Ash and Paul emerged from the portal and struck the snowy ground hard, rolling through it, neither with the energy to make it graceful. Paul was still orienting himself when the portal administrator dropped to one knee beside him.
"Mr. Paul... are you alright, are you hurt—"
Paul shoved him aside and raised his voice.
"Everyone's out. Change the channel. Right now."
The man scrambled back to his system.
"Changing... changed. Done."
He looked back at Paul.
"Now can someone explain why they're awake? The entire point of the masks was—"
"Ask him."
Paul pointed at the leader of mining team 86, who had discovered a very interesting patch of snow to stare at.
"If that idiot had simply let me handle it, we'd have come back with everyone."
The team 86 leader's head came up.
"We didn't... I didn't think they'd actually... it wasn't supposed to escalate like—"
"This is precisely why you don't group rookies together. Argh."
Paul said, loudly, to no one in particular. He pressed his hands over his face.
"Where is the commander? I lost men today. Real people. I want someone to answer for that."
"And you'll get more men, Mr. Paul."
Paul turned.
Commander Ruth stood a short distance away, regarding him with a composed gaze. She held it for a moment, then walked past him toward the portal administrator.
"All teams evacuate the gray planet. Effective immediately. If one of them is awake, they all are. We don't operate under those conditions."
"Yes, ma'am."
She turned back to the portal, and to the people still coming through it.
"I'll be honest with you, Mr. Paul."
Her voice was measured, almost conversational.
"I'm surprised you made it back."
Paul's jaw set.
"There it is. Finally letting us see what Apex actually thinks."
Commander Ruth looked at him.
"You want to know what Apex thinks. Fine."
She clasped her hands behind her back.
"We are not good people. We've never claimed to be. We do what benefits this organization, and we are candid about that, which is more than most can say. Is that what you want to hear?"
A pause.
"I told every one of you, when you arrived, that you were free to leave. At any time. You chose to stay. So did they."
"Some of them are dead."
"Yes. They are. And I am sorry for it. But you're alive, Mr. Paul. Standing here in the snow, furious at me. Which means you're the one who gets to remember them. In a world like this one, that is not nothing."
She turned away before he could respond.
Her gaze moved through the crowd and settled on Ash, traveling across the damage covering his body. She glanced at the trooper nearest her.
"Medics. All of them. Now."
"Yes, Commander."
She walked away without another word.
Paul watched her go. Then he drove his fist into the snow.
"Dammit."
***
More people streamed through the portal. Ash watched them. Groups he hadn't seen anywhere in the field came through clean and orderly. He turned to Eren.
"Where are they all coming from? That entire area should be overrun with stone horrors. Moving a group that size would require someone seriously powerful."
Eren pressed his sleeve against his wound and followed Ash's gaze.
"Oh... no, that's the channel system. On the gray planet there are portals distributed across different regions, all linked back to this one. They'd have been evacuating through their own local portals."
"So they were never anywhere near us."
"Exactly."
A commotion from across the yard as medics arrived fast, some carrying kits, some dragging beds. Mostly women with the efficient, worn look of people who had done this before and expected to do it again. One dropped to a knee in front of Ash and pulled back the torn fabric around his worst wound without asking.
"Hey—"
"Let me see it."
She wasn't looking at his face.
"This one's deep. Stop moving."
"I'm fine."
"You're bleeding through your shirt."
She uncapped something and pressed it against the wound.
"So no. You're not."
Ash hissed.
She raised an eyebrow without looking up.
"Tier 5, yeah? I was told."
She cleaned the wound with brisk, practiced movements.
"Funny how antiseptic doesn't much care about tier."
"I wasn't complaining."
"You made a sound."
"That was—"
Ash stopped.
She finished wrapping it, tied it off, and patted the bandage once... firmly, and slightly more deliberately than necessary. Ash's eye twitched.
She gave him a small, entirely professional smile and moved to the next patient.
Paul was on his feet the moment the medics cleared him and walked without a word. His team followed. Ash fell in behind them.
They reached the room. Quieter than that morning. Not peaceful quiet, but the kind that settles over a space braced for more people than would fill it. Those who made it back sat or leaned against walls, silent, staring at the middle distance. Ash looked at them, then looked away.
'How would I tell them the ones who died are truly the fortunate ones. No... not everyone thinks as I do. I would grieve if I lost any of my brothers also.'
Then the door opened.
Everyone looked up.
Eren stood in the doorway with the food cart... same cart, same arrangement as the night before, rice and bowls stacked neatly. He looked at the room. At the faces. At the empty spaces. His own expression did something complicated.
He stepped inside.
"Right... I know this is terrible timing. And I know at least one of you is about to throw something at me."
He looked around the room.
"I just... I wanted to say something. I'll say it quickly, then hand out the food and be quiet."
A paused.
"The commander was right."
Paul looked up slowly. Eren said quickly.
"No, no… not the 'expecting us to die' part. I know how that sounded. The other thing. About being glad we're alive to remember them."
He looked down for a moment.
"I lost my parents when I was young. Very young. I was brought here afterward, and I was angry about it for a long time. But what truly frightened me, more than anything else, was the idea that someday no one would remember them. That they would simply... cease to exist. Completely."
He looked back up.
"I don't believe that's happened yet. Because I'm still here. And I think about them. Often."
He let out a breath.
"I'm not suggesting what happened today was acceptable. It wasn't. But don't you think the ones we lost are still here... as long as we are?"
He stopped. Looked at the floor. His eyes were red at the edges, which he had clearly been trying to conceal since before he walked in.
Ash turned the speech over in his mind. It sounded like something an idiot would say. Remembering someone doesn't bring them back. Dead is dead. It resolved nothing.
He looked at Paul, expecting agreement.
But to his surprise, Paul was crying. Quietly, Paul wiped his face with the back of his hand the moment he noticed Ash looking, and cleared his throat.
"Kid."
His voice came out rougher than usual.
"You want to be adopted? I'm serious. Call me dad. We can make it official."
Eren laughed. He crossed the room and placed a bowl in Paul's hands.
"Mr. Paul. If you'd asked three years ago, I might have actually said yes."
Paul took the bowl and looked up at him.
"Ah... I missed my window."
"You really did."
Paul let out a small, helpless sound that was almost a laugh.
"Thank you. Genuinely. You kept a great many people alive today. More than you know."
Eren nodded and moved to the next person, a broad man with a bandaged forearm who hadn't yet decided whether to be sorrowful or furious. They exchanged a few words Ash couldn't make out, and then the man laughed, and someone else joined in, and then someone threw a piece of bread at Eren.
Eren caught it without looking. Took a bite.
"Thank you. Genuinely, thank you for this."
The room had changed... drastically changed. Not entirely, because grief was still in it, and would likely remain for some time. But it had shifted from the particular silence of people who were finished, to something that still had sound in it.
Ash stared at the room, unsettled, then looked away when he noticed Eren heading toward him.
Eren sat beside him, same as before, and set a bowl of rice in front of him. Then he began eating his own.
Ash waited for Eren to say something... A question. A speech. Something.
But Eren simply ate.
Ash finally said:
"So... You're an Ascended."
The rice went the wrong way. Eren coughed, covered his mouth, recovered, and turned to Ash with watering eyes.
"I... yes. Yes. A tier 3.2."
"Why conceal it?"
Eren set his bowl down and cleared his throat.
"Apex collects Ascendeds. If they know what you are, you don't get a choice about where you end up. I'd rather push a wheelbarrow."
A paused.
"How long have you known?"
"Since you threw the first one thirty feet with your arm out."
Eren winced.
"That was fairly obvious, wasn't it."
Ash looked away.
'An idiot. But not entirely mistaken about the Apex thing.'
"You're tier 5."
Eren picked up his bowl.
"That jump from the pillar... I've never seen anyone simply do that. What was going through your head?"
"Nothing complicated."
Eren looked at him, then at the untouched bowl in front of Ash. He opened his mouth, seemed to reconsider something, and changed course.
"Look. I'm not going to press it. You don't want to talk, that's fine... I can respect that, I'm working on it. But..."
He gestured at the bowl.
"Can you eat? You've been running on nothing. I can tell."
Ash regarded the bowl. His stomach had been making its opinions known for hours, increasingly difficult to disregard. He had been disregarding it deliberately, which felt less like discipline and more like arguing with someone who kept being right.
He sighed.
'Fine. Fate, you win. Again.'
Ash picked up the bowl and ate. The rice was plain, unsalted, unseasoned, nothing like the food he had grown up with. He ate it faster than intended.
"Slow down—"
Eren said, but Ash didn't listen.
When he finished, Ash stood and looked at Eren.
"Thank you," he said, and walked away before anything further could occur.
He made it four steps before the lights failed entirely, leaving the room in complete darkness.
Fearing his skill's activation, Ash snapped his eyes shut.
"Power's out again."
Paul's voice came from somewhere across the room.
"Is this an attack?"
Eren's voice answered.
"I'll go check. Probably nothing—"
"Wait."
Eren stopped and turned toward the voice.
Ash hadn't opened his eyes.
"Let me come with you."
Silence followed. Then Eren spoke, careful.
"...Em... Ash? What exactly are you doing right now?"
Ash said nothing. Stood completely still with his eyes shut, aware it appeared strange.
Then a beam of light struck him square in the face.
He opened his eyes to find Paul pointing a flashlight directly at him. The entire room watched with the expression of people who had collectively resolved not to ask questions tonight and were now reconsidering.
Ash straightened.
"I was... I was ready to go."
Nobody said anything.
'Magnificent. This is simply magnificent.'