The Path of Ascension

Prince Albert watched as his surviving defenders streamed out of the north gate once he retreated from his decoy attack on the west gate. He was glad for his helmet, as it hid his smile. The smile felt impossible to remove, but with effort, he kept it off his face to issue a few commands.

After a week and a half of brutal bloodshed and determination, the Queendom had finally taken the city. Despite the loss, things went far better than he could have ever hoped for, with the escape of his top earners too.

Things were looking up.

His grin slipped out as he watched the soldiers filing into the rubble that was the razed city. His enemies had fought, bled, and died for the city. After such a costly victory and rebuild, they would naturally treasure it, and hold the city close.

Exactly where he wanted them.

Albert smiled and turned to leave the anti-flying formation with his men.

This had been a great success.

***

Princess Sara stood outside a daunting metal frame. It was the door she’d been staring at for the last ten minutes. This meeting would not be pleasant.

Finally, she lifted a heavy hand and tapped on the door twice. The gesture didn't even echo. The door behind her slid shut, and the one in front of her opened as the seal completed.

Her mother sat at a plain wooden table, watching a projected map of the planet spin at its center.

Diana smiled at her daughter and lightly patted the seat beside her.

“Come sit, honey.”

With considerable effort, Sara resisted the instinct to slouch down and slink towards the couch. That would only make this worse.

Her mother popped a brush out of her storage ring, and as she was reaching to brush her daughter’s hair, she paused. “Dearest, when was the last time you showered?”

The affectation gnawed at Sara. Her mother's Tier was so high, she’d known the answer was ‘days’ the second the door was unsealed. When it was just family, the Queen always pretended that she was no stronger than anyone else.. As a child, that was wonderful. As an adult, it grated. Preferably, her mother would have just called her out instead of babying her like this.

“Mother, it’s been incredibly busy the last week. I...”

The Queen tutted at her. “Ah, ah ah. Young lady, what do I always say about appearances?”

Sara let out a heavy sigh. “One’s appearance is a weapon like any other. And only a fool allows their weapon to rust.”

“Go enjoy a hot shower. Then we'll discuss your latest plan.”

Diana sent her off with a gentle smile that made this whole debacle a million times worse. Resigned to her fate, she headed towards the side door.

Normally, raiding her mother's bathroom was a great time. Compared to most people at her Tier, Queen Diana cared little for the trappings of wealth or power. Even this temporary apartment housing her during the war lacked even a single piece of decoration. There was one major exception though. The plain walls outside were in stark comparison to the opulent white marble lining the bathroom, and the luxurious thick high Tier rugs felt like standing on clouds, almost literally.

Her mother always splurged on one same thing. Sara wasn't surprised to see the bathroom decked out to a degree that more than made up for her mother’s frugality elsewhere.

Stripping her clothes and armor, the items vanished before they even hit the ground. Sara still wasn't sure how that worked. Maybe it was her mother or some automated system in the bathroom. All she knew was that by the time she was done with her debrief, everything would be immaculately cleaned and returned.

Sara stepped into the gentle rain pitter-pattering down in the spacious shower. Turning on the jets, she gradually increased the pressure until the hurricane pounding down on her started to hurt a little. For five minutes, she stood there brooding until she was able to tear herself away to actually clean herself.

It felt... good. Better than she’d admit. The shame of her disaster of a plan wasn't gone, but it felt marginally less important. It was over, and she needed to accept the outcome of the siege and move on to the next plan. After choosing from among the dozens of soaps and shampoo pairs and finishing her shower, she exited the room in the fluffy bathrobe that was hanging next to her mother's.

Right before leaving, she’d poked her mother's high Tier garment, but her finger indented instead of the light blue fabric. Phooey, that meant it really was her true robe, and not a prize for Sara to steal.

The Queen sat waiting for her daughter to finish. As soon as Sara appeared, she patted the chair in front of her combs and brushes. They were at the ready, hovering around the spot where her mother wanted her to sit.

Sara sat and let the Queen mother her for a good five minutes. She relaxed into the soothing feeling of the brush gently working its way through her hair.

Sensing she was ready, her mother asked, “So what went wrong? What went right? Start from the top.”

The lack of condemnation rankled. She felt as if she deserved it, and its absence only made her guilt even worse.

“We took the city, but lost over one thousand important small forts that guarded strategic resources. Seven hundred medium forts and thirty large forts.” Sara ground her teeth until her jaw hurt, but finished her summary. “The city was leveled, and will take at least four million points to start the rebuilding process. And their final defenders escaped with their points. It was a disaster, mom!”

She hated how petulant she sounded at the end. Her mother's gentle brushing of her hair and the comforting pat on her arm were like nails scraping down a chalkboard to her guilty conscience.

“Where did it go wrong?”

Sara wanted to blame Albert and his overly competent second in command, but that was petty and unhelpful. She should have anticipated everything better. That was her job.

“I was overly ambitious with the idea of moving so much earlier than in a normal war. I thought if we could take that city fast, we could spread out and hit multiple places at once. Possibly even surround a second city and siege that down as well, over a longer period of time. If I’m being honest, I was far too greedy.”

That wasn't actually true, and she corrected herself. “No… I was overconfident. On paper the plan was sound, but didn't account for the Pathers, and things like the modification of equipment.” She chewed on her lip and continued on. “I only thought in terms of standard specifications, which doesn’t account for the chaos of a real battle. That's what led to the formation pillars getting destroyed, and the Kingdom of Seven Shits being able to fill the city to the fucking brim with troops.”

“What else can you say? Both the good and bad. Be objective.” The last was the gentlest of reprimands, but it stung.

Sara thought over her decision leading up to this point and sighed. “I shouldn’t have gotten hung up on taking the city with minimal danger after the initial plan failed. Our losses were heavy, and we... no, I...” Sara took a deep breath. “I should have ordered them to fully bombard the city and just accepted the point cost to fix it. Because of my inflexibility, now I not only have to pay the rebuilding cost, but also have two million soldiers cooling their heels in recovery.”

“Good. Now dearest, what are your next plans going forward?”

“We hunker down and wait for the numbers to even back out. We just need to survive this next week. Once all of our troops are back in the field, I’ll take back our forts. With a few exceptions, I doubt Albert plans to hold on to them. Almost all of them are too far outside of his zones of control for a permanent transfer to be feasible. It was a way to punish our concentration of forces, nothing else. But it worked. They took a huge portion of our highest-earning locations.” She paused and said, “And we probably won’t get them back in a functional condition. Shit, I need to be ready for that.”

Queen Diana poked her in the rib, causing Sara to jump and glare at her mother, who ignored it. “Don't get distracted, honey. Anything else?”

Sara thought about keeping her thoughts to herself but finally said, “The Pathers. Their performance was well beyond my expectations. They were pivotal on both sides. They made the city much harder to breach, and were also the ones responsible for finally breaking through the Kingdom’s defenses. Though, our dropships played a large part in that as well.”

Her mother just hummed at her to continue, so she did. “Their leaders were monsters, one of them in particular. And the other Pathers were a much tougher nut to crack than expected. I have good combat analytics on most of them, which honestly might be worth the cost of all the dead soldiers.”

She flicked a finger at the projector, and a collage of the two dozen most influential Pathers appeared on the screen for her mother to view with her. This entire apartment was locked down to prevent her mother from interfering in the war, and information was strictly controlled. The only exception was what she brought in during these reports. Her intelligence teams had scoured all over to find out what they could about the most notable Pathers. All that information was listed under each picture.

Sara had already reviewed the information, but not much stuck out. So when her mother visibly stiffened, she spun to question her.

“What!?”

Her mother smirked at her and said, “That explains a lot.”

Sara started poking her mother back, but the woman didn’t even notice it. The woman wouldn’t have noticed if Sara had fired a mana cannon in her face.

“I was wondering why they slapped me so hard. This explains it.”

“Slapped? What?”

Diana reached up and parted her robe to expose her upper chest. Sara gasped when she saw her mother’s beating heart through a perfect, handprint shaped hole. The flesh around the hole was imbued with purple tinged, void-aspected mana that gave the wound an ominous feeling.

A hand around her mother's heart was not a subtle threat.

“What the flying fuck is that!? Who did that to you? Mom!”

Her mother closed the robe she wore and tried to soothe her daughter, but Sara was far too shocked and angry at seeing her powerhouse of a mother so injured.

“What did I say about language!? And honestly honey, it's fine. I tried to peek out of here when the war settled into a rut. I'm a higher Tier than the general, so I figured the risk was minimal. Well I was wrong, and someone instantly put me in my place.” She pointed at the gaping hole where the wound was. “This is my spanking, so to speak.”

“Who could have possibly hurt you, mom?” Sara knew her mother was strong. The Queen was one of the strongest fighters of her Tier, and was known to punch up a full Tier. Not once had she ever seen her mother with an injury that lingered. This was disconcerting.

“Well I’d assumed the Emperor sent a few hidden watchers, but your report makes the real reason obvious.”

Sara turned to see a redhead’s picture expand until it filled the screen. She analyzed the picture like she hadn't done so half a dozen times before.

Elizabeth Moore. The woman headed the Pathers’ Union, as they called themselves, and was a blood manipulator. She had way more than her fair share of kills during the siege. She was certainly attractive enough, if you liked sharp features and yellow eyes, but that was about it.

Her record seemed remarkably ordinary.

“That’s Elizabeth Moore. Youngest daughter to Leon and Mara.”

Wait, what?

Sara stilled and reviewed to make sure she hadn’t misheard her mother. But upon replaying the words in her head a second, and then a third time, she realized she had indeed heard correctly.

“What!? How? I thought they hated each other. How do you know? I found nothing like that from our reconnaissance.” She didn't doubt her mother, but she couldn't believe it. How had her intelligence teams failed to find something like that out?

“I was there when they introduced her as a baby to the court. Our Queendom is one of the ones that report to Leon, after all. It was a massive affair. The celebration lasted a full month. Good times.”

The screen changed to show an older, feather-headed, clone of Elizabeth holding a little baby with a wide beaming smile, and showing the infant off to a crowd.

“I gave thought to getting you betrothed to her, but I changed my mind after Mara threatened to cook and eat alive anyone who made such an offer. Apparently, they’ve had problems before with people hounding their children, and I fully believe she would have made good on that threat, so I kept quiet.”

Diana shrugged, unconcerned. “It definitely explains a lot. I wondered who could injure me like this so easily, and Elizabeth’s presence explains it. You know we wondered why we were given leave to start this war. It was a long shot; we didn’t actually expect the Emperor to approve, but it cost us nothing to try. When he did approve, I figured that the Kingdom had angered the Emperor somehow. Then it was announced to be a Path War, and I had to assume that was his reason to allow us to attack. But couldn’t discern the true reason why for the life of me. But now... Now I think this entire war actually was allowed as an excuse for the Pather training. All so she could get some real experience.”

For a Path War of this size, Sara couldn't imagine the expense. When this had first been announced, she’d asked her mother about the costs, and was informed that the entire Queendom couldn't have afforded the expense of transporting everyone across the Empire like this. They couldn’t have even gotten everyone here, let alone paid the cost of the rewards. She corrected herself, the greater than average rewards. The at Tier items weren’t that much of a surprise, but the item from Madam Renaissance was a shock to everyone, including her mother. That was above and beyond any normal rewards. And then, add on the expenses from having an entire army battalion watch over it. But apparently, the Emperor was doing it for the daughter of two Royals. That was mind-boggling.

“But why would they attack you, mom?”

“If this was set up to give her experience, they really don't want interference from higher Tiers. If I meddled in the wrong way, it could have ruined their entire reason for the war. Knowing what I do now, I'm glad I wasn't just killed out of hand.”

“But she’s on The Path. How can they have the help of someone strong enough to hurt you?”

Her mother laughed. “Oh honey. Mara and Leon are Tier 48. If they want a few million Tier 35’s to do something, they would flock to their cause. Even their table scraps are worth more than our Queendom. Sending a Tier 40 to protect their daughter is the matter of murmuring a suggestion, or expressing an offhand concern. That’s all it would take for Elizabeth to have enough protection to fight off another Great Power. I was potentially going to spoil the point of this exercise with a little good-natured cheating, and they weren’t going to tolerate that. So technically, they didn't help her. They just enforced the already established rules.”

She exposed her wound again and poked it. “Originally, I was under the impression that only a Tier 37ish was sent to watch over the event, and they used all of their power to pull it off. But with the control and damage done, I’m pretty certain it was a Tier 40 or higher.”

Sara's mother grinned at her green daughter. “Look at this. This is how you properly warn someone. Attack without being seen and without explanation. You proclaim to the target that their life is in your hand. The wound is so slow to heal, it will take a few years to completely recover from it. This lingering void mana is just a hair less damaging than what my regeneration can deal with. A perfect message.”

“But what do we do, mom? Should we avoid her, or surrender?” Seeing the incredulous look on her mother's face, she continued. “I get that the watcher doesn't want you to interfere, but what if Elizabeth throws a hissy fit at us and decides to run to her parents? We can't survive that kind of disfavor. Even if they didn't move themselves, people trying to get in their good graces would crush us. It might be better to just lose and back out of this.”

Diana smiled and caressed her daughter’s face. “You always think ahead. That's why you are my heir. But while your concerns are valid, I doubt it will come to that. I'll have to ask a few of my contacts, but last I heard, the youngest daughter was trying not to lean on her parents. She wants to make her own way. She did run off to The Path, after all.”

Sara scoffed at that. The woman had ‘lucky’ encounters where people in the shadows placed items for her to find. The same tactic was used by her own nobles. It gave the heirs of their houses a false sense of pride and accomplishment to earn rare rewards after delving dangerous rifts. It wasn't as if a Tier 5 could sense a Tier 20 staging a play around them from the shadows.

She abhorred that kind of willfully ignorant noble. They were the worst kind of privileged, and she strove for a higher standard. Her glory would be her own, not earned from riding on the coattails of her mother. Elizabeth had impressed her before this, but that was now tainted by the knowledge that everything was handed to her.

“Don't look so suspicious. Even the Emperor wouldn’t dare to cheat in The Path, he’s too invested in it. Start a war that benefits everyone which just happens to include her right now? Yes. Let her break the outright tenets of The Path? Not a chance in the multiverse. He cares far too much for the sanctity of The Path to let anyone, even his Royals, interfere. Since Leon and Mara came up on the Path as well, they’re unlikely to undermine the rules either. If anything, they probably see this as Elizabeth following in their footsteps. Given their personalities…”

The Queen’s cheek twitched ever so slightly. “Actually, let's not go into that. As for how to handle young Elizabeth, act as if she’s anyone else. Don’t single her out for special treatment, good or bad. Worst comes to worst, we rid ourselves of blame and suspicion by having acted no differently. It would look awful if her parents were to be mad at us for simply playing our part in this act. At their level, they can't open themselves to criticism from their political opponents so easily. Act no different, and do not share this information with anyone under your command, so they won't either. The only reason I’m even telling you is so that you can make subtle moves to improve her impression of you, and by extension our realm, when the opportunities arise. She will be an excellent connection to have. No one stays on the Path forever, and you should sow the seeds for a better relationship a few centuries from now.”

Her mother pointed off to the side. “But, I warn you... do not make it seem like you know who she is. Better to give no impression at all than one of sucking up. A Royal darling like her doesn’t run away to The Path because they like sycophants.”

Her mother lazily ran a finger down her chest over the wound that was now hidden to Sara, and patted the seat in front of her as the brushes hovered back into easy reach.

“Moving back to the battle for the city, what do you intend to do now?”

Shifting mental gears took Sara a moment, but she dutifully allowed her mother to start plaiting her hair as she organized her response.

“I have no intention of letting what I did to Albert happen to me. Starting immediately, I’ll have the cities act as hubs for the troops instead of the neutral city. It will increase the overall teleportation costs to move them, but it will also prevent a single city from being overwhelmed in a surprise attack. Next, I’ll move to take back our forts and prevent the Kingdom from tanking our point generation any further. Then, I'll prioritize rebuilding the conquered city, so it isn't a point sink. Simultaneously, I build up our troops and prepare for a larger defense. I'm sure Albert will be on the offensive soon.”

“All good starts. What did you personally learn?”

Sara thought over what she had learned from this debacle. If one of her tutors was asking, she would just say what they wanted to hear. But her mother wouldn't judge her, even if she said everything she had done was perfect. She’d lose some respect for her daughter and express her dreaded disappointment, most certainly, but she wouldn’t seriously reprimand her. Sara never had a problem admitting her faults, whether to herself or others. Mistakes were only a bad thing if you repeated them.

“I need to be more flexible with my commands and plans. That includes having more contingencies and giving my generals more freedom. When they insisted taking the city without damage was a lost cause, I should have listened.”

Sara felt a kiss on her head and her mother pulled her into a hug. “Excellent, dearest. You know where you want to take things next, now you just have to work for it. I have dinner coming in an hour, and a new episode of Samantha Siblings came out, so let's watch that.”

***

Matt was having an awful time, even as they were met by relief teams lying in wait at the edge of the anti-flying zone. All of the remaining defenders were picked up and carried off, while a screening force blocked the still floundering Queendom forces from pursuing.

On top of missing an arm, again, he generally felt like shit. After seeing his team’s health readings, sitting still just made him feel even worse. After struggling his way free of the confused woman evacuating him on her flying cloud, Matt pulled out his own flying sword and bulleted off to check on Liz.

She was currently in the makeshift flying infirmary that the evac team had brought along. In reality, it was just a flat platform with an angled wall to block the wind, being carried by six people on flying devices.

A man tried to stop Matt from stepping onto the platform, but Matt ignored him. When the man started getting confrontational, he waved his stumpy arm as an excuse, which seemed to settle things down. Before hopping off of his flying sword, he ordered it to fly next to them, and went to find Liz. She was being tended to with a miserable looking, soot-blackened Aster in her lap.

Multiple healers were working on her, but Liz looked awful. Whatever they were doing, it didn’t seem like it was doing much. The left side of her face was seared to the bone, and the remaining flesh resembled melted plastic more than skin. It was gruesome, and a hate erupted in Matt's chest. He wanted to go back and massacre whoever had hurt Liz so badly. With effort, he forced those feelings down. He had done just as bad, if not worse, to others.

For her part, Liz just grinned at him with the intact half of her face. “Seems we both got fucked up right at the finish line.”

“Are you okay?”

That felt like a supremely dumb question, but Liz shrugged lightly. “An exploding fire arrow went through my blood pool and hit me. I still blocked most of it, otherwise I wouldn’t be here. Damn good shot though. Luckily, it doesn’t hurt that bad. Most of the nerve endings aren't there anymore.”

She reached up and prodded his still armored form, and hovered her hand over his stump. “I'd imagine that hurts worse than this.”

Her comment seemed to have caught the attention of a healer nearby. Matt waved them off when they stepped forward to help him. “The armor keeps me from bleeding out and I can maintain it long enough. Help someone else who needs it now.”

Aster peaked an eye open, yawned silently, and then sniffed his arm. She said, “Smells like empty.” She then sneezed a small cloud of ash, startling herself and all the healers around them.

Matt scratched his bond and comforted her. “It's okay. It will all be ok.” He wasn't sure who he was really reassuring.

The three of them sat together until the flying convoy reached one of the large forts that the Kingdom controlled. The Prince had bought a teleporter upgrade for it, and used it as the staging ground for the assaults around the fallen city.

Matt was just glad to be done flying on the jury-rigged infirmary. Now they could head to the neutral city and be transferred into the care of professional healers.

The worst injured were the first teleported out. Emily was wheeled into the first teleport, right alongside Liz. She was missing two limbs, and in dreadful condition.

Juni stood next to the teleporter and talked to everyone in line. He was mostly thanking them for their efforts and cracking small jokes about how rich they all were now. Smiles followed him, even though the ones he talked to were being carried with crippling injuries.

Matt hadn't bothered to check his points yet, and finally pulled up the screen for war contributions from the army AI.

Prior Total (last updated 11 days ago): 21,587 points

TEAM MERITS:

(Calculated for Tier 6 Combatant)

PERSONAL MERITS:

(Calculated for Tier 6 Combatant)

UNACHIEVED MERITS: For reference purposes only.

New Gains: 243,161 points

New Total: 284,748 points

Pather Team Ranking (Kingdom of Seven Suns): 1st place.

Estimated Daily Stipend: 5,000 points.

Matt whistled. That was a whole bunch of points, no matter how you cut it. The war was a little more than a month in, and he’d earned nearing a quarter million contribution points. Suddenly, the 1.5 million cost for the [Cracked Breach] skill felt within his grasp. His team had put in the work, and were now being rewarded heartily. The double-dipping and the steady, albeit small, percent of the Kingdom's total points would earn them quite a bit. But they earned more with grand feats of fighting.

That didn't even account for their first place in the Pather ranking. If they kept their position, they would earn around 150,000 total points each month just from the daily stipend. That was over half of what they’d earned for unsuccessfully defending the city.

When he scrolled to the merit for ‘deliver a rallying speech’, he was slightly mortified. Immediately, he decided to never mention that exact merit to anyone and moved onto the section for unachieved merits. The first two missed opportunities listed were straightforward enough, but he was slightly confused on the multiplier mentioned. As he focused on that item, a more detailed description was offered.

For fighting a significant battle (participants on each side exceed 1,000) as part of a far disadvantaged force, a multiplier is applied to merits earned during the battle. For fighting on the defending side from a heavily fortified position, this is multiplied by a defender penalty of 0.5x. Participants: 2,949,377 attackers versus 508,892 defenders. Final multiplier of 2.9x points applied (after defender penalty). Multiplier was not applied to point total as battle did not result in a victory against the enemy forces.

Now that would have been amazing.

If they had managed to hold out defending the city, Matt would be nearly half way to earning the perfect skill for him. His musing of single-handedly blasting down city walls was cut short by their turn at the teleporter.

Juni clapped his hands together and nodded deeply at Matt. “Thank you all for your help. Without your team, I don't think we could have done nearly as well. I’ve already talked to The Prince, and he intends to compensate you for the mana you supplied. If you were willing to help generate mana in the future...”

Juni trailed off, and Matt shrugged but nodded. “My Concept is beyond dry right now, but I'm happy to help for an hour or so a day to get some practice with my Concept. If the price is right.”

The Prince's right hand man just nodded, and offered him a genuine smile before patting Matt on the shoulder and moving down the line.

On the other side, they were quickly met with healers who rushed them towards individual rooms on wheeled beds. A woman with snake eyes smiled from under her mask and asked, “Is the armor keeping the blood restricted, and do you have the arm?”

“Yes and no. It was a void attack. The arm is gone.”

She patted his still armored shoulder. “Well, don't deactivate the armor just yet. Once we get you in the room, I'll let you know when we’re ready. Have you taken painkillers or had a pain reduction spell cast on you?”

When Matt said no, the healer put a glowing finger onto his shoulder, it sank right through [Cracked Phantom Armor]. It was an incredibly weird feeling. He instinctively knew that he could have resisted the spell, but it felt like healing, and the woman was strong. If he resisted, she could have shattered his armor.

But as the energy settled in, Matt yawned.

He was so, so tired.

As he heard the healer tell him he could deactivate his skill, he crossed his legs and passed out.

***

Matt woke up feeling good. Really good.

He checked his AI, and saw that only an hour had passed, but the healer was done with her work. A new left arm was back where it should be. Looking around, he found himself in a large room, with dozens of others in hospital beds identical to his own. He debated rolling over and falling back asleep, but then thought to check up on his team. After reading a message from the hospital AI, he rolled off the bed and onto his feet.

Per the hospital AI, ‘You are on a two-week healing cooldown for the arm. Do not stress it with more than light activities for at least two days. Regular exercise can be resumed after one week. If you need to see staff for trauma, they are available now, or later at your convenience. Otherwise, you are free to leave when ready.’

His AI notified him that Conor, Annie, Emily, and Aster were together and not far away from him, so he moved over in that direction.

He found them loudly and aggressively whispering in the recovery room next door as soon as he opened the door.

Annie wanted to keep her twin sister in the bed, but Emily was struggling to get up. It was almost comical to watch. Annie tried to gently keep Emily down without jostling her sister’s newly regrown limbs, while Emily tried to squirm out of her hold like a fussy toddler.

Seeing Emily’s own fresh, pale-pink limbs, Matt rubbed his own left arm and sighed as he found no hair. That would itch like hell when it started to grow back in.

Aster leaped from Conor’s arms to nuzzle into his. “Feel better? You smell better.”

“Thanks, Aster. I do feel better.” He dramatically swooped up his bond and smooched her on the forehead, getting a playful lick in return. He was impressed that she didn't even ask for ice cream, and was worried for Liz.

“Matt! Tell Annie to let me up.” Emily sounded frustrated.

Taking in the situation, Matt instead ignored the woman's plight, and joined Conor in watching the spectacle. A sibling argument was neither his business, nor something he was particularly interested in getting involved with.

He turned to Conor and quietly asked, “How’re you feeling?”

The larger man nodded. “Just fine. I got off easy. The healers cast a spell and moved me right along. I saw that void ball attack. I was just too far away to help. Ballsy move, trying to catch a giant ball of death. One-handed, no less. Fucking impressive that you took that on, and shocking that they didn't pull you out immediately.”

“I got lucky. Nothing crazy.”

Conor rolled his eyes. “Sure, man. Nothing ‘crazy’. Okay, those two are getting too loud, let's get them out of here. People are still sleeping.”

With that, they herded the bickering sisters out of the room, to Annie's animated displeasure. She maintained that her sister needed to remain in the hospital for at least a few days after losing two limbs to a flaming sword. And while she did, Annie could get some assassination practice in, on a totally random and definitely not related target.

They reunited with Liz when she was wheeled out of intensive care an hour later. She wasn't asleep during her healing like Matt had been, and once the healers left, she pulled herself out from under the sheets and sat on the side of the bed.

She had the rest of her face back, but was bald where the skin had been regrown. The new skin was glossy smooth like his arm, but her other side was buzzed down to nothing too.

She saw him peering and sighed. “Ugh. I'm going to need a hair regrowth elixir. I look like a ten-year-old boy.”

Matt pulled her into a hug, only saying, “It looks fine. This is just different. Buy the elixir if you want, but who cares.”

Their team moved out of the hospital at a tired pace, but in good spirits. Together, they ate a heavy dinner at a nice restaurant. It was amazing, though that could have been from eating something other than military rations for the first time in over a week.

Aster, having eaten her fill of ice cream and a beef shank, claimed to be suffering mental trauma and demanded a visit to the recovery ward. A worried nurse had apparently spoken to the young fox about mental trauma, and what they could do to help her. Aster hadn’t cared much until one particular option was mentioned— animal therapy. When Matt heard Aster's claim, he immediately outed her for only wanting to chew on indestructible bunnies. To which she retorted that the bunnies were her friends, and he just didn’t ‘get’ it.

No one else had the energy to stay up late, so they retired to bed early, with Aster whisked off to enjoy chewing on her ‘friends’.

The predawn light was seeping through the windows when Matt woke up to use the bathroom, only to find Liz already out of bed and hogging it. After they both finished up, they slid themselves back beneath the covers.

Matt snuggled up to Liz, it felt so good to be able to hold her. After the hell they’d been through in the siege, feeling someone close to you, and knowing you were both safe was everything to them. He leaned in, giving her a modest peck on the lips. "We’ve been on the verge of death for days, and that’s the best you can do?” Liz teased.

He brushed his hand up to her cheek before he pulled her in tight. “Not even close.”

The next kiss was the most passionate he could ever remember. They both felt worn down by all the days of battle, so to feel something like this… they needed it. As their passion built up, they didn’t stop each other. Not this time.

Matt reached for her shirt, trying to pull it over her head, and she smiled devilishly in response. “Sir Matthew, you dare threaten a princess’s virtue?” she scoffed.

His lips curled in response. “I do”.

In Liz’s amber-yellow eyes, a flame lit. No longer caring for the silly restrictions they’d placed on themselves, she reached back for Matt. Her hands didn’t even bother with his shirt, going straight for his pants.

It was a while before they came back to themselves, both sweaty and smiling. It was the happiest Matt had felt in a long time, embracing the closeness that they’d skirted around in the past, but now fully dove into. “I love you,” Matt said.

“I love you too.” Liz replied.

Matt wasn’t sure who moved first, but their lips started to meet. From there, hands slipped under shirts. Soon, the offending clothing was off and hitting the walls and floor, leaving them struggling in a tangle of limbs.

They didn’t leave their room until well after the sun rose.