[Ren POV]
The battle ended before the work did, something people tended to forget until they were standing in the middle of what remained.
Monsters had stopped coming through the breaches, but Gibraltar was still full of shouting, engines, medical teams, and soldiers carrying damaged equipment out of the roads. The outer barrier flickered in broken sections while engineers crawled over the shield posts with tools and portable power units. Smoke still hung above parts of the fort, mixing with the first light coming over the horizon.
I stood near the command wall with my arms folded and watched a tracked carrier drag the male fox's containment cage toward the loading area.
The female had already left under a separate escort. Someone had decided that putting two angry foxes who were apparently mates into the same transport was a bad idea, and for once I had no argument with human procedure.
Marasuki stepped up beside me. Her coat had a long tear down one side, and there was dried blood across her sleeve that I was fairly sure belonged to something else.
"Still alive," she said.
"Which one?"
"The fox."
"I assumed."
"You looked concerned."
"I was thinking about food."
Marasuki watched me for a moment before turning back toward the transport. "Of course you were."
The male fox had woken briefly during loading. He had not fought the restraints or tested the cage. He had simply sat there, staring at me through the energy field until the transport team covered the sides with reinforced plating.
There had been something wrong with how calm he was.
Most captured soldiers watched the guards, searched for exits, or tried to work out what would happen next. The fox had ignored all of that. His attention had stayed on me, following every movement with the patience of someone studying a target he expected to see again.
I had been stared at by enough enemies to know the difference between anger and interest.
I preferred anger.
"Transport ready!" someone shouted.
The captain stood near the loading ramp, shouting orders while Marines secured the carrier inside the aircraft. Most of the fight had gone out of his attitude toward me. He still did not like having demons on his battlefield, but apparently I had moved from immediate problem to useful problem.
It was not friendship, but I could work with that.
Jim came down from the wall and walked over, rolling one shoulder as he approached.
"You heading back with the prisoner?" he asked.
"Later."
He nodded toward the fort. "You staying?"
"For a bit."
The captain looked over from the transport. "We've got this handled."
"I know."
He frowned until I pointed toward the damaged fort behind us.
"I have people here."
His expression changed slightly as he understood what I meant.
"Right."
He went back to the transport while Jim watched him leave.
"He's not always that bad."
"I didn't ask."
"I know. I'm trying to convince myself."
I snorted.
The cargo plane's rear ramp closed around the fox cage. Its engines climbed in pitch before the aircraft rolled toward the runway and eventually lifted away from Gibraltar.
I watched until it was properly in the air before turning back toward the fort.
"Where are the others?"
Marasuki nodded toward one of the surviving barracks buildings. "Being checked by medics."
"Anyone seriously hurt?"
"No. Some cuts, burns, and bruises."
My shoulders relaxed a little before I could stop them.
"Lucas?"
"Bruised pride."
"Terminal?"
"Unfortunately not."
We started walking through the fort.
Gibraltar looked worse now that the fighting had stopped. During the battle, damaged buildings and burning vehicles had been things to move around. Now there was time to notice how much had actually been hit.
The inner road was crowded with stretchers moving toward the medical section. Some carried soldiers sitting upright with bandaged arms or blood running down their faces. Others were covered in thermal blankets while medics kept pressure on wounds and shouted for space. Blood had dried in dark patches near the western road, and one section of pavement was slick enough that soldiers had thrown sand over it.
A crushed defensive vehicle had been pushed against a building to clear the road. Farther ahead, an ogre had collapsed through part of a small observation tower, leaving the upper structure leaning sideways while engineers secured it with emergency braces.
Several body bags waited near a transport truck.
I kept walking.
Marasuki did the same.
There was nothing useful either of us could do by staring.
Near the command point, the fort officer was speaking with two engineers over a portable display. He looked up when we approached.
"Report," I said.
He glanced once at Marasuki before answering.
"Commander Daimonas. Outer barrier is at roughly forty percent. East section is stable, but the southern shield posts are gone. We lost two defensive vehicles and most of the western observation equipment."
"Casualties?"
His face tightened.
"We're still counting. Medical has more wounded than beds, but most of them should survive. The western breach took the worst losses before reinforcements reached it."
My siblings had been the reinforcements.
I left the wording alone.
"How long until the outer barrier is functional again?"
One of the engineers answered. "We can restore basic coverage by morning. Full strength depends on replacement parts from Kriti."
"Can aircraft still land?"
"Yes. East approach is clear."
"Keep it that way. We changed incoming traffic during the fight, so make sure whoever takes over the air schedule knows the new landing route."
The officer nodded. "Already passed on."
I looked across the fort toward the damaged shield line. The attack had found weak points far faster than a normal wave should have. More troubling was how the monsters had changed their behavior while the fight was still happening. Early charges had been rough and direct, but later groups had started avoiding defended lanes and pushing wherever the line had shifted.
Marasuki followed my attention toward the wall.
"They learned faster than they should have," she said.
"You saw it too?"
"The first groups attacked whatever was in front of them. After your siblings started moving around, the later waves changed targets. Julia's barriers were avoided where possible, more bodies were sent toward Tim's ice lanes, and Sara started getting boxed out of the shadows she had already used."
"Hendrian?"
"They stopped crossing marked ground unless something larger pushed first."
I looked back toward the runway where the transport plane had disappeared.
"So the foxes were watching the battle and passing information somehow."
"That would be my guess."
I pulled out the human communicator Zelda had given me and called the transport channel.
A voice answered after two rings.
"Transport lead."
"This is Commander Daimonas. I want both foxes checked for more than weapons. Hidden transmitters, implanted devices, anything biological that looks strange enough to carry a signal."
There was a pause before the man answered.
"Biological transmitters?"
"I don't know how monsters communicate. Neither do you, apparently, so check everything."
"Understood. Full scans before they enter Kriti."
"Keep them apart during transport and processing."
"They already are."
"Then leave it that way."
I ended the call.
Marasuki gave me an amused look.
"What?"
"Anything biological that looks strange enough to carry a signal?"
"I was going to say signal organs."
"That would have been worse."
"I know. I stopped myself."
"Growth."
"Careful."
She smiled and kept walking.
The barracks building had taken damage to one corner, but the main room was still intact. I could hear Lucas arguing before we reached the door.
"I'm saying the kick was unnecessary."
Serena answered from somewhere inside.
"You were standing there."
"I had just broken its knee."
"And then you stopped moving."
"I was assessing the situation."
"You were smiling at your fist."
I opened the door and found most of the room looking toward Lucas.
He sat on a bench with an ice pack against his ribs while Serena cleaned one of her daggers opposite him. Sara had one arm bandaged and was eating from a foil packet. Tim sat beside her with a cup in both hands. Hendrian had decided the floor was more comfortable than every chair in the room.
Julia sat near the end of the room while a medic finished checking her shoulder.
I looked at Hendrian first.
"Are you dead?"
"No."
"Then why are you on the floor?"
"It's cold."
I stared at him until he closed his eyes.
"I'm tired."
"That makes more sense."
Marasuki came in behind me just as Lucas pointed toward Serena.
"She kicked me."
Serena kept cleaning her dagger. "He almost got hit."
"I had it handled."
"You didn't."
"I was fine."
"You were staring at your own hand."
Lucas looked at me for support.
"Ren."
"She's probably right."
His face fell. "You didn't even see it."
"I know you."
Sara laughed into her food until Lucas turned toward her.
"You nearly got flattened."
Her laughter stopped.
I sat on the edge of a table and looked around the room while the medic finished wrapping Julia's shoulder. Nobody looked seriously hurt, which meant the first important part of the day had gone right.
Once the medic left, I folded my arms.
"For your first real fight here, none of you did badly. You also gave me enough reasons to start drinking before breakfast, so we're going to talk about those before anyone gets too proud."
Lucas leaned back with a groan while Serena stopped smirking before I even looked at her. Sara quietly lowered her food, and Hendrian raised his head from the floor.
Marasuki leaned against the wall and watched.
I started with Lucas because he was already complaining.
"You hit hard and your fire control improved as the fight went on. Your second ogre engagement was much cleaner than the first."
Lucas straightened slightly.
"However, every time something goes well, you start enjoying yourself too much."
"I don't."
Serena raised two fingers without looking at him.
Lucas glared across the room. "Whose side are you on?"
"The side that doesn't get stepped on by ogres."
I continued before they started another argument.
"You stopped wasting movement after Serena kicked you, so apparently that worked."
Lucas dropped the ice pack into his lap. "Why does everyone keep mentioning that?"
"Because it worked," Serena said.
He looked around the room.
"I hate this family."
Sara smiled. "No, you don't."
"I'm reviewing my options."
"You don't have options," Julia said.
Lucas stared at her. "You too?"
I let them finish before looking toward Hendrian.
He had already lowered his head again.
"Hendrian."
"I'm awake."
"Sit up."
He pushed himself upright with obvious reluctance and rubbed both hands over his face.
"What?"
"You handled yourself well."
His hands stopped.
Lucas looked over immediately, and even Sara paused halfway through opening another packet.
Hendrian frowned at me. "Are you talking to me?"
"You see another Hendrian lying on the floor?"
"No."
"Then yes."
He looked toward Marasuki, who gave him a small nod.
I continued. "You kept the high ground and used your marks properly. You broke several charges without blowing apart the wall or damaging the shield posts around you."
"I damaged one section."
"The monster you hit crashed into it after the explosion."
Hendrian blinked. "Oh."
"You were nervous, but your hands stayed steady. Keep that part."
He looked down at his fingers.
"I thought I was going to mess up every mark."
"That doesn't matter if you place them correctly anyway."
Lucas frowned. "I wasn't nervous."
Serena glanced at him. "Nobody thought you were."
"That sounded insulting."
"It was."
Hendrian laughed once under his breath before looking back at me.
"So I just keep doing that?"
"Keep the control. The nerves will either settle with experience or they won't. As long as they don't ruin your work, I don't care."
He nodded.
"I can do that."
"Then do it."
Sara had been slowly shifting farther behind Tim during the conversation.
I looked at her.
She sighed.
"I know."
"You probably do, but say it anyway."
"I went too far."
"Several times."
"There were openings."
"There are always openings. Some of them are real, and some of them are where something bigger waits for you."
Sara poked at the corner of her food packet.
"I killed the acid hound."
"You did, and you closed the flank before that. Your movement was good once the battle spread out, but you started chasing anything that looked exposed. That is why the bigger beast caught you alone."
Her ears lowered slightly.
"I thought I could get back into the shadows before it turned."
"You thought wrong."
She nodded.
I kept my tone even.
"You don't need to stop taking risks. You need to know when the risk is worth it. Killing one more monster is not worth getting crushed."
Sara looked up again. "Alright."
Then I turned toward Serena.
She leaned back against the wall.
"What?"
"You had the cleanest movement of the group. You watched what was happening around you and used your shield bursts without throwing yourself around for no reason."
Serena smiled.
Lucas made a disgusted sound.
"I also saved him."
"I heard."
Lucas pressed the ice pack harder against his ribs. "Can we move past this?"
"No," Serena said.
I ignored them both.
"You still entered two blind angles without checking behind the larger monsters."
Serena's smile faded.
"I thought the wall team could see over them."
"They couldn't," Marasuki said from behind me. "Smoke covered most of the upper section by then."
Serena glanced toward her.
"I didn't know that."
"That is the point," Marasuki replied. "If you cannot confirm someone is watching an angle, assume nobody is."
Serena thought about it before nodding.
"Alright. I'll remember."
I liked having Marasuki there. She had enough experience to spot things I missed, and she gave corrections without turning them into speeches.
Julia was next.
She straightened slightly before I even started.
"You protected the evacuation lane and kept the maintenance breach sealed. Both were the right choices."
"Thank you."
"The problem was trying to hold both by yourself until your Soul Power nearly ran dry."
Her mouth tightened.
"There were people behind the evacuation lane."
"I know."
"So what should I have done?"
"Called someone."
"Who?"
I looked around the room.
Lucas raised one hand. "Not me. I was busy."
Serena threw the cleaning cloth at his face.
Julia ignored them. "I was closest."
"You were also surrounded by six people who can move faster than the soldiers you were protecting. Next time, call for support before you reach the point where your barriers start failing."
She still looked annoyed, but she nodded.
"I can do that."
I left it there. Julia did not need the same thing repeated three times to understand it.
Tim had stayed quiet through most of the conversation, holding his cup between both hands.
"How are you doing?"
"Tired."
"Understandable. Your ice control was useful once you settled on the eastern lane."
He nodded.
"At the start, you were watching too much of the battlefield at once."
"There were too many monsters."
"There are always going to be too many. Pick what you can affect first."
"I didn't know which one mattered most."
"That is what froze you up. Next time, choose one lane, hold it, and only widen your focus when you actually have room to do it."
Tim stared into his cup for a few seconds before nodding.
"Okay."
Lucas picked up his ice pack again and looked around the room.
"So we did well?"
"You did well for people with no experience fighting a coordinated monster wave in the Human Realm. That does not mean there isn't plenty to fix."
"That sounded less terrible than I expected."
"Give me time."
Sara laughed while Julia rolled her eyes. Hendrian lowered himself back onto the floor, and Serena returned to cleaning her dagger.
Marasuki pushed away from the wall.
"We leave for Kriti in twenty minutes."
Sara groaned. "I thought we were sleeping here."
"You can sleep on the plane."
Lucas looked at me. "Are both foxes going to Kriti?"
"Yes."
"Why there?"
"Secure holding."
"Are you going to question them?"
"Eventually."
Sara leaned forward. "Can we watch?"
"No."
"Why?"
"Because you got hit once and suddenly think you're part of intelligence."
She looked offended. "I was asking."
"And I answered."
Lucas laughed, so Sara kicked his boot.
I stood and headed for the door.
"Get your gear together. Twenty minutes."
Before I left, Hendrian called after me.
"Ren."
I turned.
He looked uncomfortable, which was normal for him, but this time he was also trying to find words.
"Thanks. For what you said."
I nodded once.
"Just keep doing the work."
"I will."
I left the room before Lucas found a way to ruin the moment.
Marasuki followed me into the corridor and stayed quiet until we were outside.
"I didn't expect that."
I looked at her. "Expect what?"
"The way you spoke to them."
"What was wrong with it?"
"Nothing. That's why I'm surprised."
I raised an eyebrow.
She continued. "You've spent most of this mission complaining about being put in charge, but they listen when you speak to them. Even Julia."
"That is because Julia enjoys arguing with me."
"She argued less than Lucas."
"Everyone argues less than Lucas."
Marasuki considered that before nodding. "Fair."
We continued toward the flight line while the sun climbed over the damaged fort.
The alarm had started during the night, and somewhere between the cargo plane, the battle, the first fox, Ismaila, and the second fox trying to eat my arm, I had lost track of how many hours had passed.
My communicator showed three unread messages. One was from Jean, one from Zelda, and the third came from a military number I did not recognize.
I opened Jean's first.
Ismaila stable. Stop making problems.
I typed back.
Fox started it.
Her answer arrived almost immediately.
Of course it did.
I smiled and put the communicator away.
Marasuki noticed but did not say anything until we had walked several more steps.
"You trust her."
"Jean?"
"Yes."
"I've known her for years."
"That explains it."
I glanced sideways at her. "Explains what?"
"You look less irritated when you read her messages."
"I'm always irritated."
"I noticed."
"Then why ask?"
"Curiosity."
I shook my head and kept walking.
The flight back to Kriti was quieter than the flight out. Hendrian fell asleep before takeoff, Sara eventually leaned against Tim's shoulder, and Lucas resumed his argument with Serena in a voice low enough that nobody had to threaten him.
Julia sat across from me with her arms folded. She waited until the aircraft had levelled out before speaking.
"You didn't mention the damage we caused."
"What damage?"
"To Gibraltar."
"I'm aware Gibraltar was damaged."
"I mean the damage from us."
I looked at her.
"We broke parts of the fort during the fight," she continued. "You didn't say anything about it."
"Should I have?"
"I expected you to."
I leaned back against the cargo seat.
"You were fighting inside a breached fort during your first large monster attack in this realm. I'm not happy about broken buildings, but I'm not going to pretend a wall matters more than the people standing behind it. Next time, control the damage better."
Julia studied me for a moment.
"That's all?"
"That's all."
She nodded and looked toward Lucas.
"He broke more than the rest of us."
Lucas opened one eye. "I heard that."
"You broke a wall."
"There was an ogre."
"The ogre was already dead."
"It fell badly."
Serena started laughing.
Lucas pointed at her. "You're enjoying this too much."
"Yes."
I closed my eyes and let them argue.
Apparently, having a family meant discovering there was no such thing as a quiet transport flight.
We reached Kriti around midday.
The base was busier than when we had left. Cargo aircraft moved constantly between the runways while medical transports arrived from Gibraltar and Ismaila. Supply trucks filled the roads between the hangars, and maintenance teams were already loading replacement shield equipment for the damaged forts.
We walked down the ramp and found a human officer waiting at the bottom.
"Commander Daimonas."
I stopped.
"General Zelda wants you."
"Where?"
"Central command."
"Now?"
"Yes, ma'am."
I looked at Marasuki.
She nodded.
Sara waved as they started walking away. "Good luck."
"With what?"
"I don't know yet."
"Helpful."
I followed the officer across the base.
At first, we headed in the direction of the main operations building, but instead of using the front entrance, he took me around the side and through a guarded service entrance.
From there, we went underground.
The first security door opened with his badge. The second needed a palm scan. Two armed guards stood outside the third, and neither looked particularly relaxed.
I glanced at the officer.
"This isn't central command."
"No, ma'am."
"Where are we going?"
"Secure holding."
Now I understood why Zelda had called for me immediately.
We continued through another corridor where the walls changed from normal painted panels to bare reinforced concrete. Cameras covered every corner, and each door was thicker than the last.
The officer stopped at the final checkpoint.
"General Zelda is waiting through there."
I passed through alone.
Zelda stood at the far end of the next corridor outside a heavy containment door, holding a file tablet under one arm. She was still wearing the same uniform from the night before, and the tired look on her face made it clear she had not found time to sleep either.
"You wanted me?" I asked as I reached her.
"Yes."
"How did the transfer go?"
"Without trouble. They were brought in separately, processed separately, and placed at opposite ends of the holding block. We scanned them for weapons, implants, transmitters, and anything else our medical teams could identify."
"Find anything?"
"No."
I looked toward the containment door.
"That does not make me feel better."
"It shouldn't."
Zelda shifted the tablet under her arm and glanced through the narrow observation window in the door.
I stepped closer.
The corridor beyond was silent, even with two enemy scouts somewhere inside it. Considering how violently the female had fought at Ismaila, the lack of noise bothered me more than screaming would have.
Zelda looked back at me.
"They're awake."