Null awoke to a throbbing headache and an aching back.

He immediately noticed the change in scenery, the difference between the skyship and the forest was pretty noticeable. He had no idea how he had awoken in a forest after being knocked unconscious in Krawl's office, but at least it was a positive change.

The second thing Null noticed was that he was laying on Apex.

Apex, who was contorted into a very clearly painful position. Apex, who was even larger than when Null had last seen him. Apex, who was laying in a crater with his wings broken.

Null was very, very careful in climbing down from his position on Apex's chest. He didn't want to risk stepping on a broken wing, or aggravating a potentially broken spine, or anything like that. For a brief, horrific moment Null was reminded of that day when the goliath attacked, when his mother lay broken on the ground in a similar position. But Apex was still breathing clearly, his lungs intact and his heartbeat steady. He was stable. He was alive.

But Null couldn't move him.

Apex was too big, and his condition was unknown. His spine could be broken, or his ribs poking into vital organs. Even if Null could lift him, he didn't want to risk doing so.

Null stepped around Apex's unconscious form, moving towards one tightly clenched paw. He gently pulled Apex's paw open, wincing at what he saw.

It had been a tiny statuette of Apex, Null knew. But it no longer resembled anything. It was a pile of splinters and woodchips, digging between scales to bury themselves in Apex's paw. It looked like the figurine had been smashed into pieces, crushed by immense weight. The only piece left intact was the head, but that was just as bad. The eyes were gone, scorched out as if by fire.

Null gave it some thought, and quickly realized what the statue actually was. It was a protective talisman, meant to take injuries for the holder. It was the only reason Apex had survived his impact with the ground - and thus the only reason Null hadn't suffered a similar fate. The beetles had saved both their lives.

But how had Apex gotten so high in the air in the first place? Had he managed to get the wing braces off and carried Null all this way? That didn't make sense. The holes in Apex's wings were consistent with the wing braces - worse, even. Those wings couldn't fly. And the statue…

Null swallowed and used the pad of one paw to gently lift one of Apex's eyelids. What stared back at him was a mess, it could hardly be called an eye. Null lowered Apex's eyelid back down, his paws shaking now. Apex had been ripped to shreds, either by the arena or by whatever had gotten the two of them here. But he was alive, and Null was eternally thankful for that.

It took the better part of an hour to identify all of Apex's wounds without risking any damage to his body. His wings were broken, the membrane torn clean through. He had a multitude of scratches, scrapes, bruises, and other flesh wounds. Splinters in one paw, which Null painstakingly removed one by one. His bones were mostly fine, only his wings were actually broken. And of course, his eyes were mangled.

That was… good news, actually. Significantly better than expected. Null himself only had a throbbing headache, an aching belly, and a sore back, and at least he knew what had caused those. A couple of things about Apex's condition were exceptionally concerning, though. For various reasons.

His eyes would never be the same. Null wasn't sure if spirit gems could mend that. Though if he could pull off another stunt like he had with the boread scar, perhaps they would heal on their own.

Speaking of the scar, it was gone. Not harder to see or fully healed, gone. Like it had never existed. This was a good thing, obviously, but it shouldn't have been possible.

Which brought him to the final thing that truly concerned Null. Apex's wings. Not the broken bones or the torn membrane - both of those could feasibly be mended with time and magic. No, it was the small lumps sprouting below Apex's wings that were worrying. It shouldn't have been possible. Physical mutations existed, yes, but no dragon had four wings. No dragon ever grew another set of wings.

Whatever. It was… it was odd but it didn't need immediate attention. Those wings did. They needed to be splinted ASAP. Fortunately, he was in a forest. Plenty of sticks to create splints. The hard part was acquiring something to tie the splints together, which proved easier than expected thanks to an odd quirk of the trees: the bark pulled off in long, fibrous strings.

That did tell him roughly where they were, thankfully. These trees only grew in mountainous forests between the Ancient Grove and Warfang, around the valley of Avalar. They'd gotten closer to their destination, even if it was through the most painful, circuitous route possible.

With Apex's wings splinted, Null now had a more important issue on his hands: getting him to shelter. He couldn't carry Apex. He had been able to once, right after the boread, but since then Apex had grown by a significant amount, maybe double his previous mass. Null, comparatively, hadn't noticeably changed. The first time had already been a fluke. Lifting him now wasn't happening.

The only options were to either construct a shelter over Apex or to wake him up. The latter wasn't really an option - Apex needed to rest and he would be in immense pain while awake - which meant all he could really do was start building a makeshift shelter over Apex.

It gave Null time to think. All their stuff was gone. No map, no food or water, no rope, no backup gems, nothing. But they were alive, and they were closer to Warfang than before, dropped out of the sky, based on the damage to the trees and the crater.

The grenade had worked, at least. He'd seen it destroy a significant amount of the ship before he'd lost consciousness. That had shown him that he wasn't immune to the physical effects of magic, but highly resistant. If an earth dragon threw a boulder at him, he would probably still get flattened into paste. But he hadn't been burned like Krawl had, which was a positive. The grenade was supposed to ignite the internal magic of anyone in range, along with the blast of concussive force. Since Null had no magic, well, no burn.

Why would someone design a bomb to destroy magic more efficiently than physical matter? That didn't make much sense. A distress beacon and a mana bomb, in the same instructions, designed for dragons and only dragons to use and packaged in a container meant to survive devastation and destruction. Something bad must have happened thousands of years ago, something that needed very specific tools to be accessible no matter what happened.

Null stepped away to look at his handiwork. He had created a roof over the crater, just large enough to cover Apex from any rain or excess sun. He dug a little ditch around the edge, to funnel any rainwater away from the crater itself. Hopefully it would suffice.

Now he just needed to get something to eat. Apex would be starving when he awoke, so he had to get something substantial. Rabbits won't do, so…

O-O-O

The sun was much lower in the sky when Null killed the deer. He was tired, hungry, and hurting, but he figured that by this point Apex would be feeling much the same. With no better options, Null picked up the deer and draped it over his back, then started walking.

He paused as he got closer to where he had left Apex. He could hear something moving through the brush. It could be Apex, but it didn't smell like it. It smelled of rot and death and bitter burning acid.

On spotting it, he realized that he had been right. It wasn't Apex. Yes, it had white scales, and it wore his face, but it wasn't him. Its mangled eyes stared blankly at him, blood and tears mixing in a stream that ran down its decaying muzzle. Scales were missing in large patches, bone poked through its skin, and its wings were little more than scraps of skin and scales dangling from misshapen limbs.

"...You're not Apex," Null said calmly. It was trying to scare him, and he refused to let it. "Stop pretending to be."

And as soon as he defied it, the apparition was gone without a trace. It took the acidic scent with it.

Null let out a heavy sigh, then continued to where Apex actually lay. Apex hadn't moved since Null had awakened, which on one paw meant that he hadn't disturbed the splints but on the other meant that he might be out for a lot longer. Either way, he would wait until Apex awoke on his own.

Null's stomach rumbled.

Of course, there was no point waiting on Apex to eat. Null could easily eat his fill and still leave an appropriate amount for Apex. So he did, and when he was done eating most of the deer was still there.

With nothing to do but wait, Null moved under the roof he had built and laid down. All he could really do was hope that Apex pulled off another miraculous recovery. Somehow.

Null closed his eyes to rest -

Something screamed.

Null's eyes snapped open. It was night now, time slipping past in what felt like a single moment. He was exhausted, but if something dangerous was coming he needed to address it immediately. Before it got to Apex.

It screamed again, and something about it made Null nervous. It was the pain in that scream, the agony of whatever was screaming was clear in its vocalizations. But just as present was the sense of malice. Of a creature hunting for its next meal.

The next scream was closer.

Null was all the way up now, on his feet and looking into the forest. He couldn't see anything, not yet, but he could hear it. The heavy thumping sounds of its movement were uneven, as though its body was misshapen or unbalanced. It smelled like an elemental, the acidic scent noticeable even from here. It was heading towards him and Apex. Slowly but steadily. After a moment its footsteps stopped, then accelerated.

What burst from the brush was indeed a lumpy and misshapen creature. Made of stone, or possibly hardened clay, its bipedal structure looked like it was shaped by rather clumsy hands. The outer shell was segmented, to allow its lumpy limbs to move at all, but still managed to cover it entirely. Null wasn't expecting it when the plates of stone that covered its head pulled back, revealing a skull leering back at him. Little points of crimson light hovered in its eye sockets, and its jaw dropped open in a horrific scream.

Waves of crimson energy washed over Null, and… did nothing. He was immune to the fear magic. All it had done was give him a rush of adrenalin, and now that he was properly awake he was able to dodge the clumsy swing of its stone limb.

It was a banshee, Null realized. An elemental of fear that hunted using screams that were supposed to paralyze their foes. Why an elemental would hunt was beyond him - they were creatures of magic with no need for sustenance. Perhaps -

Another clumsy swing that he scrambled away from. Not the time to ponder the dietary habits of elementals. He could avoid these slow swipes all day, but there were no openings. He wasn't about to break his claws or tailblade on solid stone.

Banshees were supposed to be bodiless, hovering about and drifting on the winds. This thing was… not that. It was slow, clumsy. Bound to earth as well as-

Revenant. The word popped to the forefront of Null's mind. Frequently regarded as the living dead, their presences inflicted paralyzing fear, their bodies indestructible. They hunted living creatures to add to their own mass, becoming truly unkillable with enough time. Perhaps the common myth was wrong. Not undead, but elementals. Elementals of fear and earth at the same time, harvesting mass and slaughtering indiscriminately like so many elementals did.

It seemed the revenant was realizing quickly that its standard methods weren't working. Null was immune to its paralyzing aura, due to the nature of fear magic being purely energy-based. So it changed tactics. One of its arms opened like a horrible flower, revealing a lump of conjoined bone instead of a hand. Sharp points began to poke out of the mass, and darts the length of Null's leg shot out at terrible speeds.

A gust of wind threw the darts away, and Null was only able to steal a single glance at Apex.

With eyes like luminous white pools and scales darker than the shadows around him, Apex rose to his feet. He stalked forwards, wind whipping up around him and dark purple energy crackling from his claws. When he spoke, it was with two voices at once.

"You will not hurt Null," Apex snarled.

The revenant turned, a new target visible to it. Its face opened, crimson energy gathering for another scream. Apex wasn't immune to fear magic, even with whatever he had going on. Null leaped, wrapping himself about the head of the revenant just as it screamed. The crimson energy washed over him, and Null felt energized. He squeezed, and just as he felt the bone begin to give the stone plates slid back into place and forced him to back off or lose a limb.

Apex pushed forwards, a steady stream of wind slamming into the revenant. The air stream flowed harmlessly off of its stone armor, but it made the revenant slower. It could not make headway while Apex was blasting it with wind.

It was a stalemate. Null could block any fear magic it attempted, but he couldn't get a solid grip on anything important. Apex had rendered it immobile, but he was unable to damage it with wind magic. Its armor was too strong.

"Die. Die, die, die!" Apex reared back, opening his mouth wide. For a moment Null thought he would use more wind, but what he did was impossible. Purple lightning crackled for a brief moment in Apex's maw, then a bolt slammed into the revenant with a thunderous crack! Stone splintered and exploded away, scoured by destructive magic and revealing bone beneath. Another bolt of purple lightning broke the reinforced bone, and in the blasted hole left behind Null could see the elemental's heart. The dark crystal roiled, something moving just beneath the surface of the gemstone.

Null lunged, diving into the windstream to accelerate himself. His claws wrapped around the crystal and the revenant stilled. Its head reared back and it let out one final, pitiful whine before its body collapsed into a pile of stone and bone shards.

Null let the dead crystal slip from his claws, panting. Fighting elementals was a rush, but it was a pain for it to happen in the middle of the night. He'd give up the exhilaration in a moment if it meant he'd never see another one of these blasted things. After a moment to catch his breath, Null turned towards Apex.

The wind dragon was staring with blind, scarred eyes. His scales were white again, wisps of black draining out of them and vanishing into nothing. He was panting heavily, exhausted from recent events, but he still stood. After a moment he blinked, then closed his eyes and kept them that way.

"Null?" Apex asked quietly, "Is it dead?"

"Yeah," Null replied. "Yeah it's dead."

"That's… that's good." Apex's stomach rumbled. "I'm hungry."

"I brought a deer," Null said. He nudged Apex's side to direct him towards the deer corpse still laying on its side. He sniffed the deer, then shrugged. "Doesn't smell spoiled. No bugs yet."

"Honestly, I wouldn't care if it was." Apex trudged over and opened his mouth to take a bite, only to hesitate.

"Is something wrong?" Null asked.

"I missed you." Apex's voice was quiet, but thick with emotion. "Every day. I was worried about you."

"I'm sorry," Null replied softly, "I should have come to visit, but I was so busy and I just wanted to get out of there…"

"I understand."

"We… we have a lot to talk about tomorrow," Null said.

"Yeah." Apex's stomach complained loudly, and he winced. "I, uh, I'm going to eat now."

"I'm going back to sleep, if that's okay."

"Okay." Apex nodded. "Goodnight, Null."

"Goodnight, Apex."

Null curled up in the crater, closing his eyes. He felt exhausted, but at the same time he was relieved beyond words. He would ask Apex about that purple lightning tomorrow, and everything else as well. For now he could sleep easy, knowing that his best friend was alright.

A/N:

A gift from a friend can make all the difference, even if you didn't know it when they gave it to you. A single chance encounter can redirect your course from doom to success. And if you're not lucky, landing in the wrong place can put you up against something you have no tools to handle. But in times of crisis, new skills can emerge.

In other words, something's going on with Apex.