"I knew this day would come, but I must say, I didn't imagine it'd be so soon," Aurora said casually. Her tone worried me. She didn't seem distressed in the slightest. In fact, if I had to take a bit of a speculative liberty, I would almost say she sounded pleased.

But who could possibly suggest such a thing? Certainly not me, Nimbus of the Skywings.

"I'm not sure what sort of game you think you're playing, but it won't work," Tempest said, his tone changing from very mildly friendly to what sounded like when your little brother ate a roasted goat you were saving for lunch.

Not happy.

"You can't hide from me. You must have known that this would have happened eventually."

Aurora had squared her stance, and frankly, looked ready to beat someone up. I kind of doubted that it would be her doing the beating up, though. I backed into the stone, only the front end of my head poking out. I know I am making lots of jokes, but this is a very tense moment. Start feeling tense. Now.

Tempest started approaching slowly, and Star walked up carefully to back Aurora up. Hammerhead and Dusk followed, if not a bit reluctantly. They knew the kind of power that Tempest held in his claws.

He didn't take much time after approaching to be theatrical about it. He wound up his fist and punched Aurora in the face, with what looked like the force of an extinction-level event behind it. She was blown back into the wall, but by the time she reached it, she was little more than a blob of guts and blood.

No one screamed in terror, no one ran, no one did anything. We all just stared, eyes wide, silent. Afraid. Helpless. Then, I looked to Tempest's horn. He still had the ring on.

I knew he didn't need it to control my corporeal body, so I wondered why he wore it. Probably just because it looked nice. Then, an idea struck me, like a bolt of lightning.

"Star," I said. My voice quavered, and was a good amount quieter than I would have liked. He heard me, however, and looked at me. His eyes welled.

I pointed to the horn. He looked like he got it instantly.

Once Tempest was destroying Dusk and Hammerhead, distracted and full of a false sense of safety, Star whisked the horn ring off his head and put it on.

An enormous shockwave decimated the entire cave and created a crater about a hundred feet in circumference as soon as he put it on. Tempest had let his guard down, and was now paying the price.

"Well, isn't this familiar?" Possessed Star said, tears still falling from the murder of his friends. I couldn't cry, but I was basically crying. Just without the water.

"You–how–this can't be happening! I wouldn't kill myself!" Tempest said, sort of losing it. He was not focusing on charging up his powers, and only looked angry and confused.

"You don't understand the spell," Star said. An enormous aura lit up the night, almost the size of the crater itself. As Star charged down and hit Tempest with an extinction punch that rippled the ground like a puddle that someone dropped a pebble into, he said, "The spell summons a version of yourself that's only goal is to eliminate any threat to the wearer. This goal is to be accomplished by any means necessary. Even if I have to destroy the entire world to do it."

Suddenly, he vanished. The three moons were shining in the night, but not nearly as bright as the dragon that was once there. The dragon who led Tempest to us was obviously dead from the blast, as were likely all dragons on this side of the planet. I was thinking about it now, and maybe that was not a very good idea. Hopefully there will be a spell at the end to undo all this damage or something. Hopefully.

For a good thirty seconds, Star's enchanted planet-killing self did not reappear. Looking back at Tempest, I could see that he was alive, but definitely not going anywhere. He had been completely crushed by the impact, despite his most powerful shielding spell. There were some things too strong even for animus magic to protect from. However, he was alive, which was an insane display of strength. A hit hard enough to destroy an entire planet was nothing to scoff at.

However, he had seen better days. He was gushing blood, and his jaw was at a ninety-degree angle to the rest of his face.

Suddenly, I felt a rumble, and a loud indescribable throbbing noise came from the sky. When I looked up, one of the moons looked considerably bigger, and it was definitely not getting any smaller. It continued to grow– or as I realized, get closer– until it covered most of the sky. I saw Star fly down and land next to me. It was at that moment that he became himself again.

"Hey. So, uh, we're lucky you can't die, or I would have definitely killed you. Now listen, because one of the moons is about to hit the planet, and we've gotta hurry," he said quickly. He produced a tangerine from a pouch. It was crazy, everyone had pouches nowadays but ol' Nimbus. Geez, when did this become so popular?

"This is enchanted by Aurora. Whenever you, and specifically you, eat it, time is rewound to the moment before you entered Jade mountain. You retain all your memories from what happened here, and we were hoping that maybe you could set us all off on better paths. Does that make sense? Anyway, you'll want to eat that. Right now. But, in the case that it doesn't work, I want to say, you've been a good friend. And, uh, Thanks. For everything," he said. A single tear dripped down his face, and the moon was seconds from striking the planet when I bit into the tangerine.