve got to move. I think The Ancestor’s giving me a sign.”
“A sign?” Flax wheezed. “Keghhh. Heghhh. Ollie, I don’t trust any signs right now. I’m telling you, something about this is really off.”
But Ollo searched anyway, scanning for those stripes. He slowly let go of Flax’s tail. “If you won’t come with me, I’ll go myself.”
“Are you deranged—you want to travel alone?”
A cloud form encroached with menacing slowness, whispering of icy chills. Below it, the lights re-emerged as spikes of cyan and jade. But they weren’t directing downwards, back to safety like everyone hoped; instead, they urged them to the east, along a long, horizontal track across the grey sky.
“Oh Lady Mega...” Flax’s shivering briefly stopped. “She wants us to race at this altitude?”
Despite his complaint, the majority of racers had already taken off, slowly following the lights against the clouds and turbulence.
Ollo let go of Flax. “Are you not going?”
“No, I’m not going!” Flax said, shivering again. “If disobeying lights is going to p-p-pop me, then so shall I pop, but I’m not flying out there to die in a broken race any longer! You’d be an even bigger dullard to try.”
A frigid draft briefly seized Ollo’s muscles. He shook them awake.
“These obstacles are cruel,” Flax continued. “Look at these fools, breaking their wings. And for what, Ollo? Come back down. Save yourself.”
Ollo inspected the race ahead, hoping to agree, but then he spotted them. Those black and yellow stripes. They were diving just ahead between hoops of cyan.
He took off alone. Flax yelled something, trying to turn him back. But he couldn’t, not when Imura was so close.
***
The aerial views were equally impressive. Dragondrones could be commanded to take long, sweeping scans of the geography below, and unlike satellites, they could penetrate cloud cover.
Teresa swiped between the photos, getting a full lay of the land. She paused on the hexagonal roof of their gazebo; next to it stood the cheery form of Diggs, halfway through his second cigarette.
“Like what you see?” Diggs asked, stubbing his ash outside.
Teresa continued swiping. “It’s nice that there’s a large fleet; guarantees decent coverage.”
“It does! And the pilots are so cheap to reproduce! Hundreds of eggs from a single mating, each one containing a design that’s been refined over three hundred million years. Where else can you find a deal like that?” Only by gaming nature, Teresa supposed.
The screens all began to flash with a cloud icon in the upper right.
“Rain incoming,” Cesar mumbled.
Diggs glanced at the screens, and his smile widened even further. He stretched a hand outside the Gazebo, twiddling his fingers. “Looks like we’ll get a firsthand glimpse of weather hazards.”
“Is that a problem?” Teresa asked.
“Oh my, no. But bear in mind, under extreme weather conditions we’re bound to lose a couple,” Diggs said. “That’s why we send so many. The beauty of dragonflies is that they’ll take care of themselves. They’re able to hide and recoup their energy. Real drones would be out of luck in the field.”
Teresa considered this. He’s not wrong.
“Now, you might think it impossible for an airborne creature to avoid such a wet sky, but insects are different. Their tiny brains dilate time. A speeding water droplet to you is just a slow, avoidable drip to them.”
***
Ollo’s whole body trembled with fear. He tracked as many liquid meteors as he could. Other racers nearby began to break off from the Ancestor’s lights, returning to a more comfortable height, but Ollo refused to give up. He wanted to see the track through the clouds to the end—the mission was his own now.
He navigated the downpour, following the jade thread as it zigged and zagged. Further ahead, a faint tigertail pattern descended gradually.
The course goes down. That’s a relief.
Then a droplet smacked Ollo’s blindspot: his eye scar. It felt like a wet reckoning. His vision flashed. Epilepsy. Oh no, no, no, no.
He spiralled down, spinning like a whirligig. Jade and cyan flared through his mind. Ollo saw the earth rise towards him in bursts, like the bottom of the pond. For a moment it felt like he was diving. Swimming. Paddling.
No. Stay sharp. Must stay sharp.
He shook as he plummeted, shedding as much water as possible, and did his best to avoid more rain. Ollo prayed to The Ancestor. Begged. And with a sudden glint, her blinding lights abated. Ollo’s senses returned.
He alternated his wings, fore and aft as Flax had shown him, and by some miracle, the wind contoured his flight, levelling him out—but just barely.
There came a crash, and sharp things thrust their way into his space: pinecones and needles. Instinctually, Ollo thrust his legs out and cushioned against impact. His face smacked a tree.
Moments passed. Lifetimes.
Ollo wheezed and groaned, feeling his voice echo around him. Only it wasn’t an echo. The whole stream of remaining racers were now here, using this pine tree as shelter. They were coughing, shuddering, and fighting for space on the wood.
Ollo wiped his eyes, shocked to see he was still among the competitors. He looked around to orient himself, trying to spot a familiar form. The first he encountered was Gharraph.
“YES!” the green emperor howled. “Finally!”
The power of his voice came with an aftershock. Ollo watched him move along a pine branch, needles snapping beneath his wings. “Deliverance draws near! This is it, my fellow dragons—the race we’ve been waiting for!”
A couple racers rallied in coughs and shouts, supporting this sudden zeal.
“The Ancestor has been testing us, and the moment has come where we reach her final light.”
More shouts. The remaining morale seemed eager. Ollo gazed down among the cries, having heard a familiar pitch. He crawled past others until he reached a scant little broadleaf by the pine’s roots. There he saw them. The black and yellow stripes.
“Glory to The Ancestor! Her greatest race yet!” Imura lay half-obscured by the leaf, echoing Gharraph’s call.
Ollo tentatively approached, appreciating the richness of her colors. Excitement boiled away all his weariness; it felt as if he were molting. Eventually, his mandibles managed to align words. “Imura. Are you … all right?”
Her wings were sopping. One antenna was apparently gone. “Who is that? Ollo?”
There was no use containing himself. “Oh, thank Mega! You’re alive! You’re okay! This is good! This is so good!”
She stared at him, jaws agape. “How are you here? Shouldn’t you be back—”
“I was chosen! An Envoy chose me! I was destined to compete. To find you. To make sure you’re safe.” Ollo spoke faster than he could think. “I learned to fly tandem: Flax showed me. I know how to save us. I know how to fly us back!”
Imura looked at him, wiped rain off her head, then withdrew beneath the leaf. “I don’t understand; what are you talking about?”
Ollo folded his wings and followed her. “This race, it’s not heeding any of the usual rules. It’s twisted and dangerous.”
“Of course,” Imura said. “She’s pushing us. This is the race where she’ll offer it.”
“Offer what?”
“The next reward: beyond Outside.”
The two bugs observed each other beneath the leaf, neither believing the other was there.
“But, you’re hurt,” Ollo pointed at her feeler. “And you’re wet. You don’t actually plan on continuing?”
“What? Ollo. We need to keep going.” Imura wiped her eyes in small circles. “Can’t you feel that? Her lights?”
A pinging re-emerged in Ollo. Tiny white dots, venturing out, urging them still further east. Their pull was faint now, but he knew that would soon change.
“I don’t think that matters,” Ollo said. “What’s important is that we’re alive. That’s why she wanted me to find you.”
“But Gharraph—he’s right.” Imura grazed Ollo’s wings, testing their pliancy. “A new prize awaits. Beyond Outside. What could that even be?”
Ollo thought back to the adulthood he envisioned: the simple life among unadulterated nature. The childhood myth. He came to a realization.
“I know what the prize is.”
“What?”
He tapped the moist bark beneath them, inhaled some of the fresh air. “It’s living here.”
“What?”
“Back in the pond I saw flashes, images of what I thought adulthood would be like. It’s supposed to be a return to living outside. Not just in glimpses, or races. But living here. A paradise unbound.”
Imura froze, she grabbed her one remaining feeler, wringing it as she thought. “By Mega’s light … you’re right.”
The tigertail began to pace, massaging her head. “We race to prove our best***.*** We’re proving we can live out here. That must be what comes next. Settling down in life beyond the dome!”
Her enthusiasm enlivened Ollo; it made his whole harrowing journey worthwhile. This is why they were meant to reunite. A mutual swoon. A harmony. And now, together, they could figure out the rest of their lives.
“You’re completely undamaged.” Imura held Ollo’s tail, wiping what little moisture still clung to it. “It’s a miracle you’ve made it this far. You know what I think?” She wiped a droplet off his antennae. Its receptors sent a warmth so soothing that Ollo’s legs nearly buckled. “I think it’s no coincidence the Envoy selected you, fresh-bodied and determined. You knew of our future first. You foresaw the prize.”
“I mean, maybe, but I don’t think I’m all that special ...”
“Of course you are!” She held him now, brought her eyes against his. Two worlds of ultra-wide vision overlapping. “When I was in the clouds,” Imura whispered, “I glimpsed her waiting. Do you understand? I glimpsed Meganeura.”
“What?”
“She’s close. Here, returned to us in physical form. Awaiting her champions. You must be among them.”
“Me? But what about you, what about—”
“I’ll be fine; I must recoup. It’s obvious that she’s placed me here, right now, so that I could convince you.”
She let go of Ollo, but even afterwards, he could still see her silhouette in his eyes, a beautiful after-image.
“Go.” Imura lifted the leaf, pointing outward. “Go up now; follow Gharraph with the others. Promise me you’ll obey the lights, and that you’ll reach her.”
Ollo looked at Imura through her own afterimage. He wanted to retract his theory, to wail against this decision. They couldn’t separate again, not after all the effort he’d put in. He wished he could remember an adage from the pond-lores, some statement to prove he should stay ...
“And tell her about the memory you had,” Imura said. “You’re one of the signifiers, Ollo; a key to the adulthood we’ve always deserved. By the glory of every rank I’ve ever earned, I thank you. You might just be the herald of a new age!”
***
The surveillance journey of the drones had gone from scarecrow, to an aerial sweep, to the cover of a pine tree. Now, they’d been sent off again to a road crossing. But instead of waiting, or gaining slight altitude, one particular green Dragondrone had the audacity to simply dodge traffic.
The car had been coming at him head-on. It seemed as though the bug was either going to become a bumper sticker or a windshield splat. Then, at the last possible moment, the camera-feed leapt up, and the blue of the Tesla’s roof whizzed by underneath. The little pilot turned, as if observing the car disappear and acknowledging the near-death encounter, and then continued flying as if nothing had happened.
Teresa watched this on repeat, studying the stabilization and frame rate, both of which were quite decent (considering the compression); but what really impressed her was the physical reaction time.
“I see you found him,” said Cesar, peering over Teresa’s shoulder.
“Found who?”
“Our strongest specimen.”
Cesar helped Teresa swap to the feed of a trailing drone that had witnessed the stunt. From a couple meters back, the large, green dragonfly played chicken, hovering at road-kill height. But as soon as the vehicle entered frame, he shot up in a flash, performing a quick spin at the end.
Teresa replayed the footage from this new angle on repeat, analyzing the movement—that is, until a clapping came from the mini fridge.
“Excellent!”
Diggs had been pouring the remains of the mead into the last two glasses, ensuring they were even. “I was hoping he’d show off!” The director squeezed between Cesar and Teresa, cheering as if this were some sporting event. “Amazing isn’t it? He’s an import from Tasmania, you know. Anax papuensis. An Australian Emperor. The species has been proving to be the preferred choice in our program. I’m so glad you got to see him flaunt!”
“Flaunt?” Teresa said, trying to understand how the term could apply.
“Yes, well, the Nootropic enhances their cognizance.” Diggs handed Teresa one of the glasses. “It makes them better flyers, but I’m starting to suspect it also adds a bit of personality. An edge, if you will. It’s what allows us to steer them into environments they would naturally avoid.”
Teresa gave her temples a small rub, trying to brush away her incredulity. A real drone certainly doesn’t come with any ‘Tasmanian reflexes.’ She took her drink and stood, giving her eyes a break by observing the valley.
“You know, Sergeant, I was thinking my proposal would consist of chiefly Australian emperors.” Diggs leaned back in his chair. “Your first Dragondrone squadron needs to be exceptional, don’t you think?”
It had taken him so long to start talking business, Teresa figured he had been saving it for once everything was over. “You’re talking about the package you’d offer me?”
He stood up, almost matching her height. “Yes. Just so you get a sense: I would offer you a starting fleet of say, two hundred pilots—seventy percent being Emperors—along with your own dronehangar. You would need one of our operators on site, of course, and I’d be happy to reserve one of our experienced interns. Cesar has been training a few.”
The assistant busied himself nearby, likely pretending to ignore their discussion. Teresa wasn’t sure what her answer was, anyway. As intriguing as some elements of the proposal were, at the end of the day, the technology still seemed too strange. Too ridiculous. But perhaps that’s how genius always germinates? From a seed of absurdity?
Then her phone rang. Its screen flashed with coordinates, indicating her incoming freedom. She stared at it, first for her own benefit, then as a double-take for Diggs. “You know what? I’m so sorry—I’ve been summoned, apparently. For a ‘Code R4.’
‘A code what?” Diggs asked.
“Arctic stuff. Immediate. Confidential. I’m sorry, but we’ll have to cut this demonstration short.”
The director settled his glass with a tiny frown. He turned to Cesar, who stared back, silently bemused. “Well, that’s too bad,” Diggs said. “I guess I should have prepared a contingency. There’s still another Gazebo I wanted to show you … some nocturnal capabilities you know nothing about …” he ran his fingers along the side of a monitor. The map indicated that they had reached marker ten out of thirty.
“I’m afraid duty calls.” Teresa gave him a wan smile. “We’ll have to reschedule for the rest.”
Diggs put a hand on Cesar and began whispering something quickly. They were rerouting map markers, cancelling dozens of icons.
Escape was definitely the right call, Teresa thought, and took a long sip of mead.
***
A new-found determination blossomed in Ollo, one born of finality and understanding**.** The sooner he met with The Ancestor, the sooner freedom would reach them all. And then he could exist with Imura as he had always wanted: in a paradise unbound*.*
He surged behind Gharraph and a dozen other dragons still willing to compete. He wasn’t all that fast of course, and lacked their days of dome-training, but Ollo had managed to decipher the code that enabled safe passage through the rain and obstacles. Trust Meganeura.
His latent realization had finally been brought to a head by Gharraph. The champion had impressed everyone as he defied a giant rolling beetle, screaming The Ancestor’s name. It was at that moment Ollo understood the power of devotion. An unconditional obedience to the Great Lady allowed racers to push forward and rank high. Follow her lights. Trust Meganeura.
As long as Ollo stuck as close as possible to the blinking white track, it felt as if he were truly invulnerable to any whim of The Outside. The race crossed several small fields, another flatworm of granite, and a copse of trees. At one point, it went over a roiling stream; its torrents of white foam reminded Ollo of the bubbles that diving beetles released when they had nothing else to lose. It had all been going remarkably well until Ollo reached the obstacle that had caught everyone else: a buffet of air too strong to overcome.
The elite dragonflies were being continually spat back. No one was able to beat the countervailing wind, which grew tenfold at the base of a knoll. Even the unstoppable Gharraph was being tossed backwards.
“We must hold the line!” The champion yelled. “Grab a stalk if you have to! We can’t fall back!”
Arriving late, Ollo avoided getting tousled and joined the rest as they dove into the grass, gripping the thickest sheathes available. The plants whipped viciously back and forth, forcing everyone to snap their wings down into tight folds.
How is the air so fierce?
The lights still pulsated and beckoned towards the knoll. She’s testing us now, more than ever, Ollo thought.
Then came the roaring: a dense, low, thunderous cry. Ollo swapped fearful looks with a ringtail. Neither of them knew what was coming.
It was the loudest sound Ollo had ever heard. As it neared, the wind began to wane. Ollo took a few breaths to relax his hold, trying to steal a glance at this loud thing—and that’s when the vortex seized him.
All four of his wings suddenly bent in the wrong direction, and his whole body spun out of control. His vision blurred, the only thing he could clearly see being the purple division of his scar. His body tumbled about, like he was being chewed and swallowed by billows of air. And then he saw something. A silhouette: a being. It was her.
His deity approached, drawing all the air towards her. The pull was inescapable. Ollo gazed up and beheld her empyrean presence.
She was a dragonfly, except colossal. Sleek, black, and large enough to swallow an Envoy whole. Ollo spotted Gharraph and at least two other elite racers all subjected to the same immense pull as he. No one could escape.
“We beseech thy ancient reverence!” the green emperor yelled, his own wings completely askew. “It is I, Gharraph, longest reigning champion there has been!”
Meganeura drew nearer and roared. From behind her, the sun fired a prism of ultraviolet rays.
“On behalf of my kin. I implore you. It is time. It is time we were awarded the next stage of our lives!”
Yes. Ollo wanted to shout. Break this cycle of racing. A life of forever Outside.
Their deity roared, ripping the air itself with the blur of her wings, shredding the droplets of rain that fell and surrounded them.
“We wish to roam new lands,” Gharraph continued, “to see what else there is.”
“That’s right!” Ollo added. “How it once must have been!”
The vortex had altogether ceased, creating a sense of utter tranquility. Instead of being pulled, Ollo’s body was allowed to float in a bubbly effervescence.
“We have passed thine divine trial,” Gharraph boomed, flexing his four, now-steady wings. “Offer us the final promise, O Great Meganeura! Usher in a new age!”
The green emperor flew close and bowed, showing deference to the almighty.
As he likewise approached, Ollo began to notice the strange appearance of Meganeura when seen up close. Her skin was matte, holding no shine. And her wings: they fluttered in a way that made no sense, as if spinning on one axis.
“O Great One from times beyond past. We’ve come now, to pay homage—” Gharraph was stuck by the Ancestor’s wing. His paltry form was cast into a thousand pieces across the luminous sky.
Ollo froze from shock. He watched as Meganeura’s massive black wings continued to chop the air, mincing everyone and everything. A new scar split his vision, dividing his world in two. Then it split him again. And again. And again. And again.
***
“A chopper?!”
Diggs’s mouth had lain open for almost a whole minute. He half-covered it with his hand. Then uncovered it. “That’s pretty neat.”
They had all stepped outside to observe the Black Hawk grow against the horizon, its propeller whirring louder and louder.
“Your facility here is actually not too far from our base in Whitehorse.” Teresa said. “There wasn’t a jet available, so they had to pick me up like this. I hope you won’t mind an improvised landing.”
Both men gawked at the sight. The chopper looked like it was emerging from the sunset, light appearing to melt around it.
“Land it anywhere,” Diggs said, his smile slowly fading. He began to whisper something, an angry something into his assistant, as if he were at fault. Cesar nodded, his blank look still unwavering.
Teresa watched the odonatologist walk dejectedly to the Gazebo and decided to try something.
“Director, what if I had a small counter-proposal?”
Diggs lit up immediately, “A counter-proposal?”
“What if”—Teresa glanced at her chopper, and then at Cesar walking off—“what if I took Cesar with me? For a kind of trial?”
“What do you mean?”
“It would be difficult to commit to a whole new fleet. But I think my Major would be open to a small selection. Cesar could come and demonstrate how your drones would operate around the arctic base.”
Diggs gave a her peculiar look, as if he were near-sighted. “I would have to think about it … Mr. Costales is crucial to our process here. I can’t have him missing for long.”
“Not long,” Teresa said. “Just a few days. All I would need is to demo a fraction of what you’ve shown me. We could potentially skip a whole year of bureaucracy and invest in a fleet sooner.”
Diggs gripped his chin. His eyes were questioning, almost leering, asking her one word: Why?
But Teresa couldn’t pin down exactly why. Perhaps it was that dead, defeated look on Cesar. A look that spoke of jaded hopes, long nights, and unwarranted exploitation. Maybe it was the mead, but Teresa had been struck with sympathy. If she could help someone else avoid the hell she went through during her early years, then maybe this whole charade could have a positive outcome after all.
“Well think about it anyway,” Teresa said. “I wouldn’t have to grab him now—”
“But if you did”—Diggs smiled again, his hands rummaging through his pockets—“it might heighten our chances of a complete investment?” The director produced a tablet and stylus.
“I’d be shuffling a lot of work here, so I’d have to cover Cesar’s absence. But I could offer him. At a premium.”
Teresa glanced at Diggs’ device; the man was not afraid to test military spending. His figure wasn’t far off from the cost of her summoning this evac. Should I just double down? Turn my escape into a rescue?
“That looks fine,” she eventually managed. “The major would be pleased.”
“Stupendous,” Diggs said quietly. He jotted a few more things to his device. “Let me find some documentation; give me a few moments.”
She turned away from the megalomaniac and ventured into the Gazebo. She found Cesar and explained what was being arranged.
“So … I’m going with you?” He only half-stood, his neck still mostly hunched over a screen.
“Yes.”
“Now?”
“Only if you’re able to.”
His eyes had a habit of getting stuck in one expression, and now it appeared to be shock. He fiddled with a screen, then beckoned Teresa over.
“Well, I mean, are you sure you want me now? It looks like your helicopter may have impacted some of our drones. I only have about twenty in operation that I could bring with us.”
“Twenty sounds plenty.”
“Okay ...” Cesar said, still having trouble meeting Teresa’s gaze. “You really think your boss would want this?”
Teresa offered a smile. “When he finds out I returned in a chopper with you, he’s going to be ecstatic.”
Or furious. But that’s fine with me.
***
Imura never did know what happened to end that fateful race, but whatever it was, it had worked. There truly was a reward beyond just racing Outside: it was racing Outside...of time and space.
She and all the survivors of the final trial had been transported across dimensions. They were ushered into divine chambers of pure metal, adorned with calming scents and sounds. They travelled to realms of fluffy, white rain and unparalleled vistas. They explored through the tropics, soared past forests, and flew above a vast, limitless stretch of pond with no lilies in sight.
It was admittedly a very strenuous lifestyle, one with as many dangers and mysteries as a dragon racer could expect. The Ancestor’s lights and Envoys were demanding, but it was nothing Imura’s clan couldn’t handle. Everyone agreed that this was a dragon’s proper existence, not the shameful depravity they had experienced in the dome.
Among Imura’s favorite new realms was the dry-world of sand. Here they had spent the last several days, exploring numerous tracks and following Envoys inside armored beetles. It was beneath the desert heat that she became a mother, a proud matriarch that reflected the spirit of Meganeura. Her children were as strong as she could have hoped for. Her offspring would all be little green emperors, mixed with tigertail stripes.
She laid her first batch in a pool warmed by the open sun, and pondered names. They had to be called something strong, of course, to tough out the new life of moving between worlds, but they also needed poise.
Although he was somewhat dotty, she had always liked the name of that red darner who had been so warmly precocious. He had such a strange vision, that one. Imura swirled her tail in the pond, remembering what he had said about an aimless adulthood outdoors. About life untamed. How unappealing it now sounded. Still, it was him, Gharraph, and the others who had met Meganeuara and brokered their future. Those lucky few could be in some even higher, more ethereal plane than me, she thought. Where could you be, Ollo? Somewhere of pure mirth?
Mirth. Now that's a pretty name.
Ripples formed across the pond as Imura’s tail swayed. The gentle movement dispersed her eggs throughout the pool, sinking them to all corners. She waited patiently to witness which of her children would first reach the surface, whether by accident or curiosity.
It all starts here: life’s earliest race.

I - II - III - IV
Ollo slipped through the low weeds, weaving around everything in sight.
He learned he could turn quite fast, so losing his pursuit was simple: the blue bee was no match for the constant, sharp swerves he made along every monolith edge.
The whole escape may have actually been fun, if Ollo hadn’t seen what happened to the other racers who get caught.
It was a clubtail, pleading for mercy as a dozen bees clipped his wings and bit off his antennae, that killed Ollo’s spirits. There was also a racer who’d been de-limbed. Bees airlifted his worm-like body, pinching if he resisted. That sight almost made Ollo crash.
He continued to swerve, focusing on maintaining speed. The Ancestor had softened her light-flares, which allowed Ollo to better take in his environs and track the distant brown form of Flax.
His guide was right about last place being advantageous: if they had been up with the main plume of racers, they’d be evading hundreds of bees instead of just one or two.
Ollo turned a corner of another set of pillars Flax had rounded moments ago. The brown damselfly zoomed past a patch of grass, sputtered for a moment, and then turned around, suddenly chased by a blue blur.
Oh no. Ollo slowed down.
He focused his eyes and deduced that Flax was flying backwards, trying to shake something off his front. As he approached, Ollo could make out the bee clinging to Flax’s eye, sinking its jaws deeper and deeper.
Oh no, no, no. Ollo didn’t think he could tackle a foe without harming himself. Should he go for its abdomen? It’s throat? He recalled his days in the pond, chasing beetles. How much simpler it was then. All he had to do was barrel forward and disorient them.
I guess that’s what I do now.
Colliding with the bee’s side made the insect vibrate. Before it could get away, Ollo sank in his mandibles, biting down until he felt the tips of his jaws meet through flesh. With a swift yank, Ollo ripped off two limbs and half a belly, causing the bee to freeze, choke, and let go of Flax’s face.
“Oh praise Meganeura!” The damselfly pulled free, bleeding from his eye. “I thought I was food!”
***
They were each into their second glass of mead. Diggs pointed at red numbers on-screen, which sporadically increased.
“You’ll notice we’ve lost a few drones in these hives, but a culling is necessary. We need only the tough to remain. If the military wants a fleet of drone-soldiers, we need to ensure they’re Navy SEALS. Right, Sergeant?”
Teresa sipped her mead. She had to admit, as ridiculous as this was, the dragonflies at least seemed capable of defending themselves. Considering that many conflict areas now had regular bouts of locust swarms and blackflies. Oh, how the world has changed.
Diggs then whispered something to Cesar and leaned against a monitor. “Now, this being a reconnaissance mission, Sergeant, I’d like to show you just how expertly our little guys can observe a target. You see that scarecrow over there?” He pointed out the windows at what looked like a strange tree in the distance. “Go ahead and watch that for a moment.”
***
Once they left the grid of monoliths*,* the lights in Ollo’s head began to spark. Magenta and pink created a ribbon to fly along, with bright blue hoops to soar through.
Flax and he resumed their tandem flight, cruising over patches of bushes, saplings, and increased foliage.
“I’ve flown three other races Ollie. Sometimes there’s an odd mosquito, maybe a horsefly or two, but never a ... bee horde.” Flax’s voice quivered. *“*Why would The Ancestor have us go through such a thing? That was too cruel. Something feels wrong.”
Ollo couldn’t speak from any previous experience, but he agreed that it felt like a violation. He continued combing his vision grid, until he finally spotted dragonflies ahead.
The neon colors brought them both to where everyone else had reached, forming a perfect loop of remaining racers around a frozen envoy.
“Well, it looks like we’re still in last,” Flax said. “But why another circuit? Seems very strange.”
The Ancestor’s lights forced them into the centrifuge, looping a motionless (dead?) Envoy that stood on one foot. No matter what rank you were earlier, everyone broke even here.
“Is this normal?” Ollo asked.
“Not during a race.”
“Should we … try and break out?”
“We have to obey her lights.”
They stayed tandem in this slow-moving circle, flying behind a tattered-looking narrow-wing. Ollo got a clear view of the other racers, and could see that many were now missing limbs or parts of their wings. He may have been one of the lucky unscathed.
The signet on his back then started to heat up, making brief, delicate clicking sounds. Is it a sign? Does the Ancestor want me to notice something?
***
The photographs were clear and admirably hi-res. Teresa was impressed that so little was obstructed by the dragonflies' own wings.
“Imagine wanting to get a picture of a target,” Diggs began, “but he’s being held in a cell, with window slots too tiny for a human hand to get through. Or*,* maybe he’s being moved, protected by countless guards, each on the lookout for cameras or spies. Well, the solution to both scenarios is sending a tiny, inconspicuous dragonfly.”
The screens were tuned to display various angles of the scarecrow. A hay torso. A beekeeper mask. Wooden stake arms.
“Naturally, you couldn’t send a swarm like we have now into a more intimate operation,” Diggs said, “but you could send clusters, break them off into groups, and have them follow multiple suspects. That sort of thing.”
Teresa nodded along, and decided she wanted to see them enact a request of her own. “Can they take aerials?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Bird’s-eye views. Sometimes our satellites can’t penetrate cloud cover.”
“But of course.”
***
Ollo realized what the Ancestor’s clicking meant. She wants me to seek my companion. I’m supposed to find Imura.
His incredible eyes searched for those familiar black-and-yellow stripes. He was very good at discerning nearby kin, spotting pondsitters, a duskhawker, and various types of reedling. But a tigertail was nowhere to be seen.
Instead of stripes, Ollo soon winced to see crimson and violet strings that beckoned upward. Lady Meganeura’s lights had returned, growing brighter by the moment.
“Are you feeling that?” Flax slowed their momentum.
“Yes,” Ollo said, “we need to rise.”
They engaged their wings and fluttered upwards, following the threads of purple and red. The racers around them did likewise, and as a group, the insects formed an imperfect halo of shifting wings, ascending far higher than the glass dome would ever have allowed.
Soon it became cold. Harsh winds buffeted Ollo and Flax. With each rise in elevation, the air grew emptier, sharper. The damselfly shivered. “Where could she p-p-possibly be taking us? And why?”
There was nothing above, save for a deeply-hazed sun and ragged clouds. When the race reached a height where no one could refuse shivering, the lights finally faded.
For a moment, all the racers stared at each other, observing this hazy troposphere, horrified at how far below the earth that stared back was. If anyone were to stop their hovering counter-strokes, a simple breeze could spell the end.
Then Ollo’s signet began to heat up, making the same delicate clicking as before. I need to find Imura.
He tapped his partner’s tail. “Flax, we’ve got to move. I think The Ancestor’s giving me a sign.”
“A sign?” Flax wheezed. “Keghhh. Heghhh. Ollie, I don’t trust any signs right now. I’m telling you, something about this is really off.”
But Ollo searched anyway, scanning for those stripes. He slowly let go of Flax’s tail. “If you won’t come with me, I’ll go myself.”
“Are you deranged—you want to travel alone?”
A cloud form encroached with menacing slowness, whispering of icy chills. Below it, the lights re-emerged as spikes of cyan and jade. But they weren’t directing downwards, back to safety like everyone hoped; instead, they urged them to the east, along a long, horizontal track across the grey sky.
“Oh Lady Mega...” Flax’s shivering briefly stopped. “She wants us to race at this altitude?”
Despite his complaint, the majority of racers had already taken off, slowly following the lights against the clouds and turbulence.
Ollo let go of Flax. “Are you not going?”
“No, I’m not going!” Flax said, shivering again. “If disobeying lights is going to p-p-pop me, then so shall I pop, but I’m not flying out there to die in a broken race any longer! You’d be an even bigger dullard to try.”
A frigid draft briefly seized Ollo’s muscles. He shook them awake.
“These obstacles are cruel,” Flax continued. “Look at these fools, breaking their wings. And for what, Ollo? Come back down. Save yourself.”
Ollo inspected the race ahead, hoping to agree, but then he spotted them. Those black and yellow stripes. They were diving just ahead between hoops of cyan.
He took off alone. Flax yelled something, trying to turn him back. But he couldn’t, not when Imura was so close.
***
The aerial views were equally impressive. Dragondrones could be commanded to take long, sweeping scans of the geography below, and unlike satellites, they could penetrate cloud cover.
Teresa swiped between the photos, getting a full lay of the land. She paused on the hexagonal roof of their gazebo; next to it stood the cheery form of Diggs, halfway through his second cigarette.
“Like what you see?” Diggs asked, stubbing his ash outside.
Teresa continued swiping. “It’s nice that there’s a large fleet; guarantees decent coverage.”
“It does! And the pilots are so cheap to reproduce! Hundreds of eggs from a single mating, each one containing a design that’s been refined over three hundred million years. Where else can you find a deal like that?” Only by gaming nature, Teresa supposed.
The screens all began to flash with a cloud icon in the upper right.
“Rain incoming,” Cesar mumbled.
Diggs glanced at the screens, and his smile widened even further. He stretched a hand outside the Gazebo, twiddling his fingers. “Looks like we’ll get a firsthand glimpse of weather hazards.”
“Is that a problem?” Teresa asked.
“Oh my, no. But bear in mind, under extreme weather conditions we’re bound to lose a couple,” Diggs said. “That’s why we send so many. The beauty of dragonflies is that they’ll take care of themselves. They’re able to hide and recoup their energy. Real drones would be out of luck in the field.”
Teresa considered this. He’s not wrong.
“Now, you might think it impossible for an airborne creature to avoid such a wet sky, but insects are different. Their tiny brains dilate time. A speeding water droplet to you is just a slow, avoidable drip to them.”
***
Ollo’s whole body trembled with fear. He tracked as many liquid meteors as he could. Other racers nearby began to break off from the Ancestor’s lights, returning to a more comfortable height, but Ollo refused to give up. He wanted to see the track through the clouds to the end—the mission was his own now.
He navigated the downpour, following the jade thread as it zigged and zagged. Further ahead, a faint tigertail pattern descended gradually.
The course goes down. That’s a relief.
Then a droplet smacked Ollo’s blindspot: his eye scar. It felt like a wet reckoning. His vision flashed. Epilepsy. Oh no, no, no, no.
He spiralled down, spinning like a whirligig. Jade and cyan flared through his mind. Ollo saw the earth rise towards him in bursts, like the bottom of the pond. For a moment it felt like he was diving. Swimming. Paddling.
No. Stay sharp. Must stay sharp.
He shook as he plummeted, shedding as much water as possible, and did his best to avoid more rain. Ollo prayed to The Ancestor. Begged. And with a sudden glint, her blinding lights abated. Ollo’s senses returned.
He alternated his wings, fore and aft as Flax had shown him, and by some miracle, the wind contoured his flight, levelling him out—but just barely.
There came a crash, and sharp things thrust their way into his space: pinecones and needles. Instinctually, Ollo thrust his legs out and cushioned against impact. His face smacked a tree.
Moments passed. Lifetimes.
Ollo wheezed and groaned, feeling his voice echo around him. Only it wasn’t an echo. The whole stream of remaining racers were now here, using this pine tree as shelter. They were coughing, shuddering, and fighting for space on the wood.
Ollo wiped his eyes, shocked to see he was still among the competitors. He looked around to orient himself, trying to spot a familiar form. The first he encountered was Gharraph.
“YES!” the green emperor howled. “Finally!”
The power of his voice came with an aftershock. Ollo watched him move along a pine branch, needles snapping beneath his wings. “Deliverance draws near! This is it, my fellow dragons—the race we’ve been waiting for!”
A couple racers rallied in coughs and shouts, supporting this sudden zeal.
“The Ancestor has been testing us, and the moment has come where we reach her final light.”
More shouts. The remaining morale seemed eager. Ollo gazed down among the cries, having heard a familiar pitch. He crawled past others until he reached a scant little broadleaf by the pine’s roots. There he saw them. The black and yellow stripes.
“Glory to The Ancestor! Her greatest race yet!” Imura lay half-obscured by the leaf, echoing Gharraph’s call.
Ollo tentatively approached, appreciating the richness of her colors. Excitement boiled away all his weariness; it felt as if he were molting. Eventually, his mandibles managed to align words. “Imura. Are you … all right?”
Her wings were sopping. One antenna was apparently gone. “Who is that? Ollo?”
There was no use containing himself. “Oh, thank Mega! You’re alive! You’re okay! This is good! This is so good!”
She stared at him, jaws agape. “How are you here? Shouldn’t you be back—”
“I was chosen! An Envoy chose me! I was destined to compete. To find you. To make sure you’re safe.” Ollo spoke faster than he could think. “I learned to fly tandem: Flax showed me. I know how to save us. I know how to fly us back!”
Imura looked at him, wiped rain off her head, then withdrew beneath the leaf. “I don’t understand; what are you talking about?”
Ollo folded his wings and followed her. “This race, it’s not heeding any of the usual rules. It’s twisted and dangerous.”
“Of course,” Imura said. “She’s pushing us. This is the race where she’ll offer it.”
“Offer what?”
“The next reward: beyond Outside.”
The two bugs observed each other beneath the leaf, neither believing the other was there.
“But, you’re hurt,” Ollo pointed at her feeler. “And you’re wet. You don’t actually plan on continuing?”
“What? Ollo. We need to keep going.” Imura wiped her eyes in small circles. “Can’t you feel that? Her lights?”
A pinging re-emerged in Ollo. Tiny white dots, venturing out, urging them still further east. Their pull was faint now, but he knew that would soon change.
“I don’t think that matters,” Ollo said. “What’s important is that we’re alive. That’s why she wanted me to find you.”
“But Gharraph—he’s right.” Imura grazed Ollo’s wings, testing their pliancy. “A new prize awaits. Beyond Outside. What could that even be?”
Ollo thought back to the adulthood he envisioned: the simple life among unadulterated nature. The childhood myth. He came to a realization.
“I know what the prize is.”
“What?”
He tapped the moist bark beneath them, inhaled some of the fresh air. “It’s living here.”
“What?”
“Back in the pond I saw flashes, images of what I thought adulthood would be like. It’s supposed to be a return to living outside. Not just in glimpses, or races. But living here. A paradise unbound.”
Imura froze, she grabbed her one remaining feeler, wringing it as she thought. “By Mega’s light … you’re right.”
The tigertail began to pace, massaging her head. “We race to prove our best***.*** We’re proving we can live out here. That must be what comes next. Settling down in life beyond the dome!”
Her enthusiasm enlivened Ollo; it made his whole harrowing journey worthwhile. This is why they were meant to reunite. A mutual swoon. A harmony. And now, together, they could figure out the rest of their lives.
“You’re completely undamaged.” Imura held Ollo’s tail, wiping what little moisture still clung to it. “It’s a miracle you’ve made it this far. You know what I think?” She wiped a droplet off his antennae. Its receptors sent a warmth so soothing that Ollo’s legs nearly buckled. “I think it’s no coincidence the Envoy selected you, fresh-bodied and determined. You knew of our future first. You foresaw the prize.”
“I mean, maybe, but I don’t think I’m all that special ...”
“Of course you are!” She held him now, brought her eyes against his. Two worlds of ultra-wide vision overlapping. “When I was in the clouds,” Imura whispered, “I glimpsed her waiting. Do you understand? I glimpsed Meganeura.”
“What?”
“She’s close. Here, returned to us in physical form. Awaiting her champions. You must be among them.”
“Me? But what about you, what about—”
“I’ll be fine; I must recoup. It’s obvious that she’s placed me here, right now, so that I could convince you.”
She let go of Ollo, but even afterwards, he could still see her silhouette in his eyes, a beautiful after-image.
“Go.” Imura lifted the leaf, pointing outward. “Go up now; follow Gharraph with the others. Promise me you’ll obey the lights, and that you’ll reach her.”
Ollo looked at Imura through her own afterimage. He wanted to retract his theory, to wail against this decision. They couldn’t separate again, not after all the effort he’d put in. He wished he could remember an adage from the pond-lores, some statement to prove he should stay ...
“And tell her about the memory you had,” Imura said. “You’re one of the signifiers, Ollo; a key to the adulthood we’ve always deserved. By the glory of every rank I’ve ever earned, I thank you. You might just be the herald of a new age!”
***
The surveillance journey of the drones had gone from scarecrow, to an aerial sweep, to the cover of a pine tree. Now, they’d been sent off again to a road crossing. But instead of waiting, or gaining slight altitude, one particular green Dragondrone had the audacity to simply dodge traffic.
The car had been coming at him head-on. It seemed as though the bug was either going to become a bumper sticker or a windshield splat. Then, at the last possible moment, the camera-feed leapt up, and the blue of the Tesla’s roof whizzed by underneath. The little pilot turned, as if observing the car disappear and acknowledging the near-death encounter, and then continued flying as if nothing had happened.
Teresa watched this on repeat, studying the stabilization and frame rate, both of which were quite decent (considering the compression); but what really impressed her was the physical reaction time.
“I see you found him,” said Cesar, peering over Teresa’s shoulder.
“Found who?”
“Our strongest specimen.”
Cesar helped Teresa swap to the feed of a trailing drone that had witnessed the stunt. From a couple meters back, the large, green dragonfly played chicken, hovering at road-kill height. But as soon as the vehicle entered frame, he shot up in a flash, performing a quick spin at the end.
Teresa replayed the footage from this new angle on repeat, analyzing the movement—that is, until a clapping came from the mini fridge.
“Excellent!”
Diggs had been pouring the remains of the mead into the last two glasses, ensuring they were even. “I was hoping he’d show off!” The director squeezed between Cesar and Teresa, cheering as if this were some sporting event. “Amazing isn’t it? He’s an import from Tasmania, you know. Anax papuensis. An Australian Emperor. The species has been proving to be the preferred choice in our program. I’m so glad you got to see him flaunt!”
“Flaunt?” Teresa said, trying to understand how the term could apply.
“Yes, well, the Nootropic enhances their cognizance.” Diggs handed Teresa one of the glasses. “It makes them better flyers, but I’m starting to suspect it also adds a bit of personality. An edge, if you will. It’s what allows us to steer them into environments they would naturally avoid.”
Teresa gave her temples a small rub, trying to brush away her incredulity. A real drone certainly doesn’t come with any ‘Tasmanian reflexes.’ She took her drink and stood, giving her eyes a break by observing the valley.
“You know, Sergeant, I was thinking my proposal would consist of chiefly Australian emperors.” Diggs leaned back in his chair. “Your first Dragondrone squadron needs to be exceptional, don’t you think?”
It had taken him so long to start talking business, Teresa figured he had been saving it for once everything was over. “You’re talking about the package you’d offer me?”
He stood up, almost matching her height. “Yes. Just so you get a sense: I would offer you a starting fleet of say, two hundred pilots—seventy percent being Emperors—along with your own dronehangar. You would need one of our operators on site, of course, and I’d be happy to reserve one of our experienced interns. Cesar has been training a few.”
The assistant busied himself nearby, likely pretending to ignore their discussion. Teresa wasn’t sure what her answer was, anyway. As intriguing as some elements of the proposal were, at the end of the day, the technology still seemed too strange. Too ridiculous. But perhaps that’s how genius always germinates? From a seed of absurdity?
Then her phone rang. Its screen flashed with coordinates, indicating her incoming freedom. She stared at it, first for her own benefit, then as a double-take for Diggs. “You know what? I’m so sorry—I’ve been summoned, apparently. For a ‘Code R4.’
‘A code what?” Diggs asked.
“Arctic stuff. Immediate. Confidential. I’m sorry, but we’ll have to cut this demonstration short.”
The director settled his glass with a tiny frown. He turned to Cesar, who stared back, silently bemused. “Well, that’s too bad,” Diggs said. “I guess I should have prepared a contingency. There’s still another Gazebo I wanted to show you … some nocturnal capabilities you know nothing about …” he ran his fingers along the side of a monitor. The map indicated that they had reached marker ten out of thirty.
“I’m afraid duty calls.” Teresa gave him a wan smile. “We’ll have to reschedule for the rest.”
Diggs put a hand on Cesar and began whispering something quickly. They were rerouting map markers, cancelling dozens of icons.
Escape was definitely the right call, Teresa thought, and took a long sip of mead.
***
A new-found determination blossomed in Ollo, one born of finality and understanding**.** The sooner he met with The Ancestor, the sooner freedom would reach them all. And then he could exist with Imura as he had always wanted: in a paradise unbound*.*
He surged behind Gharraph and a dozen other dragons still willing to compete. He wasn’t all that fast of course, and lacked their days of dome-training, but Ollo had managed to decipher the code that enabled safe passage through the rain and obstacles. Trust Meganeura.
His latent realization had finally been brought to a head by Gharraph. The champion had impressed everyone as he defied a giant rolling beetle, screaming The Ancestor’s name. It was at that moment Ollo understood the power of devotion. An unconditional obedience to the Great Lady allowed racers to push forward and rank high. Follow her lights. Trust Meganeura.
As long as Ollo stuck as close as possible to the blinking white track, it felt as if he were truly invulnerable to any whim of The Outside. The race crossed several small fields, another flatworm of granite, and a copse of trees. At one point, it went over a roiling stream; its torrents of white foam reminded Ollo of the bubbles that diving beetles released when they had nothing else to lose. It had all been going remarkably well until Ollo reached the obstacle that had caught everyone else: a buffet of air too strong to overcome.
The elite dragonflies were being continually spat back. No one was able to beat the countervailing wind, which grew tenfold at the base of a knoll. Even the unstoppable Gharraph was being tossed backwards.
“We must hold the line!” The champion yelled. “Grab a stalk if you have to! We can’t fall back!”
Arriving late, Ollo avoided getting tousled and joined the rest as they dove into the grass, gripping the thickest sheathes available. The plants whipped viciously back and forth, forcing everyone to snap their wings down into tight folds.
How is the air so fierce?
The lights still pulsated and beckoned towards the knoll. She’s testing us now, more than ever, Ollo thought.
Then came the roaring: a dense, low, thunderous cry. Ollo swapped fearful looks with a ringtail. Neither of them knew what was coming.
It was the loudest sound Ollo had ever heard. As it neared, the wind began to wane. Ollo took a few breaths to relax his hold, trying to steal a glance at this loud thing—and that’s when the vortex seized him.
All four of his wings suddenly bent in the wrong direction, and his whole body spun out of control. His vision blurred, the only thing he could clearly see being the purple division of his scar. His body tumbled about, like he was being chewed and swallowed by billows of air. And then he saw something. A silhouette: a being. It was her.
His deity approached, drawing all the air towards her. The pull was inescapable. Ollo gazed up and beheld her empyrean presence.
She was a dragonfly, except colossal. Sleek, black, and large enough to swallow an Envoy whole. Ollo spotted Gharraph and at least two other elite racers all subjected to the same immense pull as he. No one could escape.
“We beseech thy ancient reverence!” the green emperor yelled, his own wings completely askew. “It is I, Gharraph, longest reigning champion there has been!”
Meganeura drew nearer and roared. From behind her, the sun fired a prism of ultraviolet rays.
“On behalf of my kin. I implore you. It is time. It is time we were awarded the next stage of our lives!”
Yes. Ollo wanted to shout. Break this cycle of racing. A life of forever Outside.
Their deity roared, ripping the air itself with the blur of her wings, shredding the droplets of rain that fell and surrounded them.
“We wish to roam new lands,” Gharraph continued, “to see what else there is.”
“That’s right!” Ollo added. “How it once must have been!”
The vortex had altogether ceased, creating a sense of utter tranquility. Instead of being pulled, Ollo’s body was allowed to float in a bubbly effervescence.
“We have passed thine divine trial,” Gharraph boomed, flexing his four, now-steady wings. “Offer us the final promise, O Great Meganeura! Usher in a new age!”
The green emperor flew close and bowed, showing deference to the almighty.
As he likewise approached, Ollo began to notice the strange appearance of Meganeura when seen up close. Her skin was matte, holding no shine. And her wings: they fluttered in a way that made no sense, as if spinning on one axis.
“O Great One from times beyond past. We’ve come now, to pay homage—” Gharraph was stuck by the Ancestor’s wing. His paltry form was cast into a thousand pieces across the luminous sky.
Ollo froze from shock. He watched as Meganeura’s massive black wings continued to chop the air, mincing everyone and everything. A new scar split his vision, dividing his world in two. Then it split him again. And again. And again. And again.
***
“A chopper?!”
Diggs’s mouth had lain open for almost a whole minute. He half-covered it with his hand. Then uncovered it. “That’s pretty neat.”
They had all stepped outside to observe the Black Hawk grow against the horizon, its propeller whirring louder and louder.
“Your facility here is actually not too far from our base in Whitehorse.” Teresa said. “There wasn’t a jet available, so they had to pick me up like this. I hope you won’t mind an improvised landing.”
Both men gawked at the sight. The chopper looked like it was emerging from the sunset, light appearing to melt around it.
“Land it anywhere,” Diggs said, his smile slowly fading. He began to whisper something, an angry something into his assistant, as if he were at fault. Cesar nodded, his blank look still unwavering.
Teresa watched the odonatologist walk dejectedly to the Gazebo and decided to try something.
“Director, what if I had a small counter-proposal?”
Diggs lit up immediately, “A counter-proposal?”
“What if”—Teresa glanced at her chopper, and then at Cesar walking off—“what if I took Cesar with me? For a kind of trial?”
“What do you mean?”
“It would be difficult to commit to a whole new fleet. But I think my Major would be open to a small selection. Cesar could come and demonstrate how your drones would operate around the arctic base.”
Diggs gave a her peculiar look, as if he were near-sighted. “I would have to think about it … Mr. Costales is crucial to our process here. I can’t have him missing for long.”
“Not long,” Teresa said. “Just a few days. All I would need is to demo a fraction of what you’ve shown me. We could potentially skip a whole year of bureaucracy and invest in a fleet sooner.”
Diggs gripped his chin. His eyes were questioning, almost leering, asking her one word: Why?
But Teresa couldn’t pin down exactly why. Perhaps it was that dead, defeated look on Cesar. A look that spoke of jaded hopes, long nights, and unwarranted exploitation. Maybe it was the mead, but Teresa had been struck with sympathy. If she could help someone else avoid the hell she went through during her early years, then maybe this whole charade could have a positive outcome after all.
“Well think about it anyway,” Teresa said. “I wouldn’t have to grab him now—”
“But if you did”—Diggs smiled again, his hands rummaging through his pockets—“it might heighten our chances of a complete investment?” The director produced a tablet and stylus.
“I’d be shuffling a lot of work here, so I’d have to cover Cesar’s absence. But I could offer him. At a premium.”
Teresa glanced at Diggs’ device; the man was not afraid to test military spending. His figure wasn’t far off from the cost of her summoning this evac. Should I just double down? Turn my escape into a rescue?
“That looks fine,” she eventually managed. “The major would be pleased.”
“Stupendous,” Diggs said quietly. He jotted a few more things to his device. “Let me find some documentation; give me a few moments.”
She turned away from the megalomaniac and ventured into the Gazebo. She found Cesar and explained what was being arranged.
“So … I’m going with you?” He only half-stood, his neck still mostly hunched over a screen.
“Yes.”
“Now?”
“Only if you’re able to.”
His eyes had a habit of getting stuck in one expression, and now it appeared to be shock. He fiddled with a screen, then beckoned Teresa over.
“Well, I mean, are you sure you want me now? It looks like your helicopter may have impacted some of our drones. I only have about twenty in operation that I could bring with us.”
“Twenty sounds plenty.”
“Okay ...” Cesar said, still having trouble meeting Teresa’s gaze. “You really think your boss would want this?”
Teresa offered a smile. “When he finds out I returned in a chopper with you, he’s going to be ecstatic.”
Or furious. But that’s fine with me.
***
Imura never did know what happened to end that fateful race, but whatever it was, it had worked. There truly was a reward beyond just racing Outside: it was racing Outside...of time and space.
She and all the survivors of the final trial had been transported across dimensions. They were ushered into divine chambers of pure metal, adorned with calming scents and sounds. They travelled to realms of fluffy, white rain and unparalleled vistas. They explored through the tropics, soared past forests, and flew above a vast, limitless stretch of pond with no lilies in sight.
It was admittedly a very strenuous lifestyle, one with as many dangers and mysteries as a dragon racer could expect. The Ancestor’s lights and Envoys were demanding, but it was nothing Imura’s clan couldn’t handle. Everyone agreed that this was a dragon’s proper existence, not the shameful depravity they had experienced in the dome.
Among Imura’s favorite new realms was the dry-world of sand. Here they had spent the last several days, exploring numerous tracks and following Envoys inside armored beetles. It was beneath the desert heat that she became a mother, a proud matriarch that reflected the spirit of Meganeura. Her children were as strong as she could have hoped for. Her offspring would all be little green emperors, mixed with tigertail stripes.
She laid her first batch in a pool warmed by the open sun, and pondered names. They had to be called something strong, of course, to tough out the new life of moving between worlds, but they also needed poise.
Although he was somewhat dotty, she had always liked the name of that red darner who had been so warmly precocious. He had such a strange vision, that one. Imura swirled her tail in the pond, remembering what he had said about an aimless adulthood outdoors. About life untamed. How unappealing it now sounded. Still, it was him, Gharraph, and the others who had met Meganeuara and brokered their future. Those lucky few could be in some even higher, more ethereal plane than me, she thought. Where could you be, Ollo? Somewhere of pure mirth?
Mirth. Now that's a pretty name.
Ripples formed across the pond as Imura’s tail swayed. The gentle movement dispersed her eggs throughout the pool, sinking them to all corners. She waited patiently to witness which of her children would first reach the surface, whether by accident or curiosity.
It all starts here: life’s earliest race.

a new phrase
“ bedtime procrastination ”
it even has a study
moonlight is empty
hard to understand
the coloured flowers
profuse from such banality
i listened to a WW2 account of russian troops assaulting a defensive german position during their retreat and the russian commanders deliberately sent a newly conscripted mongolian company through a minefield to blow up a path for the troops behind, most of course were killed
russian tactics don’t seem to have changed much with the avdiivka assaults
the tolerance of the russian population to this sort of criminality by their own leaders is just unbelievable
this problem with the food additive "sugar alcohols" has been known for many decades and is addressed by elaine gottschall’s specific carbohydrate diet and also my upgrade of it "the biofilm carbohydrate diet"
i think this is news to you, sabine because you’re german and out of the dietary rounds of the english speaking world
women in the police is, i think, a huge and totally unappreciated socially stabilising influence taking the rough edge off the aggression inherent in a male only force
a strange world
our brains designed for a communality that no longer exists
only a landscape of sparse probability
and poorly matched association
.
a strange world
our brains designed for a communality that no longer exists
only a landscape of sparse probability
now
you can’t unwrap the loss of time
tv cooking shows all have same the same mistake of equating food preparation and cooking with a diet of high nutritional value, indeed i would say a lot of today’s cooking tends too close to the negative
you can pay $10,000 for a meal at new york’s fanciest restaurant, but its not a patch on the slow cooked possum i am eating this morning, nutritionally supreme with its unusually high omega three levels and quite tasty too
honestly i feel the whole upmarket restaurant thing is a bit of a racket, like designer bags, lamborghinis and the usual bad art, that market is bottomless apparently and true socialism, wealth and poverty united in ignorance and stupidity
the term "addiction" is perhaps used too casually these days, in my mind what makes a true addiction is having a significantly deleterious effect on your life and only complete abstinence can break the pattern
identifying and acting on "incremental opportunity cost" is a way to handle it
there’s two worlds
the absurd world
and the real world
why are they so cojoined with me ?
thich nhat hanh missionaries
like moths around a flame
they join their master
in cremation
isolation
retaining coherence
mood swings
amplification
similitude
becomes identity
the holy way
this is all
do not
be
surprised
at
its success
scripts
each "incident" radiates a million ways
bad writers choose the wrong ones
michel de montaigne is wonderfully simple in style and his views on education have not been surpassed and highly relevant to systemic flaws in many "modern" approaches
passacaglia
g. f. handel — suite no. 7, g minor, hwv 432; arrangement by johan halvorsen
lots of covers on youtube
the boring
listening to the boring
podcasts
the summum bonum
of ennui
if prose is the brass coin
poetry is golden
.
if prose is the brass coin
good poetry is golden
.
if prose is the brass coin
good poetry is the gold
on the way to launceston, near elizabeth town there’s a sign on the side of what is a very busy road advertising freemasonary, newcomers welcome, men better
i figure "men better" is a euphemism for "no women"
an historically contentious issue apparently
one of the technological changes i don’t think people really appreciate is how modern medicine is extending the lifespan in way that reinforces current power hierarchies and actually in certain contexts like dictatorships is creating some problems
simply put there was a large natural turnover of people dying from fifty on that was perfectly normal, an example of this is king charles having an operation to remove tissue in an enlarged prostate, and princess kate having some sort of major operation, both of which were possibly fatal in several years without treatment and that’s literally was what used to happen
you only have to look at 19th and early 20th century film and the people on the streets, there’s no-one over 60
in love
out of love
when feelings change
the world collapses
and
rebuilds
the difference
is
the same
i have a doppelgänger
we converse occasionally
she’s not here
i am
.
i have a doppelgänger
we converse occasionally
he’s not there
i am
i can’t be honest about suicide
its messy, a death the end result of something else really
not a c drama poignancy, a beautiful life poised in stasis forever
misunderstood love
or a brutal machine
slamming out tickets
each printed
death
the uncaring world glances at
and then moves on
listen to other people’s opinions of you and hear what you don’t want to hear
.
listen to other people’s opinions of you and you will hear what you don’t want to hear
a spinning world
the whirligig
a kaleidoscope
of fragmented patterns
but the meaning
is somewhere else
unrequited love
the magic
of
rejection
.
unrequited love
the magic
of
that sense
of
rejection

I've been sewing for a while, but new to quilting. I'm working on cutting pieces correctly, getting my lines straight and getting points to line up. I'm curious if there are any good patterns you learned with? I admire all the quilts shared - they're beautiful. :-) My lines are close, but often 1-2 millimeters off and it makes me nuts. I started with this one (https://www.gossypiumquilt.com/shop/Kits/Quilt-Kits/p/Whirligigs-wHexies-Batik-Quilt-Kit-52x69-x75650211.htm), but thinking I should have started with straight lines first.

This post is part 3 of an ongoing series where I lay out information about Project Fly, my concept for a multiplayer Spyro spinoff based around free flight. This series is purely an exercise in creative thinking. I do not have any intention to develop this concept into a playable game, nor do I mean to imply that this game should or will be made. I recommend reading the previous posts in this series first:
Part 1: Core Mechanics - Project Fly uses the gameplay of classic Spyro flight levels as a foundation, with the addition of freefall, boost and stunt mechanics to emphasise speed and momentum.
Part 2: Main Gameplay Modes - Project Fly's most prominent gameplay modes are competitive racing and battle modes with an emphasis on casual couch multiplayer, set within several expansive maps known as superspeedways.
In this part, I will go over the game's roster of playable characters, how they differ from one another in terms of mechanics and personality, and how players can further customise their characters to express themselves.
Character Stats
First, let's establish what makes characters feel different to control. Giving every character the same stats is clearly not appropriate: I'll say again that a tiny dragon, a thief in a biplane and a lumbering half-orc in a helicopter backpack should not have identical gamefeel. But before we can establish how they differ in their stats, we need to establish what their stats are. To do that, let's break down the mechanics of flight into their core components.
There's cruise speed, boost speed, boost consumption, turn speed, weight, trick agility, trick efficiency, acceleration, aerodynamics... If we assigned a stat to every single one of these components, we'd have a system that's needlessly cumbersome and antithetical to the party experience. So let's sort these into a few intuitive stats, each rated with a number of points from 1 to 10.
SPEED: How fast the character flies in neutral conditions. High speed characters have a higher max flying speed.
HANDLING: How smoothly and tightly a character is able to turn in flight, and how quickly they can regain speed. Also affects the amount of control over certain tricks, like drifting, barrel rolls and loops. High handling characters turn better and have more acceleration.
TECHNIQUE: Affects the amount of boost energy received from tricks, and the effect of tricks on momentum. Low tech characters have slower tricks which award less energy, but a longer combo timer, making them more beginner friendly. High tech characters are the inverse: faster, more effective tricks worth more boost energy, but a strict combo timer, requiring a high level of play to reach their potential.
POWER: Measures' a character's boost efficiency. High Power means a faster boost with less energy drain. Some items are also buffed based on this stat.
WEIGHT: The size and weight of a character. For the sake of intuitiveness, all characters have the same density; there is a direct correlation between weight and size. Bigger characters preserve more momentum and reach terminal velocity sooner in freefall. Larger characters are easier to hit with items, but more resistant to collisions with other players. Smaller characters encounter less air resistance, but are more vulnerable to turbulence.
With our five base stats in place, we can start building different archetypes for the roster to fit into. But first, I'd like to make a small diversion and point out an aesthetic detail.
A Playlist of Characters
Character selection screens in other games are often basic in construction: a grid of character faces, sometimes with a character's name. For Project Fly, I'd like the character select to have a little more flavor. To that end, the character portraits are modeled after album art. In addition to depicting the character, each icon is set on a backdrop which demonstrates the character's personality.
For example, Spyro's character square has him bursting through a kaleidoscopic collage of colours, representing his ineffable confidence and snarky attitude. Elora's has her lounging in a garden with various fodder creatures, representing her connection with nature and her friendship with animals. Gnasty Gnorc's sees him standing atop a pile of dragon bones, holding up his scepter and firing his spell into the air, illuminating the twilight sky with sinister green.
I could go on, but those three examples should indicate the potential of music-inspired character icons to infuse additional personality into an aspect of party games that we usually take for granted. It also ties into the overall aesthetic theme of Project Fly, but that's a story for a future part.
The Starting Roster
To support its 16-player flight modes, Project Fly has a roster of 16 characters unlocked from the very beginning. With the exception of the new villain, the roster is composed of iconic characters from the Reignited Trilogy. The stats below are a rough estimate and open to rebalancing, but without a playable build I can't say for sure how they would be rebalanced.
Spyro - Archetype: Flashy All-Rounder - Style: Dragonflight
SPD: 6 HDL: 5 TCH: 6 PWR: 5 WT: 3
Spyro is the face of Project Fly, naturally. His stats are mostly balanced, and players can be effective with Spyro no matter how they play. But his light weight and light preference for doing tricks encourages players to try out the advanced mechanics at their own pace.
Nestor - Archetype: Technical Master - Style: Dragonflight
SPD: 6 HDL: 2 TCH: 10 PWR: 8 WT: 8
Nestor is one of the dragon elders: the apex of dragonkind and a master of his craft. But he didn't get that good by playing it safe. With his poor handling and high technicality, a good Nestor is an elegant spectacle to behold, but any mistakes he makes are seriously punishing.
Bubba - Archetype: Heavyweight Champ - Style: Dragonflight
SPD: 7 HDL: 5 TCH: 4 PWR: 7 WT: 9
Bubba is a dragon elder who conducts himself with much less nobility. A jolly soul who loves to throw his bulk around, Bubba is surprisingly nimble but doesn't care much for flashy tricks. He gets more mileage out of using his size to his advantage.
Thief - Archetype: Annoying Speedster - Style: Biplane
SPD: 10 HDL: 3 TCH: 8 PWR: 2 WT: 6
The Thief is infamous for goading Spyro into high-speed chases, his surprising speed and agility making the prospect of catching him a significant challenge. While he doesn't get much out of boosting, his extreme cruise speed and technical proficiency nonetheless make him formidable in a race.
Gnasty Gnorc - Archetype: Flying Brick - Style: Gnorc-copter
SPD: 3 HDL: 8 TCH: 2 PWR: 10 WT: 10
Gnasty's long-standing grudge against dragons compels him to challenge them in the skies, but his Gnorcish technology can only get him so far. His backpack-mounted helipack lets him steer with ease, but it's difficult to squeeze out any tricks with it and it doesn't propel his massive body very fast. But when he does get boost energy, it's seriously powerful.
Hunter - Archetype: Showboater - Style: Mechanical Wings
SPD: 7 HDL: 4 TCH: 7 PWR: 6 WT: 5
Hunter is Spyro's friendly rival, a cheetah who takes pride in his skill, often challenging Spyro to the occasional minigame. Taking to the skies in the wingsuit he's occasionally worn in classic flight levels, Hunter excels when taking every opportunity to pull off some flashy tricks. He has trouble recovering when his dominance is challenged, but when he takes the lead, he runs with it.
Elora - Archetype: Easy-going Drifter - Style: Pterodactyl Friend
SPD: 6 HDL: 10 TCH: 4 PWR: 4 WT: 6
Elora is the heart of the Avalar crew, whose compassion grants her a knack for befriending and organising others. She takes to the skies with the help of a pterodactyl, as she once did in Spyro's fight with Gulp. She's not very competitive or aggressive by nature, so her flight style is all about being easy to control. With excellent handling and less emphasis on boosts and tricks, Elora is a great character for beginners.
Moneybags - Archetype: Energy Spender - Style: Biplane
SPD: 2 HDL: 6 TCH: 7 PWR: 8 WT: 6
Moneybags is an enthusiast of the financial, infamous for squeezing Spyro for gems at every opportunity. His passion for currency is reflected in his flight archetype placing a major focus on earning and spending boost energy. Without boost power, Moneybags is among the slowest fliers in the game. However, his good tech skill and high power lets him earn and spend a lot of boost energy. If you let Moneybags save up, he might just be a competitor...
Professor - Archetype: Safe and Smart - Style: Remote Drone
SPD: 5 HDL: 7 TCH: 7 PWR: 3 WT: 2
The Professor has a brilliant mind, but a weak body and a timid soul. Rather than putting himself in the heat of a flight skirmish, the Professor uses a remote-controlled quadcopter, projecting himself via hologram during tricks. The drone is lightweight and nimble enough to pull off some creative stunts, but its small form factor doesn't offer much in the way of power.
Sheila - Archetype: Bouncy and Courageous - Style: Whirligig
SPD: 6 HDL: 3 TCH: 8 PWR: 6 WT: 4
Shiela is a plucky kangaroo with an affinity for jumping high. Her strong technicals with decent speed and power and low handling sees her setting the pace with linear high-speed bursts of Boost. The key to succeeding with Sheila is to balance her nimble trick output with a straight and speedy Boost.
Sgt Byrd - Archetype: Tactical Maneuvering - Style: Penguinflight
SPD: 3 HDL: 8 TCH: 7 PWR: 8 WT: 2
Sgt Byrd has a precedent of free flight in his own levels in YOTD, where his flight is slow and cumbersome yet well suited for precise, thoughtful movement. He gets a significant speed boost in Project Fly, but he still prefers being accurate to being fast. He packs significant power in a small frame, making the most of his strategic use of tricks.
Bentley - Archetype: Powerhouse - Style: Hoverboard
SPD: 5 HDL: 4 TCH: 4 PWR: 7 WT: 7
Bentley rides across the sky on a hoverboard, the vehicle of choice for yetis as seen in the YOTD bonus level. Hoverboards encourage their riders to pull off tricks to earn boost energy. Bentley isn't a very experienced rider, instead preferring to bank on his power.
Bartholomew - Archetype: Powerhouse-in-Training - Style: Hoverboard
SPD: 6 HDL: 5 TCH: 7 PWR: 5 WT: 3
Bartholomew, Bentley's little brother, is another hoverboarding yeti. In fact, he's the one who introduced Bentley to hoverboarding in the first place. He'd like to be as strong as his big bro one day, but he has a natural knack for hoverboarding. Compared to Bentley, Bartholomew is much smaller and lacking in power, but his significantly higher tech skill lets him keep up.
Agent 9 - Archetype: Reckless Speed Demon - Style: Rocketship
SPD: 9 HDL: 1 TCH: 4 PWR: 9 WT: 6
Agent 9 has a few screws loose. He rides an out-of-control rocket ship- not in the cockpit, but straddling the top of it like a cowboy on a horse- or rather, like Dr Strangelove on the nuke. You'll outpace everyone, yes, but good luck trying to steer the rocket or pull off tricks. Agent 9 is simply not for the faint of heart.
Bianca - Archetype: Raw Potential - Style: Light Magic
SPD: 5 HDL: 6 TCH: 5 PWR: 6 WT: 4
Bianca is a mage in training, who is finishing her studies with the dragons after helping Spyro defeat her former master. She rides across the skies on a conjured rainbow, reminiscent of her entrances in Year of the Dragon. Her potential as a mage is yet to be unleashed, and she is a more balanced all-rounder than Spyro. How she performs in the aerial space will come down to the player controlling her.
Vertigo - Archetype: Beast of the Skies - Style: Hawkflight
SPD: 4 HDL: 3 TCH: 5 PWR: 7 WT: 9 (playable)
SPD: 6 HDL: 5 TCH: 7 PWR: 9 WT: 9 (campaign AI)
Vertigo is the new antagonist of Project Fly, a mammoth hawk who aims to dominate the skies. He intends to sap the realms of magic power until everything that floats, glides and flies is permanently grounded. If he is the only thing that flies, his dominance will be absolute. Nothing will ever be able to reach him. His success will also cause the floating islands of the realms to collapse into the infinite void below, dooming countless millions, but Vertigo cares not who is left standing at the end of his conquest. As long as he lords above them all, he will sacrifice whatever it takes.
His overwhelming power and weight more than compensates for the subpar nature of the rest of his stats. If he makes good use of boost power, he will be a formidable opponent. But therein lies his Achilles' heel: if he is prevented from using Boost power, made humble by superior flying and item assault, he is easily overtaken.
Unlockable Characters
Additional characters outside the initial 16 can be unlocked by playing through campaign missions. These unlockables include resurrected villains, relatively obscure deep cuts, and characters from post-trilogy continuity.
Ripto - Archetype: Overcompensating Monster - Style: Mechanical Pterodactyl
SPD: 4 HDL: 6 TCH: 3 PWR: 8 WT: 10
Ripto is the egomaniacal bane of Avalar, whose small stature conceals a deep, unyielding rage. He has been lifted directly from the final phase of his boss fight in Spyro 2, literally- Vertigo extracted him from an alternate timeline right before his defeat, to grant him an opportunity to take vengeance on Spyro and friends one last time. The mech Ripto rides on makes him the single biggest character on the whole roster. What he lacks in technical skill and general flight competence, he makes up for in sheer power.
Sorceress - Archetype: Vengeful Tyrant - Style: UFO
SPD: 7 HDL: 5 TCH: 1 PWR: 7 WT: 7
The Sorceress is perhaps the most morally detestable villain in Spyro's rogues gallery; a vicious overlord who preys on the unborn and manipulates the innocent for the most selfish of motives. The Sorceress' game plan lies in gaining boost energy by preying on weak opponents. Her vehicle is ill-suited for performing tricks, but her power is such that she can boost very fast when she has the energy.
Scorch - Archetype: Ultimate Monster - Style: Monsterflight
SPD: 3 HDL: 5 TCH: 6 PWR: 7 WT: 9
Scorch is the monster to end all monsters, the personification of the Sorceress' fury. His speed isn't very high, but his extreme weight and power with his good tech skill makes him just as terrifying to compete against as the Sorceress.
Sheep - Archetype: Secret Speedster - Style: UFO
SPD: 8 HDL: 6 TCH: 3 PWR: 3 WT: 3
The Sheep is a very secret character, unlocked in a campaign challenge that turns out to be much tougher than it might first seen. That's because the Sheep has a very high speed stat and good handling, with a tech and power rating that isn't too bad. Underestimate the Sheep at your own peril, lest you end up like the victims of Penta Penguin...
Blowhard - Archetype: Floaty and Flashy - Style: Wind Magic
SPD: 4 HDL: 8 TCH: 7 PWR: 4 WT: 1
Blowhard is an ethereal wizard who can control the wind itself. Thanks to his record low weight, his slipstream is practically useless to his rivals. Blowhard isn't the fastest on the roster, but he is a seriously nimble flyer, with breezy handling and sprightly tricks and stunts.
Ember - Archetype: Passionate All-Rounder - Style: Dragonflight
SPD: 5 HDL: 6 TCH: 7 PWR: 4 WT: 2
A young dragon who first appeared in Spyro, Ember is a fan of the purple dragon at the very least. Her flight style takes inspiration from Spyro, being weaker and lighter but a bit more technically gifted. If Ember tries her hardest, she'll surely catch up to Spyro.
Blink - Archetype: Not-so-safe and Smart - Style: Remote Drone
SPD: 7 HDL:5 TCH: 6 PWR: 4 WT: 3
Blink is the Professor's nephew, a gifted engineer and quite headstrong... so long as he doesn't have to go outside. Confined to the lab by crippling agoraphobia, Blink flies with a remote drone like his uncle. But rather than play it safe, Blink has modified his drone to fly faster and boost harder, at the expense of slightly reduced mobility and added weight.
Azrael & Amelia - Archetype: Dynamic Duo - Style: Enchanted Motorbike
SPD: 7 HDL: 3 TCH: 4 PWR: 6 WT: 7
Former Prince Azrael and former Princess Amelia are a newlywed couple who ran away from their respective kingdoms to be together. Amelia has switched out her regal dress for a jumpsuit, and Azrael's beefed up his motorbike to pump up his bad boy energy. They compete in Project Fly as a duo- while Azrael takes control of the bike, Amelia helps pull off tricks and fire the items they collect. They're a pair of speed demons who aren't afraid to get reckless.
Cynder - Archetype: Dark Horse - Style: Dragonflight
SPD: 3 HDL: 4 TCH: 8 PWR: 9 WT: 4
Cynder steps out of the pages of legend as a hero born of darkness who embraces the dawn, with frightening levels of power concealed within. Her cynical, snarky attitude may seem like empty bravado, but she can build up boost energy surprisingly fast if she's allowed to, and when she unleashes it, the speed of her boost is truly amazing to behold.
Spyro the Skylander - Archetype: Very Flashy All-Rounder - Style: Dragonflight
SPD: 5 HDL: 5 TCH: 7 PWR: 5 WT: 3
A version of Spyro from another universe, Skylander Spyro is somehow even more confident and smug than our version of Spyro. The two dragons have similar stats, but Skylander Spyro is a bit less fast and puts more stock into pulling off tricks.
Crash Bandicoot - Archetype: Technical All-Rounder - Style: Jetpack
SPD: 4 HDL: 4 TCH: 7 PWR: 6 WT: 3
Crash is the final secret character of Project Fly, reserved for those who seek to complete the campaign. His stats are mildly subpar, but he gets good boost energy output from performing tricks. This is reflective of his origins as a platforming hero whose controls are very easy to pick up, but challenging to master.
Potential for More
There's no reason the roster should be limited to these characters. I could easily pad out the roster with even more characters, especially if I wanted to plan out post-launch DLC, but I want to plan this game assuming that the content in the game at launch will be more than enough to sustain the game as a party staple. With a starting roster of 16 plus 11 unlockable characters, there's a character for all playstyles as is. But what if a character feels just a little bit off?
The Talisman System
I'd like to propose a system for tweaking a character's stats through collectable Talismans. The Talismans of Project Fly are unique objects that can be earned through gameplay. There are dozens of talismans to collect, and players can equip up to two different talismans to tweak their build. Talismans are not direct upgrades- their buff to one stat is balanced by a nerf to one or two others. For example, a talisman could boost a character's power for less speed, or improve handling while reducing tech. The boosts cap at one point gained or lost per talisman, so while they can't totally overhaul a character's archetype, they are useful for shifting a character's stats in a desired direction. With Talismans, a stat can go as low as 0 or as high as 11!
Some talismans have unique effects aside from stat boosts. For example, a talisman could introduce passive boost energy generation, or increase the duration of immunity following a crash out. There are countless possibilities, too many to describe here, but talismans are a way to adjust a character's stats to your liking, and unlocking a new talisman is an opportunity to add a new flavour to your time playing Project Fly.
And of course, Costumes.
Before I wrap up, I want to cover the topic of costumes briefly. To be honest, I don't really see the need for them in Project Fly. With most of the cast achieving flight in their own way, with their own bespoke animations, the cast of Project Fly are already diverse enough to not need additional cosmetics. Talismans don't affect a character's appearance at all. If pressed, I would concede to adding a single additional costume per character, with a few palette swaps of each purely to tell players apart in local ditto matches.
The fact is that we can't talk about cosmetic items without also talking about micropayments, and that is a conversation I do not want to have right now. In another part, maybe.
A summary of Part 3
The roster of playable characters in Project Air comes to a total of 27: a starting roster of 16 enabling 16-player games off the bat, with 11 unlockable characters for added variety. They have varying statistics in five broad categories: Speed, Handling, Technique, Power, and Weight. Due to their differing stats, many characters approach the challenge of flight in unique ways, from speedsters deducing racing lines, to technical characters pulling off tricks, to powerhouses bullying opponents with item use and aggressive flying.
Characters can be customised mechanically by equipping collectible Talismans, adjusting their stats while potentially introducing unique abilities and drawbacks. However, costumes and cosmetics are not a priority, as they would likely detract from the characters' personality while also being a potential avenue for dark patterns.
With the character roster established, we have all the components for a fun game, so in Part 4 I would like to finally tackle the narrative and aesthetic aspects of Project Fly: its story and campaign structure, its thematic elements, and how it forges its own identity that is both faithful to and distinct from the original trilogy.
But for now I once again ask for feedback from you. How do you feel about this roster? Are there any significant characters that are missing? Is there a character on this roster who you think needs to be replaced? Do the archetypes I've chosen capture the essence of the character, or do they miss the mark in some way? And how do you feel about those stats? Leave a comment and let me know.
Continue to part 4

After climbing through an opening in the yellow concrete, the unlikely group found themselves in a tunnel only one was familiar with. Taurus looked around the old tunnel. Whatever passed through here had solidified beneath his feet, and the only way forward was covered in thick clumps of webs so dense that he was unsure if they could pass through.
“What do we do about those webs?” Taurus asked, pushing away thick piles of spider silk with the tip of his gun.
“Don’t worry mercenary, I have just the solution for that, allow me to retrieve it,” Kruglov reassured him with a knowing smile.
Taurus glanced over to the side to see the legendary stalker leaning against the concrete, seemingly looking at absolutely nothing on the ground.
“Here it is! The Burner-powered flamethrower! Ah, I have waited for so long to try this,” Kruglov brandished the upgraded weapon in front of his two companions. He was beaming from ear to ear, looking at the weapon like he would his own baby.
“Alright, Kruglov, you go first, we’ll follow behind to clean up any leftovers,” Strelok held his weapon at the ready.
Taurus remained silent and moved aside for the mad scientist to clear a fiery path through the mutant spiders. Kruglov prepared the weapon and fired into the mass of webs. A bright orange flame shot out of the nozzle, incinerating everything in its path. The webs cleared the way deeper into the tunnels but they are not the only things blocking the way out as more massive pseudo-spiders rush towards their invaders, they too were burnt to a crisp by Kruglov’s massive flamethrower. The ones that tried to escape the flames were quickly put down by either Strelok or Taurus with their trademark weapons, a flaming arachnid rushed towards the legendary stalker but its charge was put to a halt by a .45 bullet straight through the eye. Strelok gave a quick nod to Taurus before they continued on with the extermination. The scientist continued to incinerate through the nest without mercy until the flamer ran dry with a click and a splutter.
“Agh, Damn! Gentlemen, I need a minute to refuel, hold them off for a bit,” Kruglov called out as he reloaded.
Taurus and Strelok stood side by side as Strelok's SIG sang while Taurus unleashed a storm of lead with his Mutant’s Bane. As the pseudo-spiders fell, Taurus noticed that the movements of the creatures seemed to be completely in sync with each other, as if they were one instead of many. The shotgun clicked as it was out of shells but when Taurus reached into his pouch to load more, he realised it was completely empty.
“I am empty! Egghead! What the hell is taking you so long?” Taurus growled in frustration.
“Ready! Move aside now!” Kruglov warned.
The two jumped backwards behind the scientist as he fired again. The tunnels were now eerily quiet, only the burnt husks of arachnids and embers of flame remained. They continued down the dark path, destroying any cobwebs and eggs. Kruglov told Taurus they were nearly out of the tunnel but first they must deal with the Matriarch.
“The what now?” Taurus blurted.
“Uh, the big spider that controls the small ones,” Kruglov dumbed down for the non-academics to catch on.
Taurus understood what the scientist meant, and was not looking forward to what was coming next, they passed skeletons of humans and mutants that the arachnids had lured into their hive. The group then scaled a mound of dirt created by a hole in the concrete pipe and there, they saw the Matriarch. It was too large to even move through the tunnel. When it saw the group of men with its eight eyes, it roared with fury as it spat a ball of corrosive acid towards them. However, it had very low-velocity and so it fell short a metre away.
“So what do we do about this thing?” Taurus asked, eyeing up the behemoth in front of him.
Strelok stepped forward without a word and gestured for the rest to stay back. He then reached for something on his belt. An axe swung through the air from Strelok’s hand, it cleanly sliced through one of the legs of the beast before coming to a stop inside the thorax. It distracted the creature for long enough for the legendary stalker to charge forward, firing his rifle before splitting the mutant’s head in half with another tomahawk. Taurus was impressed but he had seen more than his fair share of heroic displays for him to react.
Kruglov collected some samples before burning the carcass. Finally, they were out of the hell that is the Yantar underground with a ladder at the end of the pipeline.
“Whew, that was a journey. I don’t think I could have done it without you Strelok, you are after all the person who went down fir- wait where did he go?” Kruglov cut himself off in confusion.
Taurus looked around and saw no sign of a SEVA suit anywhere, “Beats me, that man seems more mysterious than the labs themselves.”
“Fair enough. I would like to thank you as well. If it was any other mercenary, they wouldn’t have hesitated in doing what they were told. Here, take the 45 round magazines you ordered and as I have promised, is there anything you would like to order?” Kruglov asked the mercenary.
“Well, let’s see… I think I want a scope mount for this revolver, would that be possible?” Taurus asked, keen to upgrade his beloved weapon.
“Hmm, well I think it should be fine, one grand and I can get one for you in a week.”
Taurus agreed with the price and informed the scientist he would transfer the money once he made it back to base. They then said their goodbyes and Taurus began making his way to where his comrade said he would be waiting.
A bit of walking through the dead landscape later, Taurus found Rottweiler waiting for him at the very northern side of Yantar next to a pipe leading into the hills.
“Oh great, more trips through tiny spaces. Where does this lead to?” Taurus said sarcastically, still reeling from his previous encounter.
“The warehouses. Learned this shortcut from the Freedom guide. I assume you are ready to leave,” Rottweiler raised an eyebrow in expectation.
Taurus nodded and gestured for the veteran to lead the way forward. The pipe was cramped and damp, Rottweiler’s flashlight barely reached a few metres in front of them as water dripped from the ceiling. The two mercs walked in silence with Taurus enjoying the rare comfort of his favourite cigarettes.
“You should stop smoking those,” Rottweiler grunted in disapproval.
“Hmm? Since when did you care about my health?” Taurus laughed off, recalling the many times his life has been in danger while with his fellow partner.
“They are bad for your lungs, which means you can’t run as quickly or far. Trust me with all the running you have to do, cancer would be the last thing you want to get in the Zone.”
“Alright, when you put it that way, I’ll just finish the packs that I have left,” Taurus relented, tucking away the rest of his precious cigarettes for rainy days.
They continued on and after a bit, they arrived at the south-western corner of the village in the Army Warehouses. They were here for the documents the military courier was delivering. Taurus looked over the village as they walked into it, it was decayed and rotten like most things in the Zone. The place was supposedly infested by Bloodsuckers and other mutants. Rottweiler then alerted Taurus to the tower looming overhead.
“I saw someone waving at us from up there, I think it’s the courier.”
The two mercenaries quickly ascended the water tower and met a stalker in a similar suit to Taurus.
“I’ve heard from the Colonel that someone would be relieving my duty. I didn’t expect two mercs to show up. Anyways, here are the goods,” the courier grunted as he lifted a large duffel bag filled with what Taurus assumed were the documents they needed.
“Great, we’ll deliver this as soon as we can. Let’s leave before any mutants show up,” Taurus grabbed the bag from the young man and shouldered it.
But before Taurus could even react, Rottweiler drew his knife and slashed open the courier’s throat. This took the man by surprise as he clutched his wound in a vain attempt to stop the rapid loss of blood. He stumbled backwards towards a massive hole in the tower. Taurus turned to reach for him but a firm kick from his comrade sealed the courier’s fate. A horrid thud from below confirmed Rottweiler’s kill.
“What the hell was that for?!” Taurus exclaimed, eyes wide with shock while his face drained. Rottweiler looked nonchalant, as he wiped the blood off his knife.
“He was a witness and a loose end, it also gives us an excuse on why the documents are missing as it looks like he was robbed and killed by someone. I’ll be honest, I am not in the mood for prisoners today. So the truth is, the game was rigged from the start for him. Now, burn those documents while we still have some time to rest,” Rottweiler sheathed his weapon and sat on his haunches.
Taurus looked away before shaking his head disapprovingly. Damn, so this is how he operates…I’ll do my best to keep him in check after this. He then threw a match into the smouldering campfire next to him and after waiting for the fire to become big enough, the incriminating evidence inside the bag was fed to the flames as well. Taurus watched the papers shrivel and char as his thoughts raced, I would have stopped Rottweiler if I knew what he was going to do, but that probably would have just caused even more problems. Taurus turned to look at the hole where the courier had fallen and spotted something caught on a broken plank. He got up and went closer to inspect it and realised it was a torn piece of fabric from the military stalker’s suit with the patch of Ukrainian military on top. Taurus grabbed it from the plank and quickly stuffed it into his bag, making sure his comrade didn’t take notice.
After they made sure that everything was dealt with, they began to descend down the stairs to make their way over to the house where Rottweiler’s stash that he gave Taurus a few days ago. But at the entrance to the water tower they found a familiar face in their way.
“Excellent work, the two of you. I’ll report your success to Kuznetsov. Here are the forged documents to replace the ones he had,” the agent sent his praise their way as he handed them the forged papers.
“All in a day's work for us. Is there anything else your Colonel wants from us?” Taurus asked, taking the new stack from him.
“Well yes. Kuznetsov is working on uncovering dirt on Shertyuk but his search is going nowhere at the moment. However, Shertsyuk has sent one of his close allies, Captain Bogdan, to Limansk as some sort of investigation on the radiological institute there,” the young agent informed.
“Let me guess, we gut him and his squad and find out everything they know through their PDAs?” Rottweiler rolled his eyes, deadpan.
“His men? Yes, but keep Bogdan alive. He doesn’t have a PDA so you won’t get anything from his corpse. Once you're done though, feel free to throw him into a Whirligig,” the young agent shrugged and turned around to make his way.
With a new mission from the military, Taurus and Rottweiler hurry off to retrieve the stash that the veteran hid a long time ago. They arrived at the small farmstead in record time. But Rottweiler felt something was off about the place as if he was being watched from every angle.
“Hope you remember what I told you, I’ll stay outside to keep watch,” Rottweiler took guard, weapon at the ready.
Taurus nodded and went to retrieve the key from the old stove. It was there just as his comrade said but he could have sworn he saw something moving among the bushes outside. Taurus brushed it off as it was quite windy today, he opened the green box with a heavy duty lock and used the key on it. A sudden bang of a rifle echoed through the warehouses.
Taurus clutched his side in agony, he was barely able to drag himself away from the windows before he looked at his hand. It was soaked with crimson liquid. He then saw Rottweiler taking cover in the barn just across the house. Taurus worked quickly to try and stop the blood flowing from the wound. He desperately searched his bag for bandages as gunfire rang from all around the house. After tightly bandaging the wound he slowly crawled over to a window facing the hills to spot the ambushers with his sniper rifle.
They were Loners, he counted five spread over the landscape. He spotted one in a SEVA suit on the hill just in front of the house and so he was first to fall as a silent .338 smashed through his skull. Another died screaming as Rottweiler gunned him down with a quick burst from his VSK. Rottweiler then yelled at Taurus that the remaining attackers had already begun surrounding the house. Taurus attempted to move from his position at the window to a more advantageous place but just as he began moving an explosion blew apart the old wooden wall behind him. Taurus fell face first on the cold, damp floor of the house, he felt sharp stinging pain sear over his back but he didn’t dare to move as he heard heavy footsteps from him.
“Good work Sergiy. Make sure that bastard is dead, I’ll check the goods,” a man who Taurus assumed to be their leader barked his commands.
Taurus held his breath as he felt the barrel of a gun press against his head. He felt his eyes close on their own accord. This was it, there is no escape now. But nothing happened.
“Huh? Oh, the safety is on.”
The mercenary knocked the careless stalker’s gun away before drawing his revolver as he turned around and with a laugh of pure disbelief, fired two shots. One went straight into his lungs and the other ripped open his throat. The stalker’s lifeless body fell onto Taurus, the shots had alerted the leader but the sound of shouting from the barn redirected his attention.
“Don’t you fucking move or I’ll blow his head off!”
It was Rottweiler, he had held one of the Loners hostage in his arms with his CZ-75 held to the terrified man’s head.
“Brother? Get your hands off him mercenary!” The leader growled in Rottweiler’s direction but the larger mercenary remained unmoved.
Taurus had just managed to push the clumsy stalker’s body off himself and without even thinking fired a shot at the team leader’s knee which immediately incapacitated the hostile.
After quite the struggle, Taurus and Rottweiler managed to tie up the two Loners, placed facing each other.
“Alright I’ll tell you exactly how this works. You tell me exactly wh-“
“Go to hell, I am saying anything you fucking anything,” the ring leader spat at Rottweiler, eyes blazed with anger.
Taurus drew his knife from its sheath and held it against the neck of the defiant stalker’s brother. The leader's face reddened as he attempted to rush to his brother but was firmly held down by Rottweiler’s grip.
“Do that again he dies. Now tell me who you are and why you’re here! I won’t ask again,” Rottweiler growled, tightening his hand around the kneeling man.
The stalker shifted as he thought about what to do, “Fine… but promise me you’ll let him go.”
Taurus agreed with a nod and so the interrogation continued.
“I am Nikolay… we were sent here by uh… Duty to retrieve an artifact that was stolen by mercenaries from the scientists.”
“Did you see what was inside that box?” Rottweiler gestured over to the green crate nearby.
“Uhmm… no, I didn’t have a chance to check,” Nikolay stuttered, glancing at the crate nervously.
Taurus glared at the man as he knew that the stalker lied. Telling Rottweiler that he is lying would be a death sentence for him and probably his brother too. But then again if he lives that then it would compromise the secrecy of our operations, Taurus thought.
“He is lying Rottweiler, when I was knocked down I heard him open it,” Taurus revealed to the bigger mercenary, making his eyes darken.
“Alright then, final question, who is it that sent you for my head?”
“I am not sure but what I know is they are mercenaries as well and they seem to be working for a foreign government,” Nikolay confessed, beads of sweat running down his pale face.
Rottweiler seemed satisfied with the results and gestured for Taurus to let Nikolay’s brother go. The sibling stood up but refused to leave without Nikolay.
“You can go, we need to return him his equipment and belongings,” Taurus waved him off, expression stern with his voice deceptively light.
The man hesitated but in the end took off in the direction of the Bar. Taurus went over to confirm that the man was far away enough before signalling to his comrade.
“You should not have brought him here. He will have to find a way to survive in this wretched place without you.” Rottweiler admitted.
Without a moment of hesitation, he raised his silenced pistol and fired two shots into Nikolay’s head. Rottweiler left to dispose of the evidence in the nearest dog den. Taurus went over to the case and opened it, inside he found various things. Firstly, a very advanced looking artifact container with a viewing port and right next to it a massive stack of papers each labelled with the words SYNDICATE FIELD REPORT along with a stamp of the Eagle Mark.
“I wrote those, mostly just notes, observations and speculations on the artifacts I collected over the years. Though I never bothered submitting them to anyone, so feel free to keep them,” Rottweiler shrugged.
Taurus grabbed the papers and the artifact container and continued toward their destination of the Dead City. After a boring walk they arrived at the eastern side of the city, Taurus was flipping through the field reports, each page had a Polaroid photo of the subject artifact stapled on. The city was silent, almost tranquil, perhaps someone has already done the spring clean Alsan organises every once and a while. Taurus was finally back after far too long and felt relieved as he entered the sports centre he had become so familiar with.
“You run along and report to the Overseer, I need to get in contact with someone,” Rottweiler informed, reaching for his PDA and walking off without waiting for Taurus’s reply.
The sports centre was quiet like the rest of the city, though by then the sky had begun to darken. Dushman was standing behind his counter as usual but he seemed to be in a better mood than usual.
“Welcome back, I have good news for you my friend. Since you have arrived here you have done everything excellently so for that I’ll provide you with a week off. In other words, no more suicide missions until next Tuesday,” Dushman offered, his face firm.
Taurus thanked the old merc for his ‘generosity’ but as he was walking away, he heard Dushman muttering something under his breath, something about how Limansk had gone dark and that the weather was not a good sign. Up on the second floor, Taurus found it packed to the brim with fellow Syndicate mercenaries but it was eerily quiet as barely anyone was interacting with each other. He didn’t see Rottweiler in the crowd so instead went to Aslan's bar for a drink. He ordered the classic Boar chops and a glass of whiskey. Taurus looked around and felt uncomfortable, it shouldn’t be this still with all these men around.
So, he leaned over to the bartender and asked “Is there a reason why everyone is here?”
“A Psi-storm is coming in 15 minutes, we are all just preparing for the worst possible migraine a person can experience,” Aslan hurried along, working the grill.
As soon as Asian finished speaking, an old siren sounded across the city with a terrible wail. Suddenly, one mercenary began shouting and pointing towards something outside the building. Taurus got up to investigate as everyone began crowding around the windows.
“Combat positions! We have brain dead all around us!” a mercenary from the front of the bar called out.
The gymnasium was all of a sudden filled with noise as mercenaries began taking positions to face the horde of Zombified slowly approaching their base. The brain -scorched halted in their advance and raised their guns. A hail of bullets and shrapnel struck the concrete with no semblance of precision, forcing the mercenaries to take cover and wait for them to eventually run out of ammo. As soon as the gunfire stopped, it was time for the Syndicate to beat them back. The mercenaries ruthlessly fired into the crowd with their weapons as grenades wrecked havoc against the mutated stalkers. The battle continued in the same pattern until the final zombified fell dead. However, it was not a victory that could be celebrated as the Psi-storm that was brewing was now in full effect as the dark clouds in the sky began to coalesce into a great vortex of pure psychic energy.
Each time the vortex bursts, the pain in their minds worsened. Taurus was barely able to stumble back to the bar in a vain attempt to eat his meal but just as he plopped back down on the chair, he heard what seemed to be bells ringing in the distance. The more he concentrated on the noise he realised it was getting closer and closer until finally a loud boom echoed in the near distance. Taurus turned in the direction of the noise, seeing an RPG warhead zip through the windows and directly into the chest of a poor unsuspecting mercenary, splattering him where he stood.
Hello everyone, I have a special message for all of you this time. I would like to give my thanks and appreciation to my English teacher who has aided me with this story since Part 4. She has been a wonderful teacher helping me develop and improve my writing skills. I will admit that without her I would have never gone this far in the Tale of Taurus.
Thank you for reading.

Everyone seems to hate Malekith for some reason, it is likely everyone either throwing up or shiting on this boss, I couldn't find a single thread that shares a fair opinion, this really disappoints me as a souls player from 2015 of DS2, Malekith is just there in my top 10 soulsborne series and my top 1 Elden Ring boss. for this is why I'll just call out few things about it since nobody has ever did, as I looking at Malekith as a vertan I can't help but respect him for my reasons, sure I faced huge difficulty but it was the best boss regardless. I'll break it for four reasons mainly but I'd like to know your thoughts(positively/negatively) too.
1.Challenging, a lot of Elden Ring bosses and enemies has tricks and delayed attacks, positioning and punishment moves, specific effect and maybe even specfic pattern, they varies from these degree as they should be, it is likely if fromsoft had a formula of possible difficulties.
Malekith just has it all in one but the grab attacks, and it is still fast enough that I couldn't keep up with my zweihander or the whirligig saw (pizza cutter), forcing me to play claymore, it isn't like the fire giant (a combination of Yhorm and bed of chaos), Hourah and its AoEs(not a terrible bossfight overall), or even the Godskins just the previous boss there (which is just easier and cheaper), Malekith is a late main game boss that offers a difficulty that the player already acknowledges and some just fresh, it has a key but you have to practise and be bested first.
2.Moves and bossfight design, as clergyman it is quite predictable but still holds its own since it has very small window to punish, actually it encourage the aggressive playestyle, then as Malekith it is the real issue, it has a lot of moves and tactical approach as I said before but three has caught my interest, the pillars, the mixing and baiting(catch roll), the ranged attacks.
For the pillars it just works for your and his advantage, simply he use it to repostion and agro, while he climbs it is just a free break for you to back up, it also helps to corner him in ground.
The mix up is very obvious, unlike many bosses(inculding Sekiro the latest fromsoft game) usually wait for you to hit to counter attack you, what proves my point is a lot of the weak spots in Elden Ring big enemies are right in their dead zone of attacks, this is in every dragon, crows and death birds, the slicer machines, starbeasts, and the squids. unfortunatly this doesn't work for this boss most of the time, this boss literally lures you out by choosing either when to hit or to chase or just to recover, unlike the stupid crucible knight it chase you while you heal and still gets parried, you can almost do it blindfuly, in Malekith if you miss the RIGHT dodge he read you, it is over.
For the ranged at first it appears random but with practice it gets narrowed more and more, what makes this type of difficulty significant is that it switches with the mixes and the golden spark that notifies you, when it golden light sparks from above it is your turn to counter it, there are some keys as I told you. it felt like a combination of Kalameet Sir Alonne and Ludwig all in one while still being original.
3.The character, after looking for the lore here and there, I give absolute respect to this man, he was the strongest and the most terrific character, and guess what he saved everyone, any other character would corrupt the souls series like a typical war lord, this guy is just a King no an angel as befits his theme and design, I like how he is also approachable and acknowledges us very well developing a relation like Gehrman.
4.Finally the area and the arena and the level and the theme and the cutscene are all together makes him just more badass, it actually reminds me of Raime the fume knight in terms of atmosphere.

Every season of the X-Files seems tightly constructed around a set of themes.
For example season 6 is book-ended by "The Beginning" and "Biogenesis", two words meaning the same thing: the "starting point".
This obviously alludes to the show moving to California (and so reinventing itself with a new beginning), and also the scientific theory about life's beginings on Earth ("biogenesis", itself named after the "beginning" of the Bible).
But these bookends also refer to something else: the official beginning of the MuldeScully romantic relationship. Sounds far fetched? Consider what the episodes in this season are actually doing:
In "The Rain King", an episode in which a guy pines for a woman, we get various Wizard of Oz motifs, including a tornado, a Kansas setting, a technicolor rainbow, and a rendition of Judy Garland's "Over the Rainbow", a bittersweet song about being "whisked away to someplace better" where your "dreams really do come true". But note the lesson of the 1939 "Wizard of Oz" film; "someplace better" is a lie. Happiness is with the people who've always been right under your nose, and who - unbeknownst to you - have always loved you.
And so fittingly, in "The Rain King", characters are all constantly "failing to recognize" or "act upon" the "love existing right under their noses". Scully similarly, famously, muses about "close friends being the best lovers".
In "Triangle" the Wizard of Oz motifs reappear. Mulder hires a boat with references to Judy Garland (star of Wizard of Oz), and is whisked away, like Dorothy, to a fantastical dreamworld populated by familiar faces. Other Wizard of Oz references abound (Skinner becomes Toto, Cancer Man becomes The Evil Witch, the Lone Gunmen become the Scarecrow, Lion and Tin Man, the episode takes place in 1939 etc), but the overall point is that Mulder realizes, like Dorothy, that there is "no place like home". He realizes this immediately after Scully sacrifices herself for Western Civilization, and he sacrifices himself for her. He then professes his love for her, but she doesn't believe him.
The same thing happens in "Dreamland". We get a two-parter in which Mulder is whisked away, like Dorothy by the tornado, to a dream world which, again like Dorothy, he thinks is "better than home."
But of course his dream world is a disappointment. He's thrown into a "perfect suburban life", but this turns out to suck. And he gets to indulge his fantasy of entering Area 51, but this sucks too. Other Wizard of Oz references include blowing tumbleweeds, and a base General who knows nothing, an allusion to the Oz's fraudulent Man Behind the Curtain.
Meanwhile, Scully gets a supposedly "perfect, rule-abiding, normal FBI partner", another personal fantasy which proves to be a disappointment. This new partner - his name is Morris Fletcher, his initials an inversion of Fox Mulder, in much the same way as Diana Fowley was a foul replica of Dana Scully - only makes Scully miss Mulder more. Indeed, she admits she wishes to kiss him.
And so what Mulder and Scully realize at the end of "Dreamland" is that these two are happiest just together in their car. The car - the interstitial zone between cases and places - is their "over the rainbow." Squeezed together in it, they feel most at home.
This is echoed in "Drive", where a guy literally has to stay in his moving car to stay safe. He gets out of the car, and he loses his wife, the partner he loves, and his own life.
Next comes "How the Ghosts Stole Christmas", which begins with Mulder and Scully haggling over whether to "go home" or "enter Mulder's car". Soon they find themselves in a haunted home, where ghosts try to pit Scully and Mulder against each another. The ghosts try to convince the duo that they have a toxic relationship, are ruining one another's lives and so on, but of course the opposite happens; Mulder and Scully realize they complement each other perfectly. They go home and give each other gifts and Scully admits that she's never resented being "out there" in the field with Mulder, even on Christmas day, and even if it means being dragged away from her family.
Significantly, this episode also ends with Scully saying, "Mulder none of that really happened, right? It was all in our heads?" Just like "Dreamland", "Wizard of Oz" and "Triangle", this episode exists in a strange fantasy world, not quite reality. It's a case which mostly exists to reflect the inner psychology and longings of the duo.
This echoes "Field Trip", which begins with a red haired woman and her husband arguing over him always taking her on adventures in the woods, an allusion perhaps to what a MuldeScully marriage might look like. Meanwhile, Mulder and Scully themselves - again like Dorothy and the tornado - get sucked into a dream world "created" by a giant fungus which pumps them full of hallucinogenic drugs which "grants them their personal fantasies". Like "Dreamland", "Triangle" and "Wizard of Oz", Mulder's granted his wildest longings: he "proves aliens exist". Scully, meanwhile, indulges her fantasy of "solving a case with science". The episode ends with them unmasking the hallucination, and with them both holding hands, similar to the ending of "How the Ghosts Stole Christmas", where the hallucinations of the ghosts are shattered and our heroes run away together.
Consider too "Teams of Endearment". Like the aforementioned episodes, it's about someone trying to forge the perfect home, and create a perfect fantasy life, complete with white picket fences, a redhead wife and a big house. If "Dreamland" and "Ghosts" open with Mulder and Scully in a car discussing whether or not it's better to be off "creating a family and home" rather than "in the car", "Teams of Endearment" opens with a guy who already seems to have constructed this domestic utopia. But of course the episode reveals all of this to be an illusion. Suburbia is hell. There are devils in the details.
This critique of suburbia and a traditional domestic life reoccurs in "Arcadia", where Mulder and Scully pretend to live as a couple in a planned community that seems cribbed from a fairy tale, complete with Wizard of Oz-esque spinning Whirligigs (the windmills of Dorothy's Kanas?), and tins of paint (literally used to "maintain the facade of Arcadia") with the "under the rainbow" logo emblazoned. Indeed, the word "Arcadia" itself means "a pastoral, perfect idyll". And it is all very perfect, until the fantasy is revealed as a fraud. Again, monsters lurk under the traditional suburban imagery. Where then does one find happiness?
Consider too "Trevor". In that episode the tornado that whisked Dorothy away once again appears, this time to whisk a convict out of prison and to dump him in a new world where he has "superpowers". What does he use these powers for? To resurrect his home, his domestic life, an attempt which fails for he terrifies his wife and child. The tornado doesn't bring happiness, instead it reveals his dreams as a kind of myopia. Happiness is elsewhere. But - and this is what the entire season asks - where?
These themes pop up in the remaining episodes. "The Unnatural", like "Dreamland", "Field Trip" and "Triangle", doesn't take place in "reality". It's a shared fantasy, or rather the imaginings of several people telling a story. In this story, an alien falls in love with baseball which he repeatedly associates with "home" (home runs, "ET steal home", his last lines: "I gotta go home" etc). Meanwhile, the episode opens with Scully encouraging Mulder to "get out and live a normal life" - again echoing her encouragements in "Ghosts" and "Dreamland" - requests which he obliges. He takes her out to baseball and hugs her close.
Similar stuff happens in "Milagro". Again, this episode takes place in a dream-space, the fictional imaginings of a writer who conjures up a villain called Naciamento (Latin for "to be born") and tries to get into Scully's pants. His fantasy collapses when he realizes "Scully is already in love", referring to Mulder. Like characters throughout the season, the writer misses the love, the home, right under his nose.
This story is repeated in "Alphas", with the genders reversed. Here a lonely woman (a dog expert) fantasizes about life with Mulder from afar. They meet, she's attracted to him, but backs off when she realizes a jealous Scully's already marked her territory. Fittingly, the first and last scenes in this episode begin with Mulder and Scully talking about "going home". "I'm already home," Mulder says, "I'm just feathering my nest." He's referring to the basement office he shares with Scully. Like Dorothy, he realizes there's no place like the home he's always known.
"Agua Mala" has no tornado, but it does have a hurricane. This whisks Mulder and Scully to Florida, where they're pulled together by victims called the Shipleys (an allusion to shippers?). At the end of the episode, a character encapsulates the mood of the entire season: "If Agent Scully had not been there with you," he says, "I shudder to think what would have happened to you. I'd say you owe her your life. It takes a big man to admit this, but... if I had had someone as savvy as her by my side all those years ago I might not have retired."
This speech comes after Mulder misses what's right under his nose; he thinks he solved the case without Scully's help. He's quickly put right.
The other episodes in this season are only loosely thematically tied to the others. "Three of a Kind" sees a Lone Gunman in love and battling a "brainwashing drug", and "Monday" sees Mulder reliving a nightmarish trip to the bank, which like "Dreamland" plays like a joke on how incompatible he and "normal life" are. See too "Tithonas", a tale in which a man's granted his fantasy - to be spared of death - only to realize his dream is a nightmare.
This is what the entire season is preoccupied with. What are your dreams? Will they really make you happy? What constitutes a home or a good life? What version of home and life will really make you happy?
And so what Mulder and Scully realize is that all their fantasies and assumptions and goals bring them less comfort than simply being with each other. They both realize they love each other, and regard each other as family, and as home. This is why the penultimate episode of the season - "Field Trip" - ends with Mulder and Scully holding hands. This recalls the last time we saw the married ghosts in "How the Ghosts Stole Christmas", where the camera zoomed in on them tightly holding hands, the duo together forever and ever.
And that's perhaps why the final episode of the season, "Biogenesis", rips Mulder and Scully apart. The season builds to a mutual realization of love, then shoves Mulder into a kind of coma. He "dies" the moment Scully feels closest to him. The title of the first episode of season 7 then becomes "The Sixth Extinction". Which is to say, if "Biogenesis" is a fancy way of saying "the beginning", the "Sixth Extinction" is a fancy way of saying "the end", which of course is the name of season 5's final episode.
In this way you have complex naming patterns across 3 entire seasons of the X-Files: The End leading to The Beginning leading to The Beginning leading to The End.
Anyway, I thought all of this was cool. Carter gets bashed for "making stuff up as he goes along", but I'd say he was quite methodical about how he constructs each season.

I have tried so hard and so many times to beat the scaled out, almost aborted motherfucker. But damn, my last two attempts I got him down to two strikes away, before I ran out of blood vials and he beat me. His attack patterns, especially in his second phase, are completely unpredictable, he hits even harder and his jumps are fucking impossible to track. I finally found the way to avoid his lightning storm, tried saving my blood vials for his second phase, switched out runes and gear, but no fucking dice. I am at NG BL 135 with a +10 LHB and a +10 Whirligig saw. I have tried to backstab him during his leaps in his first phase, but he always recovers before my stab lands, and sometimes even with me being locked on him, I am not aligned perfectly and the attack completely whiffs. His parry windows are so tiny, and one miss on my end leaves me wide open for his epic combo. Any advice? Is he parryable in his second stage? I am almost past 100 attempts at beating him, and my wife js getting tired of hearing his wail...lol. Help!!

The early part of the DLC is a cakewalk compared to the rest, but even it has some really nonsense shit going on. Getting mobbed by the bloodsuckers, the axe-wielding cthulians (their grab attack is the only instant death I can think of in this part), the turret traps...but you get accustomed to it. The hunters you encounter are probably the hardest part, but they're permanent kills, and you get some of the best weapons in the game pretty early on. Plus that part where you walk towards the narrow bridge above the crow pit when you see the hunter's shadow before he jumps down to fight you? Fucking genius design right there.
Then comes the research hall. The weird brain things were doing like 70% of my HP in one combo, and I was at least 20 levels higher than people were suggesting for the DLC. If I had been the recommended level for the DLC, one of those combos would have been instant death, or at least close to it. The random-ass brain fluid bursting from the bookcases is nearly impossible to dodge and also does an absurd amount of damage. The higher you go, the less banisters there are on the stairs, just making it so very easy for you to dodge in the wrong direction and fall to your instant death. Plus, before you rotate/lower the center pillar, there's a staircase that leads to nowhere - not a dead end wall, which would just be annoying, but a sudden drop. Instant death. Then you get up top, to the rafters, and a crow falls on you. Dodge anywhere but straight back, instant death. Why does Fromsoft insist on putting precision platforming sections in games with no precision movement mechanics?
Then you get to the worst boss in the DLC (not that hard, just really annoying), followed by what IMO is the coolest boss in the whole game, DLC or otherwise. But the DLC finally feels like it's taking a turn for the better.
Oh, how wrong you turn out to be.
The fishing hamlet has to be one of the most frustrating areas in any game I have ever played (take that with a grain of salt considering I never made it to Blighttown), and certainly the most irritating in Bloodborne. Mobs upon mobs of hard-hitting yet easy enough to dodge enemies? That's nothing new, and at this point I'm used to having to be aware of the environment for exploding shit.
Then the shark monsters show up. These things are emblematic of the single biggest issue I have with Bloodborne above all other Fromsoft games I've played - on their own, regular enemies should not be harder to kill than bosses! Getting taken down by a mob of fast dogs is one thing, but a single dog is easy to kill. (Unless it's an immortal dog). But these shark things are insanely tanky, hit a GIGANTIC area with their anchors, are way faster than anything that size has any right to be, and can combo you to death so very easily. I hit one with a BMA'd shot from a +8 cannon (a direct hit, not just splash damage, if that makes a difference) and it killed all the enemies around it instantly, and did maybe 5% of its health. The shaman bone blade is great, sure, but that takes like four full seconds to hit, during which they can easily interrupt you, and it only does anything if there are actually other enemies around for them to attack. (Also, can we agree that the description of the SBB is super crazy misleading? It says it makes enemies "lose their sense of direction," which to me means it'd just lose interest in you, but it literally has no effect on a solo enemy. Even the more detailed description says it "disturbs the target's gross motor skills," which make it sound more like they'd be paralyzed than anything. Nothing in its description implies anything about attacking other enemies.) I'm at least glad to see after some googling to see if there's some trick to beating these fucking things (other than using the SBB to get the Rakuyo, there isn't. Also, why the hell do you have to kill TWO of these things to get MARIA'S weapon? Why can't you just get it from, oh I dunno, MARIA, THE ENEMY THAT USES IT?) that basically everyone seems to agree that these things are just stupidly OP. It's not a question of skill, or memorizing attack patterns, or parry timing. They're just too good at everything. The basic rules of video game enemies go completely out the window with these things - if you're huge and tanky, you don't get to be fast; Hugely powerful hits are supposed to be telegraphed and easy to dodge once you learn them. But these things hit nearly a 360 degree area around them with their attacks, and the dodge and parry timing is really awkward. They're also totally immune to the hit stun of things like the Whirligig's L2. I want to explore and enjoy the landscape that they created, but I just can't when I'm worried about Jaws' mutant nephew waiting to eat my entire body off around every corner.
I want to reiterate that I am over leveled for this DLC (BL139 as I am writing this, just got the Rakuyo after dying to them at least half a dozen times). I am not trying to brag here, but only a handful of bosses (Shadows, Rom, Failures, One Reborn, probably a few others I'm forgetting) killed me more than once. I guarantee that before I finish this DLC (and depending on how many more of those things there are, I might not even have the patience to get to Orphan), I will have died more to those shark things than to any boss in the game. Nothing in the base game - not the church giants, not the snatchers, not the gauntlet of gunners before Hemwick, not the ghost assassins of Cainhurst, and not a single boss in the game barring maybe Shadows, has given me even close to as much trouble as these things. Who the fuck thought it was acceptable to put something like that in a video game? I'd rather fight the last boss of Ninja Gaiden for the NES than these fucking things. Fuck, I'd rather every one of them be replaced with all three Shadows of Yharnam. I love Bloodborne and have had some crazy exhilarating moments that just make me feel so good (killing Maria with no ammo or vials left, for example), but shit like this makes me wonder how anyone could say this game is a 10 out of 10.
It's like if you had a friend who lived in a huge mansion with delicious food and beautiful staff and whatever else you could want, and they let you come over whenever you wanted, but they had a dog that just followed you around trying to bite your dick off. These shark things are the dick-biting dog. Please, Fromsoft, get rid of the fucking dick-biting dog so we can enjoy the mansion you built.
Sincerely, a frustrated whiny baby blood-noob.

With episode selectors in play, there’s tons of possibility for episodes asides from round playlists. Maybe rounds can have their hardest variants in a playlist or have time limits?
Here’s an idea for one:

Minute to Win-it

*Rounds featured in this round will have a one minute timer! Rounds that don’t usually have timers will now have timers that eliminate anyone who hasn’t qualified when time is up!Team, Survival, and Tail games have a one minute time limit that will qualify anyone who survives.
(I tried to exclude or make new modifications to games that usually take longer than a minute to run normally, constructive criticism is appreciated.)

Rounds:

Door Dash (Big Yeetus at end guaranteed)
Gate Crash (any variant)
Dizzy Heights (Big Yeetus guaranteed, no balls in the second section)
Whirligig (Long portions of open space removed, more conveyor belts)
Hit Parade (small midsection bumper and hammer climb variation)
Knight Fever (Bonkus and spinning spikes portion shortened)
Tail Tag
Team Tail Tag
Tip Toe
Hoarders (any variant)
Fall Ball (any variant)
Hoopsie Legends
Egg Scramble
Egg Seige
Roll Out (platforms start at a faster speed, anyone who survives the minute qualifies.)
Block Party (blocks move faster, less breaks in between patterns, survivors will qualify.)
Picture Perfect (Less time to memorize each round, fruit pictures move faster, survivors will qualify.)
Fruit Shute
Jump Club (Bars move much faster at the start, speed up more as round progresses, survivors will qualify.)
Royal Fumble
Hex a Gone (15+ players only for faster progression, less levels to jump on. Those left surviving will win a crown. )
Jump Showdown (Platforms fall at a MUCH faster rate, bar starts at high speed, goes even faster as time passes. All survivors earn a crown.)
I feel like in terms of finals, those who survive should earn crowns for making it through the tough challenges with the previous rounds. This mode makes for a no-mistake gauntlet that can be a good option for a fast game. I’d expect tons of eliminations in rounds that don’t usually eliminate much.

I finally got around playing the DLC of my most admired game of all time. I started yesterday and took the entire day, until i reached the Orphan in the evening.
Heres the thing: OoK wasn't the soul eating demon everyone made me believe he would be. As a soulsborne masochist, that was actually what i wanted him to be.
I was level 79 and it took me around one and a half hours to beat him. Used BBP and Fire Paper. The rest is history. I also used the whirligig saw on 10 but it barely made more damage in comparison to Ludwigs Holy Sword.
So heres my question: Wtf was going on? I planned on investing weeks for this boss to learn his patterns, and it turned out to be not even 2 hours.
Still the greatest boss, in the greatest game ever made.

So I was looking at a table with the exact scaling values that each +10 weapon gets in all stats. Here are some examples:
Saw Cleaver: 0.6 STR / 0.4 SKL / 0.55 ARC Hunter's Axe: 0.65 STR / 0.35 SKL / 0.55 ARC Threaded Cane: 0.29 STR / 0.9 SKL / 0.65 ARC Whirligig Saw: 1.1 STR / 0.3 SKL / 0.77 ARC Ludwig's Holy Blade: 0.8 STR / 0.8 SKL / 0.88 ARC
By now you might have noticed a pattern: every weapon that deals purely physical damage has an arcane scaling that is equal to (STR scaling + SKL scaling) * 0.55.
I don't know if this information is well known by the community - I'm a novice hoonter -, but I felt like sharing it because I always see people recommending LHB and Pizza Cutter for elemental convertion, while ignoring the other weapons.
Now, I'm not saying these weapons aren't great. I'm just saying the strength of their elemental versions compares to other weapons in the same way the strength of their physical versions do. So if for some reason you're not a fan of the physical version of the LHB - I personally prefer faster weapons -, you probably won't like the elemental version of it either.
In conclusion, it should be noted that the high scaling that the heavy hitters get (LHB, Whirligig, HMS, Kirkhammer) comes at a cost. They are slow and chew up a lot of your stamina in transformed mode, and do less damage when untransformed (LHB has a 0.7 damage modifier in this mode). So yeah, the high scaling of these weapons gives them a high damage output, but they need to be strong in order to compensate their drawbacks - and that's why I don't think these weapons are OP.

I finally 100% completed BB including the DLC yesterday, took just under 3 weeks and loved the experience the whole way through. This was my first Soulsborne title and easily one of my Top 5 favorite games of all time now.
Speaking of Top 5 who are your favorite bosses and why? Mine, in no particular order:
Blood-Starved Beast - Not sure why I love this fight so much, maybe it’s the music or the fact that BSB is so damn aggressive from start to finish. He is also a lot of fun to parry, when I managed 4 ripostes in a row on my successful attempt that was easily one of my biggest highlights in gaming. Seeing him again in both the CD and the DLC was a welcome but scary sight!
Martyr Logarius - Had to come back to this guy after being humbled the first few attempts. His first phase involves a lot of hit and run but the second phase is something else! He’s tough enough to parry with that shield while also dodging his sword’s phantom attacks but when you get that visceral it’s just so damn satisfying. Also he reminds me of Barragan from Bleach so there’s that.
Gehrman - When he stood up and revealed his scythe when the hunter refuses him I was like oh shit! The score and scenery in this fight was the perfect way to end the Main Game imo. I know Moon Presence is the true “final boss” but it can’t hold a candle to the First Hunter.
Lady Maria - When she grabs your wrist and says “a corpse should be left well enough alone” you figure out why real quick! Her speed is impressive and was one of the few fights in the game where the Axe (my go-to weapon) was rendered useless. Learning her pattern and parrying / punishing with the LHB was awesome and a true highlight midway through the DLC.
Laurence - Other than the Watchdog in the Defiled Chalice this guy was easily the biggest challenge in the game for me and I loved it despite the frustration. It’s a great throwback to the Cleric Beast fight but on steroids. When his legs exploded the first time I thought it was about to be easy mode but he straight up humbled me with his newfound aggression and attacks. I had to rethink my strategy and ended up using the Whirligig Saw to great success. Very satisfying and was the perfect fight to end my time with BB.

Howdy! Has anyone else done the "On the Horizon" quilt pattern/kit, by Whirligig Quilts? I'm looking for help. The blocks with the 1 7/8+ seam allowances are causing me issue. They're NEVER the right size. and I've picked and resewn, recut entirely, sewn again.. changed my seam allowance to a smaller size, retried.. the seam allowance is so subjective. I'm generally off 1/4 - 1/2 an inch.

I started writing this back before the Reignited Trilogy came out, but a lot of recent discussions about the original trilogy prompted me to finish writing this and post it to the subreddit for thoughts. Essentially, this is a list of rules that I feel a Reignited Sequel should follow, based on analysis on what the games of the original trilogy did right, and providing supporting examples.
Full disclosure, my opinion of the series is 1>3>2, which might color some opinions here, but I think I give each game a fair shake.
I would love to hear people's thoughts on my analysis and what aspects they believe make the games so good, and what they would like to see from a sequel.

• Environment
  • Rule 1: The game takes place somewhere new
    • Spyro has always gone to new places in his adventures. In the original trilogy, he went through The Dragon Realms, Avalar, and The Forgotten Realms. These places have been developed with homeworlds, levels, and NPCs living there, so changing the core of these places for the purpose of a sequel wouldn’t feel right.
    • Enter the Dragonfly tried to take us back to the dragon realms, but it felt wrong to have all of these other creatures and levels shoehorned into the realms and not see hide nor hair of the unique dragon families outside of the dojo. We've also just gone back through these worlds in Reignited Trilogy, it wouldn’t make sense to retread the same ground so soon after.
  • Rule 2: Multiple homeworlds, following a theme
    • The classic games hosted numerous homeworlds, each housing different levels. The idea of multiple homeworlds is important, as progressing through each world gives the tangible feeling of making your way closer to the villain and is a good reward for game progression.
    • The homeworlds themselves have also traditionally followed a convention post-Spyro 1. In Ripto’s rage, they were designed after Seasons, and in Year of the Dragon, they were designed after Times of the Day. In a sequel, Toys for Bob should follow a similar pattern.
  • Rule 3: Worlds and levels need to be immersive
    • Spyro 1 is my favorite in the trilogy, and a big reason for that is the way that it handled its environments. Each world theme extended to the levels, and we saw a lot of similar architecture and such in each. It felt less like playing a game and more like exploring an actual world of dragons.
    • After that, we moved onto the convention of levels with drastically different themes. Spyro went from handling a world of dreams, and a world of swamps to traversing deserts, volcanoes, and icy glaciers while he’s in an autumn themed localle.
    • I’m not saying that we should go whole hog back to singular world themes like in Spyro 1. The diversity of level themes is actually a good thing, however I think that there should be greater efforts to unify the different worlds in a sequel to make them all feel interconnected. Let’s look at how the second two games tried to do this.
    • Spyro 2 mostly focused on the levels having a duality with NPC types reappearing in different places. However, the NPCs don’t acknowledge their dualities often other than the war between zephyr and breeze harbor, which made levels feel inclusive despite their shared nature.
    • Spyro 3 did more to make everything feel like a world. Upon finishing a level, the NPCs would congregate in the homeworld, and contribute to the vehicle that gets Spyro further. These vehicles also extended to the levels themselves, such as the pandas in bamboo terrace gathering bamboo for the whirligig. By having the NPCs come together for a unified purpose, it makes their worlds feel more unified and connected, and plausible to be lived in.
  • I have suggestions to increase immersion in environments in a way that isn’t intrusive.
  • Suggestion 1: Have levels share some kind of architecture
    • Taking a page from Spyro 1’s book, well actually, spyro didn’t have a book until Spyro 2. The different worlds could share some kind of architectural technique between each other and the homeworlds. It would unify each level as part of its homeworld despite having different environments.
    • We’ve already seen this done to some extent in Spyro 3, where Midnight Mountain, the Sorceress’ Lair, and Super Bonus Round all shared the same type of black tower with white trims and gold spikes.
  • Suggestion 2: Have NPCs mention other worlds
    • This one is super simple, but having other NPCs mention the existence of other worlds helps the world feel more unified and lived-in. The dog in haunted tomb mentioning seashell shore is a good example.
  • Suggestion 3: Have NPCs show up in other worlds
    • This takes a bit of a note from Mario Odyssey. It was really cool to go back post-game and see all of the denizens of each Kingdom interacting. Having NPCs visiting other worlds is a great way to make the overall world feel more interconnected.
    • It could also accentuate each level’s individual theme. Imagine a world that’s farm-themed, and one of the NPCs mentioning that they provide food for half of the realm. Then imagine seeing one of the farm NPCs in another level delivering vegetables. It would make the world feel more believable, as we’re actually physically seeing them following through on delivering food.
    • We could also have iconography of other worlds when present. For example, if a city themed level had a billboard for the vistas of another level in the game.
• Level Design
  • Rule 1: Levels should be bigger than the PS1 games, but should overall focus on being smaller and focused rather than as big as the hardware allows.
    • With modern day hardware, it can be tempting to make gigantic levels 4 or 5 times the size of the levels we’ve seen in the original. But it’s an unnecessary thing. The bigger a level gets, the harder it becomes to fill that space with meaningful content. Unfocused and Sprawling levels was a huge complaint with Yooka-Laylee for example.
    • Loading also becomes an issue, and Enter the Dragonfly ended up becoming full of corridors in order to allow the terrain in their bigger levels to load properly, which just ended up making the levels feel boring and linear.
    • The draw of Spyro has always been its ability to deliver a large multitude of smaller, varied environments, rather than a small number of levels. It’s what sets it apart from other platformers.
• Rule 2: Levels should be more than a race to the finish.
  • Spyro at its core is about exploration and discovering new places. Spyro 2 and 3 decided to make getting to the end of each level necessary for progression. While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it resulted in a more linear level design than that of the first game.
  • Take levels like Turtle Beach and Breeze Harbor for example, these two are essentially corridors, and there is very little in the level to actually explore. There’s a slightly open area here and there but you essentially end up seeing almost all of the level as you’re making your way towards the end.
  • Now take levels like Zephyr. Zephyr has a linear path to its endpoint, however, aside from the wide open battlefield on the pathway making the level feel more open, there is also the entire bottom section of the level which houses the Cowlek and Seed Challenges. If you were to just get to the exit and leave, you would have only seen about half of the actual level.
  • Stone hill is another great example. Getting to the end of the level is as easy as walking a few steps, but the level intends for you to explore it and romp around its lush green hills because it’s fun. Spyro is more about just getting to the end.
  • I think the ideal distribution would be a 40-60 split, where 40% of the level is the main path to the finish, and the other 60% is extra stuff to do.
  • Rule 3: Don’t make terrain boring at the expense of minigames.
  • Spyro 2 is a much bigger culprit of this than 3 due to 3 separating extra areas with gates. It has large portions of the level that have no other purpose than for being part of a minigame.
  • The Village in Skelos badlands is a prime example of this. There are no gems here, nor interesting things to do or secrets. It is solely there in order to be used for a minigame.
  • Breeze harbor has the trolley track above it, and as a result there are many walls under the tracks which end up making the level corridor-like.
  • Rule 4: Have levels that utilize mechanics in interesting ways
  • Spyro 1 had a supercharge built on momentum, but only had a couple of levels that really pushed it to its limits, like Wizard Peaks and Tree Tops. I feel like the ability to make larger levels also bears with it the ability to bring this version of supercharge back and push the possibilities of supercharge with puzzling chains and huge leaps across levels.
  • Alpine Ridge in Spyro 1 is another great example. The druids moving objects like doors and islands turns the basic and practiced act of gliding into a test of timing and skill
  • Spyro 3’s desert ruins used the electricity mechanic from Spyro 1 (reskinned to fire) to really great effect in its climbing section.
  • Rule 5: Don't hold back on the secrets
  • I’d look to Spyro 1 again for this one. Almost every level had some kind of secret place that you had to think outside the box or take the beaten path for. Stuff like the secret beach in Stone Hill or the Glide around the cliff-side in Dry Canyon. My personal favorite is the fact that more than half of Dark Passage’s level is down a hidden route.
  • Secret areas should be clever and rewarding to find. Give the player a collectible, or a new area to explore after uncovering a secret.
  • Rule 6: Backtracking should be rewarding.
  • Spyro 2 handled backtracking in an awful way. Backtracking in Spyro 2 results in either an orb challenge that takes a minute, or a handful of gems. Outside of orb challenges the extent of backtracking was the following: Glimmer had an extra cliff, Sunny Beach had a couple of gems, and Shady Oasis had a single, really arbitrary headbash container. There was no new ground to be covered.
  • Compare this to Spyro 3, where returning with the unlocked characters more often then not provided an entire side area to explore with some kind of challenge in it.
  • Backtracking should be rewarded with decently sized areas to explore on top of new challenges in order for the player to feel properly rewarded when they return.
• Gameplay
  • Rule 1: Some characters should return in a sequel.
    • Hunter: Is basically the Luigi to Spyro's Mario. Not having him in a game to provide his sporty challenges would make it feel less like a Spyro game.
    • Bianca: While Hunter's challenges tend to be sporty, Bianca's magic abilities can present Spyro a whole bunch unique tasks and mini-games. We only got to see her in Midnight Mountain and Super Bonus Round after she finished her character arc in Spyro 3, so exploring her capabilities and how she could help Spyro in future titles would be great.
    • Moneybags: Moneybags is a necessary gameplay mechanic, and gives collecting gems a purpose that feels more meaningful than just collecting. That being said, he needs his savage Spyro 3 dialogue when rejecting him because that is arguably the best part of his character.
  • Rule 2: Minigames are fun, and should stay around, but they shouldn't be relied upon as the main content of the title.
    • Spyro 1 is a favorite because it involves pure platforming
    • Puzzling tasks that involve the environment are fun
  • Rule 3: Enemies should drop gems.
    • Enemies dropping gems made defeating them a necessary aspect of completing the game and made players engage with them in order to reach 100% It creates a tangible reward for defeating them, and coincides with the narrative of defeating a villain.
• Collectibles
  • Rule 1: Gems have to make a comeback.
    • Gems are a staple of the series, and should remain. We could maybe get new cuts and shapes for the gems to signify a new region.
    • We should have new container types for gems to spice up the moment to moment gameplay. More chests that require another action like Spring Chests in Spyro 1 would be a welcome change.
  • Rule 2: The core collectible (the equivalent of orbs, dragons, and eggs) should follow the system of the Dragon Eggs in Spyro 3.
    • Spyro 1 had Dragons which were restricted to the environment, meaning that exploration was rewarded but we could not have any minigames or activities because how does somebody give away a gigantic crystallized dragon?
    • Spyro 2 had Orbs which were restricted to tasks aside from homeworlds. This system resulted in both a lack of reward for exploration, and made the rewards per level limited to 2 or 4, which is a slower and more stagnant reward system.
    • Spyro 3 is a perfect middle, as the eggs being objects allowed for them to be both hidden in the environment and given out for activities. It also increased the rewards to 6 core collectibles per level.
    • The Spyro 3 model has shown its success by being emulated in most other Spyro games after the Original trilogy:
    • Dragonflies (ETD), Fairies (SoI), Fireflies (SoF), Light Gems & Dragon Eggs (HT)
    • We could also have different collectible types like in Spyro: A Hero’s Tail, which had Dark and Light Gems for progression purposes, and Dragon Eggs to unlock fun extra content and cosmetics. But this is not a necessity for a good Spyro game.
  • Rule 3: The core collectible should play an active role in the story and should not feel like an arbitrary McGuffin
    • The Dragons in Spyro 1 and Dragon Eggs in Spyro 3 held significant narrative Importance. Both were the direct reason for the plot of each story occurring and tied directly to the villain and their motivations.
    • While Ripto wanted the orbs to get his things from Home, his main objective was to conquer Avalar, and wasn’t explicitly tied to the orbs. This makes the orbs feel kind of forgettable and less important, despite the interesting lore of them being used for portals.
    • The system of having the creature be a living entity with some kind of cutscene like the crystalized dragons, and baby dragons (heck even dragonflies in EtD) gives the collectible more personality, and contributes to them feeling less like an arbitrary collectible.
  • The Villain
  • The story needs a good Villain above all else. An excellent Spyro Villain will have all of the following traits.
    • Trait 1: Presence extends into Gameplay
  • Ripto is very bad at this, as he is only ever featured in the cutscenes and boss fights.
    • He is not responsible for any of the main level conflicts, we’re only ever solving Avalar’s inherit problems
    • No NPCs besides the main 4 ever mention him. It makes the majority of the gameplay feel disconnected from the main Narrative.
  • The Sorceress does this the best.
    • Many of the world conflicts are a direct result of her Tyranny, like Enchanted Towers, Seashell Shore, Frozen Altars, and Fireworks Factory.
    • NPCs are constantly mentioning her, and something that she had done is usually the reason minigames need to be done in the first place. These mentions cement the feeling of wrestling control of the world away from her with every success.
    • The Rhynocs, which are her direct underlings, appear in each level. Their presence is a constant reminder of the villain looming overhead, and their influence on the realm that you're in. Gnasty Gnorc and the Gnorcs also succeeded at this.
    • Backtracking in the game is tied to characters that the sorceress has trapped, tying progression directly to the villain, vs. learning movesets disconnected from the villain in Spyro 2.
    • At one point she kidnaps Hunter, which has repercussions on the gameplay, as Spyro can no longer complete any Hunter minigame segments until he is freed. She’s the only villain who’s narrative reaches into the gameplay with palpable consequences such as this.
    • Trait 2: They must have memorable dialogue, and interactions/a dynamic with Spyro.
    • Despite the fact that Ripto has 0 world presence like the other two villains, he’s remembered as the best villain of the series, and it is for a good reason: because he nails this quality so well.
    • He is the only villain that Spyro directly interacts with in the original trilogy. This allows the two to have a distinct and memorable dynamic as well as a lot of banter.
    • His *short-*fused temperament is also distinctly memorable. He has a very definable personality, as does the Sorceress with her chilling apathy and twisted motives.
    • The villain should also get plenty of screen time to make their motives and personality present.
    • Gnasty Gnorc’s lack of this trait makes him very forgettable.
    • Trait 3: The villain should have a memorable boss encounter.
    • Again, Ripto excels in this. He has a 3 phase, epic boss fight where Spyro gets to use a bunch of powerups and culminates with an epic battle in the sky.
    • The Sorceress and Gnasty Gnorc had very forgettable boss fights in comparison, with The Sorceress’ only saving grace being that the UFO was fun to ride.
  • Story

Coming up with a formula for making the actual story good is hard because this is where things get super subjective, and Spyro has never really had a primary story focus. Overall, if they wanted to go light on the story elements and just have a simple premise, it can work fine. But my suggestions below would be for if they wanted to flesh things out.

• The Strengths of each game’s narratives are as follows:
  • Spyro 1 had no cutscenes or story beyond a premise, but had a very rich and interesting world that has a lot of lore connected to it found through in-game story-telling and the excerpts on the dragons and Gnasty Gnorc found in the instruction booklet.
  • Spyro 2’s story focused a lot on character interactions. Which involved funny banter between the main cast, and fun exchanges with the villain. The story itself had a very basic plot.
  • Spyro 3’s story also had a basic premise and plot but focused primarily on Bianca’s character arc, while also highlighting the sorceress, her motivations, and the lore of the forgotten realms, which expands on the lore that was presented in the first game
• A good story setup would likely expand on the lore of the dragon realms set up in 1 and 3, while having a lot of fun dialogue exchanges between the characters like Spyro 2.
• Additionally some kind of story arc from start to finish like Spyro 3 would be ideal. Especially if consequences of said story extend into the gameplay like when the sorceress kidnaps Hunter.
• Personally, I think that one or more new characters should be introduced, maybe an equivalent to Elora, the professor, and Hunter, who were sort’ve peacekeepers of Avalar. It would make for a lot of interesting interactions between old and new characters.
• My own personal pick for a focus would be on Spyro. In the original trilogy, he didn't really get a lot of development. He was always a sassy spitfire who walked in to end the villain's whole career. I think a story that humbles him at the beginning by having him lose to the villain, and having him grow over the course of the adventure and be ready to face the villain in a rematch would be an excellent story arc.
  • It would also be a good story in which to introduce Cynder to the original trilogy universe. I'm a die hard OT fan, but she's been in the LoS trilogy, and she was carried over to Skylanders, and its TV show. In my honest opinion she's a good character who has been a mainstay in the series for years, she's an important part of the Spyro brand, and deserves to be reignited in the Original Trilogy universe.

​
Anyway, those are my thoughts. I spent too much time on this, but only because I love these games to death and I love picking them apart.

I’m in love with Scheepjes Whirligig. Could you please give me your best blanket ideas, patterns, etc? Thanks!

Specifically I wanted to make the Andecha shawl, but instead of stripes, I was thinking of a fade. I found this Lana Grossa yarn on LoveCrafts (which is the perfect yardage, actually), but I was wondering if anyone knew any other yarns that match this. Price isn't an issue, but natural fibers vs synthetic is preferred. I haven't seen any other yarns match the yardage (Mandala and Whirligig both fall short by a couple hundred yards), but maybe I'm just not searching very hard.

“Look, I don't care how 'whimsical’ or 'fanciful’ it is, it clearly looks like these reindeer are…,” Michael - who insisted on being called Michael and never Mike - gestured at the Christmas whirlygig my dad had shipped to me, fumbling for words, “having intercourse!”
“Yeah, Donner's really reaming Comet,” I said. “When the wind picks up, it looks like he's channeling old John Henry.”
“You signed the articles of the Pleasant Valley Home Owner's Association which forbids indecent displays in the yard. This! Is! Indecent!” Michael clapped his hands with each word.
“This is nature! How do you think Rudolph was born? Donner is his dad, you know.”
“Is that true?” my wife asked.
“Yeah, it’s in the cartoon.”
“I don’t care what it is, Thomas, you need to -”
“Tom is fine,” I corrected.
“Take it down!” Michael shouted. “Take it down today or I’ll have the landscapers take it down and send you a bill.”
“Okay, Mikey,” I said, earning a slap on the arm from my wife.
I didn’t take the humping reindeer whirligig down but, true to his threat, Michael did have the landscapers take it down and lean it carefully against my mailbox. It was almost midnight on December 20 and I really wanted Donner to get his holiday cheer before he had to come down for the year. Poor guy earned it.
On my way to set the display back up on its mantle, the drone of a dozen chanting voices drifted to me on the cold breeze. The sound, while creepy as hell, wasn't new; some house a few streets over had been hosting a chant party for the last 7 months.
The chanting grew louder as I stood in the yard, stewing my anger. I couldn't put an admittedly crass yuletide decoration in my yard but this house could chant loudly at all hours of the night? Ines claimed it was probably a religious ritual and we should be tolerant but I'd never heard of a religion that advocated the loud, slow repetition of a handful of words for up to four hours without a damn break. Besides, I told her, I can be intolerant of their religion if I'm intolerant of religion in general. This was not a comment my Catholic better half enjoyed and she chose not to eat my cooking that night.
Still, I wanted to have a word with Michael about this, right now, out in the cold. “Yeah, bitch,” I said to myself, trying to psych the sleepiness out of my eyes.
I marched across my lawn to find Michael already awake and outside. He was half a block ahead of me, awkwardly speed-walking in the direction of the chanting house with the HOA guideline book clutched to his chest.
I imagined him walking to the tune of Holding Out for a Hero and chuckled to myself. I wanted to see how this dweeb dealt with the Voldemort death cult so I followed him, moving at a slow jog to keep up with his speedy pace. His high-waisted yellow chinos and never-in-style polo shirts belied an athletic quickness. I had to give him that.
I crouched behind a row of garbage cans and watched as Michael knocked on the door, waited almost five minutes, did an exasperated little nerd dance, and knocked again. He finally got fed up waiting and walked to the gate that led to the backyard. He knocked there, then bent down and peered through a knothole in the fence when his righteous cause went unanswered again.
Michael shot straight up to standing with a high-pitched, “Oh!” I laughed out loud behind my garbage can barrier, holding my nose against rotting Thanksgiving leftovers. Michael took off speedwalking back in my direction. He probably accidentally peeped an orgy or something and his prudishness wouldn't let him handle it.
The gate at the sexy Death Eater house opened and a buff, bouncer-looking bro raced after Michael.
“Oh, shit,” I whispered, torn between wanting to watch Michael get his ass beat and not wanting a mostly innocent dweeb to get hurt.
Bro-Bouncer grabbed Michael by the shoulder and turned him around, pointing a finger into Michael's face with his free hand. I reluctantly stood up and walked toward them.
“Hey, there! Trouble?” I asked.
“You need to get out of here,” said Bro-Bouncer.
“Thomas,” Michael whispered.
“I know he's a bit of a dick, but come on,” I shrugged.
“Thomas...,” Michael whispered again, raising a finger to point behind me. Bro-Bouncer had his eyes trained in the same area.
Was I about to get beat up, too?
I turned, wincing. Instead of another angry bro, about seven nicely dressed people were arrayed in the road behind me, advancing slowly.
“The fuck?” I asked to no one in particular.
One of the tuxedoed men held a scraggly-looking little knife. A woman in a long ball gown clutched a bundle of rope, her hands bloody.
The woman in the middle spoke. “Reh lay. Oh.”
The others repeated the chant.
I ran, grabbing Michael from Bro-Bouncer's grip and dragging him along.
Michael awkwardly stumbled along for a house or two, staring back in a haze at the group of what I was beginning to suspect was less of a sexy Death Eater den with a bunch of Helena Bonham Carters and more of a murder-y death cult with a bunch of murder-y murderers. After a moment of dragging his ass along, something finally snapped and Michael turned to run with me.
Michael's house was the closest. It didn't appear as though the murder choir had followed us, but something about them made me absolutely certain I couldn't be absolutely certain of that.
In the distance, I could still hear chanting.
Michael didn't slow as he reached his front door. I jogged up to him just as he slipped inside the house. He pulled the door to shut it, mumbling something about 'no visitors after 9:30pm'. I grabbed it just before it closed.
"Whoa! Hold up, Mikey Mike. What the hell was all that?"
Michael didn't look too thrilled about the idea of me being inside his house, but ushered me inside with a reluctant, yet vigorous beckon. I ducked inside and he pushed the door closed before locking it.
"That was some pretty fucked up shit, eh?" I said, turning to Michael. He clutched the HOA guide tightly enough to his chest that his knuckles had turned white enough to match his face.
"Ah, sorry. I meant effed up ess."
Still nothing. I had to be a little more direct.
I put my hands in my pockets. "So...what the fuck was behind that fence, buddy?"
"About 37 guide violations." His voice was quick and quiet. His eyes never left the front door.
I'll admit it, I bit. "Like which ones?"
He turned to me. "'Like' don't perform ritualistic sacrifice after 10pm on a weeknight, Thomas!"
Someone was dead?
The room dropped a degree in temperature. I needed to call Ines. Or the police. I was pretty sure religious choice didn't exempt people from straight-up murder. Was this murder? It was hard to think with that damn chanting. Was I jumping to conclusions here? For all I knew Michael was talking about a goat.
"Michael, are you talking about a goat?"
"No! A person - there was blood and..." Michael closed his eyes and drew in an anxious breath. "I don't know - I couldn't see much through the--"
The door banged and Michael screamed.
I flashed my eyes at Michael, signaling for him to be quiet and -- for the love of God, for him to not open the door. He kept making moves on attempting to answer it.
I seethed. "Don't open the goddamn door, Mike." Poor guy looked like he could pass out any second.
Without warning, the door swung wide and Bro-Bouncer’s super hero-wide shoulders exploded into the house. He dragged Michael out with one meaty fist around his neck and the other clamped on his bony shoulder.
"MICHAEL!!!" I bolted to the door and tried to follow them out but, as fast as it opened, the door swung shut. Jammed. Or locked? I couldn't get it to open. But how did Bro-Bouncer and the cult get in if they didn’t break the lock?
I banged on the door to no avail. I moved to the windows so I could see what was happening.
Snow was falling a bit heavier than usual. The frost covered the window and everything was a blur. I could make out Bro-Bouncer's menacing form and Michael's feeble attempts to wrench his intimidator's hand from his neck.
I needed to do something. My eyes went to the fire poker beside Michael's fireplace. I grabbed it, swung it in my best Aragorn impression, and went back to the window. I readied myself. Looking away, I swung the fire poker, getting ready for the impact of metal to glass.
I smashed the window at the same time Michael was thrown inside of his house. He landed face forward. He didn't look good. He shivered and his face was an unnatural, vomity shade of green. I ran up to him to help him up.
"JESUS, MIKEY! Are you okay?" I noticed a bulge underneath his shirt. A wet, bloody bulge staining the t-shirt around it.
As he stood up, the thing stuffed inside his shirt fell out.
It must have been connected to a hot-looking woman. Maybe one of those rich chanting freaks? The hand had a milky white color to it and the perfectly manicured nails made it look prettier, aside from the two cleanly-severed bones sticking out of the wrist area.
"Th-Thomas…," Michael's eyes darted from the hand, to me, and finally to the broken window.
I felt the chill ran down my spine at the sight of the severed hand. The chill from outside wasn't helping at all.
"MY WINDOW!!! YOU HAVE TO PAY FOR THAT!!!" he choked.
I stared at him in disbelief as he retched and vomited all over his living room.
I might have to end up paying for the carpet cleaning as well.
But the only point of spending money, of course, is to increase happiness.
And as I watched Mikey upchuck what appeared to be a frothy mayonnaise and strawberry casserole, only one thought raced through my head:
Worth it.
“Okay, Mikey, I’ve been enjoying this moment, but the rioting cult on your front yard is reaching an apoplectic frenzy and demands our attention. You can paint your living room floor at another time.”
He wiped a long, gooey strand of phlegm away from his lower lip as he stood to face me. “Those bastards have no respect for the Pleasant V. Hoa rules, and-”
“Wait, did you really just call it the ‘Pleasant V. Ho’?”
“Yes, Thomas, do you have another problem with the way we do things here?” he responded snottily.
I smiled. “No, Mikey, not in the least.” I looked down at his vomit-stained shirt, realized that he would probably just have to trash the damn thing, and was struck with inspiration. “Mikey, my friend, do you want to save your home badly enough to violate some serious Pleasant Vee Ho rules?”
I should not have been shocked that running afoul of the codebook was his biggest concern about my plan. But when I pointed out that it was the least of all rule-breaking evils, he went along more readily than I had expected.
“You know, I really am a hero,” he said dreamily as the two of us lined up by his front door.
“And if we survive the night, I’ll be sure to secure photographic proof of this moment,” I responded honestly. I tightened my white-knuckle grip on the fireplace poker with one hand, and grabbed the doorknob with the other. “Ready?”
“Wait,” he shot back, “How come you get the poker, and I have to be the naked one?”
“Run!” I answered, pushing the door open and dashing into the night.
I slowed just enough to give Mikey a three-step lead as we sprinted across the grass. Every member of the cult stopped and squinted as I chased my neighbor’s bare ass with the business end of an iron stick.
“You bastard! I’ll beat you within an inch of your life!” I screamed as part of the rehearsed drama. “And everyone can see that you don’t have an inch to spare!”
Confused cultists leapt aside to give us a clear path across Mikey’s lawn, over the street, and right onto my property. Bro-Bouncer pulled his chin back toward his neck, eyes wide. If it had been a movie, that would have been Bro-Bouncer's knee-sleeping one liner close-up.
For the moment, they didn’t follow us.
We stopped, panting, on my front porch. “Can - wheeze - I borrow some underwear from your house, Thomas?” he asked desperately.
“No time for that, Mr. Hero! Onto the next part of our plan!” I dashed around the corner of my house. Mikey staggered behind.
He gasped.
“Contraband!” he shrieked. “I clearly instructed you to dispose of those-”
“I’m sorry to break your heart, Mikey,” I cut him off, “but you’ve really been breaking my balls.” I bent over and lifted a bright-eyed reindeer whirligig from the driveway. “Did you know that sparks have been flying between Donner and Comet? I mean that literally. The landscapers damaged the thrusting mechanism when they dismantled him. According to HOA bylaw 3191-A, that’s a pretty major violation, and I’m afraid that I’m going to have to report you.”
The look on Mikey’s face as he stood naked and dumbstruck in my driveway answered one thing definitively: this single moment was easily worth the batshit insanity that the rest of the night had created.
“So when I plug them back into a power source, the thrusting becomes a major fire hazard – one capable of igniting an entire house, distracting all of its inhabitants, and preventing any future cult activity, for example.”
I thrust Comet into his hands and looked toward the sexy Death Eater house.
“Let’s heat things up with just a touch of reindeer dick.”
“Thomas, isn't Comet a boy, too?”
“I think so. That was my intent, anyway. Bring some anal to the hood.”
Michael grunted. Was it a laugh? “Let's go,” he said.
Michael and I ran, crouched down and trying to keep our feet and breathing as quiet as possible. Bro-Bouncer and a few cultists were waking slowly through my yard nearest Michael's house, peeking in my bushes, looking over my backyard fence. They had recovered from our display and were hunting us again.
Pain exploded in my shoulder. I jumped back from it, looking to the side I hadn't been concerned with.
The asshole in the tuxedo stood in shadow, his curved little knife dripping with my blood. I curled up my lips, mind reaching with threatening things to say. “Owww!” is what came out of my mouth.
“Thomas!” Michael gasped, trying to pull me away from the cultist.
He stalked toward us and I tripped over Michael's feet, knocking us both to the ground.
The cultist smiled. His face, now in the yellow sodium light, was streaked with curves of drying blood, crazy patterns that traced his jaw and drew contours on his cheeks and forehead. He raised his knife.
And was torn away from us by the hood of a huge SUV with a thud and a weak cry of pain.
“Oh, shit. I was only trying to scare him,” the driver said in a beautifully flowing, slightly accented voice.
Ines.
“Get in, you two!” she yelled.
Michael and I clambered into the backseat, Ines's eyes flitting in the rearview mirror between the approaching freaks and Michael's naked ass.
“It's dangerous out here, Ines,” I said. “You should be inside. Maybe call the police.”
“I already did call them. And I'll be safer than you two idiots running around like a Benny Hill sketch.”
“You saw that?” Michael asked, face comparable in hue to a tomato.
“Yes. But there are bigger problems.” Ines peeled out and sped down the road, then turned down another cul de sac where we could talk. She looked at Michael. “Sorry. I didn't mean the pun. Not that you… Anyway. I was on Skype with Tía Carmen and she heard the chanting. She recognised it, Tomàs.”
Ines only used the Spanish version of my name when she was serious. At first, it was confusing to my lily-white ears but now it jangled alarms up my spine.
“Yeah…” Michael and I said simultaneously.
“You know how I told you Mama and Tía Carmen are from a little town in Mexico? A corrupt, terrible town that their father took them away from when they were children?”
I nodded. “The drug town.”
“The drug town. Some dealers get their power through violence, some by being innovative. The dealer - a family of dealers, really - in that town got power through fear and these loco voodoo rituals. Tía Carmen remembers the culto saying those same words. 'Ray leo’ or whatever.”
“Ray Liotta?” I asked, getting an annoyed glance from Ines and the covering-his-junk-with-one-hand Michael.
“Listen, Tomàs. Every family in the town was a part of the culto originally. They all gained something, but they also traded something. The first child of each generation was theirs. They came for Tía Carmen. They came for Mama.”
“But they didn't get to them. Right? You're the oldest. And someone would have known if a newborn went missing from a hospital room in Mexico City in the 80s.”
“It's not newborns, it's first children. Just the DNA.”
“They'll take the unborn?” Michael asked.
Ines nodded. “They make it look like a miscarriage. And now they're here for me, Tomàs.”
“What? Why?”
“Oh! Congratulations!” Michael said.
“What?” I repeated. “Where did I get… Oh! Oh. Oh. You're pregnant?”
“I think so. For two months, maybe.”
“Holy shit,” I said.
“But I'm not the oldest. I thought I was. The cult got to Mama and Tía Carmen. And Tío Pablo tried to stop them. That car accident in Texas wasn't an accident. They killed him. They'll kill you and Michael and anyone else in the way.”
I raised Donner and pointed to Comet. “We're going to burn the fucking house down.”
“And I have proof they killed a woman,” Michael said. “I saw them stabbing some poor woman through the fence, then grabbed her, um, severed hand earlier. One man was carrying it like a rabbit's foot. And that should all be caught on my security cameras and backed up to the cloud. When the police arrive, we'll be free of them. And, now that I think about it, we might not even need to commit arson, fun as it did sound.”
I slumped.
Ines shook her head. “Those WASP-y fucks aren't the ones in charge. Someone from the old city will be there, too. Probably inside, definitely shirtless, and sitting over a pot of boiling herbs and water.”
“Wearing a necklace with a bird skull on it?” Michael asked.
“Yes, that's what my tía said. You saw them?”
“Yes. In the house, watching and… pleasuring himself as the others hacked up that woman.”
“He'll get away if the cops get here to arrest the others first. We can take him out,” Ines said.
Michael sighed. “Arson is back on the list.”
I smiled.
We drove around to the house that backed up to the cult house. It was dark.
“The Renngoods are on vacation in Florida. We'll be fine crossing here,” Michael said.
“Oh, Michael,” Ines said, “there's a coat back there for you. It's wool, so it should help. Sorry I didn't have any pants.”
“That's alright. It's oddly freeing to be so exposed. I feel alive!” When he opened the door and remembered how cold it was out there, Michael put the coat on.
He and I climbed out, each carrying our respective hypersexual reindeer. Ines grabbed a bag from the trunk and followed us.
We could see into the cult house by peeking over the Renngoods’ backyard fence. The guy was in there, gyrating like a tweaker in full meth freak out. He raised his arms over his head like he was angry, then laughed. He poked a wooden dart into his skin occasionally, then watched as blood welled up and wiped it across his sweating, almost nude body.
“Stay here for a few minutes, then follow me,” Ines said. She handed me a large Costco-sized jug of fire starter fluid and jumped the fence before I could protest.
Michael and I gave her a 100 count, then climbed the fence considerably less skill. We could hear shouting coming from inside. I hoped it was loud enough to cover the sound of us opening the sliding glass back door.
It opened with a click and no answering cry of surprise from the kitchen. Michael set Comet down behind a couch, then I reached in to position Donner, plug them in, and rest the lighter fluid near them on the wall like a voyeur. The motor, which had been silent, started with a whine. Donner took his time pulling back, then slammed into Comet with a loud snap.
The shouting and laughing from the kitchen had stopped.
“Thomas, you decided to join the party,” a deep voice rumbled behind us.
I turned to see the wild-eyed, sweat- and blood-streaked face of the Methssiah in the doorway.
“How do you know my name?”
“I've been watching Ines for a long time. You're a decent guy, but you've caused too many problems tonight.” The Methssiah pulled a handful of the wooden darts from his leather belt.
Donner slapped against Comet with fury. Police sirens rose in the night.
I wanted to run. My legs, my heart leaping up into my throat, everything wanted me to run. But, if Methssiah chased, he'd be away from the fire. Could run from the police. Could find Ines. And our child. I stayed.
“Mike, go. I'll stay with this fucking bruja.”
“Thomas… First, 'bruja’ is feminine, so he's a 'fucking brujo.’ Second, you saved my life twice tonight. You go. Keep your family safe. No one's counting on me, anyway.”
Sparks started to fly. Methssiah sneered and drew his hand back, holding a wooden dart between his thumb and finger.
The dart flew forward and caught Michael in the shoulder.
“Guys!” Ines yelled through the sliding door. “Come on!”
“But he needs to stay here, we have-” I attempted to yell back.
Ines shouted something angrily in Spanish. “It's fine, just come on! He's trapped.”
Michael and I ran for the door, followed by darts. Another sliced into my back and knocked the wind out of me.
The Methssiah growled as he reached the door and didn't follow.
Ines pointed to a line of herbs and beads. “He can't break that line while using black magic.”
With that, Donner reached his climax and fully ignited. The lighter fluid went up a second later with a legitimate cinematic fireball.
We headed back to our culture de sac to find the street full of cop cars, their lights blending in well with Christmas decorations. By the time we answered all their questions, it was morning. And Michael was still dressed only in a women's pea-coat. I smirked.
The police arrested the cult members, who had started to come down from whatever high they were on. One detective mentioned that there was a house fire a street over another one of their friends had been too high to get out. I hid a smile.
Three days later, on Christmas Eve, there was a knock on my door. Michael, his hands holding something behind his back.
“When I yelled at you about the reindeer,” he said, “I thought it was an inappropriate display. And it was. But it was also celebrating the diversity of love by showcasing homosexual reindeer. Comet, as you pointed out, is a boy. The Pleasant V. HOA supports diversity. And I do, too.”
“Did you really mean no one was counting on you? Back in that house?”
He looked at his shoes and nodded. “As much as I appreciate diversity, my family does not.” He remembered what he had been holding and handed it out to me, smiling in the mouth but sad in the eyes.
It was a canvas painting of Donner really reaming Comet, a vein bulging in the forehead obscenely. It was beautiful.
“I truly love it,” I said, noticing a hint of reindeer scrotum. “Why don't you come in for dinner? You can meet Aunt Carmen.”
“It's just family. I don't want to intrude.”
“Dude, you offered to die so I could see my kid. You're family. Way more than my douche bag brother. Come in. Give me shit about not saying ‘tamales’ correctly.”
Michael smiled and stepped in.
“Can I commission a painting of BDSM Roombas from you?”
“Is that some sort of veiled Herbert Hoover reference?” Michael asked.
I laughed.