Hops gasped as Roge appeared in their midst, several popups appearing for the group as the elf felt their connection to the dragon change. It didn’t get stronger at all, as evident by one of the popups, but it very much seemed to get deeper.

  Hops breathed in slowly as he looked at the dragon, feeling a bit put off by the wording. He knew the bond only lasted as long as he had the ash in his inventory, and that Roge wouldn’t have any idea that would happen, but some forewarning would have been nice. Before the elf could say anything, however, Sean rushed over to the dragon and hugged him tightly but briefly, showing his concern before glancing back at the ongoing fight. “Roge, they need your aura.”

  “They also need us,” Hops stated, briefly absorbing the upgrades Roge had given him.

  Hops sighed as the information funneled into his [Information Library], connections being made to the information he’d stored about Roge’s [Screen Hoard]. “At the very least, I can help with ranged fire, Alton can move in to tank a lot since he’s in the same tier as the drake-“

  “Tier?” Roge asked, looking confused.

  Hops looked at him calmly before looking back at the losing battle. “No time. Marge can fire from the back. And Sean… does any of your skills do ranged damage?”

  “No…” the lion said, sighing as his face sagged. “I’d have to be right up next to it, and since I’m a tier below it…”

  “I can handle that,” Roge interjected, moving close to Sean and looking very nervous. “I think. Lemme try…” He then flicked a ball of paint at Sean, the ‘attack’ not even connecting as the lion was suddenly teleported a half foot away.

  “No… No that’s too much…” Hops muttered, pulling out his book and finding the description he wanted.

  “All of your skills work on us now…” Hops breathed out, pulling up his buff list and noticing all of Roge’s buffs now effected them too. “That’s… insane! That’s too much! It even effects out attributes?!”

  “Uh… Now you know what it’s like?” Roge muttered, earning him a flat stare from Hops. “I don’t do these things on purpose…”

  “Not the time!!” Marge screeched, putting away her bow and pulling out one of Roge’s bombs. “Roge, stay right by Sean so you can pull him out. He can only take five, maybe ten hits from that thing before going down. So Hops and you will heal and teleport him as much as you can. Meanwhile, I gained Roge’s dodge skill, so I can get in close with no worries, and Alton can help tank and keep its attention. Hops, stay back as much as you can and help the healers and ranged attackers.” After shouting out the commands at the group, making them all look very to mildly embarrassed, she rushed towards the drake.

  “Better do as she says,” Hops said as he chuckled, pulling out two wands, one in each hand and looking at them intensely. “This is going to be fun…”

  ~~~

  Alton felt shocked as Roge swept right past him, the dracotaur spending a point of haste to get his speed closer to the dragon’s. With his various buffs to agility, the resource had skyrocketed, though he noticed that his [Speed] skill didn’t effect the resource, though that didn’t matter too much to him.

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  He knew he was going to pay for those upgrades later, as he’d received a massive power boost pretty much everywhere in his [Status]. Luckily, while still within range of active combat, the system gave everyone a bit of a grace period, which made sense to him. You didn’t want a fighter suddenly collapsing if they got buffed too much.

  Thankfully, Roge stopped a good bit back from the fighting, starting his absorption of the magic in the air and, strangely, starting to sing an upbeat song. Sensing he was waiting for Sean to catch up, the dracotaur moved in with a fury, employing one of Roge’s least used plants as he used his buffed strength to jump in the air.

  Two of the vines shot out from his wrists, first wrapping around them a few times to anchor him. The reaching mouths hit the drake in the back, causing it to roar before Alton rappelled to his target. His [Unarmed Weapon Proficiency] and [Brute Strength] skills came into play as he did so, his hooves doing a ton of damage as they hit. This stunned the drake as Alton flipped off its back, turning to look at the stunned melee fighters.

  “Everyone back up! Protect the back line as I distract it!” he shouted, his voice punctuated by Marge swooping in and chucking one of the fire bombs she had. The flames soon spread very quickly across the drake’s scales, causing the creature to writhe and screech. As Alton was going in for another hit, this time using his scaled fist, he saw an orange, glowing sword off to his left swinging along with him. ‘Good… Sean’s here.’

  Right after the fist and sword hit the drake’s body, Alton suddenly found himself several meters back, the drake’s flailing claws missing the two frontline fighters with the dodge. A couple of small flaming spark balls hit the drake the next second, Roge suddenly moving to stand in between Sean and himself.

  Strangely, he continued to sing, some of the music notes with blue flames on them drifting past. The dragon had a wand in his hand, Alton realizing that he was using a lesser wand to generate the song effect. With that realization came another, this one from their connection. Roge could push his aura into his songs, though Alton was still confused as to why he was doing that as a screen popped up off to the side.

  Alton grunted as the links between his dragon and his hoard tightened, the dracotaur realizing that the drake was pushing out an aura of its own. ‘Let’s hope he wins…’ he thought to himself, getting his head back in the game as he dodged another claw strike from the creature.

  ~~~

  As soon as Roge’s aura hit the drake, he could feel the will of the massive creature contesting with his own, the dragon cringing as he did so. It normally wouldn’t be a problem, as his mind couldn’t be dominated, so he wanted to just hold out until the drake got tired. But he couldn’t do that, as the drake’s sole focus became him, Roge having to constantly dodge around as he fought off the creature’s aura. He didn’t even need to teleport Sean at all, as the plasma sword didn’t pull any attention away from Roge whatsoever. Luckily, Roge was feeding the surrounding magic into his skill, grinning at the upgrades he’d absorbed earlier.

  Not only had the skill kept its range with the switch to flex fueling it, flex was apparently a lot more efficient, going from one mana per meter to one flex per ten meters. He did notice, though, that even if he traveled five meters, it’d still use one, not letting him subdivide the resource. ‘Shame.’

  The battle between the two auras was very taxing on the dragon, Roge barely noticing the various attacks from both his friends and the other adventurers. Even with his song allowing him to funnel excess mana to strengthen his aura, it still felt like a losing battle as more and more magic suffused the air. It was then that Roge noticed that the weather effect was coming completely from the drake’s aura, Roge’s aura keeping it contained enough to not effect the air behind the dragon. Once he made that realization, he kept himself in between the other adventurers and the drake, a glance letting him know that most of the melee fighters were down for the count.

  As the fight continued to drag, with Roge pushing his skills more and more, the dragon was in the middle of his second song when he finally felt something change. He’d been purposefully singing focusing songs, some he’d only half remembered from a friend’s workout playlist. It enabled him to feel when the drake’s aura started weakening, the screen that popped up a welcome one.

  He pushed towards the drake at that, the creature sporting many burns and cuts all along its hide. It seemed surprised that Roge had moved forward, the dragon having to dodge multiple attacks before he could place a claw on said hide.

  Once he did, the entire battle changed. Everyone dodged back as blue and green flames erupted around the drake’s body as it let out a loud shriek. Both Roge and it were locked in place, the dragon’s muscles not obeying any commands as the battle of wills became even harder.

  Roge’s focus completely narrowed in in *TAKING* the creature, previously non-existent instincts rising to the surface now that the system could effect him more. He *WANTED* the drake. It was going to be *HIS*. He even added in his [Druidic Touch] on instinct, feeling the ice drake’s and his mind snap together even further.

   The drake’s inner voice felt almost childlike to Roge, its will swiping and snapping at him in fear.

   Roge replied, the mind speech feeling simple to use.

   The drake’s voice devolved into incoherent screaming as Roge continued to push it into his hoard, though he hesitated for just a moment before continuing.

   Roge tried to shake his head, pushing more and more even as he pushed back against the instincts that were trying to rule him. While some of it was useful, he didn’t want to be the kind of person that took and took from people. Hoarding people and things for his own benefit. He wanted to give them something as well, provide for his hoard how he wasn’t provided for. And so he asked. While just saying the words could have been taken multiple ways, Roge could feel the rake understanding the meaning behind them. The drake wasn’t exactly smart, but it understood enough to have a want. A desire. Something that Roge would try and fulfill.

   it… no *she* responded, her resistance holding on by a thread.

   Roge quietly thought, pushing a different intention towards the drake. Not binding her forever in his hoard, but bonding with her. Giving her the opportunity to grow and hoard how she liked in his [Farm Hoard], yes, but using his [Royal Hoard] to do that. She could come out on missions. See what was going on from inside. And she’d be protected by him so people wouldn’t attack her unprovoked.

  
  

  He could feel her mind churning at that, reaching out through the forming bond and looking for any falsehoods. Whatever she found, she finally relaxed her efforts to resist, allowing the [Royal Hoard] bond to form. It was small. Weak. They’d just met after all, and she had larger instincts than him taking up space in her mind. But in that one moment, she trusted that Roge could help and take care of her.

  With the bond in place, the now blue, green, and black flames died down on both of them, Roge taking a step back and smiling. He could feel her pain, knowing that he and his friends caused it. But Roge hoped it would be worth it for the chance to grow and live, instead of killing people, and dying herself. With a thought, he made his third environment in his [Farm Hoard], molding it into a large cavern made of ice that she could recover in. he thought to her, the drake’s form shifting as she entered her new home. White scales were replaced with white fabric, the doppelganger doll still retaining her quadrupedal shape, but losing all of its draconic qualities. Soon there was just the doll, Roge feeling his drake settle in her dragon’s hoard with a loud sigh.

   she grumbled, causing Roge to chuckle as he stored her physical body in his inventory.

  

  With that, the battle was over, punctuated by all five party members collapsing onto the ground with pained groans. Marge was the only one who looked mostly fine, Sean, Hops, and Alton’s stronger bonds having caused more changes their bodies had to acclimate to. Roge had the most changes of all of them, chuckling at the painful, bloated feeling of being stuffed with too much power. “Hopefully that doesn’t happen again,” he murmured.

  “Oh, we know it will,” the deer woman replied, chuckling as the other adventurers slowly approached. “But we love you anyway.”

  Roge let out a small burst of laughter, which turned into a pain filled groan as the bloating feeling got worse. “As I love all of you.”