Tranquil Conviction loomed over the defenseless BattleLord. “Not the fight I was expecting, nor the winner I thought it would have. Unless … who are you?”

:SERENITY! WAKE UP!: The shouting in the back of the former BattleLord’s mind shook him. It was … it was talking to him.

And using a name other than FlameHeart. A Name that sounded right, somehow. FlameHeart still sounded wrong.

So he replied to the Shameful One using the Name that felt right. “Serenity…”

Tranquil Conviction laughed.

The laughter echoed throughout the building; Serenity didn’t know it, but he would later find out that the group outside heard it and almost everyone turned to stare at the building. Everyone except Rissa, who was too busy paying attention to what was happening inside the building.

:Serenity.: The word was like a warm hug, reassuring the confused Sterath, even though he didn’t quite know why.

When Tranquil Conviction stopped laughing, he still seemed amused. “I wasn’t wrong, after all. I concede to you; you have quite convincingly defeated this invasion. More than that, you’ve surprised me and proven you deserve the title Peace of the Grave. A spirit that can possess another; that is truly perfect, and explains much about you I did not understand. The BattleLord’s end fits your new Name well, and hiding your ability until it was a clean win was excellent strategy and defeated the pieces I had in place to stop you without your even facing them. Well done, Serenity.”

Tranquil Conviction watched Serenity for a moment before he continued. “Perhaps we will work together again someday, but if you ever steal from me again I will not be so gentle. As is … yes, I think this will work. A trophy will serve me well, and will make your remaining task more difficult. I shall enjoy watching your struggle.” The Shameful One floated close to Serenity and picked up the shed armor chestplate before he stopped to explain himself. “If you still had this, you might be able to order the other Kaelitha to follow you, and we can’t have that now, can we? That would leave them alive.”

The grin on Tranquil Conviction’s face was bloodthirsty as he faded into nothingness, taking the chestplate with him.

Serenity sat there staring at the spot the Shameless One disappeared from for several minutes. He knew who he was, now; saying his Name had helped things settle back into place and hearing Tranquil Conviction say it had helped even more. He could feel Rissa’s silent support in the back of his mind and knew that she’d been a good part of what pulled him back out of the Sterath camp.

Eventually, he shook himself and looked down. The symbols on his still-forming armor chestplate were still not very clear, but he could tell that there were two; one was his own symbol, the wings-rising-from-darkness, but the other was still too faint to make out since he didn’t know what it was going to be. The one thing he could tell was that it was more complex than a normal Sterath rank-mark, even though it was in the position of a rank-mark.

He needed to head back to the group so they could plan. That ought to be simple enough; there was an open window right in front of him. He knew that was why he’d marked this particular area as a potential exit; he’d seen the broken window from outside and made sure to scout it out when he checked out the second floor. All he had to do was shift to Sovereign form and seep out the window.

Only when he tried to shift, nothing happened.

He tried again and he felt something happen, but he still couldn’t reach his Sovereign of Potential form. He didn’t realize just how much that upset him until he heard Rissa’s voice in his head. :Calm down, relax. It’s okay. You’ll be fine. It just takes time. Deep, slow breaths.:

Serenity’s breathing slowed down a little, but not much. He wanted to not be in this shape that had trapped him and nearly made him lose himself in the memories of another. Memories that weren’t fading nearly fast enough even though he’d already fed them to the River of Souls.

:Breathe in … good. Now hold your breath.:

Serenity tried to follow Rissa’s instructions. It was hard, but he could feel her worry and caring. She hadn’t given up on him, even if he did look like some unholy fusion of a kangaroo and an insect.

Not that he thought of Ita that way when he saw her, she was just Ita, but … this wasn’t himself. Serenity did not want to be Sterath.

:And let it out … good, empty the lungs … and hold … now breathe in, fill your lungs…:

Serenity wasn’t certain how long he listened to Rissa’s step-by-step instructions, following them as best he could. It probably wasn’t the best way to calm down, but her presence in the back of his head worked wonders. She was there for him, and that made all the difference in the world.

:Okay, now, try to shift, but don’t concentrate on which form you want. Just relax your shape and let it drift.:

He should have thought of trying that. Shapechanging was a two-part ability after all, especially for him; losing his form and gaining another. Shifting to Sovereign form was essentially half the skill; each of his other shifts moved through Sovereign form. If he could drop the Sterath shape, he’d be where he needed to be.

Serenity tried to shift, but this time he didn’t concentrate on where he ended up. He’d end up wherever the skill put him, and anything other than Sterath would be good.

No, he couldn’t even think that. Thinking about leaving Sterath form seemed to solidify it around him. He had to think about shifting without thinking about where he was coming from or where he was going.

Just shifting. Take Shape. That was all.

It wasn’t like his normal shapeshifts; once it finally started, it was abrupt and dizzying. One moment he was standing looking out the window and the next he was crouched in a much lower position.

He was still looking out the window, at least.

Crouched? He hadn’t made it to Sovereign form?

Serenity looked down at himself. The first thing he saw was bluish-purple scales, which made him relax enough that he fell to his belly. Not that it was far; a hatchling dragon still wasn’t very tall. He examined himself all over and found that he was indeed the same hatchling dragon he’d been before with only one exception: the two markings were present on his chest. He’d known that his sigil was on his chimera and human forms, so that wasn’t a surprise, but the rank-mark was definitely a surprise. He hadn’t expected that to bleed across his forms. To his chimera form, perhaps, but his dragon form was a surprise.

It was still less of a surprise than what the rank-mark was. Serenity recognized it immediately, but it wasn’t a standard Sterath mark at all. Instead, it was similar to the common mark used on many worlds for the Planetary Lord - an image of their world with a colored band around it and the local title placed above the world. Many worlds would also have another symbol or two that were important to the world itself.

Serenity’s rank-mark had two worlds instead of one; he could easily see that they were Earth and Tzintkra. That was unusual enough.

The band wasn’t a simply color; instead, it was a twisted braid of a purple so deep it was essentially black, silver, and something sparkly but essentially colorless; it reminded him of the flecks of mica that could be found in rock sometimes, since it shone but when it was ‘over’ one of the other colors, some of the color ‘behind’ it shone through. Serenity guessed that might count as the ‘important feature’, but he wasn’t certain what it meant. Perhaps the black was Death magic? Both worlds did have a strong tie to Death, after all, as did Serenity himself.

The word was even more unusual. Instead of a word of authority, the word was ‘Friend’.

It was similar to the mark for a Planetary Lord, but it definitely wasn’t the same. Serenity had the sinking feeling that it was still close enough to cause problems if anyone who recognized the symbol saw it.

Once he was over that shock, Serenity gave himself another good examination. Absolutely nothing was out of place.

Before he could try to shapeshift again, Rissa’s question stopped him. :Are you on your way out? I think it’s time to figure out what we’re doing next.:

:I wanted to get back to being human…: Serenity told himself it was to keep secrets and not scare people but he knew that the truth was more complicated than that. Those reasons were partly true, but mostly he hated being seen as small, weak, and cute.

Well, he didn’t mind if it was Rissa. Raz and Katya already knew and didn’t treat him differently other than the occasional razzing about it. Serenity didn’t think Ita would care that much, though he was a bit nervous about her. He knew she’d eventually know, though, so there was no point in not heading out because of her.

No, the real reason was the others. The two scientists seemed to have accepted him but Allen - Dr. Ridge - was concerning. Serenity had no idea how the scientists would react.

On the other hand, the last time he’d tried to shapeshift, he’d gotten stuck. He didn’t really want to try again and find that he was stuck. That was somehow worse than not trying.

:Don’t wait, come on out. You need time.: Rissa’s reassuring words were enough to firm Serenity’s resolve. He’d have to face the music sooner or later; at least there weren’t any television cameras here.

Before he had to face people, though, he had to get out of the building. Serenity had intended to leave through the broken window; could he still do that?

There was plenty of room. He’d have to jump over some glass near the floor, but it’d mostly broken outwards so there was plenty of room to start the jump, and it was more than big enough for a small dragon. It was only the second floor; unless he landed completely wrong, he shouldn’t break anything, though anything other than a good landing could hurt a lot, even at Tier Two. A simple gravity-spell like the ones he’d been using recently should remove that small risk.

It was a good plan that should work which he could manage right now. Good enough. Serenity took the time to properly build the gravity spell, watching it come together. This time, he used both Mana and Essence Sight; he remembered the anchor he’d built and wondered if he’d see anything new in this spell.

There were several places where he could see the mana spellform moving essence as well as mana. Some of them were in the anchor pieces, but many of the other bits also had essence wound around them in one way or another. In most places, it didn’t seem to be all that important, but Serenity noticed several more places where building the spellform with essence instead of mana might result in a cleaner spellform even though his essence manipulation was far rougher than his mana manipulation.

He needed to take the time to properly study all of the magic he knew and integrate what he’d learned about essence. That was a task that would take years; more than likely, it was a task that would take centuries. Learning and improving magic never ended, and this was a tremendously exciting piece of knowledge. There would be large gains at first, then it would become small incremental improvements for a long time; that was always how a paradigm shift worked.

Serenity cast the spell and jumped out of the window, spreading his wings as soon as he was far enough away from the building.

The wind under his wings was incredible. Serenity flapped once, then twice; each time, he gained a little height, making up the height he lost in his glide.

I’M FLYING!!!!

Serenity winged his way around the building, turning as needed to aim for the three vehicles parked in a back corner. He lost more height than he could recover with each turn, but it was still farther than he’d ever flown before.

He landed only a few feet from Rissa.

“I’m so glad you’re safe.” She ran over to him and brushed her hand along his back, ruffling his feathers.

Serenity arched his back into her hand. “Love you too.”

Nothing more needed to be said.