Chapter 42: The One on Watch
Chapter 42: The One on Watch
The Anomalous Coordinate swallowed twenty-three people.
When the blue light faded, the task force stood in the middle of a gray field of ruins, their combat armor coated in cold mist. No one spoke. Eight Gold-tiers fanned out into a defensive arc within three seconds, fifteen Silver-tiers set up signal detection equipment at the center.
The captain stepped forward.
Damien Vale.
He was tall, his hair streaked with gray, his face lined with old scars. Gold Tier 9, thirty years of campaigning on the front lines, eight entries into Anomalous Coordinates and eight returns. On his shoulder was the emblem of the Vale clan.
Mira’s uncle.
Damien surveyed the devastated crevice, his gaze stopping on the blackened scorch marks along the rock face.
"A battle," he said. "Within the last forty-eight hours."
A younger Gold-tier crouched beside a pile of decomposing monster corpses and flipped one over with the toe of his boot. The monster’s ribcage had been punched through, the crystal core shattered.
"Frighteningly precise, Captain." He frowned. "This wasn’t wild swinging. One by one, straight to the core."
Damien didn’t answer.
He had read the file. A Mythical rank Partner. A Crimson Dragon.
"Deploy."
The first monster pack appeared after twenty minutes.
About forty of them, pouring down the northern slope, purple-black scales, hollow eyes. The kind of monsters that two days earlier had forced Laira to spend the entirety of her flame to sweep away.
Damien didn’t even draw a weapon.
He only raised his left hand.
A layer of golden energy condensed around his body, thick as a second suit of armor. Then he took a step, just one step, and the space within a thirty-meter radius collapsed.
Forty monsters were crushed flat into the ground.
There was no explosion. No flash of fire. Only a very faint crack, like someone snapping a handful of dry twigs, and then forty corpses lay still.
Three seconds.
That was the distance between Gold-tier and everything beneath it.
At the back of the formation, Ryan Ashford clenched his hand.
He had just advanced to Silver. In all of Aurora Academy, he was the youngest to reach this rank. But standing here, among eight Gold-tiers, he understood a cold truth: he wasn’t combat strength. He was logistics.
And the older brother he had looked down on for twenty years, the cargo hauler at the eastern warehouse, now possessed a Partner that all of human history had only ever seen six of.
Ryan lowered his head, hiding his eyes.
"Captain."
A Gold-tier named Corin walked over to Damien as the team set up temporary camp. He was the youngest of the eight Gold-tiers, only thirty-two, and the only one who had never taken part in a manhunt operation.
"May I ask you something?"
Damien nodded.
Corin lowered his voice. "The file says Ethan Ashford awakened less than a week ago. Estimated rank, Black Iron Tier 5."
"Correct."
"And Victor Hale and Nolan Greaves are both Gold Tier 1."
Damien said nothing.
Corin looked into the campfire. "A Black Iron Tier 5, missing his left hand, subdues two Gold-tiers, breaks one man’s arm, breaks another’s ribs, then takes a healer hostage. Captain, I’ve been fighting for ten years. That doesn’t happen."
The air around the campfire went still.
A few Silver-tiers sitting nearby looked up.
Damien stared at the fire for a long time.
"Have you considered the Partner?" he asked.
Corin hesitated. "A Partner can be strong. But the testimony says it was Ethan himself who broke Victor’s arm. With his fist."
"You doubt the testimony of two kids beaten half to death?"
"I doubt the arithmetic."
Damien stood up.
He wasn’t angry. His voice stayed level, even somewhat weary.
"Corin, I don’t like this operation," he said. "I don’t like how it was announced on television before it was approved by the Council. I don’t like that phrase, ’taking him alive is not necessary.’"
A few heads lifted, startled.
"But my niece is in here." Damien looked into the darkness. "Mira Vale. Twenty-one years old. Her father locked her in a dark room for three days to force her to marry Nolan Greaves, and I stood outside and didn’t say a word, because I’m a soldier, not family."
He paused.
"I stood outside once already. Not this time."
Damien turned back to Corin.
"I don’t care whether Ethan Ashford is a monster or a victim. I care about getting that girl out of here alive. If that boy is innocent, I’ll drag him before the Council myself and make them listen. If he’s guilty, I’ll kill him."
He looked over the whole formation.
"But until I know which one is true, no one fires first. Is that clear?"
"Clear, Captain."
Corin let out a soft breath and sat down.
At the edge of the ring of firelight, Ryan Ashford lowered his head and looked at his boots.
Inside his chest, something ice-cold had just tightened.
If that boy is innocent, I’ll drag him before the Council myself and make them listen.
Ryan had never been afraid of Ethan being strong.
But he was afraid of Ethan being clean.
Because a strong and guilty Ethan would be crushed by the entire world, and Ryan would be the brave younger brother of a traitor. But a strong and innocent Ethan, an Ethan falsely accused and then vindicated, an Ethan returning with a Mythical Partner while the whole Safe Zone knelt down to apologize...
Then Ryan Ashford would forever be nothing but a shadow.
For twenty years, he had built his entire worth on one single thing: he stood above Ethan.
If that collapsed, he had nothing left.
The first night passed quietly.
Ryan requested the signal detector watch at three in the morning.
"You sure?" The Silver-tier handing off the shift yawned wide. "This shift is deathly boring. Four hours staring at a blank screen."
"I can’t sleep." Ryan took the headset. "He is my brother, after all."
The other man patted his shoulder, his eyes full of sympathy, then walked off.
Ryan sat down in front of the equipment.
Alone.
For the first three hours, the screen was empty. Only white noise hissing in the headset, steady as the breathing of a sleeping beast.
Then, at six twelve, a green dot blinked.
Ryan sat up straight.
A signal. A rescue radio. Actively broadcasting.
His finger hovered over the alarm button.
One press, and the whole team would be awake in thirty seconds. Damien would handle the communication personally. Every word would be recorded, with eight Gold-tiers as witnesses.
Ryan didn’t press it.
He put the headset on, and opened the channel.
The static dissolved.
Then a woman’s voice came through, exhausted but clear.
"This is Mira Vale, trainee of Aurora Academy, identification code seven-two-zero-eight. Does anyone copy?"
Ryan’s heart pounded once, hard.
He brought his hand to the microphone, lowering his voice to a rasp. "Reading you. This is the rescue team. Are you safe?"
A brief pause. Exactly three seconds.
Later, thinking back on it, Ryan would realize those three seconds were someone nodding a signal to Mira.
"I’m safe." Mira’s voice returned. "I’m not injured. I’m not being held captive. I repeat: I am not being held captive."
Ryan stayed silent.
"The person with me is Ethan Ashford," Mira went on, each word crisp, as if she had rehearsed it. "He saved my life twice. On the fourteenth, at the eastern ruins, Victor Hale and Nolan Greaves conspired to kill Ethan and seize his Partner. Nolan Greaves opened fire on me when I refused to cooperate. Ethan Ashford threw himself in front of the bullet. He lost part of his left arm and had his right hand crushed because of it."
Ryan wasn’t breathing.
"The entire testimony of Victor and Nolan is fabricated." Mira’s voice trembled, but she didn’t stop. "I stayed here of my own free will. I will testify before the Council. I repeat, I am a witness, not a hostage. If you open fire on Ethan Ashford, you are killing an innocent man."
Ryan’s fingers went white on the keyboard.
"Who is commanding the rescue team?" Mira asked.
Ryan pressed his lips together.
If he said "Damien Vale," Mira would know her uncle was here. She would trust it. She would come straight to them.
And Damien would hear the entire truth from his own niece’s mouth.
"Unclear," Ryan said. "I’m just a comms operator."
"Understood." Mira answered. "We won’t approach until you confirm you’ve received this testimony. We’re in the western ruins, relative coordinates four-seven-two."
The green dot on the screen locked into place.
A set of coordinates appeared.
"Ethan requests one thing," Mira added. "He wants you to come with your weapons lowered. He says he’s been falsely accused too many times already. He says..."
She hesitated.
"He says he only wants one person willing to listen."
The white noise came rushing back.
Ryan sat motionless in the dark, the headset still pressed to his ears, the blue glow of the screen casting up onto his face.
He had heard every word.
He knew his brother was innocent.
He knew Victor and Nolan were the liars.
He knew that all it would take was pressing one record button, handing this tape to Damien Vale, and within an hour the entire operation would come to a halt.
Ryan stared at the blinking green dot on the screen.
Then he thought about the awakening ceremony. Thought about the moment Laira stepped out of the Blind Box and the whole great hall held its breath. Thought about the rank S flame emblem on his chest, the thing he had once been so proud of, suddenly so small it was laughable. Thought about the look in his mother Selene’s eyes when she said: If this is confirmed, the clan’s attitude toward Ethan will change.
Thought about having to live out the rest of his life as Ethan Ashford’s younger brother.
Ryan closed his eyes.
When he opened them, they were dry.
He tapped at the keyboard, deleting the channel’s automatic recording.
Then he pressed the alarm button.
Thirty seconds later, the whole camp was awake.
Damien Vale stepped up in front of the screen, his armor not yet fully fastened, his gaze sharp as a blade.
"Report."
Ryan stood at attention.
He didn’t tremble. His voice even caught a little, exactly like a younger brother who had just received terrible news.
"Captain, I picked up a signal at six twelve. It was Mira Vale’s radio."
Damien clenched his fist. "She’s alive?"
"Yes." Ryan bowed his head. "But..."
"Speak."
"Her voice was very strange, Captain. Like she was being forced. She spoke very fast, very mechanically, like she was reciting something from memory."
Corin, standing beside them, frowned.
"She said she was safe," Ryan continued. "Said Ethan Ashford was innocent. Said Victor and Nolan were the guilty ones."
A murmur spread through the formation.
Ryan lifted his head, and there were tears in his eyes.
"Captain, I grew up with him. I know him. Ethan was always smarter than all of us, always top of the class in theory. He knew a rescue team would come. He knew that if Mira told the truth, he would die."
He swallowed.
"So he made her lie."
Damien stared hard at him.
"The recording."
"The channel was full of interference, Captain. The automatic recording failed." Ryan bowed lower. "It’s my fault. I panicked when I heard her voice."
Corin took half a step forward. "Captain, a healer being held hostage couldn’t freely broadcast a distress call. If Ethan Ashford had her under his control, he would have jammed the radio from the start, not—"
"She said one more thing," Ryan cut in.
The whole camp went silent.
Ryan looked straight at Damien Vale.
"She said Ethan wants you to come with your weapons lowered."
He stood frozen.
Because to a soldier with thirty years of experience, that sentence didn’t mean "please hear me out."
That sentence meant: step into my firing range and don’t carry a gun.
Damien Vale closed his eyes.
When he opened them, the last flicker of hesitation in them had gone out.
"Coordinates?"
"Western ruins. Four-seven-two."
"All units." Damien’s voice rang out, dry and hard. "Move out. Encirclement formation. Absolute priority is extracting the hostage."
He fastened the last clasp of his armor.
"As for the primary subject, if there is any sign of resistance..."
He paused.
Corin looked at him, waiting.
"...taking him alive is not necessary."
The formation moved.
Ryan Ashford stood at the end of the line, put his headset back on, and let out a soft breath.
No one saw the corner of his mouth lift, just slightly.
His brother wanted one person willing to listen.
He had listened.
Thirty kilometers to the west, in the gray dawn light of the Anomalous Coordinate, Ethan set the radio down.
"It’s done," Mira said. She exhaled hard, both hands trembling. "I said everything. Word for word, just as you told me."
Ethan didn’t answer right away.
He looked east, where the sky was changing color.
"The one on watch answered you," he said. "What did he say?"
Mira frowned, trying to recall. "He said he was just a comms operator. He wouldn’t tell me who was in command."
Ethan was silent for a long time.
Laira stepped up beside him. "Is there a problem?"
"I don’t know." Ethan clenched his right hand, the old scars pulling taut. "But when a proper rescue team picks up a signal from a missing person, the first thing they do is wake the commander."
He looked down at the silent radio in Mira’s hand.
"He talked with you alone. For four straight minutes."
Gray wind blew across the ruins.
"So what does that mean?" Mira asked quietly.
Ethan didn’t answer.
Because he had no evidence.
Only a very familiar, very old feeling, the feeling he had carried for twenty years in the Ashford clan: the feeling of a man who knows that somewhere, right at this moment, someone is telling a story about him.
And he isn’t there to argue.