Finally, we got through the last wormhole and entered the star-swept land with the mirror gate. I instructed Atreus to land in front of it, and we all tumbled off his back. Once we were on solid ground again, Lilli looked around, her jaw dropping with amazement. I’d forgotten she hadn’t been with us the last time we came here.
“It’s so beautiful,” she marveled. “Unlike the rest of the game. It’s just… breathtaking.”
“Don’t let it fool you,” I said. “It’s still a prison.”
I walked over to the gate, peering into it, hoping to see our friend. But only my reflection peered back at me. Hopefully she was still there and they hadn’t moved her. That would be just our luck, right? To learn our princess was in another castle?
But then, just as I was about to turn away, she appeared again. Floating on the other side of the glass. She frowned at us, a confused expression on her face.
“She doesn’t know it’s us!” I exclaimed. “We look different.” I tapped on the glass. “Don’t worry, Ikumi. It’s us—Ian and Lilli. We’re here to rescue you.”
If she could hear us, she gave no sign. Instead, she shrank back as if in fear. It was then that I remembered who we were hanging with. The very same dragon who had killed her in Dragon Ops.
Maybe Ikumi had been suffering just like Lilli and I had.
“It’s okay,” I assured her. “Atreus isn’t going to hurt you. He’s on our side now. And he’s going to set you free.” I turned to Atreus and motioned for him to blast the gate. The dragon obliged, opening his mouth and letting loose a stream of what looked like smoke. For a moment we were all blinded by it, as if we’d been enveloped in a soupy fog. Then it cleared. And when it did?
The gate was wide open.
“Yes!” I cried. “You did it!” I turned to Atreus, grinning gratefully. But the dragon wasn’t smiling. He was looking worried.
Something’s wrong, he said. Something’s very wrong.
A chill whispered across my shoulders. I opened my mouth to ask Atreus what he meant. Did he sense something? Could he see something?
But before I could get any words out, my vision went black.
“No!” I cried, horrified as reality came rushing back to me. I ripped off my headset, blinking to try to adjust to real-life mode again. Looking around, I saw my sister and Starr also taking off their helmets, looking dazed.
Disappointment sank in my stomach. “They must have found us again,” I moaned. I pounded my fist against my thigh. “And we were so close, too!”
“Come on,” Starr said. “Let’s get back in. The gate’s open now. We need to go through before we get booted to the starting area.” She shoved the helmet over her head, and I followed her example. But when I tried to load the game, nothing happened. And all I could see was a message flashing in front of my vision over and over again.
Log-in not recognized.
“Oh no!” Lilli cried. “They killed our new log-ins. They must have discovered who we were.”
“Don’t panic,” Starr said. “We’ll just pull up new log-ins. I have a few more.” She handed us papers with names and passwords. We plugged them into our consoles and tried again.
The good news? We got back in. And our equipment was even better than before. Armor, weapons, wings—the works.
The bad? We were back at the stupid starting warehouse.
“Argh. And here we go again,” I said, stomping my foot in frustration. “Every time we log in as different accounts, we gotta start over? We don’t have time for this!”
“Don’t freak out,” Lilli scolded. “At least we’re in. And the gate’s open now.”
“How do you know? What if they closed the gate again, too?”
“Then Atreus will open it.”
“And then we’ll get booted.” I scowled. “And what if they decide to move Ikumi to a place where we’ll never find her?”
Lilli’s face fell. Looking as defeated as I felt. “So what are we supposed to do?” she asked. “We can’t kick them out of the game.”
“Actually,” Starr said thoughtfully, “we could. At least theoretically.”
“What?” We turned to look at her, confused.
“Have you ever heard of a DoS attack?”
I nodded slowly. I’d heard of DoS attacks. Otherwise known as Denial of Service. Basically, a bunch of hackers would get together and launch a cyberattack on a company’s servers. For example their log-in servers. The idea was to overload the system and make it crash. So no one could use it.
Which meant, we could lock the Mech Ops people out of their own game. At least for a short while. Maybe long enough for us to get to Ikumi.
“Can you do that?” I asked Starr, impressed.
“Not by myself,” she admitted. “But I have friends from the Dark Carnival. If Maddy and I were to go and recruit enough of them, we might have a chance.”
“That would be amazing!” Lilli cried. “Let’s give it a try!”
“Okay,” Starr agreed. “I’ll log off and see what I can do. You guys head straight to the gate. Hopefully we can lock them out before they find you again.” She held up her hand, giving us both high fives. “Good luck, Dragon Slayerz,” she said before logging out and disappearing.
Leaving Lilli and me alone.
“Okay,” I said, turning to my sister. “Let’s get Yano and give this a shot.”
We walked over to the all-too-familiar container to once again let our dragon free. But to my surprise, when we opened the crate, it was empty.
“Um, that’s weird,” Lilli said, stepping into the crate and looking around, as if Yano could be hiding in a dark corner. “Did he not reset like we did?”
“I don’t know.” I pressed my lips together, worried. “I hope he’s okay.”
“I guess you’d better call
