A wind in the opposite direction sends that blast away.

Which is a great opportunity for a shapestealer to take a bite of the fragile skymage.

She roars again and swats the shapestealer out of the sky once more. And more fire.

More fire.

He- he can't bring himself to actually make the fire swallow the other one whole. It would be so easy.

But he can't.

He is not even angry. He is just... hollowed out.

"We should try to run, more might be coming."

She makes an affirmative grunt, and starts flapping her wings again to bring them aloft.

The wind picks her up.

Felix looks down. He feels weak over being unable to do it. He feels weak over wishing to do it at all.

Fire, fire everywhere, except around the living being who is trying to fight it with cold and by gathering electricity to form a thunderbolt. Felix counters both.

Killing is something he is unable to do. But burning away most of the oxygen in the area is another story.

They put distance between them and the inferno below.

Can she find an obvious direction to fly in?

The desert remains a vast sea of darkness with a single island of raging fire.

Felix suddenly blinks.

"I think this is a pocket dimension and we are nearing the edge. The weather is weird upwards."

"Show me the way."

Felix points and after a moment he remembers how dimensional edges work and lands on Dayo's back. He uses the wind to guide their direction.

Soon enough the pure blackness is replaced by a sudden fog, a sense of something missing that grows around them, more and more...

And there is a moment where gravity fails and there is nothing in the universe but each other's presence...

...then it all comes back at once. Compared to the absolute darkness of before, the night sky above them is practically an explosion of light. The stars shine in unnatural blues and purples.

Under the moonlight there is a city beneath them. Skyscrapers standing very tall, reflecting the stars like dark mirrors.

There is no sound of people. No cars. A few dozen points of artificial light scattered around the windows.

"...wait, are we still in a pocket dimension?"

"I think so..." He looks up. There are twin lines on his face reflecting the starlight. "Yes. Is everyone alright?"

"I'm okay... Victor's still asleep, though."

Dayo growls affirmatively.

That's good. Felix wants to check on Victor, but instead his legs buckle and he collapses on the floor like an useless idiot.

"Don't do things that make me want to hug you, I can't shift back," Dayo huffs annoyedly. "Come on, we need to find a way out of here too and back to Earth and figure out how to set fire to all of them and steal their things."

"Um."

"Long story, I get dragon psychology when I turn into a dragon."

"I am sorry." He stands up and mounts Dayo. He indicates the dimension's edge again.

She flies.

Once again, the dimensional-crossing weirdness.

The sky here looks much less impressive. The terrain beneath them is a combination of treetops and water.

"This is another pocket dimension."

Dayo grumbles something unintelligible in her dragon voice and flies on.

This one Dayo will find remarkably familiar.

Including the fact that a cluster of portals starts to open around them.

She stops moving forward, flapping her wings to stay aloft. What the...?

"I—this is the place of my dream."