“WE NEED MORE power,” Quasarla said, wincing with effort as he and the other Astromancers struggled to close the rift.
“What if we used our Dragon and Phoenix attacks?” Arkayna asked.
“In theory, it should work.” Malvaron held his hands up, all his energy shooting out of them.
“But you could also widen the rift and make it worse,” Gandobi said.
“It’s too dangerous,” a familiar voice said somewhere behind them. They glanced over their shoulders and realized Nova Terron had finally arrived. He must’ve seen the gargoyles swarming the sky. He glared at Arkayna. “Did you cause this?”
“Not intentionally,” she replied.
He cast an energy sphere around Arkayna and Piper, locking them inside. The two Mysticons pounded against it.
“Hey! We can seal the rift!” Arkayna yelled.
“Silence, Dragon Mage,” Nova Terron said. He turned back to the Astromancers and raised his hands up to the sky, ignoring the captured Mysticons.
Arkayna could feel the rage building inside her. They’d come so far and tried so hard. She knew she could fix this. He just had to give her a chance.
“No one silences me!” she called out. Her staff sparked, and a huge bolt of power shot out, breaking the sphere apart. Arkayna and Piper stepped out, triumphant. “Unleash the Dragon!” Arkayna cried.
“Fly, Phoenix, fly!” Piper yelled.
Arkayna’s and Piper’s bracers shot out their Dragon and Phoenix avatars. The two mystic creatures spun around each other as they soared toward the rift, smashing gargoyles along the way. They flew directly into the rift and disappeared into darkness. Arkayna and Piper watched, waiting, hoping their plan would work. Finally there was a brilliant flash of light, and the rift sealed itself. The sky was whole again.
The gargoyles exploded. Rocks and dust rained down. Then the Astromancer Academy was completely quiet.
“Thank the stars,” Arkayna said. She let out a deep breath.
It wasn’t long before Em and Zarya returned from Drake City. They’d battled the gargoyles, stopping them from destroying everything in their wake. The gargoyles had cut the cables on a train car, almost sending hundreds of passengers tumbling off a bridge. But Em and Zarya had saved them.
Still, as soon as they returned, Nova Terron got angry all over again. He didn’t seem to care that they’d successfully closed the rift. He stood in front of Malvaron and the Mysticons and began his lecture.
“You broke into the Academy, you freed a felon, and you deceived and defied me,” he said.
“And all because you thought you could create a Dragon Disk?” Gandobi asked bitterly. He held up the Disk. “Look at this pathetic imitation—”
Before he could go on, the Disk floated right out of his hands. It glowed with a brilliant light. “That’s … impossible,” Quasarla muttered.
“That’s what we do best.” Em smiled.
The Disk projected the fourth riddle in midair. The Mysticons stepped forward to read it, knowing it was only a matter of time before Dreadbane received the same clue.
“Time to stop the apocalypse. If you don’t mind, we’ve got work to do,” Arkayna said to Nova Terron.
“So you do, Dragon Mage,” he replied, a small smile forming on his lips. Whether he admitted it or not, the girls could tell he was pleased. “So you do…”
They read the riddle as fast as they could, and Em immediately decoded it. For all her talk about hating riddles, she was pretty good at figuring them out. They ran for the door, taking off just as the sun rose on the horizon.