Chapter 695: Levels Above Everyone

The festivities of the previous night, or whatever the fleet ran on, had ended and it was dusk again.

Everything had returned to normal.

In one of the fleet’s wider corridors, Lila was walking with headphones over her ears and her hands wrapped in what looked like boxing wraps, off-white material wound tight from knuckle to wrist. She was obviously heading to train.

She almost walked past him.

Jayden was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed and his ankles loose, the posture of someone who had been standing there for a while and was comfortable with it. He saw her first. His mouth moved into something that was almost a smile before she looked up and clocked him.

Lila pulled one side of her headphones off.

"Smoake," she said.

"Rowe," he said. Completely relaxed about it.

She looked at him the way she looked at things she hadn’t decided about yet, direct and unhurried, taking her time. "You’re in a good mood."

"It was a good night," he said.

"Hm." She started walking again.

"You’re not going to ask how I’m settling in?" he said, behind her.

She stopped. Turned halfway. "Why would I?"

"Common courtesy," he said. "You’re one of the senior Eclipse members. I’m new."

"You’re not new," she said. "You’re a problem that Noah decided was an asset. That’s different from new."

Jayden pushed off the wall and fell into step beside her, which she hadn’t invited but he did it anyway with the easy confidence of someone who had learned that waiting for invitations was slow. "You never liked me."

"I don’t trust you," Lila said. "There’s a difference."

"Because of what I did to Lucas’s sister."

"Among other things."

"Among other things," Jayden repeated. He glanced at her sideways. "You know what’s interesting about that?"

"I don’t care what you find interesting."

"You set the purge on the eastern Cardinal," he said. Not cruelly. Just directly, the same way she was being direct. "You worked with them. You were the reason that attack happened."

Lila stopped walking.

Jayden stopped beside her.

She looked at him. Her face didn’t do anything dramatic. It just went very still.

"I know about the redemption arc," Jayden said. "I know how it ended. I know you walked away from your parents and everything that came with them." He looked at her with something that wasn’t hostility but wasn’t softness either. "I’m just saying. You standing here telling me you don’t trust me because of my history." He let it sit there.

Lila looked at him for a long moment.

"You’re right," she said.

He blinked. He hadn’t expected that.

"I know what I did," she said. "I know what it cost. I’m not standing here pretending otherwise." She held his gaze. "But knowing what you did and being trusted anyway requires time and evidence. I haven’t seen enough of either from you."

"Fair," Jayden said.

"So until I have," she said, putting her headphone back over her ear, "I’ll be watching you."

She started walking.

"Looking forward to it," Jayden said behind her.

She didn’t turn around. But something in the set of her shoulders said she had heard it and filed it somewhere that wasn’t the bin.

---

The Ares open kitchen was a long space that ran along the inner hull of the central structure, warm the way everything on the fleet was warm, with surfaces designed for people who cooked at temperatures that would be considered a malfunction anywhere else. At this hour it was mostly empty, just a couple of Ares crew at the far end doing something with equipment that steamed.

Seraleth was at the near counter making ice cream.

Not buying it. Making it. She had a bowl and a spatula and several ingredients that she had apparently sourced from earth for this mission and she was folding them together with the patience of someone doing something they had practiced enough times that it didn’t require thought.

Angel walked in, saw her, and slowed down slightly.

She kept walking anyway and stopped at the counter across from her.

"Hey," Angel said.

"Hello," Seraleth said, not looking up from the bowl.

Angel put her hands on the counter. Looked at what Seraleth was doing. Looked around the kitchen. Looked back at Seraleth.

"I just wanted to," she said. "You know. Hang out. Talk."

Seraleth glanced up. "Okay."

"Not because we’re." Angel made a vague gesture. "You know. Or because Lila and Sophie seem." Another gesture. "I just thought."

Seraleth stopped folding and looked at her properly. "Angel."

"Yeah."

"You are on the EDF’s best rapid response squadrons. You are nicknamed the Red Angel of Death. You are S ranked. You have fought things that would make most people permanently reconsider their life choices." She picked up the spatula again. "And you are scared of a blonde girl and a black haired girl who are both genuinely the sweetest people I have come to know in two years on this planet."

Angel opened her mouth.

"Sophie brought me ice cream when I was sad about Noah being gone," Seraleth continued. "She sat with me for four hours and didn’t make me talk about it. She just sat there." She folded the mixture. "Lila taught me how to do laundry because on Lilivil we had people for that and I kept turning things the wrong color." She looked at Angel. "They are not scary. You are just uncomfortable."

Angel pulled out a stool and sat down. "What are you making."

"Vanilla with a caramel swirl," Seraleth said. "The Ares kitchen has real vanilla pods. I didn’t know they existed outside of flavoring until three months ago. Now I think about them regularly."

"You make your own ice cream."

"I discovered ice cream eight months after arriving on Earth," Seraleth said. "I have been making up for lost time." She slid the bowl slightly toward Angel. "You can stir if you want."

Angel picked up a second spatula that was sitting nearby and stirred.

They were quiet for a moment, both working on the bowl, the kitchen warm around them.

"Last night was weird," Angel said.

"Weird how," Seraleth said.

"I don’t know. I’m not." Angel kept stirring. "I’ve never. That wasn’t something I’ve done before."

"With multiple people?"

"With anyone I actually." Angel stopped. Started again. "I don’t usually do things I’m not in complete control of."

Seraleth looked at her with genuine curiosity. "Did you enjoy it?"

Angel was quiet for a second. "Yes."

"Then what’s the problem."

"I can’t look anyone in the face this morning." Angel said.

"Why not." Sera asked.

"Because they were there," Angel said. "And now it’s morning and we’re all on the same ship and I don’t know what the." She stopped stirring briefly. "I don’t know what the rules are."

Seraleth took the bowl back and kept folding. "On Lilivil, despite were asexual to most people, sometimes these things still occur" she said, "Thing is, intimacy between people who trusted each other was not complicated. It was an expression of the trust. Nothing more and nothing less." She glanced at Angel. "The complication you’re feeling is a human thing. The need to categorize it. Put it in a box with a label so you know how to treat it afterward."

"That’s not entirely wrong," Angel said.

"The label isn’t what matters," Seraleth said. "What matters is whether the trust was real." She looked at Angel directly. "Was it?"

Angel thought about it. "Yeah."

"Then the morning is fine," Seraleth said simply. "And for what it’s worth, I enjoyed it too." She said it with the same energy she said everything, completely settled, no performance in it. "I would like to do it again sometime. Perhaps with better planning. I have some ideas."

Angel stared at her.

"What kind of ideas," Angel said, very carefully.

"Well," Seraleth said, and the look on her face was the one she got when she had been thinking about something thoroughly and was now ready to share the results of that thinking in full detail.

By the time she finished, Angel had forgotten she was holding a spatula.

---

Noah had been in the domain since before anyone else was awake.

He materialized into the endless grassland and made it approximately four steps before the first hatchling hit him in the chest.

Then two more from the left.

Then one from below somehow, which he was still not sure how it managed, and it nipped his ankle with tiny teeth that carried enough electrical charge to make his leg jump.

"Okay," he said, to no one in particular, "good morning."

They swarmed him. All thirty of them, the hatchlings that had come through with Gail, small enough that he could hold two comfortably but fast enough that holding any of them was largely theoretical. They nipped and tackled and sparked, their electrical lines running bright with the particular excitement of small things that had found something large to bother.

He let them bother him for a while.

’Kelvin warned me,’ he thought, looking down at the pile of small wyverns attempting to collectively drag his left arm somewhere. ’He sat me down after Angel, specifically, and said Noah, the mathematics of this situation are going to compound. I told him I had it handled.’ He watched one hatchling get its tail stuck to another hatchling through a static discharge and both of them look very confused about it. ’Now after last night, my back hurts. I can regenerate broken bones and my back hurts. That’s insane.’

He detached himself from the pile with the care of someone who had learned the hard way that hatchlings released suddenly tended to discharge on the way out. He set the three he was carrying gently in the grass and stood up.

Nyx was thirty meters away.

Ares was beside him, the two Red Deaths taking up a section of the grassland the way mountains took up landscape, present in a way that changed how the space around them felt. Nyx was still, the deep patience he applied to everything. Ares had his head turned, tracking something at the edge of the grassland, his attention always slightly more active than Nyx’s, always looking for the next thing.

Noah walked over and put his hand against Nyx’s jaw.

Nyx lowered his head slightly. The amber eyes half closed.

’We’re close,’ Noah thought. Not to the Valdris Expanse. Just close to whatever this was becoming. ’I don’t know what Kruel looks like now. I don’t know what we’re walking into. But we’re all here and we’re all better than we were and that has to count for something.’

He moved to Ares and did the same, the Molten Core sitting quiet in his chest at rest, the glow of it visible through the scales even now.

Storm was further across the grassland with a cluster of hatchlings around him, three of them attempting to climb his tail while he watched them with the long-suffering patience of someone who had not asked for younger siblings and had received them anyway. One hatchling made it to his back and immediately released a small electrical discharge in triumph. Storm looked at it over his shoulder with an expression that was not quite exasperation but was something adjacent to it.

’He’s happy though,’ Noah thought. ’He doesn’t know how to show it the way the others do but he’s happy.’

Ivy and Gail were at the far end, the two females together in the way they had been since Gail arrived, not doing anything specific, just existing in the same space with the mutual comfort of creatures who had decided they didn’t need to perform contentment. Ivy’s violet scales caught the domain light differently from Gail’s darker blue-black. Between them the temperature difference was noticeable, Ivy running slightly warm the way all thorn dragons did, Gail running cold the way the Hollow Blizzard lineage ran.

Noah looked at all of them.

’I should train,’ he thought. ’I’ve been on this ship being diplomatic and doing item reveals and eating fire wine for two days. I need to sweat.’

He pulled up the Reaper’s Harvest.

[Reaper’s Harvest — Activated]

The void energy moved through the ground first. Dark purple bleeding up through the grass in a rough outline, the shape of it resolving from formless to specific, the dimensions assembling themselves in the familiar sequence of something being recalled rather than created. Legs first, the joints wrong in the specific way the Widow’s joints were wrong, designed for a movement pattern that didn’t match anything terrestrial. Then the torso, dense and armored. The tail, the four-horn marking her as what she was, the construct version of it sitting in that deep purple-black that all his Reaper summons carried.

Eight feet of Widow construct, standing in his grassland, looking at him with eyes that weren’t really eyes.

The hatchlings scattered immediately. Every single one of them, gone into the grass in a coordinated retreat that had clearly been a group decision made in under a second.

Nyx raised his head.

"It’s fine," Noah said, to Nyx and to the grassland generally. "Stay where you are."

He looked at the construct.

"Attack me," he said.

It came without preamble.

BOOM!

The ground where it had been standing erupted as it crossed the distance, the spinning tail whip already committed before Noah’s eyes had fully tracked the movement.

Noah raised his hand.

The tail hit his palm and he felt it. A sting, present and real, the construct carrying enough force to be worth acknowledging.

"Hmm," he said. "Okay."You’re right. The Widow is bipedal, eight to nine feet tall. I put eight legs on her which is completely wrong and I knew better.

He pulled up the Reaper’s Harvest.

[Reaper’s Harvest — Activated]

The void energy moved through the ground first. Dark purple bleeding up through the grass in a rough outline, the shape of it resolving from formless to specific. Two legs, the joints carrying that wrongness that Harbinger physiology had, built for a movement pattern that was almost human and wasn’t. Then the torso, dense and broad. The arms. The tail sweeping out behind her. The four horns marking her classification, the construct versions of them sitting in that deep purple-black that all his Reaper summons carried.

Eight and a half feet of Widow construct standing in his grassland looking at him with eyes that weren’t really eyes.

The hatchlings scattered immediately. Every single one of them, gone into the grass in a coordinated retreat that had clearly been a group decision made in under a second.

Nyx raised his head.

"It’s fine," Noah said, to Nyx and to the grassland generally. "Stay where you are."

He looked at the construct.

"Attack me," he said.

It came without preamble.

BOOM!

The ground where it had been standing cracked as it crossed the distance, the tail already swinging in a wide arc before Noah’s eyes had fully tracked the movement.

Noah raised his hand.

The tail hit his palm and he felt it. Just a sting, present and real, the construct carrying enough force to be worth acknowledging.

"Hmm," he said. "Okay."

He grabbed the tail.

BOOM!

He swung it. The construct left the ground entirely, the arc carrying it thirty meters before it hit the grassland and carved a trench through the earth, the void energy of its form scattering across the impact zone in fragments that immediately began pulling themselves back together.

He waited for it to reform.

It attacked again the moment it had enough cohesion to move.

BOOM! BOOM!

He hit it twice before it reached him, the second hit driving it into the ground hard enough that the surrounding grass flattened outward from the shockwave. The construct erupted into tiny fragments of purple light that drifted upward and dissolved.

Noah looked at where it had been.

’That was nothing,’ he thought. ’She nearly killed me when I first fought her. She put the whole northern quadrant on edge. She was the first female Harbinger in recorded human history and I just.’ He looked at his hand. ’That was genuinely nothing.’

He was quiet for a second.

Then he grinned.

[Reaper’s Harvest — Activated x3]

Three outlines this time, the void energy splitting simultaneously, three Widow constructs assembling in the grassland at different distances. Each one eight and a half feet of construct Harbinger, standing still, waiting.

He looked at all three of them.

"Okay," he said. "Now we’re working."

He moved first.

What followed was not exactly a fight because a fight implied some reasonable chance of the outcome going either way and this did not have that. But it was a workout, three constructs operating with the Widow’s combat intelligence, coordinating without coordinating, the hive-pattern that Harbingers ran, and Noah moving through them with the full toolkit, Void Blink and Rend and Null Strike and his bare hands when the mood took him, the grassland taking significant damage in the process.

The last construct dissolved and he stood in the wreckage of what had been a peaceful section of his domain five minutes ago and looked at the scorch marks and the craters and the absolute state of the grass.

"Sorry," he said, to nobody.

He looked at his void energy display.

’Wasted it,’ he thought, without real regret. ’Worth it though.’

He walked back to where the dragons were. The hatchlings had returned, cautiously, forming a loose perimeter at what they had collectively decided was a safe distance. He said goodbye to each dragon in the way he said goodbye, hand against jaw, a second of contact, and then he pulled himself out.

---

He was back in his room. Put on a clean shirt, his hands brushing his hair back from his temples where the white had spread another fraction while he wasn’t looking.

He pulled up the domain link and found Lucas.

Training room. Obviously.

He blinked there.

Lucas was mid-drill when he arrived, stopped, looked at Noah with the look he always led with.

"Hey," Noah said. "Got something for you."

He reached into his domain and pulled Lucas’s item through.

It came into the room slowly. The light it cast was blue, deep and clean, landing across both their faces as it floated between them at chest height.

They both looked up at it.

"Wow," Lucas said quietly.

"Yeah," Noah said.