Should probably get this all in before I have to sweep the snow off the front porch.

Knuckles belongs to Sega Corporation. Let's just go.

(Imira's POV)

I was all too satisfied to see Vinny Lee destroy Nep Wyvern with her pottery shard.

In fact, I was feeling pretty pleased – until the dying draco's geyser started to erupt on me.

Chase yelled, "Get down!"

I didn't argue with the naraka. I hollered, "Vinny Lee! Swing back!"

She didn't need to be told twice. She swung the hijab back over, and her feet just barely touched the rail. But she'd never been one to be discouraged by the danger of death. She just skipped down to the mezzanine floor with another couple of steps and unwrapped the hijab from her jacket.

I quickly pulled on the scarf, and it wound back to its normal length. I then threw the end of the hijab over my shoulder and ducked down, like Chase told me to – just before the water explosion occurred.

The geyser splattered us, sure, but it was nothing compared to the ballroom floor below. That got the worst of the flooding. Most of it splashed down into the pit in the ground, which was quick to claim it. I guess Chase was right about earth being the weakness of the hydrodraco. It sure didn't waste any time sucking up what was left of it. And frankly, I found Nep's scream of despair as he was sucked back down to the place he was buried quite satisfying.

Chase glanced up at the mezzanine after the water levels finally subsided. "Is everyone okay?"

"Sí," Vinny Lee replied. "We're good." She'd had the sense to duck and cover herself when the geyser erupted and was relatively dry. But I was glad Vinny Lee had answered that. With the adrenaline rush from fighting off the hydrodraco gone, I was starting to realize just how tired I was. Even I had limits, and I couldn't help feeling like I'd just pushed them too far today.

That was when DJ, Amos and Emilia came back in. None of the other guests were with them. They must still be outside the mansion, waiting to see whether it had collapsed. Or they were simply off the premises entirely, not wanting to stay around another minute. (I didn't blame them.)

Instead, there were three people with them – unearthly types. They wore white robes and animal-skin cloaks like Chase's uniform but wore necklaces with beads that looked like they'd been smelted from bullet casings. They were older, besides, with wispy beards that reminded me of Gandalf or Dumbledore or even the emperor from Mulan.

"The elders," I guessed. I sprang up and ran down the mezzanine, before remembering the hydrodraco had destroyed the stairs. In fact, he'd left a nice chasm in both – extending five feet and twenty feet deep. But I wasn't too worried – I'd done larger jumps in avatar training. (The avatars could be quite brutal when they trained us.) I leaped across the gap and continued down the stairs till I reached the floor.

Vinny Lee followed close behind, hugging her tote closely to her as she leaped across and then capping off her landing with a twirl (huge surprise).

Amos glanced around the trashed and sopping-wet ballroom. "Whoa, did I miss an epic water fight?"

"We kicked the hydrodraco's butt," I replied. I figured that would be enough of an explanation. "And what are they–" I pointed at the elders – "doing here?"

"We came here to retrieve Chase Mize," the guy in the center said. His necklace bore a blue jewel with a wave pattern on it.

I frowned. I didn't like where this was going.

"That's it?" I asked. "No congratulations on beating all three dracos in a single night, no pat on the back?"

"That remains to be seen, young human," said the elder on the right, who wore a black pendant with a whirling spiral. "There is no sign of the draco here, but several stray monsters lurking about. You should have headed back and reported back to us."

I felt like punching his face in. Reported in so what? They sent in another, more competent naraka? I got the sense that Chase was not in good standing with the elders. No wonder she was so insecure about human involvement.

"She took them out," DJ said, turning back to face the elder who'd spoken. "Doesn't that matter more than anything else?"

"Stay out of this, little human," the elder on the left spoke, with a white pendant with a lightning bolt design. "We shall decide–"

"HEY!" I shouted. I'm sorry, but I had been through a very stressful night, and I had had quite enough of this attitude – from Nep, from Chase, from everyone. "You weren't there when that went down. You have no right to throw her to the dogs for doing a good job!"

"She interfered with the mission," Blue Pendant said.

"Oh, and there weren't a bunch of dracos breaking out of their prison, eh? If it weren't for us, a lot more lives would have been lost."

The elders drew back – either because I was making a very good point, or because I was scaring them with my shouting. Probably the latter. I wasn't betting they'd actually take my point seriously, lowly human that I was.

"And furthermore, I've been sitting through a boring party, shocked by a keuranodraco, hiding out in a back hallway, assaulted by book guards, knocked out by a mefitis, kidnapped, imprisoned in a catacomb, forced to fight an aerodraco, trying to calm down my friend–" I took a breath. (Yes, I do have to breathe occasionally.) "Am I forgetting anything? Oh, yeah. And then I'm tricked by the hydrodraco and have to swing my friend down to kill it. Not to mention, I'm risking my parents' wrath just being down here after my curfew. And you just brush it all off like it doesn't even matter. I hope the youth pick up on that."

"Young human!" snapped Black Pendant. "Your insolence will render the mission forfeit as well–"

"Wow." That was Knuckles interposing. "Just – blasting – wow. I didn't think your prejudices got worse after the Werewolf King incident."

The elders' faces were stony hard. "It hardly matters what you say, avatar," White Pendant spoke. "Chase Mize jumped to eliminate the evidence–"

"Oh, so the dracos were evidence?" Amos growled irritably. Thankfully, he didn't look angry enough to flare (again). "I thought they were the suspects of all the activity."

"The pyrobear and the book guards," Blue Pendant spoke. "They could have proven the disturbances at the place–"

"Actually, they wouldn't prove anything at all. I didn't recall monsters ever being willing to disclose that info. They'd just kill you. And if I'm right, you would have done the same thing if they threatened you."

The elders winced like they definitely hadn't been expecting that answer from a lowly human.

"They've had plenty of experience with this," Knuckles said firmly. "Also, you send a lowly naraka to commit to a problem that you haven't checked in centuries, with monsters you haven't known were loose for two years? No wonder she needed human help to beat it. As if you were going to."

The elders glared at Knuckles.

"Shoten," he said, addressing Blue Pendant, "Rizaku–" he pointed toward Black Pendant – "Tamaxi–" he nodded at White pendant – "the heroes of the narakai. Perhaps five hundred years ago? Someone should have watched those dracos. Maybe then we wouldn't be having this discussion."

"You chose not to come with us," Shoten said coldly. "You will not be involved in–"

He was rudely interrupted by a flash of multicolored light. It swirled around where we were in a hurricane of color. I recognized it as the light of the Eye, the Vortex's tesseract/hideout, and I knew the elders were in for quite the scolding. (The Vortex really did not like people questioning his appointments.)

Smoke materialized on the ground where we were standing and began forming itself into a human shape. The elders caught sight of it and drew back. One (Tamaxi, I think?) muttered something in the narakai tongue (Narakan? Narakai-ese?) that I was quite glad I couldn't translate.

Finally, the Vortex materialized in his human form – a handsome, pale-skinned young man with dark hair and light clothes. His eyes continually shifted colors, reflecting every eye color of his creations, the avatars – blue, violet, brown, green, gray, and hazel.

"Forgive us," Rizaku murmured, his face pale with fear. "We didn't–"

"Chase took the initiative," the Vortex spoke. "She and my chosen ones banished the dracos from the mansion. They have cleared it of the monsters that were plaguing it and its guests – have you not sensed their retreat? And you three have the gall to discount her errand because of something as trivial as the fact she needed human help to take them down? That she might have winged it with the keuranodraco because she did not have the materials? That she improvised with the latter two because there was no advice on how to get rid of them?"

"Oh, that is so on you, amigos," Vinny Lee commented.

"Silence!" Shoten yelled.

He should not have snapped at her. The Vortex grabbed him by the blue water charm around his neck.

"Shoten!" he growled. "I chose her personally. Or are you still sore about the Yamajogis?"

"The Yamajogis?" I asked. I recalled Chase bringing up the Portal Heroes fighting alongside them. Out of the names of the Portal Heroes – a set of middle-school-aged children who'd defeated a local New York gang and were active for four years after that – I remembered that being among the names. I'd been a little younger, but I remembered well. Was there some sort of competition there?

"And Vinny Lee is right," the Vortex continued, his voice growing fierce. "Withholding information about an enemy is the same as claiming it cannot be beaten. Chase and VLADJI – and my own creation, too–" he gestured at Knuckles – "have just proven it can be done. Are you going to disprove them just because it was not wholly your own?"

All three elders backed up.

"I would like to hear this victory recorded," he continued, his tone quite mischievous. "I will visit my Siren. She has an excellent singing voice. She will sing their praises for all time, throughout the earth. I will tell her what a wonderful thing that has happened. I would like to hear the ode of the people who banished the dracos from Norgate mansion."

The elders fell silent.

"And most importantly, you will not be a part of it. Since you refused to acknowledge their victory, I will not acknowledge your part in it."

The Vortex waved his hand, and two portals materialized at once. "These portals lead back to your camp. Chase will take one, and you three shall take the other. Since you cannot recognize her as a competent naraka, you cannot travel with her."

"Ooh, you're segregated by your arrogance," Amos commented.

The elders shot a cold look at us, then a fearful one at the Vortex. They then went through the portal on the left.

"Happy trails!" I shouted sarcastically as the Vortex closed their portal.

"Well, if that's that," Chase said. "Can I say something before I go?"

Well, what is there to say? We'll have to see.

Verse for the update: Isaiah 55:1.

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