ARKAYNA, PIPER, AND Em stared down through the hole as the two pirates flew off into the night. “Come back here, you coward!” Arkayna yelled.
But Zarya wasted no time. Maybe Kitty didn’t want to give up Dreadbane’s location, but Zarya had an idea about how she could get it anyway. She took off on her griffin, racing to get to Kitty and Kasey’s pirate ship. She carefully snuck in and found Kitty in one of the ship’s main cabins, about to eat another slice of pizza.
Zarya blasted the pizza out of her hands. “As I was saying,” she muttered, “we need your help.”
Kitty looked up in shock. “You’ve got some serious stealth skills, Mysticon Ranger. Now use them to get off my ship.”
“Drake City’s about to go up in flames, and you don’t care?” Zarya asked. “How is the destruction of millions of people not your problem?”
“Because Drake City did nothing when pirates destroyed my village and took me, my little brother, and my best friend away from our home,” Kitty shot back. “You have no idea how horrible it was.”
“Actually, I do,” Zarya said. She transformed back into her regular form. There was no mask and no Mysticon outfit between them now. Kitty could see the Mysticon Ranger was really Zarya, her friend from all those years before.
“By the seven skies,” Kitty said. “It’s you, Z-Star!”
“I showed you the truth because I trust you,” Zarya said. “Now, trust me. If Dreadbane releases those meteors—”
“You want to stop the meteors?” Kitty asked. There was a look in her eyes that Zarya knew well. Kitty clearly had a plan.
And like all of Kitty’s plans, it involved making money. “If I give you up to Dreadbane along with the other Mysticons,” she said, “do you have any idea how much gold I could get for you, hero?”
Zarya stared at Kitty, wondering what her old friend was thinking.
* * *
The Mysticons moved through the tunnels in Dreadbane’s lair, getting closer to the center. Kitty and her pirates had collected the other Mysticons and were now pretending to trade them to Dreadbane. While Kitty was negotiating a deal with General Tibion and Dreadbane, the Mysticons snuck off the ship. It had taken some stealth moves, but they’d finally gotten past the skeleton guards and were inside. Now they just had to find the Dragon Disk and the missing Codex piece.
Arkayna pressed a button on her bracer. “Malvaron, we’re in,” she whispered.
“Move fast,” he replied. “It’s nearly zero hour.”
The tunnel passed a cavernous throne room with a giant statue of Necrafa. “There’s the Dragon Disk!” Piper said, pointing inside. There, hovering in a corner, was the gold Disk. It was just a few yards away. “Come on, let’s grab it!”
“We don’t want to risk blowing our cover,” Arkayna said. “We save the city first, then we come back for the Dragon Disk.”
They turned down another tunnel, running as fast as they could without being noticed. They came to a fork in the tunnel, and Arkayna held up her staff to figure out the best way to go. “The magic aura is strongest down here,” she said. “Tazma must be this way.…”
“Move it, pirate!” a familiar voice yelled. The Mysticons ducked into a bend in the tunnel to hide. General Tibion marched Kitty past them. Her hands were tied behind her back.
“Looks like Kitty’s business deal went bad,” Arkayna whispered.
Zarya threaded an arrow in her bow, ready to strike Tibion down. But Piper put her hand on it to lower it. “Bad idea, Zar,” she said.
“A fight would alert the whole lair,” Em whispered.
“Then I’ll save her quietly,” Zarya said. No matter what Kitty had done, she and Zarya had history together. Zarya couldn’t just let her be taken prisoner by Dreadbane. Kitty would spend her whole life locked up in his dungeons.
“Zarya,” Arkayna said, “what about saving the realm?”
“When pirates raided my village and captured me,” Zarya said, “Kitty could’ve escaped, but she gave herself up so she could protect me.”
“Aww,” Piper said. “Now I can’t hate her!”
Arkayna’s face softened. She paused, considering for a moment. “Go get your girl,” she said finally. “We’ll meet up at the Dragon Disk.”
With that, Zarya took off down the tunnel.