Chapter 30: Different Answer
"We’ll succeed," Jed said. "The Faction crosses the Gateway. We will make it through."
Eleanor’s breath caught, waiting for the rest of it, the same dreaded pause stretching out exactly as it always had.
"At what cost," she asked.
Jed was quiet for a moment, considering and something in his expression this time carried less of the heavy solemnity Lucas remembered from every prior version of this conversation.
"Few casualties," he said. "We pass through but some don’t make it far fewer than I would have expected actually, given how this world tends to work."
The relief that swept through the hall was immediate and audible, murmurs of hushed gratitude rippling outward and Lucas felt his own pulse hammering hard enough that he barely registered it at first...
Why?
Because this wasn’t the answer he was expecting... This wasn’t the pause before "including him", the grim inevitability he’d braced for twice now.
"Wait." He stepped forward before he could stop himself, urgency creeping into his voice despite his best effort to sound merely curious rather than desperate. "Do I... does anyone specific not make it? Anyone we would know?"
He kept his tone as light as he could manage, aware of exactly how strange the question would look if he pushed too hard because he was obviously afraid.
Jed studied him for a moment, something almost knowing in his expression, before he answered. "You survive. In fact, from what I saw, you’re the one who leads us out. Whatever happens at the Gateway, you’re the reason the casualties stay as low as they do."
’The fuck?’
Something in Lucas’s chest loosened so completely it nearly buckled his knees.
’I don’t die. This time, I actually don’t die.’
He didn’t trust the relief immediately though. Some old, hard earned wariness kept a part of him braced for a catch or a further clarification that would rip the good news away...
However Jed said nothing more, simply inclined his head and stepped back into the dispersing crowd. Relief had held.
Eleanor turned to him almost immediately, some of her own tension easing, though her eyes had already sharpened with the same familiar focus he recognized from the last two loops.
"Okay," she said. "That’s... that’s actually good. Very good. But I still want to understand your ability properly before we move. No more vague answers."
Lucas walked her through it again... The [Ignition] skill, the misfires, the late notifications, the same careful, well worn half truths that skidded just close enough to the actual danger without ever touching the one thing he couldn’t say.
She listened, asked the same sharp questions, made the same notes, and when she finally asked how he’d survived this long on a broken skill, he gave her the same answer as always.
"Luck." However, this time was a bit more natural...
The same flicker of doubt crossed her face, familiar now, and just as before, she let it go without pushing further, filed away, nodded, set aside for a day that clearly wasn’t today.
"Three days," she said instead. "Full preparation. I’ll trust Jed’s prophecy so no cut throughs"
Lucas exhaled slowly, relief settling deeper this time, though a small, stubborn part of him kept waiting for the catch that never quite seemed to come.
***
The three days passed properly, drills and formation practice filling the fortress with a steady, purposeful energy that felt entirely different from the last two attempts and by the time the column set out at first light, Lucas walked near the front instead of the rear, close enough to Eleanor and Mark that he caught every private exchange between them.
"You good?" Mark asked her quietly, somewhere in the second hour of the march, glancing sideways at her with the particular attentiveness of someone who’d spent weeks watching her carry more weight than any one person should.
"I’m fine."
"Elle."
"I’m fine, Mark." A pause and then, quieter and more honest: "Nervous.... But fine."
"You built a fortress out of nothing and kept over a hundred people alive doing it," Mark said. "Whatever’s waiting at that Gateway, you’ve already survived worse."
Lucas shook his head... ’If only they knew...’
Eleanor managed a faint, grateful smile at that and Mark bumped her shoulder with his own, an old, easy gesture that Lucas recognized from four years of watching them lean on each other through worse things than monsters.
The kind of friendship he was grateful to be a part of...
The Gateway came into view exactly as it had twice before. The twin spires, the crackling blue arcs of energy and the ground beginning to shake with the same heavy, deliberate impacts.
[Warning: Hestia Class entity detected.]
[Objective: Reach the Gateway successfully]
[Survival probability: 71%]
Lucas stared at the notification with wide eyes... The probability wasn’t this high before...
’So the vision was true...’
The creature emerged from the treeline, enormous and burning and this time Lucas didn’t wait for the vanguard to find its footing on its own.
"Hold formation! Stay wid. It telegraphs the left paw. Watch the shoulder!" His voice carried clean across the front line, foreknowledge doing exactly what it always did best and the vanguard adjusted instantly, drilled and ready in a way that made the difference obvious within the first exchange.
Eleanor moved to the front ranks herself, stone and earth rising at her command to hold the line, water lashing out in controlled arcs that staggered the beast’s charge before it could build momentum.
Mark planted himself directly in the Hestia’s path, [Aegis Gauntlets] flaring bright, Bastion’s Oath humming to life as the creature’s massive paw crashed against his raised arms and simply failed to move him.
"That’s right, come on!" Mark bellowed, grinning through the strain of the impact and absorbing a blow that would have flattened anyone else on the field. "Hit me with your best shot, you overgrown pussy cat—"
"Focus, Mark!" Eleanor snapped as she ran past him.
"I AM focused! Very focused on not dying!"
[Skill: Ignition has been activated]
Lucas threw himself into the fight properly, [Ignition] roaring around both fists, calling out the same patterns he’d learned across two failed loops: the right-side favoring after a wound, the shoulder tell before every heavy swing and he watched the vanguard execute against them with a precision that made the fight feel, for the first time, genuinely winnable rather than merely survivable.
Bertram’s machete found the exposed flank exactly when Lucas called it. Iris’s arrows found the same widening wound, arrow after arrow driving the creature back on itself.
Between Eleanor’s elemental barrage, Mark’s immovable defense, and Lucas’s hard won foreknowledge, the Hestia reeled, staggered, and finally collapsed in a smoking, tired heap.
Cheers rose across the column filled with relief, disbelief, the particular euphoria of survivors who’d genuinely expected worse.
Then the ground shook again. Heavier and different.
[Warning: Hestia Class entity detected.]
Lucas didn’t flinch this time. He turned to face the treeline where the second beast was already crashing through, the memory of exactly how this went already loaded and ready in his mind then he exhaled slowly.
"Right," he said, [Ignition] flaring back to life around both fists. "There’s two of them..."
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