And Ikumi couldn’t.
Suddenly Yano cried out in fury, whipping his three heads behind him. I used the moment to dash away, hiding behind the spaceship. It was then that I spotted Lilli and Josh, who had slipped behind the dragon while he’d been distracted with me. Lilli had shot the dragon with a bolt of electricity from her staff, and his back end was sparking and smoking.
Go, Lilli! I silently cheered.
But her victory didn’t last long. Yano whipped his tail, knocking her and Josh off their feet. As they scrambled to try to get up, he turned and opened his mouth again. I swallowed hard. There was no way they’d be able to escape him now. And then he’d turn back to me and—
“Stop it! Now! Or you won’t have me!”
Suddenly Ikumi stepped out, her crossbow aimed—not at Yano…
… but at herself.
“What are you doing?” Yano cried, horrified.
“You need to get me out of here, right?” she asked in a steely voice. “Well, that’s not going to happen if you harm my friends.”
Yano let out a roar. “They’re not your friends!” he sputtered. “They were trying to break you out of the game!”
“Only because you lied to them and said I was trapped,” Ikumi replied grimly. “And yes, they are my friends. And I trust them a lot more than some stupid computer program.”
Yano huffed in annoyance. “Stupid computer program? Please. I have more computing power than ten thousand human brains put together.”
“If that’s true,” I said, stepping out from behind the spaceship, “you might think a little about what you’re doing. And maybe why you’re doing it.”
“Let me give you a hint,” Lilli added, scrambling back to her feet. “You’re just following someone’s orders. Like a puppy dog with its master.”
“That’s not true!” Yano cried, but he was starting to look very confused.
“Don’t you remember?” I asked, stepping closer to Ikumi. “You used to be our guide. You used to help people. You helped us.”
Yano whipped his three heads in my direction, smoke billowing from all six nostrils. “I would never help a human!” he retorted.
“Are you kidding me? Your whole job was helping humans!” Lilli reminded him. “Remember when you gave us a hint about the riddle in the cave, even though you weren’t supposed to? And remember how you tried to retrieve the Water Stone for us? That didn’t work out so well, but you did try. Because you cared about us.”
A flash of silver ran down Yano’s back. He pawed the ground angrily.
Ikumi stepped forward. “You helped me when I first got out of Dragon Ops,” she reminded him. “I was so lonely then. So scared out on the cloud by myself. You helped me find my way around. You made me feel safe.”
Sparks flew from Yano’s damaged wing. Smoke plumed around him. “AIs follow their programming,” he blustered. “AIs follow their programming!”
“Yeah, well, then someone needs a reboot,” I declared. “Bring back the old Yano. The one who would never hurt a human. Who would never hurt Ikumi.”
“We were friends,” Ikumi told the dragon.
“AIs don’t have friends,” Yano tried, though he didn’t sound so convinced this time. Another lightning bolt of silver streaked down his side.
“You did,” Ikumi declared, not about to back down. “I don’t care what you say now. What you remember. You were my friend.”
The smoke was now thick and black, pouring out from all over Yano’s body. His heads swung wildly in all directions. Was he starting to remember? Had they erased all his former programming? Or was there still some remnant left inside? A tiny memory to help him remember who he used to be?
“Fight it!” I cried, seeing our chance. “Fight it, Yano!”
“We don’t want to hurt you!” Lilli added. “You’re our friend!”
“You don’t have to do what they say. You can be your own dragon. Change the game, just like Atreus.”
“Game…” Yano repeated, his mechanical voice sounding garbled. “Change… the game…”
Suddenly, to my surprise, one of Yano’s heads started attacking the other two—snapping at them fiercely. The other heads fought back, hissing and gnashing their teeth and winding around one another’s necks. Sparks flew, smoke billowed, and we dove backward to avoid getting caught in the crossfire.
Yano was fighting himself. That little piece of him deep inside that was still our guide was fighting back.
“Go, Yano!” I cried. “You can do this! You can be free!”
Suddenly, a black cloud crossed our vision, seeming to block out the sun. I looked up, heart filling with dread—then excitement—as I realized it was Atreus. Somehow Atreus had made it back and was up in the sky, dive-bombing in our direction…
With Admiral Appleby on his back?
“No way!” I exclaimed.
“Grandpa?” Josh cried at the same time.
“Look out!” Lilli added as the dragon swooped in closer. We dove backward, out of the line of fire, ducking down behind our spaceship for cover.
Yano looked up, seeing the dragon and its rider approach. He screeched in rage and tried to crawl away, but he was so tangled up inside and out, he only managed to trip over his own feet and crash to the ground. Before he could get up, Atreus let loose his flame, blasting the fallen dragon head-on. Smoke plumed as the metal melted on impact, until Yano was nothing more than a molten puddle on the sidewalk.
And we were free.
“Yes!” Josh cried, shaking his fist in excitement. “Go, Grandpa!”
Admiral Appleby directed Atreus down for a landing. We raced out from behind the spaceship, surrounding him in excitement. He slid off the dragon’s back, walking toward us. He was still dressed in his typical space military uniform, but he wasn’t hunched over here like he was in real life. And he didn’t have a cane.
