Reena squeezed her eyes shut as the swirling light wrapped around her and Mica, Bast’s fur clenched between her fingers. After a rapid-fire tutorial from Bast on how to use her new armor, Reena felt even more uncertain than before.  

But like Jim said, sometimes you had to crash before you could boot up. 

“Did we make it?” Mica asked from where she was wrapped around Reena’s side. 

“I don’t know,” Reena said. “My eyes are closed.” 

“So are mine.” 

Slowly, Reena cracked her eye open, peering through her lashes through the clear shield in the eye-hole of her helmet to the rippling green grasses of Riverside Park. 

Reena sagged in relief. “We made it.” 

“We made it?” Mica lifted her head off Reena’s shoulder and looked around. “Hey! We made it!” She stepped back and thumped Reena on the arm. “You’re going to get the hang of this superhero stuff before you know it.”  

“Thanks.” 

Bast leaped off Reena’s shoulder and stood in front of her.  

“We haven’t much time,” Bast said. “When the usathana arrives, you must take hold of me so that I may transform into my dragon form.” 

Reena frowned. “You can’t do that yourself?” 

Bast shook his head. “I need to be in contact with you. As our partnership grows stronger, I will need your help less and less, but I am still weak. For now, I must have your help.” 

“Show me what to do.” Reena held out her arms. 

Bast jumped into her grasp, flicking his tail and turning his nose to the sky. “We should seek to get outside the city,” Bast said. “This conflict will draw unnecessary attention. And your Bet-Hadash is very different from the one I knew.” 

“Better?” Mica perked up.  

Bast scowled at her. “Bet-Hadash is the refuse dump of the solar system.” He sniffed the air. “Seems to me not much has changed.” 

Mica tilted her head at him. “You’re a deeply negative person for someone so cute and cuddly.” 

“It’s a gift.” Bast scoffed and shooed her away again. “Be gone. Take cover. Conceal your garish hair so the usathana does not incinerate you.” 

“She can’t come with us?” Reena startled.  

She hadn’t expected that. Why couldn’t Mica come along? 

Bast lifted his grumpy eyebrows at her. “You would bring your pale, skinny, fragile little friend into a dragon battle? Weaponless? Unarmored?”  

Reena hesitated. “Well, when you say it like that, it sounds awful.” 

A chorus of honking horns and squealing brakes tore through the peaceful afternoon air, and a huge shadow streaked overhead, so fast the movement made the wind shift.  

Reena gulped. “Is that it?” 

“It is time.” Bast turned in her arms. “Take hold of my shoulders.” 

Reena held him by his little furry shoulders.  

“And hang on for your life, my lady.” 

Reena started to reply with something sarcastic or witty, but all the breath left her lungs as Bast’s narrow little shoulders went rigid under her fingers. The little red panda roared, a hollow, echoing cacophony of sounds that were far too big to come from an animal so small. Under her hands, the little animal shifted and grew, expanding and enlarging. His fur turned to dragon scales, and his stripes faded to sparkling iridescent skin. Reena choked on a gasp of alarm as his rapid growth catapulted her into the air until she found herself astride his back, clinging to the spikes that studded his spine. 

Full size now, twenty feet tall at the shoulder, Bast swung his giraffe-like neck and bellowed a thunderous roar. He snapped his massive wings open and jumped, catching the wind as it built under him and soared into the sky.  

Reena clung to his back, gasping for air until she realized that holding on to him felt as natural as clinging to the handlebars of her scooter. Her armored fingers had more strength in them than before. The wind didn’t throw her around as violently as before, and the weight of exhaustion she’d felt was gone.  

Before them lay the expanse of the bluest summer skies. Puffy clouds danced in the high-altitude winds, and the metropolitan footprint of the city spread out beneath them like one of her grandmother’s quilts.  

Amazing. 

“Wow!”  

Bast banked on a thermal and cast a look backward at her, his face so different now than it had been in his much-smaller form. His face was different, but the constant sour expression remained.  

Incredible. She held tight to one of his spikes.  

Did you not trust me, my lady? Bast’s voice resonated in her mind.  

Reena froze and stopped breathing. Bast? 

We are linked in our minds, my lady. In this form I cannot speak, but you can hear me. He glanced back at her again. Be sure you do not release me. I draw the power to remain in this form from your armor.  

Reena frowned. I didn’t have my armor the first time.  

I was forced to draw energy directly from you, my lady. Bast turned his attention the dark shadow in front of them. I drained you of your energy, which is why you could not remain conscious. We will not do that again.  

Reena bent closer to his back and held tighter to his spines. What do you need me to do? 

Bast growled deep in his chest, the strength of it vibrating through his whole body and into Reena’s as she clung to him.  

Hold tight to me and do not let go. He flapped his wings. We will make short work of this enemy.  

 Reena nodded and held her breath as Bast approached the monstrous figure before them. The closer they got, the bigger it got. Reena swallowed hard at the size of the other dragon. It was bigger than Bast, longer than Bast, and had more spikes and claws.  

It sensed them coming and whirled in midair, opening a giant maw full of more teeth than Reena had ever seen as it screamed at them. Bast didn’t even hesitate; he rushed right up on the giant black dragon and loosed a stream of fire out of his mouth.  

Reena cried out in shock as the raging stream of flame and light erupted out of Bast’s mouth and blasted the black dragon sideways in the sky.  

“You can breathe fire?” Reena screamed. 

Of course I can breathe fire. Even his telepathic voice sounded perturbed.  

Reena held on as he spun around in the air and bore down on the black dragon as it tumbled through the clouds. Reena peered around Bast’s flapping wing joint, and as she narrowed her eyes, her helmet flared to life.  

The eye-coverings flashed, and a digital readout flashed the details of everything that was happening around her. Wind speed. Velocity. Mass of the planet. Gravitational force. Magnification factor.  

Whoa, whoa, whoa. 

Bast staggered in the air. What? What? 

Not you, no, my helmet is doing something.  

Bast uttered an annoyed sound. Stop thinking. 

Reena laughed. Was he serious? Stop thinking? That was impossible. But that probably wouldn’t help Bast at the moment.  

The black dragon pulled out of its flailing dive, flapping its monstrous skeletal wings and climbing higher into the atmosphere.  

Closer now, and armed with a helmet that could magnify what she was seeing, Reena zoomed in on the creature. The beast had talons as long as a car’s bumper and as wide as a sedan. Its scaled black skin was cracked and broken like it had been dried out or crusted over repeatedly, and the horns and spines all over its body seemed almost rusty in color. As though it had been horribly wounded and not allowed to heal before infection set in. The dragon had no eyes to speak of, and its square jaw hung open, dripping with something wet. 

And astride the dragon’s back was a person.  

Bast! The dragon has a rider! Reena focused in on the figure clinging to the black dragon’s back.  

Impossible.  

Reena rolled her eyes. I’m looking right at him. 

Bast huffed and beat his wings harder against the wind until he’d overcome the usathana. Bast sailed closer and roared at the other dragon until it spun and opened its mouth wide to spew something foul and viscous through the air at them. 

Bast yelped and closed his wings so they dropped out of the path of the liquid. Reena clung to his back and screamed. He came to an abrupt stop as he snapped his wings open and sailed back toward the top of the sky.  

I was wrong. Bast’s voice sounded shaken. This is not an usathana. It is much worse.  

Reena pried her eyes open. How can it be worse?  

An usathana is easy to defeat. Bast snapped his tail against the winds. This is a khohlakele, a hybrid. It is bonded to the nanto on its back much like you are bonded to me.  

“Great.” 

We must get it out of the sky. Bast flapped harder and sailed through the clouds like a bullet. You must tell me how close we are to the ground.  

“I have to do what?” 

Bast lunged for the other dragon and sank his massive fangs into its neck. The black dragon screamed and thrashed and flailed, and Bast dug his claws into its wing joints and ripped. 

They dropped out of the sky.  

Reena shrieked as the wind buffeted her against his spikes, tumbling end over end through the winds and clouds, spinning out of control.  

The ground, my lady! Where is the ground?  

Sobbing in terror, Reena peeled her eyes open to peer through the holes of her helmet. The grass of Riverside Park waved like velvet beneath them. Eight hundred feet. Seven hundred. Six.  

Coming up fast! 

Below them, Mica ran for cover. She hadn’t taken shelter earlier like Bast had ordered, but at least she had the sense to do it now.  

At one hundred feet, tell me! 

Reena clung to his spikes and tried not to panic as the black dragon wrestled and roared against Bast’s hold.  

Four hundred.  

Three. 

Two. 

Now, Bast!! 

With a surge of energy and a roar of effort, Bast dug his claws into the black dragon’s skin, ripping its wings and dislocating its shoulders and using the leverage to launch himself into the sky.  

The black dragon smashed into the grass of Riverside Park with a choked-sounded shriek, splaying sideways and tearing up the lawn as it skidded to a stop.  

“We got him!” Reena screamed.  

Bast cornered in the air. It’s not done yet. He held his wings in tightly, turning himself into a needle in the air as he shot toward the struggling dragon on the ground.  

Bast, you have to slow down! I won’t be able— 

Bast hit the downed dragon with the force of a freight train, driving it deeper into the dirt, but he’d overestimated his speed. Or maybe he’d underestimated Reena’s ability to hang on. The impact ripped her off his back and flung her through the air. She hit the grass and rolled, arms and legs uselessly flailing as she tried to stop herself.  

The khohlakele screeched in rage as Reena came to a halt in the torn-up grass. She lifted her head and watched the giant dragon pulling itself out of the crater, its rider still holding on to its back.  

Bast was gone. 

“Bast?” Reena clambered to her feet. “Bast, where are you?” 

Movement at the dragon’s foot drew her attention to Bast’s furry little body, not moving and limp.  

I let go.  

Bast couldn’t maintain his dragon form without holding contact with Reena. If they had any chance of defeating the black dragon, she had to touch Bast again.  

I have to get to Bast! 

She stumbled forward and stopped short as the black dragon spit another mouthful of that foul, horrible liquid out of its mouth. It touched the grass and instantly began to melt it.  

“Acid? It spits acid?” Reena groaned and clutched her forearm, which had begun to ache as soon as she’d stood up. “Not fair.”  

On the black dragon’s back, the nanto straightened and glared down at her. Her helmet magnified her sight. The rider wore a kind of leather armor covered in crisscrossing chains, but as far as Reena could see he had no helmet. And not much of a face. It looked—robotic.  

Is it even alive?  

“Reena!”  

Reena spun around as Mica waved at her from a patch of trees on the other side of the clearing. The black dragon and its rider saw her too.  

The dragon climbed out of the crater in the ground and set its feet on either side of Bast, inhaling a long deep breath as it prepared to spew that horrible acid toward Mica.  

She had seconds.  

Bast said the nanto was bonded to the khohlakele like he and I are bonded. Reena’s mind whirled. If I knock the nanto off its back, maybe the khohlakele will lose its power. She clenched her fists. I wish I had something to shoot with! 

A pulse of light formed in her left hand, and an intricately carved bow unfolded in her grip. Wooden and studded with pink veins of precious metals, the string shimmered in the afternoon sunlight. It was the bow that had been on display behind the armor in the Ikroza! 

“Oh. That works too.” 

Reena lifted her right hand, her fingers glowing with power, and as she gripped the string, an arrow of pure fire formed in the bow.  

“Please work. Please work.” She eyed the nanto, and a targeting system in her helmet activated. A green light flared in her eye to indicate she was on target, and she released the fiery arrow.  

It blazed through the air and hit the nanto square in the face, knocking it backward off the dragon’s back. Instantly, the dragon choked on the venom it was about to spew and began to shrink. 

Reena lowered her bow, gasping for breath as the giant menacing dragon shrank and shrank until it was nothing more than a little salamander thrashing in the dirt. She stood over it, staring in disbelief.  

A little ways off, the nanto lay on its back, buzzing and whirring.  

Slowly, Reena approached it, lifting another fiery arrow into the bow. The nanto seized and jerked, its burned and melted gears obvious the great wound that had been slashed through its chest armor.  

Its robotic face remained locked in a rigid stare, gleaming chrome features lifeless and expressionless, but its glowing red eyes flared. 

“Ukufa,” it droned mechanically, “kuza.” 

With a hiss and a spark, its systems shut down. The moment it deactivated, it disintegrated, turning to ash and falling apart into the dirt.  

Reena lowered the bow, staring at the pile of ash that used to be the nanto. She gasped for breath as the adrenaline caught up with her. Her helmet felt awfully tight suddenly.  

Thudding footsteps announced Mica’s arrival. 

“Reena, Reena, Reena, Reena!” Mica flung her arms around Reena’s neck and shoulders. “Are you hurt? Are you okay? That was amazing. That was crazy. What was that?” 

Reena spun on her heel and ran to where Bast lay.  

“Bast?” She knelt beside him. “Bast, are you all right?”  

Bast snarled at her and blinked his eyes. “I told you not to let go.” 

“Well, I told you to slow down.” Reena heaved a sigh of relief.  

Bast sat up and gazed at the torn-up turf and the ash pile that was blowing in the wind. He nodded and flicked his ears.  

“You did well, my lady. And all on your own.” He smirked at the bow in her hand. “You even summoned the Umoya Welangatye. And you said you’re not a fighter.” 

The wail of an emergency siren pierced the air.  

“Uh-oh,” Mica said, standing up. 

“Yeah, I’m sure the whole city saw it.” Reena lifted Bast into her arms. “We need to get out of here.” 

“What happened to the big bad dragon?” Mica asked. 

“Without the nanto it’s harmless.” Bast curled around Reena’s shoulders. “Quickly. We must get out of sight. I will teach you how to remove your armor, and then we must get somewhere safe.” 

Reena turned to Mica. “We could go home.” 

Mica smiled. “If you’re going home, I’m coming with you.” She giggled. “I can’t wait to see your sister’s face when you tell her you’re a superhero.” 

Reena grunted as she and Mica ran for the end of the park, avoiding the section of grass the dragon venom had melted. Cecelia’s reaction was the last thing Reena was thinking about.