“By the Ancestors…” Leon whispered, momentarily awestruck by the vision before him.

The Thunderbird, her form ethereal, intangible, stood before him by the power of the gem in his hand.

“While it’s always nice to be acknowledged and praised by my descendants, as is only right and proper no matter the occasion, in this case, Leon my boy, this has nothing to do with me.”

Leon stared at her blankly while his team, most of whom had reeled back from the Thunderbird’s appearance, slowly calmed.

“You… is this an issue, Leon?” Clear asked, trepidation so inuring his voice that it was almost physical.

“No,” Leon said as he pushed himself to his feet and spun the gem around in his hand a few times, admiring first the Thunderbird’s form and then the swirling silver-blue and black colors beneath the gem’s surface. “This… this is fine. Yes. It is fine, right?”

His last question was directed at his manifested Ancestor, and backed by the sound of Leon’s team putting their weapons away, she replied, “Yes, I believe it is. If you’ll excuse me, Leon, I need to go for a quick flight.”

Without further ado, the Thunderbird took wing and shot out of the blasted roof of the spire’s throne room like a bolt from a Lightning Lance.

Silence reigned in the wake of her departure—at least, for a good few seconds. Before anyone could start asking questions, Leon asked, “Has the area been secured?”

Anzu was the first to snap to a response. “Yes, brother! Darkness magic is already starting to noticeably dissipate around the plane and Anshu has dispatched ground teams to take possession of the fallen Souleater. This plane is as secured as we can make it given our limited resources.”

Leon nodded, listening intently even as his eyes took in the smooth, sheerly cut edges of the blasted roof. The power that Clear had said came from him… his mind momentarily returned to the strange fugue that had befallen him while enduring his least favorite Ancestor’s provocations.

Such power was familiar to Leon, at least in theory. The Thunderbird had long ago told him of the Great Black Dragon’s powers of destruction, including a power from his third eye that could destroy all it beheld. That power, apparently, had never been passed down to those who inherited the Great Black Dragon’s black fire, which Leon found both interesting and mildly terrifying.

‘Is it really his power?’ he wondered. ‘Why me? Why now?’

Vaguely, he recalled similar experiences during his flight from Arkhnavi. He hadn’t lost his eyes this time, but neither had he been attacked by a Primal Devil. And if he remembered correctly, the Thunderbird had told him that the Great Black Dragon had killed the Primal God who’d invaded Leon’s soul realm beneath the Serpentine Isles using that power, too.

There was a lot to unpack about this, but for the moment, he conjured a bag from his soul realm and placed the gem inside. The light within the gem didn’t go out after it was no longer making contact with him, reinforcing his reticence to store it in his soul realm after the powers it had just shown him.

“Return to Storm Herald,” Leon ordered the rest of his team. “Get some rest. You’ve earned it. I’m sure you expect some answers about what’s going on, and I understand why. For the moment, I have no answers to give.”

’And any I do get are going to be kept secret,’ he silently vowed. This was touching on powers that were foundational to him and his Clan, and he wanted to control how that information spread in the future.

“And you, brother?” Anzu asked as the team milled about, not quite ready to leave him alone.

He smiled, grateful for their concern. “I’m going for a flight.” With as much leave as the Thunderbird gave, he transformed into his Thunderbird form and, after making sure the bag with the gem was securely wrapped around a talon, launched himself into the air. The Thunderbird herself was circling the destroyed city eerily silently, but Leon could see in how she danced through the air that she was ecstatic.

He joined her dance, flying up until his wingtip almost touched hers. He wasn’t used to being so much larger than she was, but she didn’t mind as she wiggled her wings in greeting and her avian face smiled as much as it could.

A cry from behind him momentarily captured his attention and he realized that both Clear and Anzu had taken off after him and his Ancestor. When he glanced back at the Thunderbird, there was a mischievous, almost challenging look in her eyes.

“Shall we show them our majesty, my boy?” she asked, her voice seeming to come from all around him even as her beak remained tightly shut.

He wiggled his wings, mirroring her earlier gesture. She chirped in joy, then tucked her wings in and dove fast, Leon following right on her tail, and even overtaking her enough to fly at her side again.

Clear and Anzu took the challenge readily, diving after the two of them with as much speed as they could muster.

The four of them danced in the sky for what seemed like days, simply enjoying the chase and the thrill of flight. Hawks, Ravens, and Eagles joined them as Anshu’s people streamed from Storm Herald. Other beasts, too, bounded through the air to join their King and their Venerable Ancestor. The birds were joined by Lions, Jaguars, Bears, Tigers, Spiders, Bison, and Harts, cleaning up the battlefield momentarily forgotten as all Ten Tribes jointly celebrated something that none of them yet understood.

---

With no small amount of exhaustion of both the physical and spiritual variety, Leon collapsed into a stiff-backed chair in his private quarters aboard Storm Herald. There were far more comfortable and luxurious options available to him for relaxation, but his mind was still buzzing thanks to the unique experience that the gem had given him, and he wasn’t ready to properly rest just yet.

After the great sky dance, order was eventually restored to the task force and they continued to secure the area. Now, Leon was left on his own with his team resting. He was free to speak with his Ancestor about what had just happened, and it seemed she was just as eager, as she made clear almost as soon as the door had shut behind Leon.

“You look tired,” she said, now in her human form, though her ethereal body still lacked any color. It was odd seeing her outside of his soul realm, but she cut no less regal a figure even when translucent and monochrome. “Have you been slacking in your personal training? Has my boy lost some of his endurance?”

“Sitting on thrones is not conducive to one’s fitness,” Leon quipped, but he straightened up a moment later, his moment of cathartic relaxation over. “It seems that your time spent dead hasn’t ruffled your feathers, though.”

“Benefits of a spectral body,” the Thunderbird replied with a grin. She sat down on his bed and threw herself back, sprawling out over the covers. A moan of delight escaped her lips and echoed throughout the room. “I can feel this! I can touch!”

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“Could… you not before?” Leon asked.

She paused her reverie and sat up just enough to make brief eye contact. When her eyes slid from his, she answered, “I am… not exactly a magic body. I am dead. I exist solely in the soul realms of my descendants thanks to the power they bear and the Mists of Chaos that I can absorb to retain what little form is left to me. This… doesn’t change that. I am still what I have been for long millennia; this is little more than a projection of sorts. And yet… I can feel again, almost as if I were flesh and blood!”

The glee in her voice was palpable, and it brought a smile to Leon’s face. He let her revel in this for a few seconds longer before he began getting to specifics.

“Is it… what can you do? What does this mean? Can you manifest at will? Is there a time limit? Does any of this mean anything for the Great Black Dragon?”

“So many questions asked so quickly,” the Thunderbird replied. She sat up again and glowered at him, though the expression lacked any heat. “I’m… I have questions of my own, Leon, but I’ll address yours like this: I have my experience and knowledge, but that isn’t boundless. It will take me—us—some time to figure out just what this means and how it works. I’m sure Nestor will be of great help in this matter. As for that surly lizard… I’m not sure. I felt the pull from the gem and let it take me, though I can feel that I am still in your soul realm. I would assume that if he felt the pull, then he did not choose to manifest. Or could not, this is yet unclear…”

Leon nodded along, filing this information away for later. He glanced at the bag holding the gem sitting on a table next to him, a contemplative frown momentarily flitting across his face.

“Can you… use your power like this?” he asked, thinking of the two wolves who had manifested through the gem—and how that was possible with the gem’s wearer dead was another matter entirely.

The Thunderbird raised her hand and looked at it intently. It soon became clear that she was trying to make something happen, but her power didn’t manifest itself.

“It’s… maybe…” she whispered. “It will take some getting used to. I can sense power is there, but how I can use it is not clear. Or if I can use it.” Her gaze sharpened as she put her hand aside. “The more important question, Leon, is what power you can use…”

Leon sat up a little straighter, knowing what she was referring to. He thought back to the feeling of apparently using the Great Black Dragon’s eye power, but he carefully refrained from trying to use it while aboard Storm Herald. Still, his inward examination was not promising.

“I… don’t think I can…” he mused aloud, answering the question unasked.

“The lizard was doing something,” the Thunderbird said. “I think he’s testing you. Or… something of that sort. You used it when he prodded you into using it. Can you… can you try summoning him here using that gem? You might not be able to force him here, but maybe annoy him enough that he’ll be forced to comply if he ever wants peace again…”

Leon grimaced. “I’m not even sure how you’re here, to be honest…” Still, he reached for the bag and gently retrieved the gem. The colors within hadn’t dimmed in the slightest, and the facets still looked unmarred.

“Absorbed your bloodline powers, maybe?” the Thunderbird speculated aloud as she pushed herself to her feet and walked over to get a better look. “Maybe it’s acting as a kind of pseudo-body that I can project myself through? It’s not sentient, but it’s still holding my power, and I had to will myself to be here when it called to me…”

Leon forced himself to stop listening to her, fascinated though he was with her opinion, and concentrated instead on the power of the Great Black Dragon both within him and within the fist-sized gem. That power was an inheritance that linked him indelibly with the Great Black Dragon, and might serve as a strong beacon that, combined with the gem, might allow him to manifest as the Thunderbird had. The gem had allowed two

wolves to manifest, hadn’t it? So two bloodlines might be possible…

‘Assuming that was two bloodlines,’ Leon silently mused, thinking back to the double-headed sigils he’d seen throughout the spire. This was entirely new magic as far as he could tell, and what it did and where its limitations lay were yet to be determined.

Regardless, he concentrated, his magic linking with the magic contained within the gem. Where before the gem had avariciously soaked in everything that could be taken from him, now it was less a sucking whirlpool and more a placid lake, the river of his power gently flowing into it and becoming one again. It was his power within the gem, after all, contained though it was in a foreign vessel.

Reaching out to the Great Black Dragon wasn’t something he’d ever done before, and he had little idea of how to start. He settled on black fire since that was what seemed to be swirling around beneath the gem’s surface. A few black sparks shot out from his fingers, but he was careful as he could be not to let them fall onto anything they could damage, especially not the ark nor the gem itself.

He tried this for long seconds, to no answer. If the Great Black Dragon could hear him, then the silence was telling. If.

“Try your magic body,” the Thunderbird suggested, catching his attention again.

“Hm?” Leon asked in surprise. “Isn’t that… dangerous?”

“The levels of magic power here in the ark aren’t enough to endanger your magic body,” the Thunderbird answered. “And what’s in that gem won’t hurt you either, since it’s your power.”

With that flawless logic, Leon stared at the gem for several seconds longer, as if through his willpower alone he could force it to reveal any nefarious secrets before he put his most fragile extension of himself into harm’s way.

The magic body was a strange thing in Leon’s view. On the one hand, it was something of enormous spiritual and practical significance—intangible and invisible to the naked eye, it could be projected outside of the body or through magical circuits to appear anywhere else. However, it would take little more than a strong breeze in the magic power surrounding the magic body to dissipate it.

A mage was not fully dead until their magic body had been destroyed, as Nestor proved. Losing it wouldn’t kill him since his body was intact, but it would be a horrific injury from which he would struggle to recover, even at his level. So important was the magic body to a mage that many considered it to be the magical expression of the mage’s soul—reflected in the name for where the magic lay: the soul realm.

Still, Leon trusted the Thunderbird, and sat back in his seat, forcing his body to relax as he allowed his consciousness to enter his magic body instead of his physical body—a process he’d done innumerable times in his life, though instead of waking upon his throne in his Mind Palace, he instead followed the connection between his soul realm and his physical body. He projected himself outward and felt almost slimy as he passed through his own skin.

He didn’t extend that far outside of his physical body, only enough to look around at the chamber he sat within, noting how everything seemed flat and colorless when looking around with intangible eyes. Then, he reached down to touch the gem, showing extreme caution even as the magic within the gem seemed to accept him completely.

He waited for several seconds, unsure what to do next. He wasn’t even sure the Thunderbird could see him, projected as he was.

It certainly seemed like she couldn’t as she broadly addressed the room, “Try stimulating the Great Black Dragon’s power within the gem. It might be enough to call him out to play. It might not, too, but if he’s listening, I’m sure. The lazy bastard is just making us work for it, of that I have little doubt!”

Leon suppressed a chuckle as he did as bid. Strangely, as he interfaced with the gem, he noticed something peculiar: he could easily sense the silver-blue energies were those of the Thunderbird and the black with hints of red that of the Great Black Dragon. However, there was a third power, or so it seemed, buried within the sea of inherited power that filled the gem.

The power within the singularity at the center of the gem, that orb so black that it seemed otherworldly, visible only by the pale white corona visible even behind the power of the—in his unbiased and wholly truthful opinion—strongest Ascended Beast that had ever existed or would ever exist in the universe, and the power of a middling, unremarkable, unrelatable, uninteresting Divine Beast. That power was calm and solid, small compared to the swirling power around it, yet unmistakable.

For the moment, Leon focused on calling the Great Black Dragon, but he kept that mysterious power in mind as he stimulated the Great Black Dragon’s power within the gem. Then, he fed the gem more power, though he did so slowly, unwilling to let it drink as deeply as it had when he’d first touched it.

Power roiled within the gem in response, almost recoiling in response to him. It was his power, though, and it took him only a moment to reassert control.

He did it again, feeling this second time as something seemed to tighten within the gem, some thread of power he couldn’t sense but was there nonetheless.

He pulled a third time, and a flash of power responded so quickly that he almost fled back into his physical body in panic.

But that flash of power resolved itself into a humanoid figure standing next to the Thunderbird, huge and glowering. The Great Black Dragon had joined them, and he did not look happy to be there at all.

The Thunderbird, at least, seemed amused, as she broke out into mad cackling at the look on his face.

“You have disturbed me,” he growled. “What do you want?”