"Do you see it Jack?" Tasuku shouted. He and Jackknife Dragon were sent to investigate the portals that appeared in the various worlds.
Tasuku and Jack circled around the portal in Dragon World. It was barely larger than a sports stadium with the Buddy Police's data reports estimating it to increase a few centimetres wide in a day. All monsters in the area had been evacuated to other parts of the world with no known casualties and only nine missing monsters to be reported.
"Tenbu, Burn Nova, Grangadez Count Dawn, Mukuro, Demon Lord Asmodai, most of these monsters are Omni Lords who were either right in the Portal when it formed or were drawn to it and trapped. Could this be targeting the Omni Lords?"
Tasuku could barely think straight as a noise began to fill his head. Some sort of white noise was giving him a headache and making it next to impossible for him to think much more about the case he was assigned. He began to lower towards the ground with Jack following closely.
"Are you okay Tasuku? You seem ill," Jack said. They landed on a rocky ledge far from the portal and giving them a view of the shape from afar. The noise in Tasuku's head dampened and sounded closer to a distant cry as opposed to the deafening pain from earlier.
"I'm fine, but thinking about this portal gives me a headache."
Tasuku closed his eyes for a moment, rubbing his temples in hopes of quelling the pain and opened his eyes. Seeing what looked like a tadpole swimming through the air towards the distant skies of Dragon World. It had a grey silhouette and eyes glowing yellow, it's mouth lined with jagged teeth that could tear through any bit of matter that it desired. Tasuku watched the vaguely familiar silhouette fly off, the pain in his head finally subsiding and allowing him to have a clear train of thought.
"We'll need to find a way to safely enter the portal and rescue those inside. Let's start with asking some questions on those who have entered and left."
Jack and Tasuku took to the skies again, flying towards a group of Armordragons for further questioning.
While they made their way to the dragons, Viribus stood on the ledge that they had just left. He watched as the portal emanated its energy onto the life forms around it, he could feel the instability of the area around him caused by the portal and held his hand up to the air. Taking a breath out and feeling the slight disturbances in this world, the faint cyan glow on his hand flickering in and out while the wind continued to blow.
He couldn't get his magic to work in the area and put his hand back down, his grasp on the world fading as the portal's growth increased exponentially. Leaving Tasuku and Jack in the distance to quicken the evacuation to a further part of dragon world in hopes of avoiding the effects of the portal.
It's too late, Viribus thought as he took a bracelet from his pocket. The brown strip that ran along the dull metal changing colour to match the cyan glow on his hands. Sighing, he put the bracelet back on his left arm and looked back at the portal one last time. Faint red tendrils creeped out of it and moved around the air, searching for the threat.
Viribus closed his eyes, disappearing with a flash of cyan while a piece of paper blew around in the wind. Heading towards the direction of Jack and Tasuku as the rune inscriptions on it glowed in the wind.
Come on Axia, wake up.
Drum was still floating in the red liquid with no signs of land anywhere. He held Axia in his arms with the eye still looking at them, making sure that they would be completely unaffected by the effects of the crimson liquid.
Is there any way out of here? Drum thought, the vast expanse of the area made him feel small. The empty space being so large that even if he were to try and swim his way to land, it could just continue on forever. His presence being so small and insignificant that nothing he could do would matter.
Right then, the eye that watched over them lowered itself. The rays of indigo light shining brighter as it changed its appearance from an eye to a triangle. Moving downwards and surrounding Drum and Axia while repelling the red liquid from it, allowing the last few drops on Axia to run off his scales and free him from its control.
In a flash of purple, Drum found himself in a familiar guesthouse. The place in pristine condition with the sound of running water outside the place. He stood up and banged his head onto the ceiling, realising that everything back on earth was mostly designed for humans, not large Armordragons. Lowering his head, he sat back down on the floor and waited for Axia to wake up so that they could transform into their SD forms to regain their mobility.
Looking back at Axia, he couldn't believe the circumstances in which they were in. Thinking about him while falling asleep back on Dragon World and now having him asleep in his arms. He ran his fingers through Axia's golden hair, never having it cut even after all this time. Drum noticed a small notebook peeking out of Axia's pocket, much smaller than the spell book that he used to carry and having a black leather cover with the magic world flag on it.
Drum reached into Axia's pocket and grabbed the slightly charred book, slowly pulling it out of his pocket flipping it open to see what Axia has been up to. He found numerous symbols and descriptions for spells within it, each written in a language that Drum didn't understand aside from a word or two that looked similar to English words. Flipping through more pages of the book, he found more descriptions of monsters that he had never heard of before, their descriptions were written in English.
So this is what Axia has been up to all this time. Drum continued to read the Dragowizard's notes, not noticing the footsteps of an old friend who struggled to climb down the stairs of the guesthouse.
"Drum? Axia? What are you two doing here?"
Drum turned behind to see Kiri standing at the bottom of the stairs, a carrying a bag with them along with a suitcase on the ground.
"Oh, hi Kiri. We were sent by uhh, well I was…Actually I don't know how we got here."
"Oh, do you remember where you last were?" Kiri asked, taking a seat on the sofa and putting his suitcase beside him.
"Well, I was in some sort of dream and woke up in a red ocean. I found Axia holding onto be with an eye watching over us, but the rest is foggy."
"Huh, that's interesting…" Kiri said.
"Well, I'm actually moving out of here today. You could come along if you want to."
"Yeah, that's going to be a problem since I'm a bit tall for this place and I can't carry Axia in my SD from."
"Oh…"
Kiri received a call on her phone and excused himself to pick it up, Drum and Axia were left in the living room.
Well, guess it's just us now…
Drum continued to read through Axia's notebook, the various descriptions of monsters and spells he had never heard of or seen before. Some of the monsters looked like they might have some from Legend World given that they resembled many human myths and legends.
Though, there was a certain page that stopped the flow of thought once he saw it. The right side of the book had unknown inscriptions that were faintly glowing and on the right side of the book was an eye that looked like the eye that watched over them earlier.
Tracing the inscriptions, their faint glow luminesced upon contact with Drum's claw. The eye on the right side of the notebook illuminated with the inscriptions, it's glowing pupil looking back at Drum before looking around and examining its surroundings.
Before Drum could respond, the eyes of the sky blue dragon in front of him opened faster than he could blink. Reaching for his staff, Axia swung it at Drum and collided with his snout. The pain surging at his nose causing Drum to drop the notebook onto the ground and hold his muzzle in pain.
"Oowwww, what was that for?!" Drum exclaimed.
Axia's blinked for a few moments, eyes coated in disbelief at what he observed and stood there with his head tilted for a while. He was completely awestruck at the sight before him, Drum laying below him and holding his muzzle with a nosebleed he was trying to wipe off.
"D-Drumkins?" Axia muttered.
"Yeah, it's me and my snout you hit," Drum said. Placing his hand back onto the floor after rubbing off all the blood from his nose.
Axia continued to stare at him for a while before embracing him once again, arms tightly wrapped around Drum's bare torso and nuzzling into his chest. Drum subconsciously smiling as he held what he hoped was the back of Axia's head through his hair. The warmth of the other dragon spreading throughout his chest and slowing his heartbeat, calming his irritation from earlier of being hit by Axia's staff.
"I missed you Drumkins."
"I…I may have missed you too," Drum said. Trying to defend the remaining silver of his pride while his cheeks were a dusted pink.
"You missed me?" Axia looked up, watching Drum's expression closely while Drum looked away from Axia's gaze.
"Maybe…"
"Well I definitely missed you!" Axia said and planted his face back onto Drum's chest.
Wait…I'm not wearing my armour.
"Sorry about that, Stone Joker was-"
Kiri had walked right back in to find Axia nuzzling himself onto Drum who was blushing a shade closer to a rosy red.
"Am I walking in on something?"
"This is where they last were," Bolt said. He and Gao were riding on Yamigedo who circled the hexagonal portal.
Gao watched as the portal grew to swallow stone structures that had been standing for what was likely centuries before they arrived, all removed in a flash as it expanded. He kept searching around the portal, hoping that Drum had managed to get out of the portal when Yamigedo wasn't looking or that it was a different dragon and that Drum was helping the other Armordragons to evacuate from the area. However, all he could see were some armordragons moving further away from the portal and towards some unknown destination.
Shouldn't Drum's father be here? Gao thought as an idea sparked in hid head.
"Head towards the Armordragons, I have some questions to ask them," Gao said.
"Uhh, I'm not sure if we can do that," Bolt replied, scratching his nape.
"Why not? We aren't that far and I'm sure that Yamigedo can get there fast enou-"
…Oh.
"I don't think they'll be as nice to me and Yamigedo as you were to us…especially since they mostly saw you and the Omni Lords defeating a version of me…"
"Hey," Gao said and placed his hand on Bolt's shoulder.
"I'm sure they will understand if I'm here with you, they know that The Mighty Sun Fighter won't just be riding on a monster that's gonna hurt them."
Bolt looked back at Gao, the fire that burned in his eyes never went out in the darkest of times. Not even when Bolt himself felt like the world didn't deserve him for what he had done. Yet even with everything that they had gone through, he and his family were kind enough to let him visit and stay over despite still being wanted by the Buddy Police.
Bolt sighed as he smiled back at gao. Whatever gut feeling that Gao had about people, he never once heard of it being wrong. Looking back at Yamigedo, he made his decision.
"Alright Yamigedo, let's head towards those dragons over there," he said.
They turned towards the Armordragons and not long after, landed near them.
"You dare to show up an-Gao! Get away from them!" A familiar voice shouted.
Holding his spear, the white and gold armor that he wore made him indistinguishable from the crowd.
"Alliot! Calm down, Yamigedo is with me and isn't here to cause trouble."
Alliot kept his spear up, the other Armordragons ready for another battle against the ancient enemy of their world.
"They aren't going to attack you! They're just helping me in finding Drum!"
"How do we know that Yamigedo hasn't put you under its control?"
"Alliot, that's enough."
Fang Slade Terrestrial The XIII walked up from the crowd and placed his hand on the tip of Alliot's spear.
"But Sir-"
"If Gao says that they mean no harm, then no harm will come from them. You should know that after fighting alongside him and my son."
Alliot kept his stance for a few moments, gritting his teeth as the enemy in which he had fought to save Tenbu from was right in front of him. Eventually, he gave up and lowered his spear. The other Armordragons following suit as Fang Spade Terrestrial The XIII walked up to Gao and the mildly uncomfortable Bolt who remained on Yamigedo should things go south.
"I assume you are here because you're worried about Drum."
"Yes, Yamigedo saw him enter that portal and didn't see him get out. Is he here?"
"No, I asked him to look after his siblings and while they appeared outside the portal not long after, he hasn't."
Gao balled his fists, looking back at the growing portal before the sound of an engine whirring was behind him.
"Gao! Why his he here?" The Boy Wonder shouted. Descending from the sky as Jack had his knife extended out, ready for battle.
"He doesn't mean any harm!"
"Gao is right," another voice chimed in.
Everyone turned to the speaker who was a teenage boy wearing a turquoise cloak and jade bracelets around his arms. His eyes were a bright cyan that seemed to be as bright as the sunlight shining down on them.
"I know where Drum is, my name is Viribus."