//------------------------------//
// 9.  Please Remember Me 
// Story: My Little Sister is a Dragon: Ester Dracos Arc 
// by AleximusPrime 
//------------------------------//

Buttercream began to climb the rock that Hono was standing on top of.  He had been watching her the entire time and realized she figured out he was hindering her fire breath.  Hono was one of the younger Guardians.  He was somewhat bigheaded, but still very experienced and knew when to take a situation seriously.  He saw how Inazuma’s lightning bolts had no effect on Buttercream, so he knew he would have to try and wrangle her like Jishin.
“I didn’t expect you Northerns to be so cunning when you enter the rage form,” he said. “Listen, young dragoness, I am arguably the best of the Guardians when it comes to fighting.  I would not make any attempts to challenge me.”
Buttercream roared in response and continued scaling the mountain. Hono crouched and readied himself as she got closer.  By the time she was almost at his level, he leapt and grabbed onto her, causing them both to plummet into the surf.  He tried to take off, but Buttercream quickly regained her composure and clamped onto his tail with her powerful jaws, causing him to bellow in pain.  Hono turned his head back and blew fire at her until she let go.  While fire would do no damage to dragon scales, it distracted her long enough for him to fly around her in a circle and tighten up, trapping her inside.  Hono was quicker than Jishin and incapacitated her in just a few seconds.  Tsundora was not there to freeze her into place this time.  That would do no good since the heat coming form Hono’s body would melt the ice even faster, so he had to rely only on himself.  He tried a different approach from Jishin’s: rather than allowing her head and tail to move freely, he covered her entire body, leaving everything around her totally dark like a caterpillar in its cocoon.   Hono went airborne and held her as still as he could, thinking this would produce the same results as when a Northern Drake would do the wrangling.  Little did he know, he was doing it wrong.
When performing a wrangling ritual during rage mode, the Northern Drake fathers would usually grab their young from behind and wrap one arm around its neck or both arms underneath its armpits.  If it were to try and stretch its neck back to bite or use the second arm to claw at the father, the mother dragon would keep it still. Sometimes a third and fourth dragon would be needed to keep the legs and tail steady, but it was usually better to allow some of its limbs to move freely and not be totally swaddled.  This would let it know it is not being completely disabled from movement.  A dragon in rage mode must also be allowed to see or it would get confused and grow angrier. What Hono was doing had the opposite affect of wrangling.
Buttercream’s rage only grew and she pressed against the scaly walls around her.  Hono tried to squeeze harder, but this only made things worse.  She finally pushed his coils apart and quickly crawled out like a rodent escaping a trap.  Hono tried to unravel, but she immediately lunged for his head and wrapped her arms around his neck, causing him to lose his balance and fall back into the water. He tried to get back up but felt something pound against his head.  Buttercream had punched him hard enough to break his concentration.  She then reached for his tail and pulled with all her might.  Hono felt himself being yanked backward and swung around in a circle.  He was already too weakened to fly out of her hands and his head hit a nearby rock, disorienting him.  Buttercream spun him around three times and then threw him back at the island he had been standing on earlier.  He hit the side of it and grunted in pain.  Rocks came down and buried him in the surf.  She exhaled and noticed pink fire spewing from her mouth.  Now that Hono was knocked out, he had no control over his elemental powers, and she had her ability to breathe fire again.  She returned to the island she left her treasure on and climbed up to take care of Inazuma and Kaze.  Inazuma noticed she had beaten Hono.  He tried hitting her with more lightning, while Kaze flew faster to make the cyclone above more powerful.  Buttercream noticed her treasure could be blown away, so she quickly returned to the ruins and covered the top of it with her arms.  She then blew a continuous stream of fire upwards, causing it to spread out in the cyclone.  Inazuma finally gave up and flew away.
“Kaze, it’s no use!  Terminate the storm now!” he called to his fellow Guardian.
“But Inazuma, how else will we stop her?” she asked.
“First we must tend to Hono.  The Emperor will seek help from the North.”
Buttercream watched as the last of the Guardians left in defeat.  She snorted out of her nostrils and made one final roar of victory.  All the longs of the capital city watched in horror as their brave Guardians could do nothing to stop the rampaging Northern.  Anyone that lost belongings would never get them back at this point, but they were at least thankful no one was hurt in the process. Most of the Guardians had already gotten back up.  None of them had grave injuries, but they were defeated and could go no further.
“We are beaten.  Now what?” asked Jishin.
“It is a wasted effort.  That little one will never concede to us,” Tsundora added.
“Now, my brethren.  Hope is not lost,” Shokubutsu said, putting his claw on Tsundora’s shoulder. “We still have King Rubble of Nordo Dracos.  He will know what to do with her.”
“We will not be needing King Rubble, my friends,” said Antirrhinum behind them. “Remember the legend of Prince Surge.  There is another way.”
“Are you sure, Your Excellency?” asked Mizu. “There may be a reason why that is dismissed as a legend.”
“I never saw it myself, but I was around when I heard of this different approach to calming a raging Northern.  I have faith it can work.  Nightwatch knows his little sister better than any of us.  He’s got this.”
Back on the island, Buttercream took one final chance to survey her surroundings and make sure none of the Guardians would come back to her.  They were standing in the surf, recovering from the fight, so she thought this was the end of her troubles.  She turned back to her hoard to begin her slumber, only to find one more thing standing in her way.  She looked down on the pile to see Nightwach standing before her once again. Buttercream grimaced at the sight of him and started to growl.
“Butter, please remember me,”
Buttercream roared in his face, but he put a shield up with his magic to avoid being blown back by the wind.  She stopped and looked to see he was still there.  Nightwatch continued talking to her.
“Look, this isn’t you.  The real Buttercream would never just hoard away all these things.  She loved a good present, but she also knew it’s better to give than to receive.  Do you remember what it was like before?”
Just as Nightwatch tried to open his satchel to use the photos, she reached down and grabbed him with her powerful claw before he could teleport.  She brought him up close to her snout and snarled at him.  Nightwatch was scared, but he had a feeling she would not hurt him. He just continued staring at her and used his magic to bring the satchel up next to him.  He quickly took out the photos and lined them all up above his head. Buttercream saw them and immediately thought they were valuables for her to collect, so she grabbed one between her two long nails.  Nightwatch didn’t want the photo to rip, so he quickly undid his magic around that photo. She looked at the photo for a moment but then turned back to him.
“Butter, wait, look at the picture again.  Can you make it out?”
Buttercream squinted her eyes at the picture but gave up trying.  Her greedy mind only saw it as a gift for her to have; she didn’t care what it looked like. She then noticed all the other pictures glowed in a brighter aura.  They grew in size so she could make them out.  Even the one in her claw was bigger.  Nightwatch looked up to the sky to see Antirrhinum using his magic to enlarge the photos.  Buttercream looked again at the picture she had and could now see it better.  She saw an image of a small yellow and pink dragon like her standing next to a navy-blue unicorn stallion.  They were standing in front of a telescope.  At first she was too busy eyeing out all the details of the pictures.  She thought she could grab the items in each image, but she noticed they all had one thing in common: the little dragon and unicorn were visible in all the photos, and some of them even had two other unicorns visible.  She didn’t understand what she was looking at, but she slowly started to recognize these characters.  She felt like she knew them at one point or even longer.  Various memories of her life started to flash before her eyes.  She saw herself playing with toys inside a log cabin.  Next she was cooking delicious food with the bright blue female unicorn.  She then saw the dark purple stallion hugging her as she rushed to greet him after coming home from work.  Finally, she saw several moments with the younger navy blue unicorn.  They were playing with toys and video games together.  She then started to remember more recent events like meeting Noctura and Luna, battling the Ram Golem, and traveling to Ester Dracos.  She stopped looking at the photos and turned her eyes to the unicorn in her hand.  It finally dawned on her that she was holding that same navy-blue unicorn in the pictures.  She knew who he was.  She remembered his face and started to remember his name: Nightwatch.
The look on her face grew sympathetic and emotional.  She let go of the picture in her hand.  It floated down to the ground.  Nightwatch could already tell it had worked and she remembered everything.
“Do you remember now?” he asked with tears in his eyes.
Buttercream opened her mouth and started to mumble in a deep monstrous voice.
“Ni…….Nighty?”
“It’s me, Butter.”
Buttercream’s body began making strange sounds.  Her face appeared dizzy like she was in a trance. Suddenly, her body started wiggling as if she was having a seizure.  In a split second, she morphed back into her tiny self again.  Nightwatch was so surprised by how fast it happened.  He was expecting her to shrink slowly and didn’t have time to think, so they both fell to the ground before he could use his magic to catch both of them.  They plummeted to the ground, only to land on a giant red claw with padding on its palm. Antirrhinum had swooped in just in time and caught them both.  Nightwatch landed on his belly.  He had the wind knocked out of him a little, but he quickly regained his composure. He dashed for his little sister, lifting her in his arms.
“BUTTER, YOU’RE BACK!” he cried.
As this happened, the clouds parted as Kaze used her magic to dissipate the storm.  Tons of longs had been watching from behind some of the other islands in the surf. They began cheering after Buttercream shrank.  The Guardians had climbed onto some of the rocks or taken to the skies and roared triumphantly.  Tigrinum, Azalea, Aster, Lily and Pansy were off to the side, joining everyone else in celebration.  Antirrhinum used his magic to levitate them both back onto the ground in the ruins. Nightwatch continued to cry as he embraced Buttercream.
“I thought I’d lost you…Butter?”
“Nighty…”
Nightwatch stopped hugging her and noticed she was in shock over everything.  She pointed to all of the things he had taken and started sniffling.
“Did I really just steal all of those things?  And hurt the Guardians when they tried to stop me? That wasn’t just a bad dream?”
“No, that really happened, but it’s okay, it was just-”
“Why?  Why would I do that?  I didn’t mean to, I promise!”
Buttercream sobbed and buried her face in Nightwatch’s chest as he returned to hugging her.
“No, sh-sh-sh!  Butter, it’s okay.  I know you didn’t mean to do all that.  Look, I just learned that Northern Drakes all go through this sort of thing around your age. They call it rage mode.  Baby Northerns get greedy one day and start growing really big like you did and they take everything in sight.”
“They do?”
“Mhmm.  They have it set up so they can induce rage mode and get it over with, so it doesn’t happen during a bad time.  They wrangle their young until they calm down and shrink back, but you can also find another way to get them to remember their past the way I just did.”
“With those pictures?”
“Yeah.  I used some pretty good ones, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
Buttercream dried her tears and they both giggled.  She sighed and looked down at the ground as Nightwatch put his hoof on her shoulder.  He looked to see Antirrhinum and other longs surrounding them on the walls of the ruins.
“It’s okay, Butter.  We forgive you,” Lily said.
“Yeah, kid.  It’s no biggie,” said Aster. “We get kaiju fights around here every so often with the Guardians.  You should’ve seen the last Quetzacoatl attack just a few miles south of here.” 
“Hehe.  Thanks, guys,” Buttercream giggled. “Still, I told Mom and Dad I wouldn’t get greedy on this trip.  You think they’ll understand?”
“They’ll understand just fine,” Nightwatch said.
“But what about all this stuff?  How will I ever return all of this?”
Buttercream walked over to the hoard and noticed a cracked pot with dirt and a large flower spilling out.  It must have belonged to Hosta, Amaryllis and Daisy.  Hosta floated in and landed next to her.  She knelt down and put her claw on Buttercream’s head.
“Don’t worry about all this, Buttercream.  We can all fly in here and find our things,” she said.
As Hosta spoke, Amaryllis picked up the flower by its dirt and carefully placed it in another pot Daisy was holding that came from their stall.  The flower had lost a few petals, but it was still salvageable.
“See?  Nothin’ to it!” Amaryllis said, brushing off her claws.
“They’re just objects after all,” Daisy added. “We’ll get past this, and we still have our families.”
“That’s true,” Buttercream said, smiling, as other longs nodded their heads in agreement. 
“Me and my brethren can help repair most of the damage in the town.  Our elemental powers will allow us to do it,” said Shokubutsu, as he and the other Guardians took flight and hovered around the ruins.
“Thank you, sir.  And I’m sorry if I hit you guys too hard back there.”
“All I forgiven,” said Kaze.
“To be fair, we’ve had far more painful fights than that,” said Hono, rubbing his head.
“And we were holding ourselves back anyway.  We were well aware that you were a young Northern in rage all along,” Tsundora added.
“I know I didn’t do it on purpose, but I should still help clean up a little.  If anyone needs something done, like just a little cleaning, I’d be happy to come into the town to help out,” Buttercream said.
“And we would be happy to welcome you back in, Buttercream-san,” said Myosoti, putting his hand on her back.
“Thanks.”
The longs all began moving in to collect their belongings. Myosoti helped lift some things and find their owners while digging around for some of his belongings. Hosta, Amaryllis and Daisy recovered a few of their flowers and other belongings.  Everything Buttercream had taken from Tigrinum and Azalea’s house was left back there, so they decided to help everyone else and tend to their own belongings later.  Nightwatch began picking up the photos as Antirrhinum shrank them down back to their original size.
“Thank you, Your Highness,” Nightwatch said, bowing down to the Emperor.
“You are welcome, young Nightwatch,” he replied.
Nightwatch put all the photos back in his satchel and turned around to see Buttercream standing before him.  She wiped away another tear and smiled before hugging him.
“Thanks for coming back for me, Nightwatch.  Love ya,” she said.
“I love you too, Buttercream,” he replied.