1
In Which Mares Are Saved, Orcs Are Bashed, a Choice Is Made, and a Voice Is Heard
As the Mysticons piled into the Stronghold, tired and elated and all talking at once, the first thing Em noticed was Doug. He and Malvaron, the Mysticons’ Astromancer mentor, were sprawled on the couch. Malvaron was watching Doug play Remembered Realms V: Rite of the Blood Queen on the Hex-Box. On Malvaron’s other side, Choko, Zarya’s pet foz, was snoozing peacefully.
“Good shot, man, but you should be using your fire arrows, and aim for the beak,” Malvaron was saying. “That’s a frost roc, so you get double damage when—” Breaking off mid-sentence as he heard the four girls come in, he jumped up and whirled toward them. “How was Mare-Con? Tell me everything!” he instructed.
Em saw Doug look over with a mixture of eagerness and regret, and right away she felt a tightness in her chest. “Doug,” she said, “I just want to say how much we appreciate you giving up your tickets to the Twinkly Mare convention so we all could get in. We know you were really looking forward to it, and—”
“Oh my goblin,” Arkayna cut in. As she hurried over to Malvaron, the Mysticon magic surrounding her faded. Her staff dissolved into thin air, and her green-and-white Dragon Mage outfit transformed into her street clothes, revealing her as Princess Goodfey of Drake City. “You were right, Malvaron. Kymraw was totally ready to destroy the whole convention, not to mention hurt thousands of fans, just to get her hands on all two hundred of the limited-release Super-Sparkle Crystal Pegacorns.”
Malvaron nodded in satisfaction. “I will never understand why that biker troll loves Twinkly Mares so much, but I knew she wouldn’t be able to resist.”
“Yeah, and we were ready for her!” Piper chimed in, jumping up on the table and striking an action pose, her magical golden hoops held high over her head. “And we kicked her—” Suddenly she pulled up short and seemed to deflate. Her Mysticon Striker outfit shifted into her everyday clothes as she lowered her arms and plopped down to a cross-legged position. Even her pointed elf ears seemed to droop. “Well, first we had to wait for Kymraw to show up. That part was less fun, ’cause we were supposed to be all quiet and blending in and not touching all the toys.…”
“You were having less fun?” Zarya snorted. “You weren’t disguised as the back half of a unicorn!”
“Aw, come on, big Z,” said Piper. “You know you and Arkayna were the only ones tall enough for that costume. It’s human-size!”
“And I would have taken the back and let you have the head,” Arkayna added. “But you did say that you didn’t care about seeing the convention.”
“That is not what I meant!” Zarya flung her bow to the side, dismissing the magic that made her the Mysticon Ranger. Shoving her hands in the pockets of her newly revealed hoodie, she stomped over to the couch and flopped down between Doug and the still-sleeping Choko. The foz woke up with a squeak of protest. “Whoops, sorry,” she said, patting him. “I had a tough day.”
Choko climbed onto her shoulder and chittered, wrapping his tail around her neck. He pointed to the screen, and Zarya immediately perked up. “Heeeey, Remembered Realms! This is just what I need! Doug, load up my save!”
Doug’s single eye blinked in surprise. “Oh, uh … sure, Zarya.” He handed over the Hex-Box controller. “Here you go. But, uh—”
“Sweet!” Zarya grabbed the controller, Choko jumped up onto her head, and they both leaned forward, immediately immersed.
“As I was saying,” said Em pointedly, “Doug.” The big cyclops looked over at her. “We know how much you wanted to see the convention, and we all—” She looked at Zarya and Choko, deep in concentration on the game, then at Arkayna, relaying the highlights from the battle as Piper acted them out and Malvaron laughed. Em sighed and pressed on, reaching into her belt pouch. “We all wanted you to have this.” She fished around in the pouch, fingers skating past various magical orbs and dwarven tools. Finally she pulled out a horse figurine with wings and a twisted horn. The colors of its crystalline body seemed to change and shimmer in the light.
Doug’s eye got huge. “Is … is that…?” He sprung off the couch and bounded over to Em. “Is that Glimmer Gust, the limited-release Super-Sparkle Crystal Pegacorn?!?”
Em nodded, letting the pouch fade away with the rest of her Mysticon Knight outfit. She handed the horse toy to Doug, who accepted it reverently.
“Wait!” Piper shouted, freezing in the middle of miming how one of Kymraw’s orcs got hopelessly tangled in a convention banner. “We got a Glimmer Gust? That’s fab-tacular! When did that happen?” She vaulted off the table and ran over to Doug. “Can I see it? Huh?”
“Piper!” scolded Em. “It’s a present for Doug, since he had to miss the convention. And I just gave it to him.”
“Oh! Right.” Piper backed off sheepishly. “Sorry, Doug.”
Doug smiled down at her. “It’s okay. I’m just glad you all had fun and saved the day.”
“Did we ever!” chirped Piper over her shoulder, already headed back to finish the story for Malvaron.
“And we couldn’t have done it without you,” said Em.
Doug shrugged awkwardly. “Aw, you would have figured something out. You always do.” He ducked his head, fiddling with the toy in his hands. “You’re the heroes, after all.”
“No, really!” insisted Em. On impulse, she reached up to put her small dwarven hands over his large ones. “We only stopped Kymraw and her gang because of you. You gave us the tickets and described the whole layout of the convention so we knew exactly where to wait. You’re a hero, too.”
Doug shrugged again, forcing a smile. “Thanks for saying that.” He held up the Pegacorn, and his grin became more genuine. “And thanks for this. So much. I’m gonna go find a place of honor for it.”
Thoughtfully, Em watched him lumber off toward his room. Then she glanced at her bangle-phone and snapped to attention. “By the Hammer of Harmon, look how late it is!” she said.
“Yeah,” chuckled Zarya from the couch. “Time flies when you’re bashing orcs.”
“You’re on night patrol tonight, right, Em?” called Arkayna, her hands raised over her head as she acted out whacking Kymraw with her staff.
“Yeah, I got it.” Em concentrated, and the magic washed over her once more. A pink mask appeared on her face, and her clothes transformed into the pink-and-purple armor of the Mysticon Knight. She gestured, and a large sword with a flame-shaped purple blade appeared in her hand. “See you all later.”
Zarya gave a half-hearted wave from the couch, then swore as an enemy in the game surprised her. Choko chirped and shook his little paw at the screen, taunting the enemy on Zarya’s behalf. Arkayna had reached the end of her tale and was bowing elaborately while Malvaron clapped. None of them seemed to hear Em’s farewell. Piper, though, raised her head from her prone position on the floor, where she was playing the part of the freshly defeated Kymraw. “Bye-eeeeee!” she sang out.
* * *
A few hours later, Em was still flying over Drake City on her griffin, scanning for trouble. The lights of Magi Mall glowed beneath them, the stars twinkled above them, danger could lurk in any shadow … and Em couldn’t stop thinking about her conversation with Doug.
“I mean, I know everyone likes Doug,” she mused to the griffin. “You like him, right, Topaz?”
Topaz squawked noncommittally.
“Well, okay, but you don’t not like him,” continued Em. “You just haven’t spent that much time with him. And that’s the point! We like him a lot, but we never try to make him a real part of the team. He just ends up hanging out in the Stronghold, helping Malvaron with stuff and making us snacks.”
Topaz clacked her beak at the mention of food.
“They’re great snacks, don’t get me wrong! And I know that we have our Mysticon powers, and Malvaron has his magic, and Doug … doesn’t have … any of those things. But, still! What do you think?” Em took a deep breath of the night air, then shook her head. “Wait, why am I asking you?” She patted the brown feathers on Topaz’s flank fondly. “I guess I just know what it’s like to feel like you’re a sidekick in someone else’s adventure. I hate to see him feeling left out.”
“OUUUUUUUUT!” cried a girl’s voice that seemed to come from the sky. Em startled, almost tumbling off of Topaz’s back. The voice echoed and wavered strangely as it came again, louder than before. “LET ME OUUUUUUUUUUT!”
Mysticons characters, design, and elements © 2018 Nelvana Limited
