Chapter 4
Once the team was all assembled back at Tex’s, Fly looked at them. “I see what’s at stake here, and that terrorist isn’t going to destroy a goddamn thing. What do we have to do?”
“I need to confer with the Guardian,” Flash said, relieved down to his toes.
Fly flashed a wry grin. “You have a comm right to the cosmic boss, huh?”
“Something like that.”
“Was it as painful as what we experienced at the hotel?”
Flash closed his eyes, the whole ordeal rushing through him.
His refusal to see what the Guardian was trying to articulate, all those wars, that transformation at the hotel not nearly as devastating as the one in the Ecuadorian jungle a world away, and Lechuza, so close he could almost touch her skin, feel the downy softness of her feathers.
“More. But I endured. We all did. Let’s open a channel and get our questions answered. ”
“Intel gathering. I’m in.”
“You’re going to be able to hear his voice. Some of the guys catch glimpses of him. So be prepared.”
Fly dragged a hand through his hair, leaving it standing in spikes.
"This just gets better and better. What the fuck?
" He paced, ticking each one off on his fingers like he was logging evidence.
"I've gotten caught in some supernatural hell, twice where physics took a shit, saw space folded in front of me, saw SEALs travel some corridor that belongs in the Marvel Universe, and almost dissolved and died today.
" He stopped, his face stilling, his voice dropping into the register he used for orders.
"I rewired my fucking brain for this. Open the channel. "
Several of the guys chuckled. “Is that an order, Lieutenant Gallagher, sir? Should I salute first?”
Fly gave him the finger, and Flash grinned.
Aurelion? Flash reached out.
Flash. It’s good to hear your voice.
Yours too. All is stable?
Yes, for now.
We have questions.
I will answer them to the best of my ability.
What was that place we fell into at the hotel?
A Veil bubble Chaos deliberately forged. He set a trap, and we had no choice but to spring it. I wish I could have given you warning, but I didn’t detect his intent until it was too late. Three of the outer wards have been disabled allowing him to gain strength.
The entities?
Assassins. Call them what they are. Null type, sucking meaning and purpose out of a target to disable, and Rupture type, designed to destroy stabilization.
He was specifically there for you, North.
I am impressed by your abilities, can only be regretful for how you both were put into this situation.
You wish to move forward with the ritual?
Fly responded. With all due respect, we are, but we expect—
All will be well. You will have choices. I promise you. Are you ready to embark?
Fly and North answered together. We are.
Then prepare. I will draw you into a neutral space. Your bodies must be monitored.
I will do that, Aurelion. Twister responded.
Yes, of course, the healer. Once you transform, Shane, you will be formidable. Your spirit is strong, steadfast. There was a soft murmur and Aurelion quieted them. Let us know when you’re ready.
* * *
The beach stretched empty before them, moonlight painting the waves silver as they crashed against the Virginia shore.
Fly followed Flash down the sandy path, the familiar salt tang filling his lungs as they moved away from the lights of the base toward a stretch of coastline that belonged to the night and the SEALs who claimed it.
This felt right. Water had made them what they were, from the Naked Warriors to the teams. Every SEAL who came before had stood on beaches like this, been broken and rebuilt by salt and surf and the endless rhythm of waves that didn't care about human weakness.
They had arrived here as individuals and left as brothers.
A whole fucking network of men who would die for each other.
He could smell the wind and the surf of Bells Beach, the Gold Coast, Margaret River, and countless other surfing venues.
His memory never let him forget the weight of his father’s hand on his shoulder.
He had grown up in water, learned to surf almost before he could walk.
Grief settled in his chest at the memory of how Chaos had changed his perception of reality.
He’d taken all the skill, the hours and hours of experience, and tried to make them all meaningless, not only his mastery, but the trident that was now fractured.
That wasn’t going to goddamn happen. Not while he drew breath.
North walked beside him, solid and steady as bedrock.
Through their bond, Fly could sense his friend's quiet resolve, but underneath it, a deeper current of grief that Fly recognized and didn’t want to name.
He thought they had dealt with her death…
with Mei, but grief wasn’t predictable. That emotion had more in common with Chaos.
"Here," Flash said, stopping where the dunes gave way to hard-packed sand. The ocean spread endlessly before them, infinite and humbling.
Fly nodded, understanding flooding through him. "This is where life began from the primordial soup. This is where every generation of frogmen found their brotherhood."
“Get comfortable,” Twister said, unrolling two large beach towels. Fly folded down on one of them and North on the other. Their eyes met briefly, and Fly nodded at the message there. Together.
Flash closed his eyes, and Fly’s rational mind would have rejected this before he recalibrated, but now, it was just beautiful, that golden connection.
Fly felt the moment when the Guardian responded, the air around them beginning to shimmer with possibility rather than threat.
The sound of waves deepened, harmonizing with something beyond normal perception.
His body went weightless, floating, and his breath rushed out as he just went somewhere else.
Everything was just blue, like a bubble of living sea.
A presence made itself known, vast as the ocean, ancient as the tides.
But when he materialized before them, Fly's breath caught.
This wasn't the shifting features of a thousand faces he glimpsed through Flash’s bond.
The Guardian stood before them without the ethereal mask he'd shown Flash, his true face revealed by exhaustion and necessity.
He was younger than Fly had imagined, perhaps appearing to be in his thirties, with sharp cheekbones and skin that seemed to hold starlight beneath its surface.
But those features were drawn with weariness, dark circles shadowing eyes that flickered between silver and deep blue like troubled water.
His hair, dark as the space between stars, was disheveled, and there was something raw and exposed about seeing him this way, like glimpsing a general without his uniform.
Robes of gossamer blue flowed around him, torn at the edges, frayed as if by invisible claws. Most telling were his hands, trembling slightly, and Fly could see through them in places, as if the Guardian's very essence was being worn thin by the constant battle to hold the barriers intact.
When his voice came, it seemed to rise from the water itself, but there was a weariness in it that made Fly's chest tighten with unexpected sympathy.
Flynn Gallagher. Nathaniel Locklear. You have been wronged, and I would ask your forgiveness.
The words hit Fly harder than he expected. The exhaustion behind the apology. Another leader carrying impossible choices and the damage they caused.
Beneath the outrage, something else stirred. Understanding. The Guardian had been protecting Reality itself, fighting an entity that could unmake existence. In that moment of desperate defense, he'd made a mistake that nearly killed them.
North murmured. Leaders make mistakes. Even cosmic ones.
The words hurt, but the truth in them helped to temper his judgment. You nearly destroyed us, Fly projected back, his thoughts sharp with controlled anger. You broke your own laws. Conscripted us without consent. Put us through agony we didn't choose.
Yes. I did all of this, and I would do it again if the alternative was the death of everything that is. But that doesn’t make it right. That doesn’t make it forgivable. I ask anyway.
Fly stared at the Guardian's exhausted face, feeling the weight of cosmic responsibility pressing down on them both.
This being had held back the end of everything, and in doing so, had shattered Fly's life, North's life, torn them from their chosen path and thrust them into a war they never asked to join.
But he was asking for forgiveness. Not demanding it. Not justifying it away. Asking.
You could have warned us, Fly thought, the anger still burning but cooler now, more controlled. You could have found another way.
Perhaps. But in that moment, with Chaos breaking through, with Reality itself fracturing, I acted on instinct. The instinct to preserve what is. I failed you both in doing so.
North's steady presence beside him bolstered him, that unshakable anchor quality that had carried them both through the Academy, through devastating grief and guilt, through BUD/S, through every challenge they'd faced.
North's thoughts brushed against his through their bond, wordless but clear.
Leaders carry the cost. Even when it breaks them.
The memory of that day in the Chesapeake flooded back.
The moment when everything had aligned perfectly, when every calculation had been correct, and Mei had still died.
He'd learned something that day about the nature of command, about how right decisions could still lead to devastating consequences.
The Guardian had made the same choice. Save everyone or save two. Fly knew that equation.
I forgive you, Fly projected, the words heavy with understanding rather than absolution. Not because what you did was right, but because I understand why you did it. Leaders make impossible choices. I've made them too.