"Shall we ... take a walk?" Joe loosened his bowtie and collar, and offered his arm to Andy with a wink. "Just for a bit. Before the music is done."
In a few moments they were out of the stuffy Campus Ballroom, and out under the open darkness of the evening. Joe's breath came slow and steady, just like when Andy woke up on his chest on the couch together. He beamed as he took in the sight of the college.
"I love this place. It's been good to me. And I've got such happy memories."He turned to Andy, smiling.
And then Akiva hit them both around the waist, bearing them to the ground. The spot where they stood exploded, pelting them with earth and rubble.
Olivia landed in her battlesuit a moment later, Lisa dashing out perfectly in her high high heels and spear, as the group saw the blackness of the night sky come to life. What seemed to be stars resolved into hungry, angry dragons, with burning maws and lightning crackling in their eyes.
"The Prophecy," mumbled Akiva, a smear of lipstick on his collar. "This is it.
"The College is under attack."
...
Andy took Joe's arm, feeling its size compared to his. They used to be pretty close, but while they were both fitter than ever they were fit in very different ways.
He half smiled as he looked up at Joe talking about his happy memories of the university. "I do too. And also some scary and embarrassing and weird ones... But yeah, it maybe hasn't been as good to me but it's been good. On the whole. And the scary and embarrassing and weird stuff has been important."
"Well, I'm glad..." Joe said.
And then Akiva swooped out of of nowhere and pulled them away from something exploding.
Andy winced as he landed on his butt, not exactly dressed for dodging grenades. He had to tug the skirt of his dress down before Joe helped him up.
He looked around at the gang, and up at the dragons looming out of the sky.
"Well, start the year as you're gonna go on, I guess." He flicked the sword out to full length.
Then he looked at Joe reflecting on them being late, and frowned. Then stepped over to kiss him.
"I guess we won't have time to go back for the last dance..." Joe said with a small sigh.
...
Andy set his jaw firmly. "Okay, seems like every time I dress up like this we get attacked."
"But we get attacked a lot anyway..." Lisa pointed out.
"True. So I'm not gonna let these dragon guys spoil our night out. Or anybody's. I did not put all this on to not dance." He looked around at the others. "The society ballroom's busy but the rest of the campus is pretty much empty. So we need to draw our guests away..." he said, and started running.
"Shouldn't be hard, they're mostly here to kill us," Olivia noted.
"Also true. Let's not make that easy for them..." he said, heading for the basketball court which had lots of arches and lights and other things that would slow flying things down.
...
"What, no?" Joe looked crestfallen. "You get attacked in jeans too. I like the way you're dressed."
His honesty turned into an embarrassed blush, and then he stepped in between Andy and some falling debris. "Let's talk about clothes later."
The dragons were not here for games. Shouts and screams came from all around the campus. In the distance, he could see the Hockey Valkyries and the Frisbee Werewolves evacuating, Father Zed opening up a teleportation portal, and more. But the dragons flew in a ring above the campus, swooping down to set the buildings on fire.
The crew turned to Andy, wondering what to do.
...
Andy saw Joe's reaction to his observation about how this kept happening, which Lisa backed up, and Joe's confession of liking the dress.
"I... I like it too."
He felt himself blush deeply as he admitted that.
And then he saw that only some of the dragons were following to the empty basketball courts, and one of them was swooping down to set fire to the Student Center.
"Oh, son of a - spear!" He paused. "Let's see how they like jabby things!"
He nodded to Lisa and she flung her spear, which cut into the Student Center dragon's wing, making it pull up and away. But there was another swooping at the Rec Center, and another looming over the library, and another - okay, the Chemistry Building was never going to stand a chance...
"Where are they all coming from?" Andy asked, even as he swung the Sword to hack through the lock to the courts' central building to get Olivia to rig the lights to distract the dragons that had followed...
...
Joe reached out and grabbed Andy by the arm, pulling him into a small cubbyhole.
The dragons had retreated, but were now swirling over the campus in a huge flight, like a flock of migratory birds swirling in a circle.
"I don't think we can fight them all," Joe wiped his sweat. "They're trying to summon The Last Dragon. They're using the campus as a portal. It's the dance of dragons."
Lisa shook her head. "We've lived here too long. We became too powerful.
"We have to...we have to evacuate."
...
Andy looked up at the tornado of wings. "At least they're staying on campus, not spreading out... and nobody outside seems to have noticed, or we'd have police helicopters and news and stuff. Though it seems like only some of them are hunting for us..."
He grimaced as Joe suggested they were a summoning circle for something worse.
Then he looked over at Lisa and blinked. "That's... That's a thing? I didn't know that was a thing." He frowned, pained by the idea that this was at all on them. Then he set his jaw. "Alright. We gotta lead them away. Decide if we gotta evacuate once everybody's safe. Should be easy enough as long as we can stay ahead. Liv, where's your car?"
...
The ground around them was crumbling as Liv's car began to take off. The crazy inventor girl in her could not resist making a car fly -- although in her case, the SUV turned into a personnel carrier with wings.
The five of them watched through the rear window as the dragons began destroying the empty buildings and dorm rooms. Akiva crinkled a smirk. "I just started building a puzzle, too. Guess that's gone now."
Olivia huffed. "I've got us a hotel booking. We can hide out while we figure out what to do."
Lisa, watching closely, gave Andy a hug. "You OK?"
...
Andy's eyes watered as he weakly leaned into Lisa's embrace. "I couldn't... we couldn't..." he mumbled, numb. "There has to be something, something I could do..."
He looked down at the sword, once again a bracelet, as he dropped his hands into his lap as Lisa moved to put an arm around him and rub his shoulders for warmth. He realized he should tug down the skirt of his dress, and awkwardly shifted to do so, reminded of how he'd been happy to dress like this just a few hours ago. He'd bought this dress. He'd asked Lisa's advice before she could offer it. He'd wanted to look pretty, and be with his friends and... boyfriend... and hadn't gotten to enjoy it. The building they were supposed to be in now was probably gone...
"This is no way to start a New Year..."
He furrowed his brow, then looked up, cleared his throat and addressed the group. "Okay, There has to be something we can do. We make some calls, we look stuff up. We found how this happened, and we stop it."
...
It was a strange site.
Covered in dirt and ash and soot, Lisa and Akiva had changed into the robes from the hotel, looking like they were here for a spa weekend rather than escaping an apocalypse. Joe and Andy were dressed in their evening wear, while Olivia probably did not even notice the stains and damage on her oiled up jumpsuit.
Joe gently reached out and touched Andy's arm. "I think it's already happened. I don't think we can stop it."
Akiva nodded. "The campus is destroyed. Or will be soon. There's too many dragons. If we destroy the Last Dragon, we can save the world. But the campus is gone..."
...
Seeing Lisa and Akiva cleaned up, Andy was vaguely aware that he could do with that as well.
"I guess all this was a wasted effort..." he said quietly as he brushed a little dust off his skirt. Maybe he meant getting dressed up. Maybe he meant... everything he'd done since he first reached for the sword.
He started to cry.
...
Surprisingly, it was Akiva who cleared his throat, and pulled Olivia off to the kitchen to work.
Lisa and Joe picked Andy up between them and moved to the couch, just like old time, just the three of them. Lisa put her arms around Andy, and so did Joe, and all three of them were hugging together.
"It's not... your fault," Joe ventured.
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