Chapter Text
“You don't take anything seriously.”
— — — ‹ CLAY MOORINGTON › — — —
I had memorized the Knight’s Code long before anyone asked me to lead.
That was the problem, really.
Codes were simple on paper.
Hold the line. Protect the realm. Trust your team.
None of it said what to do when one of your teammates rolled his eyes every time you opened your mouth.
I had given them a time. Not a suggestion. Not a vague reminder thrown into the air and abandoned five minutes later. A time.
Team coordination drills had started two minutes ago.
Which, apparently, meant nothing to anyone but me.
And maybe Macy.
Axl was in the kitchen trying to make a soufflé.
Aaron was somewhere in the Fortrex, making enough noise for three people, which usually meant Robin was involved, and at least one of them was about to hit a wall.
And Lance—
Lance was exactly where I should have expected him to be: nowhere useful.
By the time I found him, he was sprawled out with one leg over the arm of a chair, drinking some terrible, bright-colored soda with his own face on the label while his squirebot fanned him, as if the kingdom had run out of actual problems.
“Lance.”
He took another slow sip before looking at me. “Clay.”
“Team coordination drills started two minutes ago.”
“Tragic.”
“What are you doing?”
He tilted the can toward me. “Enjoying my Lance-Tastic soda. The soda of everyone great.” He smiled. “Want some?”
“No.”
“Your loss.”
“It’s time for practice.”
He frowned. “I’m sorry,” he said, not sounding sorry at all. “What was that?”
“I said, it’s time for—”
He slurped loudly, eyes never leaving mine.
I knew better than to rise to it.
I clenched my jaw. “It’s time for team combat practice.”
He slurped again. “And yet somehow I remain right here.”
“That isn’t funny.”
“It wasn’t a joke.” He took another drink. “It was an observation.”
Lance had a way of making patience feel like work.
I held out a hand. “Get up.”
He looked at it like I’d offered him a dead rat.
“Why?”
“Because we’re training.”
“Because you decided we’re training.”
“Because we’re a team.”
He smiled then—that bright, polished smile he used whenever he thought he was being charming instead of impossible. “Wow. You really hear yourself, don’t you?”
My fingers curled back into my palm.
“Yes,” I said flatly. “That’s how speaking works.”
He snorted.
“You know,” he said, setting the can down, “usually when someone starts giving orders, there’s some sort of discussion first. Or a vote. Or a dramatic coronation scene. Did I miss yours?”
“No.”
“Shame. I would’ve worn something nicer.”
Before I could say something I’d regret, I turned and walked out, grabbing the leaf his squirebot was holding and dropping it to the ground.
Because if Lance wanted to act like an overdramatic noble with his own branded soda line while the rest of us had actual responsibilities, fine. I had three other teammates to wrangle.
— ✦ —
By the time I got everyone into the training room, my patience was already fraying at the edges.
Not visibly. But I could feel the effort it took to keep everyone pointed in the same direction—Axl still muttering about his ruined soufflé, Aaron grinning like being late was somehow charming, Macy stepping into position without complaint because, of course, she would.
And Lance?
Lance had shown up.
Which, apparently, was the extent of his contribution.
He had not armored up properly. He had not taken a position. He had not even bothered to pretend. He’d planted himself off to the side like an especially decorative statue and somehow still had that ridiculous can in his hand.
Of course he did.
I ignored him.
That, more than anything, felt like leadership some days.
“Positions,” I said.
Macy stepped up first without hesitation. Aaron followed, still catching his breath from whatever chaos he’d been involved in. Axl lumbered into place a second later.
Lance leaned farther back against the wall.
I set my feet and forced my attention where it belonged.
“Attack.”
The others surged forward.
Macy stepped first, mace driving forward in a short, controlled thrust. Aaron moved with her—but half a beat too fast, shield already punching ahead of the line instead of staying even with it. Axl followed from the other side, axe coming forward a second later with enough force to make the floor hum under his boots.
Not bad, but not clean either. Too many gaps. Too much instinct and not enough coordination.
“Defend,” I called.
They pulled their weapons in again. Macy blocked cleanly. Aaron rocked back too loosely, already moving before the others had finished recovering. Axl adjusted to match them, shoulders squaring as he tried to hold the line together by instinct alone.
“Again.”
Three weapons drove forward again. This time louder, more forceful. More noise. Slightly better.
Still not right.
I had to bite back the urge to sigh.
Because that was exactly the problem. They were all capable. Individually, they were more than capable. But every time we moved as a unit, the same cracks showed up. Aaron rushed. Axl compensated. Macy corrected. Everyone assumed someone else would smooth it out before it became a real problem.
And one day, maybe someone wouldn’t.
“Reset,” I said.
Macy lowered her mace first. Aaron rolled one shoulder back into place with a grin that suggested he thought that last pass had gone better than it had. Axl adjusted his grip.
Lance applauded once from the wall.
Slow. Lazy. Deliberate.
“Wow,” he said. “Inspiring. Truly. I almost felt coordinated just watching.”
I kept my eyes on the others for one more second before turning.
“Lance.”
“Clay.”
“Would you like to join us?”
“No,” he said lightly. “But thank you for asking so politely.”
“We’re practicing team combat.”
“And I’m observing team combat.”
“You’re sitting.”
He looked around theatrically, as if this was news to him. “You’re right. I am.”
“Get over here.”
He made a small sound of disbelief. “Do you ever hear how you talk to people?”
“Yes,” I said. “Do you?”
Aaron quietly backed up a step.
Macy didn’t move at all, but I could feel her attention sharpen.
I stared at him.
At the stupid branded soda. At the polished boots. At the expression that said none of this mattered as much as I thought it did.
That was the part that got under my skin.
Not the laziness. Not even the mockery.
The ease.
The way he could stand off to the side and act like effort was something embarrassing. Like the rest of us were somehow foolish for taking any of this seriously.
It wasn’t just that Lance was late, or difficult, or impossible to pin down for longer than thirty seconds at a time. It was that he made everything into a joke. Every correction. Every plan. Every serious moment dragged sideways until everyone was laughing or irritated enough to stop trying.
“Where do you get off deciding when we train?” he asked, straightening from the wall at last. “Who made you the boss?”
There it was.
The room went quieter around us.
Aaron suddenly looked fascinated by the floor. Axl shifted his weight like he was preparing for impact. Macy’s grip tightened on her weapon, her eyes flicking toward me.
I felt my jaw set. “Someone has to make sure we know what we’re doing.”
He smiled like I had proved his point for him.
Something hot and immediate flared in my chest.
Not anger exactly.
Not just anger.
Something sharper. Closer to insult.
Because that was what Lance always did—made caring sound like arrogance, made discipline sound like control, made any attempt to hold the team together look ridiculous enough that no one wanted to be caught taking it seriously.
And then acted surprised when nothing improved.
Before I could stop myself, I said, “You can’t lead the team.”
Lance blinked once.
I heard it as soon as it left my mouth. Heard the way it landed.
Too blunt. Too personal.
But I was already angry enough to follow it through.
“You have no work ethic.”
Aaron winced.
Axl muttered, “Oh boy.”
Lance’s expression never fully lost that polished ease, but something in it sharpened.
“I’m a Richmond,” he said. “I employ people to have work ethics for me.”
Aaron let out a breath that sounded dangerously close to a laugh.
Macy shot him a look sharp enough to shut it down.
“And unlike you,” Lance went on, flicking two fingers toward his squirebot without even looking at it, “I don’t need to boss anyone around.”
His squirebot hesitated.
Lance didn’t raise his voice.
“Out.”
The bot whirred once, then obediently turned and rolled from the room.
He watched it go with that smug little tilt to his mouth, like he’d just proved something.
Maybe, in his mind, he had.
I reached behind my shield and pulled the Knight’s Code from the sheath built into the back of my armor.
That got everyone’s attention.
Aaron leaned sideways. “Hey—where do you even keep that thing?”
He squinted at the armor on my back. “Actually, never mind. I don’t want to know.”
Axl leaned in and sniffed the air.
“It smells like ham.”
I looked at him. “It smells like order.”
Aaron made a strangled noise.
Macy pressed her lips together.
Lance looked personally offended by the book's existence.
I held it up anyway.
“This,” I said, “is the Knight’s Code. It was given to me at the Knight’s Academy by Sir Griffiths.”
The weight of it sat solid in my hand. Familiar. Grounding.
I’d read it enough that I didn’t need to look at the page.
“I live by its values,” I said. “Hard work. Order. Honesty. Justice. Teamwork.”
For half a second, the room actually went quiet.
Aaron’s grin faded into something more attentive. Axl straightened a little. Macy, already watching me, looked like she knew exactly where this was coming from and also exactly how badly it was going to land with Lance.
Lance only rolled his eyes.
“Wow,” he said. “I stand corrected. You didn’t have a coronation. You had props.”
I opened my mouth.
Ava’s voice cut across the room before I could say something that would turn this into an actual fight.
“Uh, sorry to interrupt,” she said, which meant she was not sorry at all, “but you can all live by the values later. There's trouble in the countryside, so we need to roll.”
The room shifted immediately.
Training was one thing. A real call was another.
Lance’s smile stayed in place, but thinner now. Aaron looked relieved by the interruption. Axl exhaled like he’d been holding his breath. Macy glanced at me once, briefly.
I slid the Code back into place behind my shield.
“Let’s move, Nexo Knights.”
Nobody argued.
Macy was already turning for the door. Aaron put his shield and bow away and followed at once, easy grin gone in the space of a second, Axl shortly behind. Lance set the can aside without a word and fell in with the rest of us.
That was the thing about Lance. He could waste an hour fighting you on practice and still show up the second it mattered.
It would have been easier if he were lazy.
Instead, he was selective.
We crossed into the main chamber as the Fortrex woke around us.
Panels lit one after another across Ava’s station. The low hum under the floor deepened into something heavier, mechanical, ready. Merlok was already lit up on the central display, and Ava was pulling up scans faster than I could keep up with.
Then the map stabilized.
Red markers flashed across the countryside.
Everybody made some version of the same sound.
Not panic. Just recognition.
“We’ve had reports of monsters wreaking havoc,” Ava said, enlarging the display, “headed for the burg of Aeroskooten.”
Merlok’s voice cut through. “The king and queen are giving a tour of the countryside to a business delegation today,” he said as we turned to see him. “So you must protect their group.”
That was all I needed.
My hand came up to the side of my helmet automatically, the motion as familiar as drawing my sword. “Protect the king!”
I stepped closer to the display, tracking the route Ava had marked across the countryside—the delegation’s position, the monster path, the distance closing between them. Royal convoy in front. Threat advancing from the rear.
Too much open ground. Not enough time.
If the delegation panicked, they’d slow down. If the monsters reached them first, we’d be too late.
Protect the convoy. Cut off the monsters before they reach them.
Simple.
“Ava, keep the route live,” I said, heading for the upper deck access. “I want updates the second they change direction.”
“Already doing that,” she said.
If this got worse before we reached the convoy, we’d need to roll out immediately.
“Aaron, prep deployment options. Fast.”
He was already backing toward the garage. “On it.”
“Macy, Axl, Lance—with me.”
The Fortrex gave a low shudder under our feet as the engine engaged, the sound deepening through the floor and walls.
I took the upper access two steps at a time. Macy was right behind me, faster than usual—I could hear her panic in the way she moved. Too sharp. Too immediate. Axl came heavier at our backs, and Lance followed without commentary for once, which was its own kind of warning sign.
By the time we hit the upper deck, the Fortrex was already moving at full speed.
Wind hit first.
Then distance.
The upper platform gave us a clear line over the front of the Fortrex, over the rolling fields and the dark cut of the gorge ahead. Farther out, the royal tour party’s vehicles were just visible, small and polished and moving too slowly for my liking.
And between us and them—
I narrowed my eyes.
The holobridge spanning the gorge ahead shimmered once, flickered, and vanished.
“Well,” Robin’s voice came over comms, tight and too loud in my ear, “that’s not good. We need to find another route. Pronto.”
Ava came in right after him, clipped and focused. “I’ve attempted to call the king’s party, but communications are out.”
“Out?” I asked.
“Silent mode,” she answered. “They must’ve shut off incoming comms for the tour.”
Of course they had.
Royal tour. Business delegation. No chatter unless necessary.
Normally, that would have made sense.
Right now, it just meant we were blind.
The king’s convoy had already crossed.
We hadn’t.
And on the far side of the gorge, dark shapes were climbing over the broken stone where the bridge had been.
Monsters.
I went straight to the left rise, Macy right beside me. Across from us, Lance and Axl took the other side, Axl squinting into the distance while Lance leaned forward, all the lazy polish stripped clean off him now.
I looked back toward the convoy, then to the creatures scrambling over the gorge-side stone.
The monsters were disappearing over the far edge now, one after another, and beyond them—
Movement.
Not clear. Not enough to identify. Just a shape too large to be a monster, too deliberate to be natural, half-obscured by the bridge supports and distance.
For a moment, I thought it might be smoke.
Then metal caught light.
Something was rolling behind them.
I couldn’t make out what.
But they were already gaining ground.
“Those monsters that destroyed the bridge have reached the other side,” I said, keeping my eyes on the far bank. “And if they catch the king’s tour party—”
I felt my stomach tighten.
“…That would be bad, right?” Lance called from the opposite side.
“Yes,” Macy said sharply, staring across the gap, already leaning forward. “Mom. Dad...”
I looked at her.
Her voice had gone thin in a way I didn’t like. Her grip on the metal edge had tightened, but not steadily—too much tension in the wrist, too much in the shoulders. She was looking past the monsters, past the gorge, already seeing the wrong thing.
Not the route.
Not the problem.
Her parents.
It was understandable.
It was also dangerous.
She turned to me. “We have to warn my parents. Like, right now.”
“We will,” I said.
Static crackled, then Robin’s voice came through over comms. “We could send them a signal. Let them know monsters are behind them.”
Right. Distance too far to shout. Comms are unreliable. No clean shot from here, no time to route a proper transmission through the bridge network.
We needed something physical.
Something fast.
I looked toward the launch rig mounted on the Fortrex roofline, then back toward the disappearing royal transport.
“Right,” I said. “We catapult some squirebots.”
From the lower level, Aaron looked up and grinned.
“Oh, catapult me,” he said. “On my board.”
Lance leaned over the edge. “You’d never make it.”
The hatch behind us clanged open, and Robin hauled himself up onto the roof level, clutching a compact booster rig nearly the size of his torso. “He could if I added a custom rocket boost to his shield.”
Aaron lit up immediately. “Ha-ha! I like the way you think, Robin.”
I stared at both of them.
The gorge was deep enough to swallow a bad idea whole. The distance across it wasn’t impossible, but it was close enough to impossible that I hated every part of this already.
“Aaron, wait,” I said. “We need a plan.”
Because there was a gorge between us and the convoy, the monsters were closing in, the bridge was gone, communications were down, and launching one of my teammates into the open air on a modified hover-shield held together by Robin’s enthusiasm and luck did not qualify as a plan.
But he was already moving.
“No time, Claymate!”
“That,” I snapped, “is exactly when you need a plan.”
By the time I got back down from the pillar, he had his hover board under one arm, and Robin was fastening the rocket assembly into place with the kind of speed that should probably have worried me more than it did.
Macy dropped down beside me. “Clay—”
“I know.”
Except I didn’t.
Not fully.
Because there were too many bad options at once, and Aaron’s version of solving that was always to pick the most immediate one and trust the landing.
Literally, in this case.
“Angle matters,” I said, moving toward the catapult assembly mounted near the forward deck. “If he undershoots, he drops into the gorge. If he overshoots, he misses the convoy entirely.”
Robin looked up only long enough to say, “So let’s not do either.”
Helpful.
Axl had come down from the other pillar now, too, looming beside Lance as both of them watched Aaron strap in like this was the best day of his life.
I hated that part.
Not that Aaron was fearless. I’d known that already.
It was that he made recklessness look easy.
Macy was still looking toward the convoy every other second, her hands tightening and loosening into fists by her side.
“They have to know,” she said.
“I know,” I repeated, sharper this time—not at her, but at the whole situation. At the bridge. At the monsters. At the way the team kept tilting out of formation every time pressure hit.
Everything in me wanted to stop it.
Everything in me also knew we were running out of seconds.
I stepped up beside the launcher and looked Aaron in the eye.
“Once you land, you warn the convoy and stay with them,” I said. “Do not go after the monsters alone. Do you understand?”
Aaron gave me a quick salute that was probably meant to be reassuring and had the opposite effect.
“Aaron.”
“Got it, Clay-man.”
Then the catapult arm released.
Aaron whooped as he launched, a streak of armor and shield and impossible confidence flying out over open air.
For one terrible second, it looked like I had been right.
His arc dipped too low.
Way too low.
He dropped into the gorge fast enough to make Macy gasp and Axl swear under his breath.
Then the rocket boost kicked.
A burst of flame and force lit the gorge, and Aaron came flying back up out of it with a wild laugh, shield screaming under him as he arced toward the far side.
I thought he was going to clip the cliffside.
Then he cleared it.
Board angled. Shield steady. Body shifted just enough to compensate.
He flew hard toward the convoy.
“Yeah!”
Robin made a sound halfway between triumph and panic.
I didn’t say anything.
Couldn’t, actually.
I just watched until Aaron disappeared into the distance, headed toward the convoy.
Axl exhaled first. “He made it.”
“Barely,” I said.
Lance glanced sideways at me. “Still made it.”
I didn’t answer.
Because he had.
And because that was the problem with Aaron’s worst ideas: sometimes they worked just well enough to make stopping the next one harder.
I exhaled through my teeth and put a hand to my comm. “Ava.”
“Tracking him,” she said immediately.
“Tell me the second he reaches them.”
“Working on it.”
Below us, the Fortrex started moving again, taking the long route around the gorge now that the direct crossing was gone. Too slow. It felt too slow even at full speed.
“Clay.” Ava’s voice came through again, tighter this time. “Get back inside. You guys might want to check this out.”
I turned immediately. “Inside. Now.”
Macy was the first to move, fast and silent. Axl followed. Lance pushed off from the opposite pillar without argument, which was how I knew he understood this was serious. Robin dropped back through the hatch, still muttering something to himself about rocket calibration.
By the time we hit the main chamber again, Ava already had surveillance footage pulled across the central screens.
The image jumped once before stabilizing.
It was an earlier feed from the surrounding area ahead of us—angled wide enough to catch the remains of the holo-bridge supports, the trench, the route beyond.
The shape I’d only half-seen from the roof came into focus piece by piece. Heavy plating. Reinforced wheels. A heavy front end built to keep moving once it started.
Robin came down right behind us, still breathless. “Oh, come on.”
“That’s new,” Axl muttered.
Lance stepped nearer to the screen. “Tell me that’s not what I think it is.”
“Jestro’s built some kind of mobile fortress,” I said.
They were adapting.
That was how these things went once a fight dragged on long enough. One side changed tactics, the other answered. We had the Fortrex, vehicles, mobile deployment. So now the enemy had built something that could keep pace with the battlefield, too.
“Wow,” Lance said, stepping closer to the screen. “So he really looked at the Fortrex and thought, I can do that too, but uglier.”
Axl snorted once.
The irritation hit so fast it felt old.
“That’s not the point,” I said, before I could stop myself.
Lance looked over. “Really? Because it seems like a pretty obvious point.”
“The point,” I said, more sharply now, “is that they changed tactics. They realized monsters alone wouldn’t keep up with our vehicles, so they built one of their own.”
The room went quieter.
Ava was still working the screen. Robin had gone still. Macy’s attention flicked between the route display and the image like she was trying to force both into something manageable.
Lance only lifted a shoulder. “Wow. You almost sound impressed.”
That did it.
Not because he was being difficult.
Because he always did this.
Took the easiest possible read. Took whatever was ugly or awkward or too earnest and flattened it into something laughable.
And Jestro—
Jestro had always been one of his favorite targets.
I’d seen it before.
~ ✧ ~
Our team lost the tournament.
I knew that.
Everyone knew that.
But I wasn’t still standing there thinking about losing. I was thinking about why we lost, which was much more useful.
It had only been our first tournament, for one thing. Sir Griffiths always said first attempts were for learning, not glory. And it wasn’t like the other team had completely outmatched us. We had almost had them. We just got in our own way.
Literally.
Lance had rushed ahead before the rest of us were in place, and then Jestro had gone after him because he was trying to help, and then someone got knocked sideways, and then Axl’s axe got in the way, and then everybody was tripping over armor and limbs and weapons while the other team just stepped around us and took the objective.
It had been a mess.
An avoidable mess.
Which meant it was fixable.
That was the important part.
Also—
Sir Griffiths had given me my own copy of the Knight’s Code.
My own copy.
Not one from the classroom shelf, not one I had to hand back after lessons. Mine.
I was still carrying it against my chest when I headed out to team practice the next day, and I kept looking down at it just to make sure it was still actually there. The cover is dark blue with silver edging, and there are actual notes in the margins from Sir Griffiths.
I had already started reading the strategy sections.
There were formations. Timing drills. Positioning notes. Things about spacing and trust and how not to leave openings in a group line.
Useful things.
Things that would have helped yesterday.
When I find the others, Aaron was balancing on his training shield again, hovering a little above the ground and leaning way too far to one side, while Macy told him he was going to fall. Axl was standing nearby with his practice axe over one shoulder, and Lance was there too, listening with his hands on his hips like he was supervising.
Aaron wobbled dangerously, then swung himself around in a crooked circle.
“See?” he said. “Perfect control.”
“You are sideways,” Macy responded.
“I am stylish.”
“You are going to hit the wall.”
“I am not going to hit the—”
The edge of the shield bumped the practice post with a loud thunk.
Axl laughed.
Macy folded her arms. “Amazing.”
Aaron straightened up like that was supposed to happen.
That was when she noticed me and the Code in my hands.
“What’s that?” she asked.
I brightened immediately and rushed the rest of the way over.
“Sir Griffiths gave me a copy of the Knight’s Code,” I told her.
Her eyes widened a little. “Your own one?”
“Yes,” I said, maybe a little too fast. “My own one.”
Aaron hopped down from his shield to the ground and leaned in. “Wow.”
Even Axl looked interested.
I opened it carefully, because I do not want anybody bending the spine.
“I’ve been studying it,” I said, already flipping to the marked sections. “And it has some strategy notes in here, and formations, and if we use some of them when we practice, I think next time we could do way better, because there’s one part about keeping your spacing in a group line, and another about signaling before you move, and I think if we had done that yesterday then——”
“I have the best strategy,” Lance cut in.
I stopped and looked up.
Aaron looked over right away.
Lance jerked a thumb back toward the tournament grounds like the answer was obvious.
“That Jestro guy is a complete joke,” he said. “He lost us this tournament.”
Macy’s face changed into outright annoyance.
“That’s not fair,” I said immediately. “None of us performed as well as we could because we didn’t work as a team.”
“It was our first tournament,” Macy exclaimed, folding her arms. “Obviously we need more practice.”
“Exactly,” I said, because yes. Exactly. “That is what I’m saying. We got out of position too fast. Lance went ahead, and then Jestro followed because he was trying to help, and then we all got jammed together before the other team even got close enough to stop us properly.”
Aaron, still wobbling on his shield, looked between us. “It was kind of a pile-up.”
Lance threw one hand in the air. “Because he panicked!”
“He did not panic,” I said. “He reacted wrong. There’s a difference.”
He looked at me like that was the stupidest thing he had ever heard.
I tightened my grip on the Code and kept going before he could interrupt again.
“And he means well,” I said. “We just have to work with him. If we give him some—”
I cut off.
Jestro was standing a few steps away.
I don’t know how long he had been there.
Long enough.
His hands were clasped together in front of him, all tight and awkward, and his face did this awful crumpled thing like he’s trying very hard not to let it.
Macy made a little sound beside me.
Aaron went still on the shield.
Even Axl looked uncomfortable.
Jestro stared straight at Lance.
“You…you think I’m bad, Lance?” he asked.
Nobody said anything.
I looked at Lance, waiting.
Waiting for him to fix it.
He doesn’t.
“Well, yes,” Lance said.
Like it was obvious.
Like Jestro was the one being strange for asking.
Jestro’s mouth trembled.
Lance threw up his hands in frustration. “At least I can act like a knight. You can’t even do that.”
Jestro looked like he’d been slapped.
Then he turned and ran.
“Jestro—” I started, but I wasn’t moving yet.
Because Lance was still standing there, and I was suddenly so angry I could feel it all the way in my hands.
He didn’t even look sorry.
He just looked annoyed. Like Jestro had made things dramatic for no reason. Like he was the one being inconvenienced.
I marched right up to him and shoved at his shoulder hard enough to make him rock back a step.
“You think you can act like a knight?” I demanded.
He blinked at me.
I grabbed the Knight’s Code with both hands and shoved it straight into his chest.
“Well, here’s a clue,” I told him. “It’s not about acting like a knight.”
I pushed the book harder into his hands.
“It’s about being a knight. Got it?”
Lance just stared at me, holding the Code like I had handed him something disgusting.
I didn’t care.
I turned and ran after Jestro, one hand already up so he could see me coming.
“Jestro!” I shouted. “Wait up! Jestro!”
~ ✧ ~
With Lance, it was never just the insult, or that he was rude.
It was the way he always reached for the easiest read first. If something was awkward, he mocked it. If something was earnest, he flattened it into a joke. If someone cared enough to try out loud, he acted like that was the embarrassing part.
Jestro had always been the easiest target in the room. He was awkward, overeager, and terrible at pretending not to care what people thought of him.
Lance always had a way of finding that kind of softness and pressing on it.
“He’s not complimenting Jestro, he’s saying it’s a threat,” Macy said flatly.
Lance lifted a shoulder.
“What?” he said. “I’m acknowledging the threat. I’m just not applauding Jestro for finally building something useful like Clay is.”
I glanced at him.
Right. Of course that was where he landed.
“No,” I said, sharper than I meant to. “I’m not impressed.”
He lifted a brow.
“I’m paying attention.”
Because it wasn’t about Jestro. It wasn’t about who copied what, or who built the uglier machine, or whether Lance could turn this into one more easy punchline before we hit the field.
It was about the king and queen being trapped in a moving target with monsters already inside it.
It was about Aaron being out there somewhere ahead of us with no update and no signal.
It was about time.
“I’m saying he adapted,” I went on. “Monsters alone can’t keep up with our vehicles. So now they have one.”
I gestured once toward the display. “That’s not impressive. It’s a problem.”
Lance opened his mouth.
Before he could say whatever version of relax or wow, touchy, he had lined up, Ava cut in.
“We’ll be within deployment range in forty-two seconds,” she said. Flat. Precise.
That snapped the room back into motion.
Good.
Because I was done standing around looking at screens while the distance closed.
“Also, Aaron’s signal dropped completely after touchdown. I can’t reestablish contact.”
Macy turned so fast she nearly hit the edge of Ava’s console. “What?”
“I lost him.” Ava’s fingers kept moving over the controls, pulling up route lines, convoy position, enemy movement. Her voice didn’t change. “No visual. No comm response. No new ping.”
Not gone. Not confirmed anything. Just gone off-grid.
But not good.
No Aaron with us. Bridge out. Monsters ahead. Jestro in some oversized wreck of a war machine behind them.
Too many variables.
So I cut them down.
“We move without him,” I said.
It felt wrong the second I said it. Necessary. Still wrong.
Lance tipped his head. “Comforting.”
I looked at him. “If you’ve got something useful to add, now would be the time.”
For once, he didn’t answer immediately.
“We intercept before they reach the convoy,” I said. “Without Aaron, we stay tight until we’re in position. Nobody breaks formation early. We hit the monster line, keep them off the road, and do not let that thing force us apart.”
Macy nodded immediately. Axl rolled one shoulder and set his jaw.
Lance said nothing, which should have worried me more than it did.
The holo-transport kept moving on the screen, the royal convoy just ahead of it, monsters spreading through the rear sections like rot through wood.
I forced myself to look at the whole board instead of the worst part of it.
The Fortrex was too large to close the distance neatly now. By the time we intercepted at full mass, the monsters could already be in the front cars with the king, queen, and delegates.
Which meant we needed speed.
I stepped away from the display at once. “The Fortrex is too big to close the gap fast enough,” I said, already moving toward the garage access. “We take the individual vehicles. We roll out the second we’re in range.”
I was already moving for the lower level when I heard Macy and Axl follow. Lance came too, though not with any real sense of urgency I trusted.
“The royal transport is segmented,” I said. “Front car has the king, queen, and delegates. Rear sections are likely where the monsters are gathering. If they push forward through the train, they reach the royals. We stop that before it happens.”
We split at the elevators on instinct, Macy falling in beside me while Axl and Lance took the second lift.
The doors split open as we came down into the launch bay. Engines hummed low under the floor. My vehicle sat docked in the center cradle, the side cycles locked onto it, Lance’s ride just beyond, sleek and overdesigned in exactly the way he liked it.
Macy moved with me, but I could feel how tight she’d gone again. Not frozen, exactly. Worse than that. Focused in the wrong direction.
Not on the field.
On them.
I turned just enough to catch her eye. “Macy.”
She looked at me immediately.
Not calm. But present.
“We get to them first,” I said. “That’s the objective.”
Her jaw tightened. Then she nodded once.
“You and Axl detach as soon as we’re in range,” I said. “Board from the sides and clear the back sections first. Keep the monsters contained there. Do not let them push toward the front cars.”
Axl gave one firm nod as he mounted one of the side cycles. Macy was listening with all of herself now, fear sharpened clean into focus.
I turned to Lance.
“You stay with formation,” I said. “We match the train, assess, and move together.”
His expression did something unreadable at that.
Which usually meant trouble.
I kept going before he could interrupt.
“I’ll stay alongside in the Rumble Blade,” I said. “That gives us the best line on the whole transport. If something breaks through, we intercept from outside. If Aaron turns up, we’re in position to reach him fast.”
I swung up into position and wrapped both hands around the controls.
No Aaron.
Bridge down.
Enemy mobile support.
The king and queen ahead of a monster line with the gap closing too fast.
Every bad possibility stacked neatly in my head, one after another.
I set them aside.
One thing at a time.
I looked once to my right. Macy, mounted and ready, though I could see the tension in the set of her shoulders even through the armor.
To my left, Axl braced and solid.
Further over, Lance revved his engine once, posture loose in the way that usually meant either confidence or defiance. With him, it could be either. Sometimes both.
The launch clamps unlocked with a heavy metallic snap.
Wind started pushing through as the outer gate began to lower, daylight cutting in across the floor in widening strips. Beyond it, the holo-rails flashed past in a streak of light and speed.
The gate hit bottom.
I drove first.
The Rumble Blade shot forward out of the Fortrex and onto the holo-rails with a jolt that rattled straight through the frame. Lance’s vehicle dropped in on my flank.
Ahead of us, the holo-transport streaked across the rails in segmented flashes of silver-blue light. Too many moving parts. Too many windows. Too many places for monsters to disappear between one second and the next.
I could see movement already in the back sections.
Shapes hitting glass. Clawing silhouettes. A flash of red.
Macy saw it too. “They’re in the rear cars.”
“I know.”
I pushed harder.
The wind tore at us as the distance narrowed.
I kept my eyes on the holo-transport, tightening my grip on the controls. “Jestro’s built his own rolling fort, and we don’t have Aaron.”
I looked to my right, straight at Lance.
“So stick together. Stick to the plan.”
“Right—” he said over comms, raising a hand like he was humoring me.
“Stick it. See ya!”
And then he gunned the engine.
He shot ahead before I could even answer, angling hard toward the transport like recklessness counted as strategy.
“Lance,” I muttered, “what are you doing?”
I saw the angle almost as soon as he took it—the sharp rise, the tilt of his board as it lined up alongside the railcar, the way he lowered the lance like this had been the plan all along.
Of course he’d heard stick together and translated it into show off somewhere higher.
The tip of his lance hit metal with a hard spark, and he vaulted up in a clean arc, landing on the roof of the transport just as two monsters turned toward him. He didn’t even look back, his silhouette flashing silver as monsters converged on him.
I swore under my breath and forced my eyes forward again.
Fine.
No time to drag him back into formation.
Adapt.
“Macy. Axl. Go.”
The side cycles detached with a heavy snap from either side of the Rumble Blade. I felt the shift in weight immediately as they peeled away from me, both of them accelerating toward the back end of the train.
Macy reached the side first, leaping cleanly from the bike to the transport with the kind of precision that only looked effortless because she never hesitated. Axl came a second later, and she was already there, grabbing hold and hauling him up the rest of the way so they could disappear inside through the rear section.
Good.
That was one piece of the plan still intact.
I pushed harder.
The holo-rails flashed under me in bands of blue-white light. Wind hammered against my armor. The transport ahead kept gliding as if it had all the time in the world, while inside it, monsters were already spreading, car by car, toward the front.
I couldn’t see Macy or Axl anymore.
Couldn’t see Aaron.
Could only see Lance above me, already fighting on the roof.
He wasn’t bad at it.
That was what made him so infuriating.
Even from below, I could see how fast he moved—how easily he turned instinct into something almost graceful. But he was still making everything harder than it needed to be.
The transport never changed speed.
No braking. No shift in formation. No sign that the front cars had any idea monsters were already moving through the rear.
Aaron should have warned them by now.
Which meant Aaron either hadn’t reached them—
—or something had gone wrong the second he did.
I looked up just in time to see a cluster of monsters swarm Lance at once.
He kicked one off the roofline, skewered another, spun—
And then lost footing.
No.
Not footing.
Position.
One of the monsters slammed into him from the side, another hit low, and suddenly Lance was airborne, thrown off the top of the transport in a spray of sparks and motion and silver armor.
I swore and jerked the Rumble Blade in under him on instinct.
He hit hard across the top of my vehicle, bracing with both hands and one knee as the frame shuddered under the impact.
“Huh?” he said, like even he was surprised he was still in one piece.
I glanced sideways at him.
“Got ya.”
His eyes flicked to me, surprised, and for half a second, I got the smallest, pettiest satisfaction out of it.
Then I looked back ahead and accelerated.
No time.
I shoved the throttle forward, and the Rumble Blade jumped, surging up alongside the transport again.
If the roof was compromised and the rear cars were already engaged, then the front was the next problem. The whole point was keeping the monsters from reaching the king and queen. Every second Jestro kept us spread out was a second closer to that happening.
Macy and Axl were inside the rear cars. Lance was still with me, whether he liked it or not. If anything broke through toward the royal compartment, I needed to be there before it reached the king and queen.
The rail hummed under us, bright and slick and fast enough that a bad turn would throw all of us into open air.
I kept my line tight.
Tracked the windows.
Tracked the roof.
Tracked the shifting weight of the train as something heavy moved across the top—
Macy.
Axl.
The transport curved slightly along the rails, enough for me to get a better angle on the top.
They had made their way up somehow, and so had Jestro. Him, the Book of Monsters, and a fresh swarm of creatures clustered across the top section like the whole ridiculous machine belonged to them. Axl was swinging broad and hard, forcing space where there wasn’t any. Macy was faster, darting in and out between strikes, trying to keep them from getting surrounded.
Then she took a hit.
Not a direct one. Worse.
A monster slammed into her side just hard enough to throw her off-balance, and suddenly she was skidding toward the edge of the transport roof with nothing under her but open air and the blur of the rails below.
I saw her slide.
Saw her hit the roofline, bounce once, and then keep going—
My whole body locked.
Axl got to her.
Barely.
He dropped flat, one hand digging into the roofline while he shoved his axe out with the other. Macy caught the handle with one hand just before she went over completely, and then she was hanging there over open air, dangling off the side of the transport with the whole train still speeding forward beneath her.
Everything in me went cold.
I hit the accelerator so hard the engine screamed.
I barely felt it. Barely felt anything except distance and speed and the fact that I was not close enough.
Not fast enough.
Not close enough.
Closer.
Closer.
Come on.
The Rumble Blade shot forward, drawing level with the transport just as Macy’s grip slipped lower on the haft of Axl’s axe.
Then Lance moved.
One second he was beside me, the next he was braced on the far side, reaching up as we drew alongside the transport. Macy dropped—
He caught her.
The breath tore out of me so hard it almost hurt.
He hauled her in, staggered once, then managed to set her down on the Rumble Blade beside him.
I didn’t say anything.
Couldn’t.
No stopping. Not while Jestro was still ahead. Not while Axl was still alone on the roof.
I pushed forward to get us back in line—
—and something flew through the sky, screaming.
Aaron.
He hit Axl full force.
The impact drove both of them off the roof in a tangle of armor and limbs and momentum, slamming them down in the dirt beside the holo-rails as the transport kept moving without them.
I jerked the Rumble Blade sideways and killed speed hard enough to make the whole machine shudder beneath us.
Lance and Macy got off the vehicle almost instantly.
Axl was on the ground, dazed but upright.
Aaron was sprawled half over him, somehow still managing to look smug about it.
I killed the last of the Rumble Blade’s engine and shoved my visor up.
I walked a few steps ahead before I stopped.
The transport was already pulling away, carrying the monsters and every bit of momentum we’d failed to stop with it.
I slowed.
Stopped.
Watched it go.
The monsters crowded the back edge of the roofline, little warped shapes bouncing and waving as the train carried them farther down the rails. Even from here, I could tell they were laughing.
Something in my chest pulled tighter.
Behind me, I could hear everyone moving—Aaron sitting up, Lance saying something, Macy catching her breath, Axl hauling himself to his feet—but it all blurred together under the sound of the transport getting away.
My hands were clenched so tight they hurt.
I had made a plan.
A simple one.
Stay together. Hold formation. Protect the front cars. Do not get scattered.
And somehow, in the space of a few minutes, Lance had broken formation and launched himself onto the roof, Macy and Axl had ended up fighting up there too, Aaron had dropped out of the sky, and Jestro was still getting away.
I looked at them—all of them alive, which should have been enough—and felt the frustration hit sharp and hot in my chest.
Angry didn’t even cover it.
That would have been simpler.
It was the aftershock of too many things almost happening at once.
Lance thrown from the roof. Macy slipping. Axl stretched flat, trying to hold onto her. Aaron missing, then crashing back into the fight.
Every part of the plan peeling apart in real time while I tried to keep ahead of the one thing that actually mattered.
This was exactly what I had been trying to prevent.
I turned around.
“What is wrong with you guys?”
It came out harsher than I meant it to.
Lance straightened beside the Rumble Blade. Macy’s head snapped toward me immediately. Axl was still getting fully upright, one hand braced against his knee.
At least I had their attention.
I dragged in a quick breath and forced my voice down before it climbed any higher.
“Look,” I said. “We need to work as a team.”
I pointed toward Axl first.
“Axl did his part.”
He blinked.
Then I looked at Lance.
“But Lance, you went off on your own.”
Lance’s mouth opened immediately. “And then I caught Macy, so—”
“After you broke formation,” I snapped. “After launching yourself onto the roof because apparently stick together sounded optional.”
His mouth tightened. “It worked.”
“It almost got you killed.”
His expression flattened.
I turned to Macy before the argument could widen.
“And Macy, once you saw your parents on that transport, you stopped watching the whole field.”
Her head jerked toward me, eyes narrowed. Hurt first. Then anger. Not explosive, but sharp.
“My parents were on the transport, Clay.”
“I know,” I said, and I did.
“No,” she shot back, jaw set, “I don’t think you do know. You know that as part of the mission. That is not the same thing.”
I felt my own jaw lock.
I did know. To me, it had been the convoy, the royals, the objective. To her, it had been her mother and father on a train full of monsters while we were still too far away to do anything but watch it happen.
But she had still almost gone over the side.
“I’m not saying you shouldn’t care,” I said, and I made myself keep my voice even. “I’m saying once it got personal, you stopped tracking the fight. You went for the nearest threat instead of the mission.”
Macy crossed her arms. “The nearest threat was Jestro.”
“And if you’d fallen,” I shot back, “then Jestro still gets away and now I’m down another knight.”
That landed.
Not well.
But honestly.
A flicker of something crossed her face then—not agreement, exactly, but enough to tell me she knew I wasn’t just accusing her for the sake of it.
Aaron zipped past on his hover shield in a blur of silver and green fire.
I turned so fast I almost missed him.
“And Aaron,” I snapped, frustration flaring right back up, “where have you been?”
“You know, you’d think a rocket on a hover shield is a cool idea,” he said, grimacing, “but really? Not so much.”
I stared at him.
He gave me a weak shrug.
“Good news: I made it. Bad news: never doing that again.”
Behind us, the Fortrex rolled into place with a heavy mechanical growl, its front gate lowering. I heard Robin’s boots hit the ramp first, fast and uneven, Ava following at her usual calm pace.
The sound grounded me just enough to keep from snapping again.
I looked at all of them again.
Lance, still pretending he hadn’t scared me half to death.
Macy, hurt and angry and trying not to show how much both were true at once.
Axl, who had actually stayed where I told him to, until everything else came apart around him.
Aaron, singed and sheepish and somehow still standing there, like charm might rescue him from consequences.
We were all still breathing hard.
Still standing.
Still here.
But Jestro was getting away.
I exhaled through my nose and reached behind my shield.
“Okay,” I said. “Here’s the battle plan.”
I pulled the Knight’s Code free and held it up between us.
The familiar weight settled into my hand. Worn cover. Softened edges. Something solid when the rest of the day had felt like trying to hold water in my fists.
Lance closed his eyes for a second in visible suffering, letting out an immediate sigh.
“Oh, not that book again.”
He put his hands behind his back like he was already preparing to be offended by whatever I said next.
Normally, that would have set me off.
Now it just made me tired.
“This isn’t about reading it at you,” I said. “It’s about order. Jestro keeps splitting us up, forcing us to react and fight his battle instead of ours. So we stop doing that.”
I tapped the cover once.
“NEXO powers are…stored spells, right?” I said, glancing at Ava, then Robin. “Merlok’s magic translated into downloads.”
Robin nodded first. Ava gave a small, cautious tilt of her head that meant close enough.
I lifted the book slightly.
“If Jestro’s using the Book of Chaos to make monsters, then maybe Merlok has something that counters that. Something built around formation. Discipline. Sequence. Maybe if you scan the Code into the system, it can point you toward the right kind of power?” I looked between them. “Is that how it works?”
Robin’s face brightened immediately. “As a search filter.”
Ava’s eyes sharpened. “As a framework.”
“Yes,” I said, relieved that they were understanding it faster than I could explain it. “That.”
“It wouldn’t pull magic from the book,” Ava said. “But it could help us search Merlok’s archive by pattern. Coordinated constructs instead of unstable ones.”
I looked back at the others.
“If Jestro’s answer is chaos, then ours can’t just be more chaos. We need something that gets us in sync.”
Macy folded her arms. Still upset. Still listening.
Axl looked over the book with a frown of concentration.
Aaron rubbed soot off his sleeve and said, “Honestly, I’m willing to try anything that doesn’t involve me becoming a projectile again.”
A pulse of light flared from the Fortrex display above the lowered gate, and Merlok’s image shimmered into view.
“Clay is right.”
The words landed in me like a shield locking into place.
For half a second, everything in me went tight with relief.
Everyone turned toward the projection.
“You cannot defeat chaos with chaos,” Merlok said. “You need order. And your order must be more orderly than their chaos is chaotic.”
It was an absurd sentence.
It was also exactly what I had been trying to say.
Then Merlok paused.
And everything in me went still.
“However…” he said, and his voice changed. Softer now. Less proclamation, more correction. “Clay.”
My grip tightened on the Code.
“You cannot force something as powerful as the Knight’s Code on someone,” he said.
I looked down at the Code in my hand, at the worn cover and familiar corners, and felt something colder settle in under the frustration.
The others turned to face me as Merlok continued.
“They must accept it of their own free will.”
The relief went out of me so fast it left me feeling stupid for having had it.
I lowered the book a little.
Around me, nobody looked smug exactly. Just quieter.
Macy looked down for a second. Aaron rubbed the back of his neck. Even Axl looked uncomfortable.
I’d been trying so hard to keep everyone in line, maintaining order.
That wasn’t the same thing as leading.
The Knight’s Code wasn’t supposed to be something you used on people. It was supposed to govern you.
Teamwork. Honor. Choice. Trust.
And I had taken the thing I believed in most and bent it into leverage because I was angry and scared and desperate.
I kept calling it teamwork.
It wasn’t.
That would have been bad enough on its own.
What made it worse was that I hadn’t even seen it until Merlok said it.
He had raised me on those values. Taught me to treat them like something living.
And I had still managed to miss the point.
The shame of that sat heavy and immediate in my chest.
Wind pushed across the open ground between us, catching at the edges of my armor. Somewhere behind me, the Fortrex systems ticked and cooled. Nobody said anything.
Macy’s face had softened, but only because hurt had shifted into something more complicated.
Axl was looking at the ground.
Aaron wasn’t smiling.
Even Lance had gone still.
Then he moved.
He strode toward me with the kind of dramatic purpose that usually meant he was about to make everything worse.
“Yeah, okay, fine,” he said.
I looked up, frowning.
He held out a hand.
I stared at it a second too long, lifting the Code slightly, and he made a face, stepped closer, and took the Knight’s Code right out of my grip.
“My way hasn’t worked so far today anyway,” he said, walking toward Ava. “I know. I’m surprised too.”
It should have sounded flippant.
It almost did.
But he wasn’t mocking it. Not really.
He walked it straight over to Ava.
Robin was already moving closer. Aaron let out a breath. Axl straightened a little. Macy folded her arms, still tense, but she didn’t argue.
And that was the thing.
No one laughed.
No one dismissed it.
No one walked away.
Lance handed the book to Ava with an unimpressed look, as if the entire concept personally offended him.
But he still gave it to her.
Still chose the plan.
And that, more than anything he’d said all day, made the others move too.
Macy exhaled first. “We do need to do something.”
Axl nodded. “Transport’s still moving.”
Aaron pointed down the holorail. “Then we hit them at the next stop instead of chasing the whole way.”
Robin was already beside Ava, bringing up route data. “I can pull the schedule—”
“Already did,” Ava said.
A fresh map lit across her tablet: rail line, projected course, the transport marked in motion, a blinking point ahead.
“It will stop again in three minutes and fourteen seconds,” Ava said. “Small trade stop. That gives me enough time to scan the Code, search Merlok’s archive, and identify a counter-pattern for constructs generated by the Book of Chaos.”
Macy stepped closer. “Can we beat them there?”
“We can meet them there,” Ava said.
That was all she needed to say.
Lance clasped his hands behind his back again and tilted his head. “Great. We chase them, the tech people do tech things, and hopefully next time nobody gets launched into orbit.”
I looked at him once.
He still didn’t look back.
But the room had moved because he had.
Because he’d made the first choice out loud, and the rest of them had followed it.
Still Lance. Still performance. Still half a joke.
But there was something underneath it now—something almost reluctant and decent.
He wasn’t mocking the Code.
Or me.
Not really.
He was giving the moment somewhere to go.
I looked at the Knight’s Code in Ava’s hands, then up at Merlok’s image, then back at the team.
They were all still here.
Still bruised. Still irritated. Still breathing hard.
Still looking at me.
Not because I had made them.
Because, somehow, after all of that, they were still choosing to.
I drew in a breath.
And this time, the weight in my chest felt different.
This time, when I spoke, I made sure it sounded like what I meant.
“Alright,” I said. “We meet them at the next stop. Ava and Robin find us the right counter. Then we take that transport down together.”
Macy nodded first.
Axl right after her.
Aaron gave me a quick, crooked salute. “Less rockets. More teamwork. Got it.”
Even Lance gave the faintest lift of one shoulder, which, from him, counted as agreement.
It wasn’t perfect.
It wasn’t clean.
But for the first time all day, it felt like we were actually moving in the same direction.
And that would have to be enough.
— ✦ —
The second fight felt different the moment it started.
Not easier.
Just cleaner.
Ava and Robin found the right counter-pattern in Merlok’s archive, loaded it to our shields, and from there, everything stopped feeling like five separate problems happening in the same place and started feeling like one battle.
Our battle.
I called the openings as I saw them. Macy and Lance moved when I told them to. Axl held the line where I needed it held. Aaron, for once, stopped treating the fight like a suggestion and followed through where he was supposed to be.
Even Lance listened.
That was still strange enough to notice.
He still made everything look aggravatingly easy, but this time—this time—he did it where I needed him.
Not beside me.
Not behind me.
With me.
“Now, Lance!”
And he was there.
Macy with him a second later. Axl right where he needed to be. Aaron cutting off the side route instead of flying straight past it for once.
It didn’t feel neat.
It felt right.
The chaos monsters came at us in waves, all jagged movement and bad timing, but once we were synced, they couldn’t get the same kind of grip on us they had before. Every time one of them tried to split us up, somebody was already there. Every time something broke left, another one of us cut it off before it became a real problem.
We moved like a team.
Not perfect. But none of it broke us apart this time.
Even the villagers noticed.
By the end of it, the farmer was thanking us and talking about teamwork as he’d just witnessed some great lesson in knightly strategy instead of five people finally managing not to trip over each other at the worst possible moment.
The royal squirebot said something about trying to warn the King multiple times before the monsters even arrived—apparently, Aaron’s crash, the transport trouble, and half the chaos on the rails could have been spotted sooner if anyone had actually listened to the poor thing.
Aaron tried to defend himself.
Lance laughed.
Macy looked like she wanted to be annoyed, but was too relieved to fully commit to it.
Axl was already eating something.
And me?
I stood there with my shield still warm in my hand and the last of the fight draining slowly out of my chest, watching the others grin at each other like this had all been obvious.
Like we hadn’t just spent the whole day learning it the hard way.
Aaron pointed at me first. “See? Teamwork. Just like you said.”
Macy crossed her arms, but there was no real heat in it anymore. “That was different.”
“It was coordinated,” I said before I could stop myself.
Lance gave me a look. “Yes, Clay. That is what teamwork usually means.”
I should have been annoyed.
Instead, something in my chest loosened.
Axl clapped one heavy hand against my shoulder hard enough to jolt me half a step. “Good plan.”
Simple. Earnest. Enough to make me blink.
I looked at all of them again—really looked—and felt the shape of the thing settle in.
Not perfection.
Not obedience.
Just all of us finally moving the same way on purpose.
It mattered more than I wanted to say out loud.
It should have felt good.
It did, for a second.
Then Ava walked over, and the second I saw her face, the feeling shifted.
She wasn’t carrying herself like she usually did when she had information to deliver—upright, efficient, already halfway through the next sentence. She was holding something in both hands, and the careful way she did it told me everything before she even spoke.
“Clay,” she said.
Her voice was quieter than usual. Softer.
“I’m really sorry.”
The others went quiet almost immediately.
I looked down.
The Knight’s Code rested in her hands.
Or what was left of it.
The cover was still there. Most of it, anyway. The spine had split. Pages had come loose in uneven sections, edges bent and lifted where the scan had taken them apart too thoroughly to put them back the same way. It looked fragile in a way I had never let myself think it could be.
For a second, I just stared at it.
“When I scanned the Knight’s Code into Merlok’s operating system…” She glanced down at it, then back at me. “The book kind of fell apart.”
I swallowed once.
She held it out carefully.
I took it with both hands.
It was lighter than it should have been.
The cover was still familiar. Worn where my thumb always rested. The corners still softened with age. But now the spine gave under the slightest pressure, loose and damaged and wrong in a way that made my chest ache.
I didn’t know what to say.
Not because I was angry at her.
I wasn’t.
She had done exactly what I’d asked. The scan had worked. The power had worked. The plan had worked.
And still—
“Oh.”
It came out small.
Stupidly small.
Ava’s face tightened with something that looked almost like guilt. “I really am sorry.”
I nodded once because I didn’t trust my voice yet.
“It’s okay,” I said, though it didn’t feel okay. “It’s not your fault.”
She looked like she wanted to say something else, then thought better of it and stepped back.
I looked down at the book again.
Worn cover. Broken spine. Loose pages.
Something old and familiar and solid, and suddenly not.
I traced one thumb along the edge of the broken binding and tried not to let how much it hurt show on my face.
It was just a book.
That was the sensible thought.
It was just paper and ink and glue.
But it wasn’t.
It was the first thing Sir Griffiths had given me that felt like it belonged to me. Not armor on loan. Not a lesson repeated until I got it right. Mine. Something I had carried long enough that reaching for it had become instinct. Something Merlok had built into me so early and so deeply that I didn’t know how to separate the values from the object that had taught them to me.
And now it was split in my hands because I had tried to force meaning out of it in the wrong way.
The others stayed there for another second, uncertain in that awkward way people got when something mattered more than they knew how to touch.
Then, slowly, they drifted off.
Not far.
Just enough.
Enough to give me the kind of privacy teammates give you when they know better than to call it that.
I don’t know how long I stood there after everyone else started moving.
Long enough for the noise around me to thin out.
Long enough for the sharp gold of late afternoon to fade into dusk.
Long enough for the Fortrex to become a darker shape behind me while the rails caught the last of the sky.
I’d picked through the pages more than once by then.
Straightened what I could.
Stacked the loose sections.
Run my thumb over the cover like that might somehow put it back together.
It didn’t.
The air cooled around my armor.
The world kept moving.
I stayed where I was.
When I finally heard footsteps again, there were several of them.
I exhaled once, closed what was left of the book as best I could, and turned.
They were all there.
Lance in front, of course, like he’d volunteered himself as spokesperson before anyone else could stop him. Aaron hovered just behind him on his shield. Macy walked at his side, with Axl just behind with food in one hand.
Lance looked at me for a second, taking in enough to tell he’d noticed exactly how long I’d been out there.
Then, in the flattest voice he could manage, he said, “Hey, Gloomy.”
I stared at him.
Aaron winced.
Macy closed her eyes briefly.
Axl reached over and smacked Lance lightly in the arm. “That was your opening?”
Lance rubbed the spot. “I said hey.”
Then he held something out to me.
A tablet.
Sleek. Thin. Definitely newer and nicer than the standard ones Robin usually shoved at us with greasy fingerprints on the edges. Its casing was polished blue and silver, almost suspiciously untouched.
“We heard your book got damaged in the battle,” he said.
I frowned and took the tablet from him.
The screen lit at my touch.
Text.
Pages.
Indexed sections.
Search tabs.
The Knight’s Code, copied cleanly into digital form.
I looked up at him. “The Knight’s Code?”
“All digital,” Lance said. “For you.”
For a second, I couldn’t say anything.
Axl stepped up behind Lance and planted a hand against his side, nudging him forward.
“Now,” Axl said, “tell him the other thing.”
Lance looked back at him in open betrayal.
“Oh, come on. Why do I have to say all of it?”
Axl nudged him again.
“Because you started it,” Macy said.
Aaron grinned. “And because it’s funny.”
Lance shot both of them a look, then turned back to me with all the suffering of someone being marched toward his own execution.
“Fine,” he said, groaning.
He straightened a little.
Not fully formal. This was still Lance. But something about the effort was obvious enough that I knew immediately this mattered.
“You…” He made a vague motion with one hand. “Did… kind of give us the winning edge in beating those chaos monsters.”
He glanced sideways like he hoped someone else might leap in and rescue him.
No one did.
“And,” he continued, even more awkwardly now, “you might...just become a pretty good leader after all.”
For one second, all I could do was look at him.
Then I smiled.
Small. Real.
“Thanks, Lance,” I said. “I appreciate it.”
He smiled back—quick, almost surprised.
Then I held out my hand.
He took it.
The metal in our gauntlets groaned immediately.
Once. Twice.
A horrible scraping squeak like two rusted hinges trying to court each other.
Aaron snorted.
Macy covered her mouth.
Axl laughed outright.
Lance glanced down.
Then back up at me.
“Are you gonna let go?”
“After you,” I said.
He lifted a brow. “After you.”
“No,” I said. “After you.”
He squared up a little more, still smiling. “I insist. After you.”
“Lance.”
“It’s your big day,” he said, far too solemnly. “You first.”
Behind him, the others started walking back toward the Fortrex with the quiet resignation of people who had clearly decided not to wait this out.
Macy shook her head as she passed us. Axl sighed, tore off another bite of whatever he was eating, and kept going. Aaron spun lazily on the hover shield like he had already decided this was no longer his problem.
I tightened my grip just enough to make the gauntlets squeal again.
“No, really,” I said. “You should go first.”
Lance laughed then, finally, the sound bright and easy and much closer to the version of him I knew how to handle.
He put his free hand to his chest. "No, come on, you're going to be the leader after all.”
“After you,” I said again, and this time I could hear the laugh in my own voice too, tucked underneath the words, whether I meant for it to be there or not.
Lance laughed harder. “No, no, no—”
We were both still standing there arguing over whose turn it was to release a handshake we had no intention of keeping when Macy called back from the ramp:
“If you two are done being ridiculous, some of us would like dinner!”
Axl lifted his food in agreement.
Lance looked at me.
I looked at him.
Then, at the same time, we both let go.
He flexed his hand once. “You have an alarmingly strong grip.”
“You started it.”
“You continued it.”
He started backing toward the Fortrex ramp, one step at a time, grin already back in place.
I looked down at the tablet in my hand.
At the preserved pages.
At the neat digital copy of something he had absolutely not had to think about, much less fix.
And that was the problem with Lance.
He could wrap anything in enough sarcasm to make it look effortless. Accidental. Like he hadn’t noticed at all.
But he had noticed.
He’d seen the book in my hands. Seen what it meant. Seen, somehow, exactly how hard Merlok’s words had hit, and instead of letting me stand there with that feeling until it hollowed out the rest of the night, he’d done something about it.
And he had done it in the most Lance way possible—dramatic, smug, and just irritating enough that I couldn’t call attention to the fact it had actually mattered.
He caught me still looking at the tablet and sighed like I was the difficult one here.
“Oh, don’t start.”
“Start what?”
“That.” He waved a hand vaguely at my face. “Whatever deeply sincere expression you’re making. It’s unsettling.”
I looked up at him. “I wasn’t making an expression.”
“You were. It was very knightly. Very earnest. Honestly, a little aggressive.”
Despite myself, I felt my mouth twitch.
Lance pointed at me immediately. “There. That’s better. Mild annoyance I can work with.”
I shook my head.
He smiled, but it softened at the edges before he seemed to catch himself doing it.
“Anyway,” he said lightly, “now you have a copy that can’t dramatically fall apart in your hands every time you have a moral crisis.”
I should have rolled my eyes.
Instead, I heard what was underneath it.
Not the book broke.
Not you looked pathetic out there.
Just his own sideways version of: I saw that hurt you. I’m trying to fix it.
The warmth of that sat strangely in my chest.
Small.
Embarrassing.
Real.
“Lance,” I said.
He was already turning half away, like if he timed it right he could avoid whatever came next.
“Mm?”
“Thank you.”
That stopped him.
Not fully. Just enough.
He glanced back at me over his shoulder, expression caught somewhere between smug and uncomfortable.
“Well,” he said at last, smoothing the moment over with practiced ease, “obviously. Someone around here has to have taste.”
I laughed.
Actually laughed.
The sound surprised both of us.
Lance blinked once, then smiled like he’d won something.
“There he is,” he said. “Much better.”
He turned again and started up the ramp, then paused after two steps and looked back one more time.
“For what it’s worth,” he said, voice lighter now but not quite as careless, “you weren’t wrong.”
I frowned slightly. “About what?”
“About the team thing.”
He made a vague gesture.
“You were just,” he said, choosing the word with visible reluctance, “unbearable about it.”
I stared at him.
Then nodded once. “That sounds fair.”
“It’s more than fair. It’s generous.”
He started walking again before I could answer that.
I looked down once more at the tablet in my hand, then at the broken shape of the physical Code tucked carefully back behind my shield.
Not fixed.
But not gone either.
And somehow that felt survivable now.
By the time I started after him, Lance had already reached the top of the ramp.
He didn’t look back this time, but he raised one hand in a lazy wave over his shoulder.
“Try to keep up, leader.”
Lance was still insufferable.
But I followed him inside, smiling.