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Chapter 3: The Desert Oasis

The sun rose, and the oasis glittered in its light. Studley stared at it from his place at the front of the wagon, his eyes wide and his mouth open at the sight of so much water spread out before him. For a moment, he wondered if they had somehow turned towards the coast without realizing it, but the desert sand still surrounded the sides of the oasis, so they must still be in the great desert. Yet, without any sign of the end of the oasis in sight, stretching out into the distance, he could not help but stare. The desert should have swallowed such a bounty in days, but the rumors said that it had remained for nearly three weeks by now.

"Rannoi, how are you doing this?" the wolf in human skin muttered under his breath. He shook his head as he turned to look over his shoulder. "Are you seeing this, Idesin?"

"I'm seeing it, but I don't know if I believe it," the other Wonder muttered. "And here I was thinking we'd seen the best he had back in Iberia. Something's going on if he can pull something like this off."

"Preaching to the choir, Idesin," he muttered. "Preaching to the choir."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Something obvious...Eh, maybe it'll catch on someday."

"Heh, maybe. It's got a nice sound to it." Idesin chuckled a bit before turning back to the water. "But still, if he's got the power to do that, we better hope he's not feeling too angry about seeing the two of us."

That was the sticking point, wasn't it? Studley knew that the council wanted them to bring Rannoi back before he did anything too big, but by now, was there really a point in trying to hide anything? The dragon had broken the most powerful tribe in the Iberian Peninsula, had converted more monasteries into brothels than he really wanted to count, and had singlehandedly managed to set off witch hunts all over Europe with his antics. It seemed kind of late to try and pull off some damage control for what he'd done, let alone try and stop him from doing anything else. And for that matter, Studley wasn't entirely sure that he wanted to.

After all, with all the things that Rannoi had done, it showed that there was no need to stick to the island. The council was worried about them all being exposed, about how humanity might take it into their heads to destroy them for what they could do. They feared that their powers wouldn't be enough to stand up to the sheer numbers that the humans could bring against them, and what few changes they could bring about wouldn't be worth their eventual destruction.

Yet, this was the evidence that they could stand on their own. The Wonders didn't have to hide. They didn't have to pull back to the island and stay there for the rest of their lives. Rannoi had proven that they could take their lives out in the open world, and they could change things for the better. Of course, they'd need to be smarter about it, but with the sheer level of power that the dragon had discovered, they had more than a fighting chance. They had a way to become the dominant force on the planet, if they wanted.

"Hey. Hey, Studley." The otter poked him in the shoulder, and he turned to look at him. "I can guess what you're thinking. Don't even."

"Don't even what?" he asked.

"You know." The otter held a finger in front of Studley's nose. "You're thinking the same thing I am. That we could get off the island and spend our lives out here."

"Duh."

Rolling his eyes, Idesin said, "Look, I know that we both want it. I sure as hell know I'm getting bored back there...except for the sex. The sex is fun." He cleared his throat. "But we don't know how he's doing this. He might be doing something that's just...wrong. And if he's doing something like killing people and using their blood and life to change people, do you really want to do the same thing?" Studley arched an eyebrow, but the otter didn't let go of the topic. "You know it's a possibility. Or at least you should. You pulled off something impossible with that girl back in Japan, and I don't know what that's going to mean for you later. Rannoi pulled off a lot of impossible things. He could be doing something that's absolutely wrong."

"Do you think that I did something that was wrong back there, Idesin?" he asked.

"No, no, I think that you helped that girl a lot. She'll probably do a lot of good back there." Idesin looked towards the oasis again. "But the transformation of the army had to take a ton of power, more than anything we've seen before. And then to do this, just a little bit later? We both know that's not natural, even considering how unnatural we are."

"What do you want me to do, promise that I'm not going to do anything before we find out how he did anything?"

"That'd be a good start, yeah."

"Well, fine." Studley shrugged his shoulders. He wanted to find that out anyway, so that wasn't any skin off of his nose. "We'll find out how the hell Rannoi did this, THEN we figure out how we're going to deal with him. Is that good enough for you?"

"...For now."

The otter nodded, ducking back into the wagon with a shake of his head. Studley could make out the otter's mouth moving a few times, probably muttering under his breath and thinking about how they could handle it. He dismissed it, turning back to the amazing sight in front of him. If they were going to figure this out, he needed to be alert and paying attention, not thinking of what his friend was doing in the back of the wagon.

One of the caravan drivers made small talk while driving the wagon into the big encampment at the side of the oasis, but Studley was more attentive to the things happening around them than to what the man was saying, and he soon shut up. His eyes flicked this way and that, taking in all of the people that were milling around, going between tent and stall and rugs, seeing if there was anyone familiar. Rannoi had a great deal of disguises, many different human forms. Anybody walking around could be the dragon in disguise.

With so many people doing so many things, however, there was nothing for him to find. All he could do was stare at the individuals that were close enough to make out, and then look around to see if any of the tents looked like they were transformed or made with the power of a Wonder. He peered at one of the nearby silk tents, a little bit of light sparkling in his eyes as he examined it as they passed by.

A return flicker made his eyes go wide. "I'll catch up later," Studley muttered to the driver, leaping off of the wagon and into the crowd. Robed men, cloth swathed women, and all sorts of other people bumped into him as he forced his way through the waves of buyers and sellers. Some shouted at him for attention, but he ignored them. Others touched his arm, trying to get him to come over and see what they had to sell. Them, he shoved out of the way, regardless of the shouting that followed him afterwards.

Eventually he reached the side of the tent. He pressed his hand against the side, and immediately recognized the feel of something that had been transformed. A tint of golden light shone through the entire thing now that he was close enough to see it, and he could feel an otherworldly warmth under his fingers as he ran his hand along the side of it. But the tent itself wasn't big enough or grand enough to be something that belonged to the dragon...

Studley backed up from the tent, slowly turning in place. As he looked at the various tents, they started to glow in his vision. One after another, they shimmered with the power of a Wonder, each one having been something else before they were turned into something rich and shimmering like they currently were. His jaw slowly dropped as he spun in place, looking for one tent, any tent that didn't show the same golden hue under the color of the fabric that made it up.

Not one did. Not a one of them were natural. Every single one of them had been touched by the power of a Wonder.

"This can't be right," he whispered under his breath. "This is..."

"This is the Oasis, sir. There is very little right or wrong here."

Studley turned around to see the source of the voice, a little old man in a black robe. He had a beard that ran down to his chest, and thick bushy eyebrows that danced while he talked. "You are new here, are you not?"

"Yes...yes I am." He heard footsteps behind him, and knew without looking that the otter had transformed and followed him out of the wagon. "Um...I hope you don't think I'm completely out of line here, but what do you mean, there's very little right or wrong here?"

"Exactly that." The old man chuckled a bit. "Ever since we made our homes around the water, we've learned many things. We've learned that there is nothing in the old books to bind our behavior. We've discovered that there is nothing to hold us accountable save for ourselves. Our own common decency is the only binding law that we have. And we've learned that there is little difference between ourselves and those around us, save for what we choose to see."

"That sounds...very vague," Studley said. "Do you mind explaining a little bit clearer?"

"And could you tell us how you discovered this?" Idesin asked.

Smiling, the old man gestured for them to follow him. "I'll explain while we walk, if you don't mind. I have a little shopping to do, and I am still old enough to want to be inside during the noon sun." They nodded, falling into step behind him as he took them through the surprisingly large settlement that had grown around the oasis.

"You see, I've been here since the shaman arrived and raised the water from the earth," he explained as he gathered pieces of fruit and dried meat from various stalls. "I've seen what he can do, and I've learned the truth of what he says. We really don't have that many differences between us, all told. The white men from the land in the north aren't that different from us, nor are the women that different from the men. We have had...heh...extensive lessons about that, before we were allowed to really go back to our business.

"But he's done so much for us besides showing us how similar we are. He's also given us a way to be free, a way so that we can all be equal, and have the same choices as everyone else. Here, around the oasis, nobody stands any higher than anyone else, and there's nothing that allows us to actually say that this person deserves to be poor, or that person deserves to be rich. All that happens is based on our own choices, our own decisions of how we lives."

"But how does that mean that there's no right or wrong? It sounds like you still have something like that," Idesin said. "What if someone kills someone else?"

"That's part of the freedom of choice and equality here," the old man said. "There's every chance that someone will try. But that doesn't mean that there isn't a way to defend ourselves. And the shaman seems to know anyone that would dare try something like that, and he has his ways of being there to stop them if they actually try to kill someone."

"I'll just bet," Studley muttered under his breath. The shaman had to be Rannoi. "Did the shaman come here with anyone else? A woman, perhaps?"

The old man chuckled a bit, pausing at another stand. It glowed gold as well, just like everything else that they had passed. "Oh, is she the reason you're here? If you're looking for a partner for some prince up north, you better not bother; she's been attached to his hip ever since he arrived. I'm not sure that they've been apart at all since the water came."

Sensible, Studley thought to himself. There was little danger to the two of them as long as they stayed together. Regardless of the dragon's power, he doubted that the bond between them had been disregarded. Mirari allowed the dragon to work on larger crowds, and the dragon kept the strange woman focused. They both improved the other, and they were worse for their parting.

Still, it meant that getting to the dragon and dealing with him if he'd gone off the deep end would be more difficult. He turned his head towards the otter, arching an eyebrow. "So, what do you think we should do with our old friend?"

"You know him?" the old man asked.

"Yeah, we know him," Idesin said. He shook his head. "The only thing I can think of is to go see him and ask what the hell is going on. There's not going to be a lot of sneaking around for much longer, if he can do this."

"Hmmm, I don't know about that..." Studley smiled. "Rannoi might have gotten a lot stronger, but he does have this whole place glowing like the sun from what I can see. A little more transformation probably wouldn't be immediately seen."

"What do you have in mind?"

#

"I don't think the old man was expecting this, Studley," Idesin muttered.

"Neither do I. That's what makes it fun." He chuckled, watching as the old man walked off in a different direction. Though their former guide was looking away, he knew that the old man's eyes were glazed over, a side effect from the bit of fiddling he'd done. He wouldn't remember them, at least not until the bit of Wonder magic Studley had left in him took effect.

In the meantime, the two of them hurried through the town in the other direction, heading towards the water. Idesin continued to shake his head at him, but Studley ignored the otter. Sometimes, when things started getting serious, they needed to make uncomfortable decisions. If things were quieter, if Rannoi hadn't already done so much, he might have hesitated about using the old man to help them out. As it was, he didn't think that they had much choice. They needed a distraction, and this was their best chance.

That didn't mean that it was easy to push through all the people in the streets. They moved in circles around this side of the oasis, walking back and forth between the different streets, while the two of them needed to move forward towards the water. It took more than a little effort to force his way through the crowd, and he was pretty sure that Idesin only followed behind due to the hole that he was able to make in the crowd.

And to top it all off, it was hot as hell. As they reached the edge of another street, Studley paused in the shadow of a large tent, rubbing his forehead. "Of all the places to set up shop, Rannoi had to pick a desert. Why couldn't he have picked something cooler?"

"He's a dragon. They like heat." His friend's voice was tight with annoyance as well, and Studley almost thought that Idesin was handling the heat worse than him. The loose wool clothes that they'd picked up in Iberia had been sweated through almost completely, and his fellow Wonder looked less than happy. If he'd been in otter form, he was pretty sure that Idesin's tail would have been drooping.

But they couldn't stop. They needed to be as close to the water as possible when the distraction went off. If he was right, and Rannoi had done what he thought he had, then they'd find all the information they needed at the center of the oasis.

They hurried past several more tents, several layers of streets and merchants and homes closer to the oasis before their distraction began.

A great explosion of golden light erupted from the streets behind them, bright enough to be seen even against the morning light that peaked over the forest of tents. Studley shuddered at the sheer power that broke over the tents, clenching his teeth as the shockwave washed over him. Several tents that had been near the source of the explosion went flying overhead, and he could make out a few people going through some of the tents as well, knocked back by the massive force behind the magical charge.

"Think maybe you overdid it?" Idesin muttered as the light soaring upwards started to take shape.

"...Maybe a little." He had to admit, he hadn't thought that the transformation would have been quite that explosive. After all, he was just pushing someone else to transform like the Wonders did...But then again, he'd never turned another Wonder into something like this.

The light rushed further and further over the tents, stretching more than fifty feet into the sky before it started to form a coherent shape. Great wings of gold flared out over the encampment, and Studley couldn't quite hide a smirk as other features began to form. A hooked beak for tearing slowly pushed forward out of the head at the top of the light shape, and he knew that the ground would shortly be ripped up by the solidifying talons that were even now pushing out of the golden shape.

As the gold started fading into white, Studley grabbed his friend, pulling him along again. "That transformation isn't going to last forever, you know. We need to get moving while they're dealing with that."

"Just what did you transform that guy into, anyway?" Idesin asked, looking over his shoulder. "I've never seen anything like that."

"A roc." He chuckled. "Just a young one, though; I don't think we need to make things too difficult, and a full grown one would take forever to actually chase off or transform back."

"For you, or for Rannoi?"

"Both, I'd hope. Now come on."

The shriek of the roc whistled over the camp, almost drowning out the screams of the people around. All around the two of them the people of the oasis ran, some running away from the great bird, others rushing towards it, but all of them running. Not a single person walked, not a single person hesitated to move. It was one of the things about terror among humans, he'd found. It very seldom actually stopped them from doing something. All it did was make them do things that they'd normally never consider.

They passed many people. They saw a merchant that was shoving all of his stock into a bunch of crates before throwing them into a wagon. They saw a cluster of lightly armed people organizing a cluster of people, handing out rocks and other weapons that they could find to fight back. And they saw a dozen women that worked together to organize the children in the tents, gathering together and running towards the water.

But the strangest things they saw were a group of robed figures. Idesin spotted them first, pointing them out with a gesture of his tail, and for a moment, Studley wasn't sure what was so off about them. They were just people wearing robes...with hoods...who kept their faces covered up...

He adjusted course, running down the street instead of across it. People rushed at either side, but they weren't running across their path anymore, so it was easier going. The hooded figures turned towards him, and for a split second, they started to raise their hands.

Then he was upon them. Grabbing hold of one of their hoods Studley ripped it down, and was met with a furred muzzle staring back at him. His eyes widened slightly, and he stared as the other robed figures lifted their hands around him, each one with fingers crackling with multicolored light. The one he had surprised pulled his hood back up, lifting a hand with the same light, the same crackling light that he'd found in himself when he'd helped the kitsune back in the harbor in Japan.

"Studley...seriously, what is that?" Idesin whispered as they backed up.

"I...I really wish I knew. I used it before, but..." He shook his head, looking down at his hand for a moment. The power of a Wonder was golden, fluid, warming light. Even though he'd used this kind of power before, he still had no idea what it was. But one thing was for sure. He needed to use it, and he needed to use it now.

Closing his eyes, he pushed through that layer of golden light inside, pushed past the always familiar to the darkness and the insanity below. His fists clenched as he felt it, as he submerged himself in the power once more. It froze and burned and felt like nothing. It throbbed and surged, and lay completely still. Everything. Nothing. Eternity in a moment. Absolute. Total.

Chaos.

His eyes opened as the robed people stepped closer, and he held up his hand. They froze as they saw the same power they held swirling in his hand, a rapidly spinning orb of the same multitude of circulating colors. It was larger than anything that they held, and they paused in mid-step as they stared.

"I think...that has their attention," Studley said. He took a step forward, and they took one back. A smile spread across his face. "Oh, yeah. That definitely has their attention."

"Who are you?" one of them said. With the shadows their hoods cast of their faces, it was hard to which one spoke. "How do you control that?"

"I don't. I simply wield it." Studley looked at the orb - now a triangle - in his the palm of his hand. It surged with more energy than he could imagine, but it was still sitting there. Not obediently, he felt - it wasn't that sort of calm energy, not like Wonder magic - but because it wasn't being forced. Because it hadn't decided to shift away. It would, eventually. It had that feeling. But for now it was staying because he didn't constrain it.

Bouncing it over to his other hand - and watching them all stare at him as he did it - Studley said, "We're going to keep walking towards the lake. Why don't you go and deal with the big bird running through the market before it smashes all the tents to bits?"

They stared at him, then at Idesin behind him, before the one in front nodded. They moved quickly and silently around the two of them, hurrying towards the source of the disruption. As soon as they were on another of the streets, Studley sighed and dropped his hand to his side. The magical energy dissipated as he pulled it back, and he groaned, rubbing his wrist. "Well...that does take a little more work than the other stuff," he muttered under his breath with a shake of his head.

"Seriously, man, what the heck is that stuff?" Idesin asked.

"I think it's chaos. Or insanity...no, no, definitely chaos," he said. "Something beneath the power that we use. It's...different."

"What do you mean?"

"It's a changing force, something that drives and shifts and -...You know what, we'd better talk about this later." He looked up at the sky, another robed figure floating over the tents from the direction of the water. This one didn't have a hood up, and he recognized the face. Narrow nose, black facial hair over a pinched face; that was Rannoi's favorite human form. "Looks like he's taking a hand in dealing with the roc personally. If there's any chance of actually looking through his stuff, I think now's the time."

"And where do you think that is?" Idesin asked.

"Probably in the direction he came from. Let's hurry."

#

It didn't take long to make their way through the rest of the tents and streets. With everyone fleeing in different directions, running away from the water, they weren't slowed down like before, and they were able to reach the waterfront while the roc was still being dealt with.

Studley looked back again as they stepped out of the line of tents, confirming that the bird wasn't rampaging or anything. He'd left a little set of instructions in the old man's head, a few things that were off limits. No stomping people, no snapping up livestock or people that were nearby. Destroying tents? Completely alright. Overturning carts and throwing things in the air? More than allowed. Killing and maimin? Forbidden.

And so far, it looked like the big bird was following those orders. No blood on the beak, at least, and he didn't see any bodies that might have been thrown on top of some of the tents. Admittedly, that would be hard to see from this distance, but he was pretty sure that things had remained non-lethal so far. He didn't have anything against the people here. They were just living out their lives and enjoying the blessing of so much water out in the open, more water than most of them would probably see in all their lives in other parts of the desert. He had nothing against them, but he needed them out of the way.

Thankfully, the bird seemed capable of following those orders, and with all the transformations that had occurred around here, Rannoi hadn't seemed to notice the time delay transformation he'd laid on the old man. It had been a risk. The older Wonders like him, Rannoi, and a few of the others on the island could tell when another Wonder was using their abilities. Having someone else in the area using power could confuse that, however, and when there was a metric ton - whatever that was - of transformed objects around, it made it even harder to notice someone using Wonder power.

And now, with Rannoi busy dealing with the big bird in the streets, the two of them could see what the dragon was keeping hidden.

The two of them dropped their human forms as they approached the palatial tent that stood on the edge of the water. It was a fairly large structure, nearly twice as tall as any of the tents that had been on the street prior, and tipped with four streaming banners. Each banner was different, but he recognized them. Rannoi's dragonhead on one, with the other three representing three friends of the dragon that had disappeared over the years. A horned demon. A sharp eared dog. A mischievous looking feline. He knew each of them, though they had long since disappeared from this world. Non-Wonders did not live as long as Wonders, even when they were transformed.

"Why do you think he's put them on banners?" Idesin asked as they approached the tent.

"I'm hoping just because he wants to remember them," Studley said, shaking his head. "If it's anything more -"

"Let's not think about that."

"Yeah...let's deal with the now instead," the wolf said as they stepped inside.

The inside of the tent was remarkably cooler than the outside, and both of them heaved a sigh of relief as they stepped onto the rugs inside. It was almost as good as stepping into a lake would have been, Studley imagined. Was it part of what Rannoi had done in here, he wondered, to make it cooler? Or was something else responsible?

Crossing the tent quickly, the otter made his way over to a desk in the corner of the large silken home. Pieces of parchment and paper littered the surface of the desk, and Idesin immediately started sorting them into different piles. Studley walked up behind him, noting that the different piles represented magical writing, mundane supplies, and other categories. The dragon's handwriting wasn't particularly neat, but it was still legible despite the thin letters and the spidery way that he dragged the ink across the page.

He was about to turn away when he saw one of the pages sticking out of the magical writing pile. Titled "The Power of Chaos", there was just enough of a diagram visible from underneath the pile for him to grab it and examine it.

"What is that?" Idesin asked, the otter continuing to sort as the wolf read.

"It looks like Rannoi was putting together something about the magic I was using outside," Studley said, slowly making his way to one of the three chairs in the tent. He sat down, shaking his head a few times. "According to what he wrote here, there's multiple layers of magic in the world. Most humans can't touch any of it, but some of them can reach the first layer, from what he says here. Sor, he called it. We Wonders reach down to the second layer, and he called that one Tras.

"Past that, there are at least two more types of magic that he'd been able to find. The one furthest down...looks like he called that one Divine."

"What, you mean like a god or something?" Idesin asked.

"That's what he seems to think. And from what he wrote about the layer between Tras and Divine, it looks like you'd have to be a god to be any more powerful than the Chaos layer."

Idesin paused in his paper sorting, turning to the wolf with an eyebrow raised. "You have got to be kidding me. You mean he's talking about something that powerful? No Wonder has ever done something like that on their own, and we've got some of the strongest magic in the world."

"Before we went to Japan, no Wonder ever gave someone else magic." He shrugged. "Might want to think about that."

The otter was silent for a moment before he walked over, looking over the wolf's shoulder. "What does it say about the Chaos layer?" he asked.

"Not much, but enough to make me wish I'd started using it sooner." He shook his head. "Chaos magic doesn't have the limitations that our magic does, according to what he found out. It isn't limited to simple transformation. Chaos can create, alter, and do just about whatever the hell it pleases."

"You mean whatever the person using it pleases."

"Oooooh no, I mean whatever Chaos pleases." Handing the paper over to the otter, he looked down at his hand. He remembered the feeling of the power in his palm, how it so very clearly was staying in his hand because it wanted to, not because he was forcing it to. "It's a very self-aware power, unlike what we use. It's not something that just does what it's told, and it doesn't always do what you think it's going to do."

The otter continued examining the paper was Studley walked across the tent, looking down at the other papers in the pile for magical studies. He turned a few over, pausing every now and then as he saw something that was relevant. Chaos...the dragon had been pursuing a power that was deeper than the simple - in comparison - transformation magics that Wonders used. But for what?

"Well, this is something he didn't expect...but I can't say that I'm really very surprised, you two."

Turning around at the voice, Studley saw a human woman standing in the entrance of the tent. Idesin was already blinking in surprise, but the woman just stepped past the otter before standing in front of the wolf, her arms crossed. "What are you doing in here, Studley? I would have thought you'd be wanting to talk with my partner outside."

"It's good to see you too, Mirari," he said. "Since when do you wear flesh instead of stone?"

The ebony skinned woman smiled. She wore a black wrap around her body, pulled up around her arms enough to show off her new skin "Do you like it?" she asked, stroking one finger down the inside of her forearm. The color faded, first to a lighter, muddier brown, then to the gray of rock. "A simple little transformation. Not even the chaos that we've found, but it's still good enough for me."

"It's enough to make you look human, at least," Idesin said with a small nod. The wolf rolled his eyes as the otter continued staring at Mirari, shaking his head a few times, but Idesin kept talking. "What are you doing, though? Why are you and Rannoi out here?"

"Oh, we're just going to change the world." She smiled, the gray fading away, quickly covered by her fake skin again. "Just like we should be doing all the time."

"Haven't you already changed it enough?" Idesin pointed over his shoulder. "We saw what you did back in Iberia. That peninsula is going to be rocked by chaos for decades, if not centuries. You took every bit of order there and threw it out the window. There are people there that are going to starve, that are going to die, because you and that dragon decided that you wanted to change things."

"More like I decided that we needed to get through the continent quickly." She shrugged her shoulders. "With how much noise you two were making, we needed to move quickly, and there was no way to get through there quietly and still get here in time to set up our little project."

"And what is that project?" Studley asked. "And since when were there so many people off the island with bodies like ours?"

"Oh, you weren't supposed to see those yet." She sighed, closing her eyes for a moment. "If there's going to be any way to really change the world, it can't just be done by us. We were able to do all that work in Iberia, but that was because there was nobody that expected it. Now that people know there's magic in the world - "

"Which is your fault in the first place," Idesin muttered.

"Now that people know that there's magic in the world again, there's no way that we're going to be able to hit so many people at once again," Mirari said. She looked towards the desk, then back at the wolf. "You saw some of the projects. Chaos magic is...unpredictable. Some of the people that we used it on turned into something different, something more than human beings." She rolled her eyes at the wolf's glare. "Don't look so self-righteous, Studley. We asked them first, and we told them that we were trying to make things better for them, but that there might be problems. Nobody went into it without knowing that they might come out different."

"Still, you were experimenting on people..." He heard the otter snort, and he looked at Idesin out of the corner of his eye.

Their conversation was not having a calming effect on the otter. If anything, all that Mirari said was getting the otter fired up. His fists were clenched, and he looked like he was about to lose his temper. And for all that Studley approved of figuring out what magic did, he had to agree with his friend. This was wrong, to just experiment on humans like this, even if they were informed of the risks.

Before he could say anything else, though, Mirari smirked. "You hear that?" she asked. They went silent, both him and the otter perking their ears. They blinked, confused, before Studley realized what she was talking about.

The Roc was silent.

"I'd say that means that Rannoi will be here shortly. And from what I saw while you were talking to our little helpers, Studley, you're going to have a little explaining to do. I never knew that you could wield chaos so well, and I'm sure that you could help us out a lot."

Grumbling under his breath, Studley shook his head. Partly out of frustration, but also to warn the otter against doing anything. Idesin looked back at him incredulously, gesturing at Mirari from behind, but a stern look from the wolf made him drop it. It was not the time to make any more big gestures, not until they were able to find out just what the dragon had been planning for the chaos magic. If it was something that wasn't TOO harmful, it was possible that they might go through with it. Hell, he might even help them out. But if it was something dangerous...

The way that the magic had squirmed in his hand, never fighting, but constantly reminding him how much restrictions would be fought, and that was when the power had felt half friendly. Even back in Japan, he realized, that power hadn't been obeying him so much as indulging him. He hadn't known what to tell it to do, just to do something, and it had followed his desires in giving the kitsune magic powers. It was something that refused to be controlled, refused to be ordered, but merely indulged a direction that a person pushed it in, and it only indulged when it felt like doing it.

As he thought about the power of chaos, he almost missed the tent flap coming open again. The slap of cloth on silk woke him from his thoughts, and he turned his head to his old friend.

A human in a dark robe stood there for a moment before golden light enveloped him. When the light faded, a black scaled dragon stepped out. White eyes without pupil or iris looked over the assembled group, firm and with a light of cunning behind them that never went out. Where the human had been lean and just short enough to avoid being called tall, the dragon stood almost as tall as the wolf. The scales he had looked as hard as armor, and his tail whipped around like an annoyed cat. The joints of his wings loomed over his head, while the majority of them were furled in close to his back.

Mirari walked over to him, standing at his side as he crossed his arms over his chest. "Studley. I knew that the council sent someone to follow me." He looked between the otter and the wolf. "I didn't expect them to send both of you. One or the other maybe, but not both. I think I should be flattered."

"Man, I'm tempted to..." The otter cut himself off, shaking his head. "What the hell are you thinking, man? You're acting like those demons that we used to talk about, using humans like pets. What the hell, man? What...just what the hell?"

Studley nodded. "It is a little strange for you, I have to say. You've gone overboard before, but you've never turned into something like this before. What are you up to?"

"Something that is going to change the foundations of this world." The dragon smiled, holding up his hand. Mirari pressed her fingers against his palm, and as she drew them away, a globe of the multi-colored light of chaos floated between their hands. "Our magic as Wonders is limited. We can do so much, but we've never had the power of creation in our hands. We cannot create our own world, nor the people within it; all we can do is change our world to come close to what we imagine.

"Humans cannot even do that. And with that helplessness, with that fear of things never getting better, of never having a choice, they turn to things worse than anything we've ever done to each other. They fight, they make war, they rape, they destroy. Everything that they have, they steal, they stain, they break. Because they feel like they can't do anything that won't be taken from them or destroyed by someone else."

"That's not true!" Idesin said. "We've seen good people. Good humans. There was an entire brothel full of them back in Paris, and I'm damn sure that Cerise was a good person before she changed, too."

"I never said they were good, or evil, Idesin." The dragon shook his head, the color flickering out. "I said that they are forced into this. They have little choice in their minds. It's a matter of survival, and they do whatever they can."

And in that moment, Studley saw what the dragon was thinking. What he was planning to do. "You're going to use Chaos to give the entire world access to magic, aren't you?"

"With Mirari's help? Yes." He nodded. "Until now, I've never had that option. I've thought about it for centuries, wondering how mankind might be improved if they had the power of magic given to each and every one of them, if it was a part of their very being. Wonder magic can't give that to them; it can't bring out what isn't already there. But with Chaos -"

"With Chaos, you're running the risk of destroying the whole damn earth!"

"Idesin's right. Chaos isn't something that you can control, Rannoi." The dragon arched an eyebrow. "I've been using it too. I figured it out in Japan, and I've been playing with it since then. It's not an easy magic. It's not the obedient, helpful stuff that our Wonder magic is. It doesn't want to be constrained. If you try and make it do what you want, then it's going to blow up in your face. If you have even the slightest doubts about what you're doing, you could turn everyone on the planet into a bunny rabbit, or a chicken egg, or just a speck of dust."

"Or...I can end all the problems we have." The dragon shook his head. "And here I was hoping that the two of us would be able to work together, maybe figure out a way that the Chaos could be controlled a little easier. But if you're going to be siding against me here..."

Neither the otter or the wolf said anything to disagree with that. Studley could only guess at the moral outrage that the otter was feeling; Idesin was like that, thinking of the right and wrong of situations. He was a bit more practical than that. This idea, no matter how beneficial it might be in the long run, was too risky for any real attempt right now. If it were refined, if it were less dangerous, then maybe, but Rannoi obviously wasn't going to wait.

When they didn't contradict him, the dragon sighed. "I guess there's no moving past a fight?"

"Not unless you want to turn around, tell everyone to go home, and then go back to Iberia and fix everything," Idesin said.

"Or unless you just want to stop this stupid idea," Studley said. "That'd be good too."

Shaking his head, Rannoi turned to Mirari. "Deal with the otter, but be gentle with him; he's an old friend."

"She'll have to be a lot harder than gentle if she wants to deal with me. Why don't you take me yourself, huh?" Idesin asked.

"Because he doesn't have to." Mirari glimmered for a second before the floor flowed like water, the rugs rising in a tidal wave and carrying the surprised otter towards the other end of the tent, through the wall, and out towards the water. The dark skinned woman chased after him, while Studley kept his eyes on the dragon.

The two of them stared at each other for a moment before the dragon snapped his fingers. The tent around them disappeared, falling into a pebble sized square between the two of them. Studley snapped his a second later. All around them, up to fifty feet away, the sand turned red before darkening, and a hint of fire burned at the very edge.

"Wonder of the Weres."

"Wonder of the Black Flame."

"Let's begin."

Light, both golden and rainbow erupted from their fingers as their initial attacks began. Transformation, creation, destruction, absorption, amalgamation; all types of effects were thrown in those first few seconds, each one countered by a spell of a different sort before it could reach the target or dodged before it could hit something important. Magic hit the sand with a harsh impact, clapping with the force of thunder as they fizzled out in the marked arena while the casters backed away from each other, buying room to maneuver and time for their spells to have an effect.

Studley panted softly as he stopped, perched on the edge of the arena. He hadn't expected so many spells so quickly from the dragon. It had been a while since there had been so many thrown at him at once; most of the Wonders could only manage two to four spells at a time, at most, but the dragon had just thrown at least sixteen at him in the space of a second, not one of them the black fire that Rannoi was famous for.

At least he was giving as good as he got. If he'd been attacked by so many spells, he'd managed to deflect them all and send more of his own towards the dragon. His opponent was holding his own, but he still looked slightly winded, much like Studley did.

"I guess we both have a fair bit of an advantage over most Wonders, Studley," the dragon said.

"It's gotten us both a little complacent, I suppose."

"Overdue for a real show of power?"

"No more than you are."

"Then let's get on with it." The dragon's hand whipped up and around. Even while it was moving the fingers extended, the black scaled digits doubling, tripling in length. In the blink of an eye they were long enough to reach from one side of the arena to the other, burning with black blames. They crackled and sizzled the air around them, and Studley had to shove himself off of the ground as they swept towards him.

The dragon's hand turned, the fingers of flame following him into the air. Studley grunted, his hand pressing against some of the dust that had followed him up when he'd kicked off. Golden light flared, and the dust solidified into a large boulder. He kicked off of it, darting just to the side of the flames as they hit the rock instead of him.

He hit the ground and rolled as fast as he could, buying a little space between him and the dragon's fiery fingers. Looking back at the boulder, all he could make out was a smouldering pile of shrinking stone, the flames eating up even the normally flame proof stone. "So that's the famous black fire..." the wolf muttered under his breath.

"That's not all it can do, Studley." More sand went flying into the air, and Studley only just avoided another of the fiery fingers. The whip-like flame wrapped around another rock in the area, picking it up...but strangely, not setting it on fire. The wolf looked back at the dragon, who smirked. "The flame can hold as well as burn. And you'll not be putting it out once I catch you with it."

"Well, first you'll have to catch me. And you're not going to do that so quickly." He jumped over the fingers again, fingers flashing with golden light as he pushed another boulder between himself and the first. As he leaped off of it to get a little more distance though, he knew that this wasn't something he could continue indefinitely. Turning soft sand into something as substantial and large as a boulder drained magic quickly, and it wasn't like he was chock full of it the way he'd been when they'd left the island. Even with a time delay, that Roc transformation had used up a good bit of power, and two boulders already were taking their toll.

On the other hand, Rannoi was chasing him around with a fairly powerful magic of his own, and it wasn't like he hadn't used some of his own power to transform the Roc back to normal. Studley ducked under another wave of the flames. They might be on even ground, if only barely.

Still, all the more reason to end it quickly. Rolling forward, the wolf shoved his hand under the sand. Light flared around his fingers as the sand suddenly collapsed, turning into water. The wet wave rushed across their makeshift arena, coming under the dragon's feet just in time to throw his aim off. He watched Rannoi fall, and the flaming fingers went out as he hit the ground.

Leaping forward at the side of the water, the wolf rushed ahead as fast as his feet could carry him. The dragon was still fumbling and floundering in the water and mud, fighting to get to his feet. "You always did rely too much on that trick," Studley muttered. He stomped down hard on the sand, taking to the air as he pulled his fist back, ready to knock the dragon's lights out.

That didn't work as well as he had hoped.

Chaos light erupted around the dragon's fingers before he shoved it into the air between the two of them. Studley had just enough time for his eyes to widen before a large fist appeared out of nowhere, shooting forward and hitting him in the nose hard enough to knock him halfway back across the arena. He howled in pain at the blow to his sensitive nose, sliding through the sand as he covered his face instinctively. Sliding back for a few seconds, he came to a halt not far from the burning boulder, panting softly.

The two of them got to their feet at the same time, rubbing their legs and brushing off the mess from their fighting. All around them, humans that had lived around the oasis had gathered. Even the robed transformed figures were there, their hoods down as they watched the fight with their mouths gaping open.

"I hope you don't mind an audience to your defeat, Rannoi."

"Only if you mind one to your own, Studley."

The wolf started to chuckle, only to blink at the sound of raging water. The dragon looked likewise confused, until a shadow fell over the arena. They slowly looked up -

SPLA-CRASH! went the tidal wave from the oasis, drenching the two of them and half of the people that had gathered around. Compared to the hot desert sun, the water was freezing, and Studley almost gasped for breath while he was still underwater, carried along by the powerful, sudden current for a few feet before the water subsided, flowing back into the oasis proper. He coughed for breath, gasping as the water went away, and could hear several others doing the same.

Opening his eyes, he saw Mirari getting to her feet again and stomping back towards the oasis. Idesin was perched on top of a floating piece of water, laughing. "I thought you wanted to go for a swim, lady? Don't get mad at me if I'm good enough to get you wet."

"Oh, you got me wet," she said. "Now let me give you the shock of a lifetime."

The otter's eyes had just enough time to get wide before Mirari picked up a stick. With a surge of energy that even surprised Studley, the stick transformed into a bolt of lightning just as it left her fingers. It zapped across the distance instantaneously before hitting the water the otter was on, and Idesin's power suddenly collapsed as he fell into the oasis.

"Mirari." The dragon's voice got the woman to turn around. "Gentle, remember?"

"It was a weak one."

"Still. Keep him able to walk?"

"No promises."

As she walked off, the dragon faced him again, falling into a better stance. "Now, where were we again?"

"I think we're at the point where I'm going to shove your face into the dirt." The wolf leaped forward, even as the dragon lifted his hand with the black fire again. He gritted his teeth, but closed his eyes, knowing he had one chance at this. If he screwed up...well, the dragon could have won anyway, this was just something that would decide it one way or another quickly. And with Mirari throwing around lightning, he needed to do this as fast as possible.

Golden light and rainbow flares enveloped his whole body a second before the black fire hit him. It burned, searing through his fur and down to his skin, but as fast as it burned him, his body healed back up. He could feel the transformation happening even as he pushed forward. The golden light brought the fearsome power of the werewolf forward. The power of Chaos enhanced it.

He broke through the black fire, a great beast of a werewolf. He towered over even his usual were height, almost fifteen feet tall. Under his fur massive muscles flowed, bulging in his arms and his legs. Shudders of strength and eagerness ran through his body, and he grinned as the dragon's scales paled slightly.

A quick jump covered the rest of the distance, and he brought his hand down hard on the back of Rannoi's head. The dragon went down, and he leaped on the Wonder's back, grabbing him by the back of the head. Slam, crack, pound went the dragon's head against the sand as the werewolf knocked his head against the earth again and again. At first, it was simple sand, but a gesture from the wolf's fingers turned it to rock, and the golden stone quickly started to dent from the repeated impacts of the dragon's head against it.

It took him a full minute to knock the dragon out completely, and he only knew it was done because the red sand faded, turning back to normal color. Shortly afterwards, a big splash in the water signaled that the fight there had been finished, and he turned to see Idesin dragging an unconscious Mirari out of the water. Not that the otter was doing much better than her; he looked like he was about to collapse himself.

Idesin stopped next to him, dropping the woman at the wolf's side. He turned to the people gathered, staring with jaws dropped. "Well..." The otter turned back to him. "We saved the world...but how are we going to explain this?"

The End